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The democrats Are not backing down this time.

Lemon law

Lemon law

Lifer
In an update to the thread I posted yesterday, the democrats don't have the votes to force
any strings on troop withdrawals on GWB, but if GWB rejects the funding bill with strings he may well get no funding for operations in Iraq at ALL this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...eTA9bdbMr7xDzBuAqs0NUE

Thus putting the entire US military into a funding crisis. Despite panic mongering by Gates, it does not get to genuine crisis stage until February, but its going to be very inconvenient from a military perspective meanwhile.

The real question is which political party will catch the blame if each side refuses to back down?

As an anti war democrat, I am sick and tired of the democratic leadership always backing down in this fight. And this time, they don't appear to be. After many repetitions of finally caving to GWB on Iraq war funding and conduct, and then seeing threads calling democrats ineffectual wimps on P&N, we see some signs that those days are at an end. And that this time, GWB&co. is going to have to do some of the compromising.

The GOP minority in congress has already tried its usual offers, and this time they got voted down by a better united democratic party.

Ultimately I think the battle lines with shift to the arena of public opinion. As a largely apathetic American public will be drafted from the sidelines.

Which side are you on is just one question?

Because as an Anti war democrat, I am not in favor of just immediate withdrawal. But we can't stay until we get better diplomatic options than GWB conduct of the war offers. And the sooner GWB&co. is stripped of the mantle of sole decider, the better.

 
I like to see action. The democrats, though, could potentially have ridden endlessly the wave that they were anti-war and it would have helped them in the election. It's possible that they cut money, troops leave a little, and then republicans in 08 turn this into a "Look, the surge was working awesomely, then our money went, and now look at the f**king mess the dems have put us into!" and they sucker back some of the public to their side. Also, how many troops will Rudy have to have on an ad--troops who maybe "fought for their country" and now because of money cut by the dems their base was closed or they lost money for post-war medical attention or something, all that will pull at heart strings.
 
Originally posted by: Lemon law
In an update to the thread I posted yesterday, the democrats don't have the votes to force
any strings on troop withdrawals on GWB, but if GWB rejects the funding bill with strings he may well get no funding for operations in Iraq at ALL this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...eTA9bdbMr7xDzBuAqs0NUE

Thus putting the entire US military into a funding crisis. Despite panic mongering by Gates, it does not get to genuine crisis stage until February, but its going to be very inconvenient from a military perspective meanwhile.

The real question is which political party will catch the blame if each side refuses to back down?

As an anti war democrat, I am sick and tired of the democratic leadership always backing down in this fight. And this time, they don't appear to be. After many repetitions of finally caving to GWB on Iraq war funding and conduct, and then seeing threads calling democrats ineffectual wimps on P&N, we see some signs that those days are at an end. And that this time, GWB&co. is going to have to do some of the compromising.

The GOP minority in congress has already tried its usual offers, and this time they got voted down by a better united democratic party.

Ultimately I think the battle lines with shift to the arena of public opinion. As a largely apathetic American public will be drafted from the sidelines.

Which side are you on is just one question?

Because as an Anti war democrat, I am not in favor of just immediate withdrawal. But we can't stay until we get better diplomatic options than GWB conduct of the war offers. And the sooner GWB&co. is stripped of the mantle of sole decider, the better.
Click to expand...

There was an article today in the paper about the SEC of the Army saying that he will have to cut somewhere around 200k civilian jobs and terminate some military contracts if he can't get the proper funding. No way that is going to happen. There is going to be a cave in by one side or the other. Care to hedge your bets and see which side gives first?
 
There was an article today in the paper about the SEC of the Army saying that he will have to cut somewhere around 200k civilian jobs and terminate some military contracts if he can't get the proper funding. No way that is going to happen. There is going to be a cave in by one side or the other. Care to hedge your bets and see which side gives first?
Click to expand...

Is that really true? The democrats "won't let" that happen and Bush is too stubborn, so I see them capitulating, if that is really accurate and not just scare tactics by Gates et al.
 
Might be interesting to watch.

Appears that they have decided to get into the whole "not supporting the troops" thingy by withholding funding. Earlier, this scared them into submission.

As I said elsewhere, the timing on this is odd. May have been better to do this when the Iraq news was much worse and the *war* concern was higher in polling.

