War bridge funding is up in the air


http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/110..._Bush_plea.html

and the party is, as usual torn amongst themselves...


http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/110..._Democrats.html
Oh, are they torn...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7109.html

On top of all this the Democratic Party will fold on the Alternative Minimum Tax issue... they will agree to end the AMT without an equal increase in tax according to CSPAN this morning. Well, that indicates a complete implosion since their PAYGO budget counted the $45 Billions the AMT was to put in the coffers... without the AMT tax revenue and no new tax of the rich to replace it they have no budget. Or they will simply have to violate their PAYGO rules to spend money. Pooffff!

Question for debate
Will the Democratic Party stand on position and refuse to fund the Iraq War without strings of end date attached through Christmas?

If the Democratic majority provides President Bush Bridge War funding without strings before the Christmas break will the party implode and become disfunctional?

Will the Democratic Party stand on position and refuse to fund the Iraq War without strings of end date attached through Christmas?

I do not know the answer to that. I don't have a crystal ball.

If the Democratic majority provides President Bush Bridge War funding without strings before the Christmas break will the party implode and become disfunctional? (sp)

I realize Republicans - you are no longer registered as one I noticed - need plausible deniability, but implosion and dysfunctional seem a bit hopeful, if that's what Republicans are counting on.

Actually this isn't a very well constructed thread, but oh well.

Implosion or dysfunctional are real possibilities because the Democratic Party is made up from very emotional splinter groups that get their feeling hurt very easily. If the anti war group gets its feeling hurt there will be no votes and payback and the same with environmentalists. And, since the Democratic Party has a position of PAYGO they have no budget once they approve the AMT change without a tax increase. Everything they ran on will be gone, long gone. And, their ace in the hole is the SCHIP re-authorization bill that the President can use against them. Look, once they cut the AMT break without raising taxes every bill the president vetoes he can say based on projected tax the Democrats appropriated too much money since the Democrats are short $45 billion from the spending. As the bills flow in the President can say why not take care of the children and pass the SCHIP re-authorization NOW in a manner I can sign? What will they answer, No! we need that to buy votes! There will be a grand omnibus with loads of pork and the President will veto it too. Send me an omnibus without pork and I'll keep the government running. What will the dems do in such a situation?

I'm no fan of pork-barrel politics, but it is a complex game played by all congress critters. You've simplified it to a point of inanity for some unknown reason. You've also stated a pretty bizarre claim, almost as an aside, about the Democratic Party being made up of emotional crybabies. Wow, the political insight you've shown is astounding.

Look, after the spending and military disaster of the last eight years, the Democrats could juggle babies while wearing latex domination outfits and still get elected. Sadly, as the slightly-less-horrible party, that's pretty much what they do.

Will the Democratic Party stand on position and refuse to fund the Iraq War without strings of end date attached through Christmas?

I hope so. Our money should be spent on improving the human condition, not ending it. We've been around for enough thousands of years that this junk is getting pretty old. The US could be the light of the world in moving us past the age of warfare. But of course that's my pipe dream. Too many people are too easy to convince that too many other people are bad and need to die. Too many people get their "feelings hurt too easily" and think the best solution to all their ills, and to the ills of the world, is to be not only the world's largest arms dealer, but the world's most prolifically warlike state, as well.

If the Democratic majority provides President Bush Bridge War funding without strings before the Christmas break will the party implode and become disfunctional?

No.

Has President Bush blinked one time since he committed troops to Iraq? No! Are the Democrats on record stating they will not leave the troops in harms way without funding? Yes! That means the Democrats have to fold or cut off funding completely and they don't have the will. That means they must cave in on the funding issue. If they cave in then the protion of the party supporting anti war will cut and cut clean, they wont turn Republican but they will stay at home. The House of Representatives will not function with in-fighting within the party. Without this battle there is already a problem with the Blue Dogs that want to get re-elected on conservative issues. You have a leadership torn and stretched tight between the extremes and the reality that they are invested in failure in Iraq while the facts indicate they are on the wrong side of the issue. The Blue Dogs want to do a strict immigration bill and very soon and if they don't get to do it they are dead meat. If they get to do it the angry Hispanic anti war caucus will go bilistic. I see implosion!

