Russert this morning: Dems won't do anything to stop troop buildup

[theHandpuppet]

That's what he claimed during an interview with Matt Lauer this morning. Lauer asked Russert if Congressional Dems would actually do anything to stop the proposed 30,000-40,000 troop buildup in Iraq, since they control the purse strings for the war. Russert said no, there will be a lot of rhetoric and that's all. Nothing that would actually stop Bush's war plan.

I have to say I'm thoroughly disheartened because I suspect he's right -- and that's truly disgusting. Someone convince me that Russert is wrong and that my own pessimism is misplaced.

[Seattleman]

1. I think he is probably correct.

I have actually been predicting this for at least a year. The problem is that there is a seldom mentioned but extremely influential organization that effectively controls our nation's foreign policy no matter which "party" is in control. This group is the Council on Foreign Relations, it is an offshoot of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. It is the "headquarters" of the Anglophile Network that PhD. Carrol Quigley described in his book, "Tragedy and Hope".

Until we get rid of a whole bunch more of the entrenched elites in Wash DC and New York, don't expect anything to change.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Interesting. I'll admit I don't know much at all about the CFR

Could you provide some background/history?

[Junkdrawer]

7. David Rockefeller - descendant of John D. and chief proponent of Globalization...

runs it.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. Here ya go...

http://www.cfr.org/about/mission.html

http://www.cfr.org/about/faqs.html

http://www.cfr.org/

Do a Google search on the CFR Roster...

[Seattleman]

10. Isn't the Internet wonderful?

Not too many years ago, organixations such as the CFR operated in almost complete obscurity. But we are now able to find out information and then share that information with our fellow citizens in a manner that will allow us to participate in our society and government in ways previously impossible.

[theHandpuppet]

11. Thanks, Flottz!

I've got some reading up to do. :hi:

[acmavm]

3. I agree with Russert. The dems are probably going to be a

big disappointment in this area. They were elected with the country hoping they'd get us out of this mess. But I don't see anyone stepping up to the plate and telling the criminals in the bush** administration that they're not going to allow them to keep pulling this shit. I don't hear anyone threatening to cut the old purse strings. I understand that they don't have control until they come back in January but hell, the old republican regime that controlled everything is gone. They could start laying down the law (and I do mean law) right now.

What bush** and his thugs are doing has to be illegal. The war powers Chimpy was 'given' were to be used as a last alternative. He violated that one right off the bat. We are no longer at war, the enemy (Saddam) was defeated. Remember 'Mission Accomplished'? He can't run an open-ended war of attrition against the Iraqi people for years to come, can he? That was never part of the deal.

Geeze, it would be nice if someone stood up to these guys and told them that it's all over. No more warm bodies, no more money.

[Skidmore]

4. And Dems will rightly get their butts kicked

in the next election. We need to get on their cases. Let us start by cutting off campaign donations.

This was an election for change in the war. They had better remember that.

Slap the donkey.

[OHdem10]

5. The Dems have said all along

they will not withold funds because it can be interpreted as
not supporting the Troops. I can understand this BUT, BUT, BUT

It would be most edifying if the Dems in the House and Senate
as a group came to the front of the Capital and held a Press
Briefing. " We as Democrats cannot support escalation or Surging
in Iraq." This would exude so much power and the Media would
look upon Democrats in a whole new light.

My problem with this surge or escation thing is it further
puts us there with no way out. The President can continuously
say,-- Just give me time to do this--Just a little more time
to do that and we can win this thing-- and before long, we are there
for eons.

I agree with those Leaders who recognize we cannot win militarily,
Our troops have done a yeoman's job over there and deserve
the biggest parade and honors ever bestowed. We have reached
a point(IMO) declare victory and leave. If the troops are sent
over there as a surge-=-how will we know it is over??? As soon
as we start to pull them out to bring them home--the Sunnis
and Shiia will sbe at each others' throats again. Even if
the Surge quietens things down in Bagdad, it will flare up
as soon as the Reenforcement Troops are drawn down to come
home. In other words, they are fighting each other now and
will fight each other when we leave. The Surge only prolongs
the agony. No time line means we are there forever.

For the Democrats to look strong they should do the dramatic
Come out and with one voice say "We do not support the Surge"
That picture would be flashed all across the country. The Unity
swould make so much news--shocking.

The American People understand not cutting funds right now
is done to avoid hurting our kids over there.

[theHandpuppet]

12. So supposedly in order to avoid hurting our kids over there...

.... the Dems will okay the funds for 30-40,000 more to go over there for death and disability? Um... with that kind of logic, there will be no end to the PNAC agenda and no one willing to stop them.

[Toots]

19. I don't buy it

The military is completely funded through the Defense Budget which is completely seperate from Iraq emergency funding. All military pay and supplies come from the Defense Budget. The Hundred thousand American Contractors get their money from the Iraq Emergency Spending Bill. It really doesn't have anything to do with funding of our troops.

[AtomicKitten]

6. Levin is adamantly opposed to this.

I'm looking for an opposition party, one with a spine.

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. Adamantly opposed enough to vote to cut off funds, or

adamantly opposed enought to say that he is adamantly opposed?

[AtomicKitten]

21. oh, we can only hope it is the former

as it is the Dems only leverage to stop this war

[NewJeffCT]

9. What will happen is...

Bush will send them over, using the Iraq resolution and his position as Commander in Chief as justification.

Then, after they are already there, Bush will force a vote on funding the troops - probably tied to something like money for more body armor and/or VA hospitals.

