Things have truly shifted. Harry Reid has decided to call the President’s bluff.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER COSPONSORS FEINGOLD BILL TO REDEPLOY TROOPS FROM IRAQ
April 2, 2007
Washington D.C. - U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced today that they are introducing legislation that will effectively end the current military mission in Iraq and begin the redeployment of U.S. forces. The bill requires the President to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment, as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill the Senate passed last week. The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008.
“I am pleased to cosponsor Senator Feingold’s important legislation,” Reid said. “I believe it is consistent with the language included in the supplemental appropriations bill passed by a bipartisan majority of the Senate. If the President vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period.”
“I am delighted to be working with the Majority Leader to bring our involvement in the Iraq war to an end,” Feingold said. “Congress has a responsibility to end a war that is opposed by the American people and is undermining our national security. By ending funding for the President’s failed Iraq policy, our bill requires the President to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq.”
The language of the legislation reads:
(a) Transition of Mission – The President shall promptly transition the mission of United States forces in Iraq to the limited purposes set forth in subsection (d).
(b) Commencement of Safe, Phased Redeployment from Iraq – The President shall commence the safe, phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq that are not essential to the purposes set forth in subsection (d). Such redeployment shall begin not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.
(c) Prohibition on Use of Funds – No funds appropriated or otherwise made available under any provision of law may be obligated or expended to continue the deployment in Iraq of members of the United States Armed Forces after March 31, 2008.
(d) Exception for Limited Purposes – The prohibition under subsection (c) shall not apply to the obligation or expenditure of funds for the limited purposes as follows:
(1) To conduct targeted operations, limited in duration and scope, against members of al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations.
(2) To provide security for United States infrastructure and personnel.
(3) To train and equip Iraqi security services.
This is exactly what I thought the Democrats should do. Can this really be happening? Did Russ Feingold just go from a babe crying in the wilderness to the Majority Leader’s main man? The Democrats have decided to fight. Someone send Obama the memo.
They just laid down the gauntlet. Reid is a cagey SOB. He waited until Bush committed himself to vetoing the present bill, which has a later deadline, to deliver the punch. It’s an open secret after McCain’s visit to Baghdad that the game is up over there. Even Kissinger has admitted to it. Reid just put the Republicans up against the wall. Either they support the President against 70 percent of the American people and climbing, or the chimp takes a hit.
This is a big FU to the President. He also didn’t give the MSM much room either.
I want the back story on this. This came out of nowhere.
Me too, this just didn’t happen overnight.
Threaten to pass an even stronger bill before Bush has a chance to veto this one. Give him an idea of the kind of game we can play. Personally I am surprised that the announcement came from Reid and not Pelosi, seems to me that it has a better chance of passing the House, but the President has to take it more seriously coming from the Senate.
This announcement does leave me even more curious about A.P.’s reporting of the Obama interview. Was he not being canvassed about this before the interview?
Several commenters over at Big Orange have remarked that the AP’s story was based on an unattributed quote, and some provide a less-than-flattering analysis of AP’s political reporting, one going so far as to call them the Fox News of print journalism.
I don’t know about that, but I do know Obama was singing a different tune in an interview on CNN the other day.
Well, shit. I like this a lot.
Didn’t the supplemental spending bill that just passed say exactly the same thing? Why do we need a second bill to demand a timetable?
Because the current supplemental is going to be vetoed, and apparently the Senate’s game is: Fine. You veto a bill, we come back with something you’ll like even less. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Soon enough it will become evident who is trying to support our armed forces and who is playing political games. Hint: It isn’t going to be who His Nibs says it is.
This might actually turn out to be a bit of fun…if bush vetoes or would continue to veto isn’t that the definition of ‘hoisted by your own petard’? Could we get a visual for that please.
Time to buy stock in ConAgra, which is the parent company of Orville Redenbacher, the #1 selling popcorn in the US.
This is to do another vote, to get the Republicans on the record once again.
It looks like the Dem plan is to use Chinese water torture against the Republicans. (If the Rethugs are already on the record for wanting to strand our troops, what difference does it make to force them to be on the record “over and over”?) I read somewhere that the Pentagon has enough money to continue the occupation through the end of May, so I guess the Dems are not in a great hurry to introduce another supplemental appropriation bill.