Maybe Bush isn't smart enough to blink.

I suppose any compromise will be spun as Democrats giving in. Zack, I really think you are more interested in sticking your finger in someone's eye than debating. Maybe you've been watching too many slapstick reruns.

What "portion" of the Democratic Party will go "ballistic"? Why just Hispanics?

BTW: There was a major caveat to what Murtha said - see highlighted area. Please try to get statements in context, rather than the context the right-wing press puts them in.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/30/w...-a_n_74751.html

I vote demo because primarily they are the only option of the two that have any green concerns it seems like, that and I think they don’t support the Iraq war currently. That being said if they just pulled the funding plug the political weaponization of that against them would be dramatic, its not only this but does anyone think to notice they might be trying to work with the other political party? If you ask me it really seems like bushco that’s doing all the stonewalling, amongst basically being sort of a governmental tyrant in all honestly with most everything. If you bring this up though you will get slammed with tons of emotional rhetoric and lapel pins.

Yes I do agree that the democratic party is not as stable as the republican party due to the fact you have more difference in the democrats vs. the republicans, or the republicans are more homogeneous vs the heterogeneous democrats, I don’t however view this as an ill that will bring them down. Overall appreciation by the voting public is not favoring government to much right now but its really not favoring bushco and has not for a rather long time this does spill over at large to the GOP.

If the democrats do pull funding of the war its because bushco would not work with them at all, like they don’t work with them at all, or for that matter a good chunk of the GOP at all. IN fact I would go as far to say that bushco is a lethal variant of the GOP that wont last all to long really but will none the less leave a lasting mark on the world in many ways that other people will have to clean up.

If the GOP does use the idea that the dems had no other alternative to pull the plug, voted in on such a promise even, it will basically cement for my lifetime not trusting them. If the dems don’t pull the plug even if voted in to bring change I probably will not vote for them save on the basis of environmental concern. IN fact I probably would not trust government at that point to do a load of laundry.

Will the Democratic Party stand on position and refuse to fund the Iraq War without strings of end date attached through Christmas?
If history is any indication, the answer to this question is "no", they will not stand on postion? whatever that means, I think you may have muddled two cliches into one clichink. In case you don't know, that's a cliche that stinks.

If the Democratic majority provides President Bush Bridge War funding without strings before the Christmas break will the party implode and become disfunctional?
I don't think it's possible for them to become disfunctional, since that's not even a word. Unless you mean dysfuctional, then the answer would be no. The Democrats are rarely united on any one subject. The reason being, they are a party of different ideas. Conversely, the Republicans are the party of one idea, the idea of the shephard. To whatever the shepard says, the sheep will "baaa." Even if the idea is a bad idea, like voting against a children's healthcare bill during an election season.

With that said, the Democrats do not have much of a spine. If they did, they would have impeached Cheney and Bush for any one of their numerous offenses, not including incompetence or shooting a man while drunk. Their spine is irrelevant, I guarantee, and I rarely use absolute terms like this, but in this case I'm confident, I guarantee, the Republicans will lose seats in the House, the Senate and the Presidency. This is a fact and you can take a second mortgage out on your house, which you've probably already done because the economy is in the crapper, and lay it on a bet in Vegas. It's a lock.

I agree with BoF, this is a poorly constructed thread. The topic should have read, "You got a problem?"

What I've learned from BoF that he is emotional and seeks to change the topic by pointing out that I spell poorly and that Bush and I are not smart. Well, let's focus on the topic and compare Bush with the Democrats that have worked against him and the war effort since the discovery there were no WMD's. The facts are a majority of congress supported the war until the Democrats found an excuse to run away from their responsibility of their vote. That does not make Bush "not smart enough" but makes the Democrats turncoats on the death sentence they helped to issue on countless victims of war. Like jurors in a murder case they changed their minds after the convicted was dead, made excuses for why they killed the innocent man. That does not make Bush not smart enough, that makes the jurors not smart enough, they voted and have continued to vote in support of the war over and over without waiver. Well, they did waiver and squirm at every opportunity to try to end the war in failure but now all of that is coming back to bite them in the butt.