My guess is, as I have long suggested, the Dems want the *war* to end before they assume power. Too early to withdrawl now as chaos could ensue harming their Pres election efforts. Nor do they want the w/d to occur after they win the Pres, could ensure a 4 yr term (no re-election). Having GWB withdrawl nearer the end of '08 would be about right.

Looks also like might be an effort to get Iraq front & center for the upcoming elections, instead of drivers licenses for illegals etc.

The *war* is their BIG issue, can't have it go low profile.

Fern
 
Originally posted by: Skoorb
There was an article today in the paper about the SEC of the Army saying that he will have to cut somewhere around 200k civilian jobs and terminate some military contracts if he can't get the proper funding. No way that is going to happen. There is going to be a cave in by one side or the other. Care to hedge your bets and see which side gives first?
Click to expand...

Is that really true? The democrats "won't let" that happen and Bush is too stubborn, so I see them capitulating, if that is really accurate and not just scare tactics by Gates et al.
Click to expand...

Scare tactics I don't know; There was a workup about how the funding worked as well (was in Newsday). But I don't think any politician is going to want to be on the end that might cost 200k people jobs. Contracters, maybe, but DA civilians, no.
 
All these problems are a result of a bunch of Neocon imbeciles who got us into a useless and unnecessary war. The thing about a disaster is that it is a disaster.

Every problem related to our war in Iraq is the fault of folk who voted for Bush. All of it. It could not have been more obvious than that smug, smirking little bastard would be a fucking disaster.

All the dead, all the maimed and scarred for life, all the suicides and mental illness, all the endless suffering, all the trillions spent, because of hubris and ego.

How do Bush voters look themselves in the face or talk about how wonderfully thing are now going? A fucking disaster, but look, there's a cherry on top.
 
Originally posted by: Skoorb
There was an article today in the paper about the SEC of the Army saying that he will have to cut somewhere around 200k civilian jobs and terminate some military contracts if he can't get the proper funding. No way that is going to happen. There is going to be a cave in by one side or the other. Care to hedge your bets and see which side gives first?
Click to expand...

Is that really true? The democrats "won't let" that happen and Bush is too stubborn, so I see them capitulating, if that is really accurate and not just scare tactics by Gates et al.
Click to expand...

You have to understand that they're perfectly willing to use 'scare tactics' in these situations, and to get your facts elsewhere from more trusted sources.
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
All these problems are a result of a bunch of Neocon imbeciles who got us into a useless and unnecessary war. The thing about a disaster is that it is a disaster.

Every problem related to our war in Iraq is the fault of folk who voted for Bush. All of it. It could not have been more obvious than that smug, smirking little bastard would be a fucking disaster.

All the dead, all the maimed and scarred for life, all the suicides and mental illness, all the endless suffering, all the trillions spent, because of hubris and ego.

How do Bush voters look themselves in the face or talk about how wonderfully thing are now going? A fucking disaster, but look, there's a cherry on top.
Click to expand...

They probably look at themselves in the mirror and hate they had to make that choice, but can live with themselves because long term it's going to benefit the country (I know this is hard for the peaceniks and BDS sufferers to understand, but it's true).

This takes nothing away from the absolute sh1t deal the troops, family, and friends of those troops have to eat...for many of them it'll never be worth it, no matter how good the long term result ends up.

Chuck
 
Last time I saw Biden on Meet the Press and he said he would not end the war by refusing to fund it. If he won't, other Dems won't. And Bush knows it, as much as he knows anything.
 
Originally posted by: chucky2
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
All these problems are a result of a bunch of Neocon imbeciles who got us into a useless and unnecessary war. The thing about a disaster is that it is a disaster.

Every problem related to our war in Iraq is the fault of folk who voted for Bush. All of it. It could not have been more obvious than that smug, smirking little bastard would be a fucking disaster.

All the dead, all the maimed and scarred for life, all the suicides and mental illness, all the endless suffering, all the trillions spent, because of hubris and ego.

How do Bush voters look themselves in the face or talk about how wonderfully thing are now going? A fucking disaster, but look, there's a cherry on top.
Click to expand...

They probably look at themselves in the mirror and hate they had to make that choice, but can live with themselves because long term it's going to benefit the country (I know this is hard for the peaceniks and BDS sufferers to understand, but it's true).

This takes nothing away from the absolute sh1t deal the troops, family, and friends of those troops have to eat...for many of them it'll never be worth it, no matter how good the long term result ends up.