Also, as Booman wrote yesterday, the Rethugs are only willing to go through the charade of seeing whether the surge “will work” through August.
So it looks like both sides realize by now that there is no point in continuing the occupation, but they need to go through several months of political theater before any concrete measures for withdrawal are actually undertaken.
Also, don’t forget that the current supplemental appropriation bill (unlike this one) calls for a withdrawal only of combat forces. So neither side is ready yet for a complete military withdrawal from Iraq. I’m pretty sure that what they think is going to happen is that only about half of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq will be withdrawn, and that the rest will just hunker down in the four mega bases and stop doing any fighting (although Feingold’s bill has a loophole that would allow even that).
Well, among other things, every time a vote gets taken it adds one to the total, so that by September 2008 they can start running ads in those Congresscritters’ districts saying “Congressman Larson E. Pettifogger had six opportunities to vote to support the military, and all six times he voted ‘no.'” Every single one of those votes is political gold against some of the nuttiest of the Congressional wingnuts.
Yeah, that’s what this is about. In other words, it’s not going to bring us any closer to actual withdrawal.
I, being an eternal optimist, would hope it does both.
Permanent bases are U.S. infrastructure. So it sounds like this bill keeps them.
For this kind of a bold turnaround, Reid must really believe that he has the support. Fascinating.
are you ready to play ball? I’m psyched the Yanks game is on ESPN. Happy passover, BTW.
Thanks!
Yeah,
Happy Passover!
We’re doing a simple seder at curly’s tonight.
from a Seattle point of view:
After going 2-17 against Oakland last year, one of our local columnists has boiled the season down to the first series of the year, which just happens to be against Oakland.
We sweep the A’s, we go on to win the World Series.
We win the series 2-1, we go into the playoffs with an even chance.
We lose the series 1-2, we fans are even more SOL than we have been the last three years because Ichiro walks at the end of the year, leaving us with a nice stadium populated at any given time by nine garden gnomes.
We get swept, and it’s volcanic eruptions, typhoons, human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together . . . mass hysteria.
Oh, and did you notice that His Nibs is too busy to throw out the first ball this year? Word on the street is, he’s afraid to go to the ballpark and get roundly booed.
Must be hard work bein’ the decider, to have to give a pass to such a treasured, traditional privilege of his office. Next thing you know, he’ll stop wearing thos spiffy presidential flight jackets with his name on them….
Back when I was a kid I remember watching some off-brand cartoon (not Warner Brothers, not Hanna-Barbera and I don’t think it was Disney — I don’t remember who made it) about a kid who hated math and didn’t want to do his homework. Somehow or another he managed to get himself elected President and was just about to throw out the first ball of the baseball season when someone yanked him off the field and told him he couldn’t do it because he had to go back and balance the budget which he hadn’t done before Opening Day. Then after sweating over numbers for a while he wakes up, still a kid, and decides maybe he’d better start working on his math skills.
Kinda reminds me of the Deciderer, but not quite as lovable.
Thank you thank you thank you.
Is the jig up?
Oh please let the answer to that question finally be “yes.”
Alice.
The jig is NEVER up with these people.
Bet on it.
Not until they stand on the scaffold, rope around their necks.
Have you no memory?
They will fight using any and all tactics, right on up to an invasion of Iran if they can get away with it in terms of military cooperation.
Their backs are to the wall. The position in which an armed and powerful animal is most dangerous. Fail and they are liable to go to prison or worse. They have taken it SO far that the old “presidential pardon” routine is probably of of the table.
“A few thousand murders? A few billion stolen? Why SHORE, podna!!! Whut’s a little oversight among friends? It’s jes’ the cost of bizness, right?”
But when HUNDREDS of thousands die? When trillions are stolen? When in the space of 8 years the supposed most powerful nation in the world is reduced in full public view to a debtor banana republic with a big army and no soul? When the presumptive new Prez is going to be a woman whose life and name were dragged through the mud in a politcally motivated honeytrap scam? AIN’T no Presidential pardons coming this time. It’s PERSONAL, now. We have all of us suffered for their crimes.
