Dems calling the GOP's Bluff: time to pull out those cots!!
It would be one thing for Republicans to vote against this bill. If they honestly believe that “stay the course” is the right strategy — they have the right to vote “no.”
But now, Republicans are using a filibuster to block us from even voting on an amendment that could bring the war to a responsible end.
They are protecting the President rather than protecting our troops.
They are denying us an up or down — yes or no — vote on the most important issue our country faces.
I would like to inform the Republican leadership and all my colleagues that we have no intention of backing down.
If Republicans do not allow a vote on Levin/Reed today or tomorrow, we will work straight through the night on Tuesday.
The American people deserve an open and honest debate on this war, and they deserve an up or down vote on this amendment to end it.
Bob Geiger has an excellent more detailed post on the procedures involved with the filibuster, but this is something that I liked:
Reid could hold the Senate in continuous session overnight Tuesday and into midday Wednesday unless Republicans agree to a simple-majority vote on Reed-Levin.
Senate Democrats will then be prepared to take to the floor and speak all night and, if their Republican colleagues do not remain in the chamber, invoke ongoing quorum calls and other procedural maneuvers to force GOP members back to the Senate floor.
With the whole specter of cots being dragged into Senate cloakrooms and the pure theatrics involved, I'm hopeful this will shine a white-hot spotlight on the Senate's Republican leadership and show Americans how the GOP doesn't truly support helping troops and their families at home or extricating them from pointless involvement in the Iraqi civil war.
I'm very impressed by the Senate Democrats, this was the right move to take and I have no doubt that their decision was done in no small part due to the large pressure that the Left blogosphere has been putting on them to do just this.
In essence, every time Republicans try to leave the Senate, Democrats will call for a quorum call forcing all Senate members back into the chamber. Kind of like repeatedly waking someone up every time they are close to dozing off. Do I think it will work in making Republicans allow a simple up-or-down (51) vote on the amendment?
I don't know, but I'm leaning against it (I really hope I'm wrong). I think the GOP may just weather the storm, but it will not be without great cost to themselves politically.
Lets be clear: The Republicans are right - This is political theater. But like I just heard Political Analyst Bob Schneider say on CNN: In politics and in Washington, theater is real.
The media FEEDS on theater, and the Democrats understand that right now. They know that the media is going to be all over this story - covering it a lot - for the 30 hours that this fight will go on. This thing is gold for them. So for Democrats this is 30+ hours of news coverage and media attention that will serve to highlight ever more vividly how it is the Democrats trying to do the will of the people and bring our troops home, and it is the Republicans who are doing all they can to keep our troops in harms way.
Imagine the rhetorical club Democrats can use in the future to punish these Republicans for their support of bad policy and for preventing our withdrawal: Republicans are so wedded to this war, so out of step with the well-being of the US that they would go as far as spend 30 hours straight in the Senate to prevent our troops from coming back home safely.
It's all part of that calculated Democratic strategy of ratcheting up the pressure on those "on-the-fence" Republicans and those "I'm up for re-election" Republicans to defect to the Democrats Iraq plans. I said before that it is up to Democrats to facilitate punishing Republicans who support bad policy.
It appears the Democrats are doing just that.
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Roundup (interesting things from the past 4 days)
Iraq Prime Minister: Iraq can manage without U.S. - Fine. Can we leave now Mr. President? So lets see the score:
The American people: want out
The Iraqi people: want us out
The Iraqi govt.: don't mind our departure
The US govt: wants to stay
3 to 1. You know what that means with this Administration: We lose
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Actually, not only does the Bush Administration want us to stay in Iraq, there are indications that come September they will actually send even more troops. A larger 'surge' in other words.
(07-16) 14:19 PDT BAGHDAD, (AP) --
The U.S. military is weighing new directions in Iraq, including an even bigger troop buildup if President Bush thinks his "surge" strategy needs a further boost, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace revealed that he and the chiefs of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force are developing their own assessment of the situation in Iraq, to be presented to Bush in September. That will be separate from the highly anticipated report to Congress that month by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander for Iraq.
The Joint Chiefs are considering a range of actions, including another troop buildup, Pace said without making any predictions. He called it prudent planning to enable the services to be ready for Bush's decision.
