House: Close Military Bases

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives took its boldest action yet with regard to Iraq: it voted to ban permanent military bases. The legislation passed furthermore also makes it the policy of the United States not to exercise U.S. control of the oil resources of Iraq. Why is this the boldest action so far, you ask? Up until now the Congress has only supported legislation demanding a drawdown of troops, while expressing a desire to keep military bases open in Iraq for the purposes of "protecting U.S. interests there" and furthermore conditions troop withdrawals on the ability or inability of the U.S. government to ram an oil theft law through the Iraqi parliament. I strongly support this motion and hope that it goes forward in the Senate. Unlike these previous pieces of legislation that have been passed by either chamber of Congress, the passage of this bill would undermine the purpose of the war, which is to secure Iraqi oil for American consumption. With a policy that expressly opposes this end, and furthermore outlaws the military infrastructure that would provide for the oil theft's enforcement, together make the goal of the war both unattainable and illegal. This cuts off the motive for the war at its source. There is zero doubt in my mind that if this bill passed by the House yesterday were to miraculously become law, the Bush Administration would hastily announce a withdrawal from Iraq. Contact your U.S. Senator immediately and urge them to propose similar legislation.

Impeachment May Be At Hand

"Impeachment is off the table."
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Inauguration Speech

A movement to impeach the president and vice president has swept the country in recent years. But particularly this last year. Several impeachment petitions have garnered 100,000 signatures and have been sent to Congress, which has systematically refused to even debate any of them. In response, movements have risen up at the city and state levels to get municipalities and state governments to declare their support for impeachment. The results have been impressive, with numerous ones making such declarations. Mine this year became the first state government to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. While these developments have been ignored by national politicians, Americans at the grassroots level support them. But all of these powerful actions by the grassroots impeachment movement may well be for naught if impeachment proceedings are not carried out by the end of this year, as, by next year, this duty will be much more likely to succumb to political pressure in light of it being Bush's last year in office.

The above fact was recently brought to the attention of Vote to Impeach's audience, which has responded forcefully. Their impeachment petition, which aims at forcing Congressional debate on the subject of impeachment by attempting to garner one million signatures, has, as of this writing, obtained 919,660 signatures. Only six days ago, it had 906,000. That is, in less than a week, it has obtained 15,000 additional signatures! That's a rate of 2,500 additional signatures per day! At that pace, the Vote to Impeach petition could reach its goal and be capable of forcing Congress to take up the issue of impeachment in just 33 days; barely over a month from now! In that consideration, I am most pleased to announce that impeachment proceedings may now be at hand! But we need to keep the momentum going. Tell as many people as you can about the Vote to Impeach petition and encourage them to sign. We can do this thing! We're on the home stretch, and we are winning!!

Which Candidate Best Suits You?

Here's a quick quiz to help you determine who you should vote for in 2008. The quiz compares where you stand on the various issues to where the various candidates stand and matches you up based on the degree to which your views are compatible.

My results were as follows:

(Democrats)

1. Dennis Kucinich: 88%
Social: 81%
Economic: 92%

2. Chris Dodd: 73%
Social: 75%
Economic: 71%

3. Hillary Clinton: 70%
Social: 75%
Economic: 67%

4. Barack Obama: 68%
Social: 63%
Economic: 71%

5. John Edwards: 60%
Social: 50%
Economic: 67%

6. Mike Gravel: 60%
Social: 81%
Economic: 46%

7. Joe Biden: 58%
Social: 50%
Economic: 63%

8. Bill Richardson: 38%
Social: 31%
Economic: 42%

(Republicans)

