http://www.examiner.com/a-745363%
7EWhat_will_Democrats_on_Capitol_Hill_do_now_.html?cid=all-hp-
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WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Barely six months after their November triumph,
Democrats have backed away from their top two policy priorities, leaving
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nev., foundering on the key issues of Iraq and congressional
corruption.
After challenging the White House with a pork-stuffed emergency
supplemental funding bill that would have required U.S. military forces
to begin pulling out of Iraq by a certain date, Democrats watched
President Bush veto that measure, then dithered as he stood like a stone
wall daring them to do it again. This week, the Democratic leadership
caved, approving emergency legislation that includes 18 benchmarks, but
no withdrawal — i.e., surrender — date. That outcome was a given once
Bush decided to hold firm because the longer funding was delayed, the
more Democrats became exposed to charges they were abandoning U.S.
troops in the field.
The end game on that issue began May 10, when Defense Secretary Robert
Gates told Congress the funding delay was denying troops the use of new
vehicles that are five times safer against improvised explosives than
the armored Humvees now in service. The longer the funding stalemate
continued, the more evident its ill effects on our troops would have
been. As a result, Democrats now have only two honorable options: Defund
the war and damn the consequences, or concede that the Constitution
really does make the president the commander in chief and stop telling
him how to do that job.
Similarly, the Democrats’ vow to end the “culture of corruption” in
Congress has proven to be empty campaign rhetoric. Only two Democrats
joined 187 Republicans on Wednesday in supporting an unsuccessful motion
to discipline Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., for violating an ethics rules
approved by the House in January. Murtha crossed the line when he
threatened to bar spending sought by two Republicans who questioned
earmarks in his home district.
The same day, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wis.,
disclosed that earmarks will be inserted into bills only after they’ve
been approved by the House and sent to conference committees with the
Senate. Under this newly rigged process, there won’t be any of those
pesky amendments against things like the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact,
House members will only be voting on conference committee reports, not
on the thousands of earmarks that will be inserted into the bills
covered by those reports. In other words, after some tentative moves in
the right direction earlier this year, Democrats are now putting the
corrupt system disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff called the congressional
“favor factory” back behind closed doors.
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"Every day, we buy -0.000005 Celsius degrees (of Global Warming
reduction) for one half of the LHC collider."
--
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