Chuck
Click to expand...

Yes, of course, there's always denial. Unfortunately we don't have two universes we can watch, one were Gore won in 2001 instead of Bush, so we will never know the 'long runs' in each.
 
Chucky2 is totally wrong when he says---They probably look at themselves in the mirror and hate they had to make that choice, but can live with themselves because long term it's going to benefit the country (I know this is hard for the peaceniks and BDS sufferers to understand, but it's true).

This takes nothing away from the absolute sh1t deal the troops, family, and friends of those troops have to eat...for many of them it'll never be worth it, no matter how good the long term result ends up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is nothing about the Iraq war that will long term aggregate benefit this country, Iraq, or the rest of the world. As Moonbeam accurately states, its a disaster and the giant problem now is how to end the disaster without making it into a bigger disaster. When you can't win, the wise start figuring out how to cut their losses. Only the delusional self delude themselves.

As I have long posted, GWB&co. are the idiots that perpetuate the disaster and PREVENT IT FROM BEING SOLVED.

JOB ONE IS STRIPPING GWB&CO FROM BEING THE SOLE DECIDER.

Do we do it now or do it later? Taking the risk that GWB will almost certainly have made things worse than they are now if we wait until 1/20/2009. Already Iran, Turkey,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq are now at risk of totally melting down over this bungling lack of foreign policy. And an irrational idiot named GWB could do something really stupid at any time to make the situation much much much worse.

Why do we trust the man who broke it to be the man who can fix it? Its sheer lunacy. But that is where we are.
 
Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: Skoorb
There was an article today in the paper about the SEC of the Army saying that he will have to cut somewhere around 200k civilian jobs and terminate some military contracts if he can't get the proper funding. No way that is going to happen. There is going to be a cave in by one side or the other. Care to hedge your bets and see which side gives first?
Click to expand...

Is that really true? The democrats "won't let" that happen and Bush is too stubborn, so I see them capitulating, if that is really accurate and not just scare tactics by Gates et al.
Click to expand...

You have to understand that they're perfectly willing to use 'scare tactics' in these situations, and to get your facts elsewhere from more trusted sources.
Click to expand...

I saw it in Newsday (hometown Long Island paper). Also here, here, and here.
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
All these problems are a result of a bunch of Neocon imbeciles who got us into a useless and unnecessary war. The thing about a disaster is that it is a disaster.

Every problem related to our war in Iraq is the fault of folk who voted for Bush. All of it. It could not have been more obvious than that smug, smirking little bastard would be a fucking disaster.

All the dead, all the maimed and scarred for life, all the suicides and mental illness, all the endless suffering, all the trillions spent, because of hubris and ego.

How do Bush voters look themselves in the face or talk about how wonderfully thing are now going? A fucking disaster, but look, there's a cherry on top.
Click to expand...
I disagree with everything you wrote here.

1) The Neocons aren't imbeciles. They're terminally arrogant and have views based on dogma; therefore, they're incapable of even acknowledging the validity of evidence that contradicts their positions. At the very least, I disagree with your use of the plural noun, "imbeciles." There's only a single imbecile I'm aware of.

2) The war isn't useless and unnecessary. For the neocons, it's now totally useful and necessary, since clearly it is successfully distracting all those Iraqi-militia bomber pilots from hopping into their transcontinental bombers and attacking the U.S. homeland. Gotta fight 'em there. What? You've never SEEN an Iraqi bomber pilot in a transcontinental bomber? Pretty effective strategy, obviously. I am encased in a warm, fuzzy, cocoon of safety. Thank you, Commander in Chief.

3) Disaster? What disaster? With an estimated total long-term cost of $3.5 trillion, the war effort has now galvanized Dubya into becoming the disciplined budget-cutter we always knew he was. Clearly, his newfound veto pen is a sign of his principle, risen like a phoenix from the catastrophe. Ain't a man's soul worth a mere $3.5 trillion?

4) "Smirking little bastard?" Outrageous. Dubya's mommy and daddy were legally married prior to his birth.

5) Oh, what's the use? Clearly, we have no common ground for discussion.

 
Well they could just lay off all the civilian personnel. That is what Bush should do. Get rid of all the high paying government civilian jobs in the pentagon and the military.

Something like this happens in the Book of Mormon. The military comes back to the capital and kills all the people in charge.
 