Seems it is you attempting to avoid the debate. The debate is about the Democratic Party imploding when they "do compromise" and offer war funding without conditions and not whether or not they do it, they will compromise because Bush will not compromise and all parties knew this from the beginning.

We all know the Democratic Party is very delicately balanced and a slight shift in weight will capsize the boat. The Black and Hispanic caucuses already have to be bribed to vote for any sort of war funding, they simply want to vote to end the war TODAY!

You know as well as me that Murtha spends as much time taking his foot out of his mouth as he does putting it in. After Nancy twisted his ear and asked him what the H were you thinking he came back to the microphone to ramble as he removed his foot.



So you think the Democratic Party will be unaffected by compromising and funding the Iraq War bridge funding without any strings attached, a clean funding as demanded by President Bush. No one from Code Ping or the Daily Kos will become upset, the congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses will just suck it up and say go team when the Blue Dog Democrats demand strict border immigration legislation after the holidays. Gonna be one big happy dysfunctional party after the holidays the way I see it. The voters will not reward inability to do anything and the only option that will work is to cut off war funding completely but they don't have the spine.

Everyone in the top tier of the Democrats are promoting President Bush's war plan, they are just saying it out loud and he cannot. There is little difference in what the Democrats offer when it comes to the war because there is no change from what is happening now. Why do you suppose the Democrats do not simply cut all war funding and legislate the funds can only be used to exit Iraq? Why, because they know it would come around to bite them by the election cycle when the Mid East erupted into chaos, they desire to continue Bush's war plan with different definitions of leaving and the people will see through the smoke when they fold on the war funding.

Let me get this straight - the republicans lost the house and senate last election primarily because most people want us out of Iraq.

The democrats did nothing but talk smack while doing very little. The record low approval rating the republicans managed to earn got even lower when the democrats did nothing about getting us out of that cluster in Iraq.

So, if the democrats actually do something, they are going to implode? How much lower can their approval ratings get? In my opinion, congress imploded a long time ago with record deficit spending, nation building, sex scandals by the same people who impeached a president that without term limits, would still be president, and giving amnesty to illegal aliens.

I think the democrats have nothing to lose. Our government imploded long ago. There is nowhere they can go but up.

That is the point of this debate, the Democrats will fold, they will give in to President Bush and send him clean funding with no strings attached. They will be despised from within and from the outside, hey they will look like the sheep following the Sheppard. They do not have the spine to end the war by writing legislation that their majority would vote for ending the war upon signing by the president.

I’ll bet Jesus didn’t spell very well either. I’ll bet you even knew that, but that's why the board, Google toolbar, etc. have spell checking tools.
I did not, however, say you weren’t smart. I implied that Bush might not be and you tied yourself to his mast, something some Republicans, running for office in 2008, don’t seem willing to do.

What I wrote was,





Ok. There will be grumbling in the party if it "compromises," - not gives in - on certain questions, but the Democratic Party will not simply implode, disintegrate, curl up in the fetal position or whatever else it is Republicans want us to do. There will also be grumbling if they don’t, but don’t plan on attending a funeral ceremony for Democrats anytime soon.



So you’ve expanded your tirade from Hispanics to Blacks. Could it be that real reason you don’t like the Democratic Party because of its large minority membership. Have you noticed, on your seemingly endless forages through C-SPAN, that Jim Webb isn’t particularly happy about the war, either?



That's your highly biased opinion. Time will tell.

BTW: If I were a member of congress, I would push for bills Bush doesn't like. That would put the ball back in his court and force vetos on several issues. It might backfire on Republicans, if congress sends Bush a bunch of bills he vetoes. He might start looking like the cork in the anal opening of progress, that he really is.

Edited 10:22 for typos, style and clarity

How about the implosion of the GOP
The Christian/Social conservatives have been shown to have been used like crack whores, fiscal conservative have no excuse for supporting the republicans since they outspend the democrats. Libertarian minded folks have seen the GOP go out of its way to reduce personal freedom.
They cannot openly support Bush because they know that Americans would choose Nixon over Bush at this point. No Republican candidate wants to be attached to W in any way because they want to win.

Neither side will go any other way than the way they always go because there is no where else for them to go.
Doesn't matter what they say or how many tantrums they throw they will pull the lever that matches the ID color of their party.