They call it prudent contingency planning in case President Bush sees a need for it after the 'Surge's' more comprehensive progress report due in September.
Come on!! Who actually believes that any report coming from the Bush Administration this September will say anything but what they feel is necessary to say in order to maintain (and in this case further escalate) our presence in Iraq.
Like the flawed and dishonest Iraq Progress report released this past week, the report in September will fudge figures, distort reality, and lower the bar of what is 'progress' in order to claim that there is some progress due to their surge (where there is actually none).
They will then claim that these optimistic signs of progress prove that the surge is making progress in Iraq, and that they will say is why they will need an 'even bigger surge' to make even bigger gains.
*sigh* It appears we live with a government whose governing philosophy is based around the idea of "when your stuck in a ditch, keep digging"
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Some of those Iraqi police we train use their skills to....attack US soldiers - not surprising when everyone wants you out
According to a U.S. Army investigation, the Iraqi Police assisted a brazen January assault on U.S. troops in the southern city of Karbala -- an attack that a U.S. military spokesman tied to Iranian operatives earlier this month.
And they tried to blame Iran for the attacks too. I'm not surprised: We are so many factions in Iraq it's not even funny. Then we act surprised when they use that aid to harm us.
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Israel/Palestine
Fatah Militants renounce Israel violence in exchange for safety - Good news certainly, yet its a fragile accord that requires concrete steps on the part of Israel in return or else this deal will break down.
This deal for the militant wing of Fatah - the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade - to eschew violence against Israel is an attempt to give the moderate, political elements of Fatah a chance to forge a more lasting peace with Israel diplomatically. The militants (amazingly) are giving the moderates in Israel an in Fatah, a chance to make progress.
As I heard one of those Fatah militant say on CNN, the ball is now in the Israelis court. They must take steps to halt settlements (even remove many from Palestinian territories), they must take genuine steps that show that there is promise in diplomacy. That a 2 state solution still is possible. If Israel does that it can help improve the situation for both the Israelis and Palestinians.
Do not waste that opportunity, do not listen to your right-wing hawks....You may not receive another such chance for peaceful resolution.
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Now, in some near-panic-inducing news....
The Guardian (UK) reports that internal debates on whether to strike Iran have shifted in favor of hawks like Dick Cheney
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."
That last quote is very scary. Condi Rice is losing the policy debates in the White House...
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
This administration is determined to mistakenly strike Iran. The article mentions that one of the reasons for the rush is that Bush does not believe any Presidential successor, Democrat or Republican (likely Democrat though :) ) will deal with Iran correctly.
If by correctly he means, fucking dig ourselves even further in a ditch in another hopeless war...than, yeah he might be right.
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North Korea shuts down Yongbyon nuclear reactor. Congratulations Mr. President we finally got back to where we started in the Clinton Administration
Sooo in conclusion:The first thing to say on North Korea is that it's very good news that the North Koreans have again shut down the Yongbyon nuclear reactor. This is the facility that has been the center of nearly all the trouble over more than a decade now. And the IAEA has now confirmed that the plant has been taken off line, though negotiations will now begin on securing a more permanent shuttering of the facility. The Times calls the deal a "hard-won, yet fragile diplomatic victory for the Bush administration."
And so it is, sort of.
But here's the thing no one should forget: it's taken the Bush administration six-plus years to get things to where the Clinton administration had them when Bush took office.
Let's review: the Clinton administration had a deal with the North Koreans in which the US -- actually a consortium of the US and its allies -- gave fuel oil and a promise of diplomatic normalization for the North Koreans to shutter their plutonium-producing nuclear facility. The Bush team called this appeasement and set-up deliberately scuttling that deal, which indeed happened. The North Koreans proceeded to get back into plutonium production big time. And it's now assumed that they made a few actual weapons with the stuff. Realizing that they'd shot their mouth off with no idea what an alternative policy might be for the Korean Peninsula, they eventually started creeping their way back to the Clinton policy, to which point they have now arrived.
So, back to where we started, only now the North Koreans probably have several nuclear warheads instead of what was probably none in early 2001.
Good day folks!
posted by Oyka @ 10:48 AM
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