While a majority of Dems will oppose, enough will defect to pass the funding.

[theHandpuppet]

13. So why the hell did the American people...

.... bother to vote as a message that this war must end? A difference which makes no difference IS no difference!

[tecelote]

14. We need to impeach!

Pre-emptive war is wrong. The constitution has been trampled upon and torture is now accepted policy. As you know, I could go on.

The only solution is impeaching the war criminals. It is imperative. Otherwise, America's future is damned.

[theHandpuppet]

18. I was originally one who opposed impeachment

I can see now just how wrong I was. We must take whatever legal steps necessary to impeach this batshit crazy leader of ours and stop this madness!

NOW MORE THAN EVER!

The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America

July 4, 1776

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --

Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
(In Jefferson's draft there is a part on slavery here)

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.


We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

JOHN HANCOCK, President

Attested, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary

New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT
WILLIAM WHIPPLE
MATTHEW THORNTON

Massachusetts-Bay
SAMUEL ADAMS
JOHN ADAMS
ROBERT TREAT PAINE
ELBRIDGE GERRY

Rhode Island
STEPHEN HOPKINS
WILLIAM ELLERY

Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN
SAMUEL HUNTINGTON
WILLIAM WILLIAMS
OLIVER WOLCOTT

Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT
LYMAN HALL
GEO. WALTON

Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE
WILLIAM PACA
THOMAS STONE
CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON

Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE
RICHARD HENRY LEE
THOMAS JEFFERSON
BENJAMIN HARRISON
THOMAS NELSON, JR.
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE
CARTER BRAXTON.

New York
WILLIAM FLOYD
PHILIP LIVINGSTON
FRANCIS LEWIS
LEWIS MORRIS

Pennsylvania
ROBERT MORRIS
BENJAMIN RUSH
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
JOHN MORTON
GEORGE CLYMER
JAMES SMITH
GEORGE TAYLOR
JAMES WILSON
GEORGE ROSS

Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY
GEORGE READ
THOMAS M'KEAN

North Carolina
WILLIAM HOOPER
JOSEPH HEWES
JOHN PENN

South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE
THOMAS HEYWARD, JR.
THOMAS LYNCH, JR.
ARTHUR MIDDLETON

New Jersey
RICHARD STOCKTON
JOHN WITHERSPOON
FRANCIS HOPKINS
JOHN HART
ABRAHAM CLARK

[gratuitous]

15. But if the Democrats actually do something

You can bet that Pumpkinhead Russert and the rest of his elite media wise guy ilk will savage them for "not supporting the troops" by refusing to send more men and women to die in the Iraq meat grinder.

It must be nice not only to have it both ways but to get paid millions of dollars a year isn't it, Mr. Russert?

[global1]

16. Essentially * Will Put The Dems Into The Same Situation As To When They First Supported This War....

with this escalation. So when things go wrong again *Co could point to the Dems and say "see they supported it".

[leftchick]

20. Levin's statement is not encouraging...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Influential Democratic Senator Carl Levin opposed a "surge" of US forces in Iraq if it is not linked to a troop reduction program, and said his committee would meet in January to study all options in Iraq.

"The bottom line is, the main direction has got to be troop reduction. And, as far as I'm concerned, a surge which is not part of a program of reduction is not worth considering," the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee told CNN television.

Levin's comments came as US President George W. Bush huddled with top advisers at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, seeking a new course of action in Iraq, amid reports he favors a "surge" of troops to quell violence in Baghdad.

Under pressure from the Democrats' election victory in November, which ended the Republicans' control of Congress, Bush is expected to announce a new strategy for Iraq in the "first part of January," a senior aide said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061229/pl_afp/usiraqbushdemocrats_061229053004

"opposed a "surge" of US forces in Iraq if it is not linked to a troop reduction program"????

WTF?

[Vinca]

22. Other than cut funding, what the hell can they do?

The Decider decides and his decision (which, by the way, is the opposite of the voter's decision last month)is the only decision that counts. The new meme will be that the Dems are not delivering on their promises. The Dems need to call out The Decider on a daily basis.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. Politics as usual. Preserving their seats is the first priority.

It's way to risky to actually do something to stop the slaughter. And, they can rely on "Not as bad as Republicans" to pacify the "moderates" and marginalize the left.

[Amonester]

24. Someone tell me: how can they expect to preserve their seats

if they don't do something to stop the slaughter which, as we already knew since before 03/19/2003 -- at the zero- casualty point -- begins with bringing the troops home first, and prosecute the PNAC-Junta hijackers next??

Can't they foresee their seats will be loss if they don't do what the voters voted for (but the opposite??). What's the logic of hoping to preserve their seats if they do the opposite of what a majority of voters want??

Someone please 'splain to me 'cuz I (for one) don't get it... What I'm I missin' here??

Is it only moi?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. I certainly hope I'm wrong about the lack of backbone.

But, having been around for 62 years and watched politics for a goodly number of those years, my expectations of politicians ever resorting to doing the right thing is about zero.

My guess is that they will nibble around the edges so it looks like their doing the right thing and accomplish zip.

[Amonester]

26. Let's all apply the pressure where it counts:

If Dems condone the idiot's 'Surge' = cut all donations.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. I stopped donating to politicians in '68.

Now I donate to people and groups who actually do something to help their fellow humans.

[leftofthedial]

28. the congressional Democrats?

disappointing? disheartening?

enabling king george and the repuke agenda?


nawww. when has that ever happened?