Whores and addicts always stay the course.

I think the Democratic Party wants to change the subject from war to domestic policy because they have failed to cause the war to fail. Take a look at this information and consider the Democratic Party has painted themselves into a corner. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7039.html

Now take a look at this article
read the entire article at this link. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7048.html

I mentioned the freshman Blue Dog Democrats and have a thread with links here http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...showtopic=15702 Here is another biting link that clearly displays family problems on the horizon. http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/08...32_073_7_07.txt

Here they are, the faces that will lose support if a lot of things don't soon move in their direction. http://www.house.gov/ross/BlueDogs/Member%20Page.html They will not lie down quietly like an old yeller (I misspelled this on purpose) dog.

The reason I formerly mentioned the Hispanic and Black caucuses is because each and every member is against war funding in any manner and would like to only vote to end funding. They are not alone in the Democratic Party and that is why Nancy Pelosi has to buy them off even to pass a bill with strings attached. She is buying off the Hispanic votes at the cost of the Blue Dogs and it is going to start a family fight.

If the AMT is fixed without a tax increase then all rewards must come from pork. If pork is vetoed by Bush then Houston we have a problem. And, if Blue Dogs have to roll over to support pork there is really going to be a family problem.

Zack, I’ll get back to you after the Winter Solstice. We may know by then how good, or bad, a prognosticator you are. I don’t think Democrats will self-destruct as you are predicting in a couple of threads.

You’ve made your predictions. Until we see how they turn out, there really isn’t much left to debate in this thread.

I'll mark this thread and see you in January.

Consider this as you keep up with the "transition" to the new year, an article from the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/us/polit...dnrTl41MBgpk63Q

I know you are a member so you should be able to read this heartbreaking news.

Couldn't resist to add I can’t help be reminded of Zell Miller’s (Democrat) speech at the 2004 RNC:

Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.

Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.

And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.

Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.

They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

It is not their patriotism — it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter's pacifism would lead to peace.

They were wrong.

They claimed Reagan's defense buildup would lead to war.

They were wrong.

The implosion begins!





http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i...yNDpwD8TC97J01

Do you remember Paygo? The Democratic Budget has just been reduced to the President's budget. That means the Democrats spending bills are all vetoed because they violate their own paygo rules. Their budget was based on a tax increase or keeping the revenue of AMT.

If they are stupid they will and it will not help them in the polls.




Naa – they have held up 10 of the 12 major funding bills and are now planning to combine them (making them unreadable in any reasonable time), loading them with pork and sending them up to Bush who may just veto the whole mess – so we will have another funding morass on our hands.

I think the American people have just about had it with the current Congress. Watch for approval ratings to drop by Jan.

Been there done that huh? That is the plan to create another large omnibus with perhaps 40 or more billion in pork--- so full of goodies that members of both parties cannot resist to overturn a presidential veto. I hope the president vetoes the pork bill and demands a continuing resolution until separate bills can be sent for signature. If the crooks of each party get together and scratch each others back then I hope the American people fire each and every one of them. I've already heard that the Republican Senate leader needs a few billion for Kentucky to get re elected. I hope President Bush stands on his bully pulpit and names each state with pork and who probably sent it in the pork barrel for him to sign so the people know exactly who needs firing.

Edited to add this link:subject Pelosi calls Cheney swipe undignified http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7254.html
The VP pokes fun at the Democratic leadership...

Democratic Party raises pucker factor to Level Orange as President Bush refuses to play by the Lefty's rule book http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/

With all due respect Zack, all you've done is take an article from Politico and written your own bogus, sensational headline to go with it.

Well, I didn't bold or quote my lead off and expected you to read the link based on my lead off.

Prepare to implode, implode! With recent disasters on the omnibus and war funding the end is near. Another installment of implosion. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7335.html

Well gee, Zack. I don't know where you live, but where I am, it's Christmas Eve.

Let's see. The Dems still hold a small majority in both Houses of Congress, and while they have not yet gotten a lot of legislation passed tyhis year, I think you and I both know that it's because of obstructionist Republicans in the Senate, and a president who couldn't even find his veto pen until the Dems were elected to a majority.

