Rahm Emanuel

The following letter from Reps. Maxine Waters, Lynne Woolsey, and Barbara Lee was sent to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the House Leadership today:

As leaders of the Progressive Caucus and Out of Iraq Caucus, we write to urge you not to include funding for the continued military occupation of Iraq in any Fiscal Year 2008 omnibus spending bill unless it requires these funds to be used solely for fully-funding the safe and timely redeployment of our troops and military contractors from Iraq within a specified timeline. Should legislation come to the House floor that does not strictly limit funding to protecting our troops and a timeline for commencing and completing their complete redeployment out of Iraq, we will not be able to support such a bill.

After almost five years, nearly 4000 lives of our brave service men and women, and approximately half-a-trillion dollars spent, it is past time for the US occupation of Iraq to end.

Additionally, the American public is ahead of Congress on this point. More than half of those polled in recent weeks want US troops home as soon as possible (USA Today/Gallup) with nearly 60 percent wanting the engagement to end on a specified timeline (Pew).

It is critical that we keep faith with the clear majority of Americans who voted us into the majority last year to end the disastrous U.S. military intervention in Iraq, use the momentum we have gained to end our occupation of Iraq and bring our troops and military contractors home, and strictly fence any additional appropriated funds accordingly.

They attached the official position of the Progressive Caucus on Iraq in the form of a letter to President Bush co-signed by 92 House Members.

D-Day has a wonderful post about the pathetic problem in our Senate today:

Harry Reid has no problem respecting the one hundred holds from Tom Coburn on all sorts of legislation, but will ignore Chris Dodd's. That's the bottom line, and given that, you have to conclude that Harry Reid is the one doing the holding.

Chris Dodd is heroically calling for a filibuster, but the real issue here is the issue of ignoring the rules of the Senate. Harry Reid is picking and choosing which Senators he will listen to. The fact that Chris Dodd came within one vote of defeating him for Minority Leader back in 2004 wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?

Harry Reid has set up two rules for the United States Senate; one under the normal standards of conduct that have held for 200-plus years, and one for bills that he really really has to pass or the President will get mad at him. Earlier this year, Reid ignored a hold placed by Sen. Ron Wyden and confirmed an assistant Secretary of the Interior that Wyden had issues with. Sen. Wyden dropped an important amendment into the flawed Intelligence Committee bill on FISA that the President opposes, which would force the government to get a warrant to spy on Americans overseas. I guess we'll see if Reid strips that amendment out of the bill, and if he holds the same respect for amendments that he does for holds.

The point is that Harry Reid has made Tom Coburn the most important member of the United States Senate. He's made Chris Dodd, a member of his own party, irrelevant. And he's made himself into a joke. We cannot go into 2008 with this laughingstock of a leader in the Senate.

Harry Reid loves crazy-ass Tom Coburn and is a vindictive prick. Was that mean? His staffers are brainwashed into thinking he's a God who single-handedly put Nevada on the map. Oops, was that too true?

My colleague on this site, Abijah Adams has called for new Senate and House leaders. While I'd love that, here's my 2c.

Votes for leadership positions are paybacks for campaign donations. Pelosi got where she is because she is phenomenal at raising money and handing it out. Plus she is pretty tough on her caucus, all things considered. Her problems are Rahm/Hoyer (the corporatists) and the presence of so many Bush dogs in the caucus.

We need to hurt Rahm and Hoyer by sending a message that their people are more vulnerable than the protection his $2,000 checks to them afforts.

Pelosi is not going to be defeated in SF--she is Establishment there and Rahm and Hoyer can also raise phenomenal amounts of money, therefore it would be a waste of time and resources to try for any of those three.

What we can do is be consistent about giving through Act Blue and not through the DCCC or any of the leadership PACs in order to dilute these three people's influence simultaneously we should try to pick off a couple of Bush dogs as examples, the way The Club for Growth has done on the right.

We should start with Daniel Lipinski and Al Wynn and maybe Zack Space.

CNN's story about the National Democratic Party Cave-In contains this little window into the logic of these cowards "leaders" as they try to explain that they didn't completely capitulate in every single way possible -- it is one of the most pity-inducing passages I've read:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic lawmakers and staffers privately say they're closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding. The deal would lack a key provision Democrats had attached to previous funding bills calling for most U.S. troops to come home from Iraq by the end of 2008, which would be a significant legislative victory for Bush.

Still, Democrats are trying to sell $70 billion in new war funding as a partial victory for them. They point out that while the final numbers are still in flux during intense private negotiations, Bush is likely to get far less money than he originally requested.

"What is for sure is he will not get all $200 billion," said one senior Democratic lawmaker. "Whatever number it is, it is much less than what the president asked for. For the first time in this war, he has received less than his request."

But senior administration officials privately say they expect to be able to get at least of the rest of the president's $200 billion request passed through Congress next year.

The silver lining to the cave-in is that they are only giving Bush $70 billion for the war now, and they won't give him the other $130 billion he wants for three whole weeks. They really showed him.

More pain from The Politico:

But it's a simple truth, whether you support the war or not: There is a lot more Democrats could do to change, or at least challenge, the politics of the war in Washington, even if they do not have the numbers to impose new policies on President Bush.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could force a vote a day over Iraq. She could keep the House in session all night, over weekends and through planned vacations.(…)

Democrats, in on-the-record and on-background interviews, said they do not do these things because they would be bad politics. Democrats in the House and Senate would splinter over such extremist measures.

In closed-door caucus meetings, members say, Democratic leaders like Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) have carried the day by warning that there is no appetite for such tactics in the districts of vulnerable Democrats, upon whom the party's new majority status depends.

We need to give up the country to save our DINOs in Indiana?

RedState's crazies know the deal:

There is no Democratic Party in Congress. There are, instead, a bare majority of Congressmen and Senators who have banded together in order to gather power, influence, and money. Which is fine, as far as it goes -- except that they are not actually using any of the resources that they are gathering to benefit the groups and causes who worked to put them in power.

The headline of the post from the above? "Sweet Jeebus, is there nobody in the Democratic Party who understands national party unity?"

No. There isn't. Harry Reid deserves to lose his Senate seat and his leadership position.

Bush vetoed SCHIP again. May hay, you idiots!

Here's a freebie, "When Bush came up with 'No Child Left Behind' I didn't think he meant that when he got done, there would be no children left."

Why can't you take advantage of any situation?! Any single one!