Sorry. Please do not repeat the ongoing mistake of the online left.
Premature e-jubilation.
The jig’s not up.
The real dance is just beginning.
A dance to the death, this time.
Bet on it.
So it goes.
AG
Dance to whose death – haven’t we all been building up our endurance for half a century?
I know you’re right – I’ll never be satisfied until Scalia is gone, but I’m gonna enjoy every little flinch and squirm of the pigs.
To the death of the present PermaGov as it now stands, if we are lucky.
If we are NOT lucky…a dance to the death of literally millions more.
Possibly to the death of civilization as we know it. Or even the end of life on earth.
We are at the crux point here.
Close to the point of no return.
The NECESSARY turning point.
Massively armed fascists are in power, More massively armed than Hitler by a thousand times and thus a thousand times more dangerous, but…so far, at least…they have been unable/unwilling to unleash their nuclear weapons. They have achieved their position by stealth and by scam, and they are not doing very well in the stealth and scam department these days.
Bush at his best. At his worst. Speaking from experience. Experience on the scam side. He’s the smooth-talking front man. And/or the simpleton who serves to mask the cleverness of the game.
We done BEEN fooled.
Now the con artist only has two choices.
Cut and run…and where are they going to hide, after this set of interlinked fiascos?…or resort to force.
That’s it. No third choice after the game is found out.
And trust me…it has been found out.
A cursory glance at the MSM is all you need…all that THEY need, for that matter…to see the truth of that idea.
Now…they are weighing their options.
Bluff until the end?
Prison or worse awaits them, unless the “Bad for business” fix is in so deep that they can skate.
Could be…that might be where Hillary’s major money is coming from.
Or…a GIANT 9/11.
This time in supposed retaliation to them raghead terrist bastids .
“It worked LAST time, Dick!!!”
“Yessir, it did, Karl. Maybe…”
Maybe..
We shall see.
Good Friday, as the Russians are predicting?
Crucifixion Day?
I wouldn’t put it past them.
They ARE The Great Satan.
In the flesh.
Whose name is Legion.
Let us pray.
AG
Gah..I’m trying to have faith. But thinking of Hitler I entertain a bunker fantasy which includes that well-fondled pistol of Saddam’s. Ours not to reason why, eh?
For my daily dose of hope, I’m reading Korten’s ‘The Great Turning’ – it helps.
About bloody TIME…. Whoot!
damn right it’s about time!!!!
you can show your support by signing the Feingold/Reid Petition at Russ’ Progressive Patroits website
I am so sick of the blogs putting Obama down for everything he does. He wants to proceed with a grown up attitude and suddenly he is evil.
He wants to protect our troops and he is evil.
Everything he does he gets hassled for it.
He cannot do anything to please you guys.
Honestly, I cannot understand why you guys expect perfection and a saint. He is a politician -just like all the others and a human being (oh! shock!). He is also trying to do something never done before. Being the first African American president. Plus he is fighting the Clinton machine. He needs to appeal across the board.
He was never wedded to one ideology. We in Illinois know he is independent in his thinking. He votes and writes bills that he thinks is the most responsible. He cannot be pinned down. But, he is the most liberal of all the candidates. Including Dennis!
You guys are so great at trashing people but, for political writers you don’t understand how politics work.
Reid said he didn’t want to see any more blood shed by Americans. I hope he means that because last night I was reading that he really didn’t. Democrats better realize that their election hopes are only as good as their word. We had better get out and get out soon. I recall looking at the results of the ’52 election where Eisenhower and the Republicans were swept into power. Didn’t Eisenhower promise to bring the Korean War to a halt?
The Republicans ruled the 50s and Eisenhower found out that the military/industrial complex had taken over decision making for the USA. After a series of assassinations in the 60’s they gained control. There were some set backs in the 70’s when the people became burdensome with their popular plight vs Vietnam. But with Reagan, Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II, and Clinton II a total authoritarian rule has been accomplished. Sorry but I’m fearful that will follow this dictator with another one.