According to all the polls, just about any Democratic presidential candidate could wax even the highest polling Republican candidate, were the election to be held next week. And a lot of the "Old-Guard" Republicans in the house and Senate are "retiring" early. Seems it's just no fun in Congress anymore since they can no longer run rough-shod over everyone else. That's gonna make it a whole lot tougher to win seats when they come up in November as well.

So - Democratic implosion? Nope, sorry, not feeling it.

That's the trouble with making predictions. The world was supposed to end in 2000 and now in 2012, according to some Web sites. Then the year goes by and nothing of the sort happens, and well, guess we were off on that one. It's also a problem with writing futuristic fiction like 1984 or the Space Odyssey series. Time just keeps on going and the future becomes what it must, not what we wish.

Shoot, we can't even get it right for tomorrow's weather a lot of the time. What's up with this? Well, if one were to pay attention, it's called chaos. The world is chaotic yet humans are, generally, simplistic in our thinking. It's part of the survival mechanisms.

We even see it for the upcoming 2008 presidential election. Some people have locked HC as the next POTUS, which is just plain foolish at this point. I suspect that's a desire for certainty in an uncertain world.

Oh well, I'll know tomorrow's weather when it comes. Same with the election, and the same for any imploding going on in DC. Meanwhile, Merry Christmas et al.

Will the Democratic Party stand on position and refuse to fund the Iraq War without strings of end date attached through Christmas?

The democratic party failed to take a clear stand on this issue this year. I think it will hurt the party in 2008. Yet, I would like to point out, that despite what is says in the Constitution, in the modern era the presidency wins the budget fights and is responsible for the majority of the shape of the budget.

Clinton beat Congress in the 1990s and Bush beats this Congress, republican or democratic, today


If the Democratic majority provides President Bush Bridge War funding without strings before the Christmas break will the party implode and become disfunctional?

No this is business as usual. This was likely not a winable fight. But unfortunately the Democrats have not fought it very well.
I can't think of a Democratic leader with enough clout to gain consistent attention (I guess that is the leader part) who has laid out a clear alternative to the present policy in Iraq and continued to sound that one note clearly and consistently.

In the absence of that, the Bush stay the course with a surge and there will be no deviation strategy simply steamrolls, not through any real obstacles, but a background of political white noice.

Once again the main democratic failures has been one of winning the message. Policy aside, their is reason to claim a share of the recent progress in Iraq instead of running from it (and thus confirming the opponents who claim the democrats revel in the failures of Iraq).

As I see it, there are two opposing forces in IRaq that could agree that it was the duty of Iraqis to oppose the American military presence with armed resistance.

One, is the devout Muslim faction that sees an armed infidel army in the fertile crescent as a religious embarrassment that can onnly be remedied by using all methods possible to attack this presence and undermine its allies.

The second are Iraqi secular nationalists who see an occupying force as an insult. Turn the tables and see how you would feel if an Arab army had liberated your country during a civil war and foreign speaking machine gun toting guards were constantly about placing their security over yours and shooting first in dangerous situation. If that army was rounding up prisoners and detaining them indefinitely, and your information tended to be charged with rhetoric about the occupying army. These secular nationalists also have a reason to fight, especially if no end is in sight.

Now, their is an election in the other country and new leaders emerge talking about early and absolute exit dates. The situation changes significantly. Now strategies for a post occupation world need to be worked out. Now it becomes even more important to align to protect yourself against your next threats, be them national, ethnic, sectional, religious, or foreign terrorist influences, or neighboring nationalist influence. This can arguably account for the decrease in violence in Iraq recently as much as any of the surge. Of course both can viably be working together to help improve the situation.

Either way, democrats should celebrate the recent events in Iraq. They shouldn't duck and look for other issues. In a time of war, with American families suffering with their relatives, spouses, children etc. posted in a hostile combat zone, anything that improves the situation for those men and women and their loved ones is the most important thing going on in the nation.

An Iraq that emerges from this as a stable force will be a big deal in terms of American prestige. An America with foreign policy victories, is much more influential than one with foreign policy quagmires. The leading Democrats need to show that they can revel in good news for foreign policy, and they need to show that they are doing their part in improving the situation. Moving on to other issues is a bad idea. This is THE issue before America.