Originally posted by: piasabird
Well they could just lay off all the civilian personnel. That is what Bush should do. Get rid of all the high paying government civilian jobs in the pentagon and the military.
Click to expand...

Uhh..no. The place would fall apart. The civilians are an integral part of both.
 
Well if the President and the vice president and department of state and the department of defense all resign then what is Pelosi Going to do when she is president?

Does this scare anyone?
 
Originally posted by: Fern
Might be interesting to watch.

Appears that they have decided to get into the whole "not supporting the troops" thingy by withholding funding. Earlier, this scared them into submission.

As I said elsewhere, the timing on this is odd. May have been better to do this when the Iraq news was much worse and the *war* concern was higher in polling.

Fern
Click to expand...

I think that they are daring the Repubs to run on a "they hate the troops" platform.

It will very quickly get turned into "We didn't give Bush the money to continue to be able to use our soldiers as targets and forced him to start bringing them home" vs. "They hate the troops and showed it by not funding them so that they could still be there".

Which side do you think will come off sounding more righteous in the eyes of the voters whe ~70% want them home?

And the timing is perfect. If everything has improved there as much as PJ, Pabby and you keep bellowing, then what better time for them to start withdrawing. Unless you want to concede that this is not a sustainable progression and we should be there permanently?
 
Originally posted by: Sinsear
Originally posted by: Lemon law
In an update to the thread I posted yesterday, the democrats don't have the votes to force
any strings on troop withdrawals on GWB, but if GWB rejects the funding bill with strings he may well get no funding for operations in Iraq at ALL this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...eTA9bdbMr7xDzBuAqs0NUE

Thus putting the entire US military into a funding crisis. Despite panic mongering by Gates, it does not get to genuine crisis stage until February, but its going to be very inconvenient from a military perspective meanwhile.

The real question is which political party will catch the blame if each side refuses to back down?

As an anti war democrat, I am sick and tired of the democratic leadership always backing down in this fight. And this time, they don't appear to be. After many repetitions of finally caving to GWB on Iraq war funding and conduct, and then seeing threads calling democrats ineffectual wimps on P&N, we see some signs that those days are at an end. And that this time, GWB&co. is going to have to do some of the compromising.

The GOP minority in congress has already tried its usual offers, and this time they got voted down by a better united democratic party.

Ultimately I think the battle lines with shift to the arena of public opinion. As a largely apathetic American public will be drafted from the sidelines.

Which side are you on is just one question?

Because as an Anti war democrat, I am not in favor of just immediate withdrawal. But we can't stay until we get better diplomatic options than GWB conduct of the war offers. And the sooner GWB&co. is stripped of the mantle of sole decider, the better.
Click to expand...

There was an article today in the paper about the SEC of the Army saying that he will have to cut somewhere around 200k civilian jobs and terminate some military contracts if he can't get the proper funding. No way that is going to happen. There is going to be a cave in by one side or the other. Care to hedge your bets and see which side gives first?
Click to expand...

I heard the same thing but that there was enough money in the coiffeurs to last through February.
 
Maybe the dems are just taking a page from the cost cutting measures of GWB. And are saving the American taxpayer a cool 50 billion in PORK. Pork GWB&co was chewing through each and every three months for the past 18 quarters. Thats 450 billion bucks chewed up by GWB&co. Yes boys and girls, it is time to put GWB on a diet. It might even shrink his fat head and ego.

But the implicit myth is that the dems will be the ones to catch ALL the blame if the pentagon spending cuts come. Repubs too will catch the blame as democrats blare forth their message that its the President that refused the funding they provided. And that the democrats are no longer going to simply pander to a pig named GWB who is ALL TAKE AND NO GIVE. The democrats have been doing all the giving and its gotten the American people nothing. Its long past time for GWB to compromise will be the message.
 
Originally posted by: piasabird
Well if the President and the vice president and department of state and the department of defense all resign then what is Pelosi Going to do when she is president?

Does this scare anyone?
Click to expand...

About 200 million American would be celebrating. About 100 million American would be terrified until they found little was immediately changed. And longer terms things would get dramatically better as REAL DIPLOMATS AND PUBLIC OFFICIALS replaced neocons who substitute fantasies for reality.

By all means GWB&co. resign immediately. I accept. Don't let the door hit you in the butt.
 
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