9. Ron Paul: 25%
Social: 31%
Economic: 21%

10. Rudy Giuliani: 20%
Social: 38%
Economic: 8%

11. John McCain: 15%
Social: 13%
Economic: 17%

12. Mitt Romney: 15%
Social: 6%
Economic: 21%

13. Tommy Thompson: 13%
Social: 6%
Economic: 17%

14. Jim Gilmore: 8%
Social: 0%
Economic: 13%

15. Duncan Hunter: 5%
Social: 0%
Economic: 8%

16. Mike Huckabee: 5%
Social: 6%
Economic: 4%

17. Tom Tancredo: 3%
Social: 0%
Economic: 4%

18. Sam Brownback: 3%
Social: 6%
Economic: 0%

War Contractor Sues Victims' Families

You won't believe this story until you read it, so read it for yourself. I thought that was pretty disgusting, personally. Did you know that, once upon a time, war profiteering was illegal? Difficult to imagine today, isn't it? Under the Truman approach, during wartime the government set prices and wages and banned military contractors from profiting. Pretty unimaginable today, isn't it? Yet the WWII era is recalled by those who lived through it (at least on the civilian side) nostalgically. It was a cause people were willing to sacrifice a few conveniences for. Perhaps that might have something to do with the fact that, for the U.S., WWII was a war for self-defense, not a war of aggression. There was a genuine spirit of cooperation for the war effort that clearly does not exist today. My grandmother lived through that era and has told me about these things from her perspective. She and I discussed the then-prospective invasion of Iraq back in December of 2002 and both of us opposed it.

Speaking of the Iraq War, you may be interested to know that the puppet government of Iraq has recently put out a warrant for the arrest of oil union leaders for calling a strike.

Blank Check to Wage War

Since Congress sent Bush his requested war supplemental with a timetable for combat troop withdrawal and some pork attached on May Day, which he promptly vetoed because of the presence of the latter two aspects, Congress has been in flux on what to do about Iraq. The House first attempted two resolutions: the first ordering the withdrawal of all combat troops within a nine-month period, which drew 171 votes (including a majority of House Democrats), and the second offering a budget that would give Bush his war money in installments instead of imposing a timetable for troop withdrawals. The first bill came short of passage obviously, with but 171 votes (out of 435 total House Representatives). The installments would have given Bush $43 billion in war money immediately and scheduled a vote on the second $53 billion for July. The installment budget passed in the House, but was considered dead on arrival in the Senate (fortunately).

Next, the Senate took up the debate. Liberal Democratic Senator Russ Feingold introduced a bill that would cut off funds for combat operations on March 31, 2008, forcing Bush to withdraw the combat troops by that time. The bill was co-sponsored by such high-profile figures as presidential candidate Chris Dodd and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The measure surprisingly managed to garner the support of some major Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary's support was very surprising, given that she has, up to this point, adamantly opposed any binding effort to withdraw the troops and, to this day, refuses to revoke her original vote to authorize the war. She gave reporters conflicting answers on her position in relation to the bill, first explaining "I'm not going to speculate on what I'll be voting on in the future." But a few hours later she said: "I support the ... bill. That's what this vote ... was all about." That, in particular, was a mystifying development. Anyhow, the bill managed to get the votes of 29 Senators, including 28 Democrats (the majority of Democratic Senators) and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Obviously, it failed to come close to the 60 votes required to pass over the heads of the Senate's minority party, the Republicans. But it was a noble effort. The Republicans introduced a bill that called for cutting off about $2 billion worth of reconstruction money for Iraq (out of the nearly $100 billion supplemental request), and made that cutoff non-binding by giving Bush the power to waive the requirement. 52 out of 100 Senators voted for it, but failing to reach 60 votes, it too failed to pass. Voting against were, among others, Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold, as well as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Finally, the Senate passed a non-binding bill stating the Senate's goal of passing a war funding bill by Memorial Day (that's this upcoming weekend, folks). 94 out of 95 Senators who voted on the legislation appallingly voted in favor! The lone dissident was Russ Feingold.

Then on Friday, a group of Congresspeople, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, met with Bush Administration officials to attempt to reach a (further) compromise. Pelosi initiated the discussion by offering to give Bush a waiver for the combat troop withdrawal timetable, effectively making it non-binding. Bush rejected it, claiming he would veto any bill that so much as included timetable language, binding or otherwise. Pelosi then offered to, in addition, remove all the domestic projects from the bill (the Katrina relief, the health care for children, veterans, etc.), effectively offering Bush an essentially clean war bill. Still, Bush refused the offer because of the timetable language. That was the end of the meeting.

Now we reach this week. Check it out, folks (and here for an updated account): The House voted yesterday (Thursday, May 24, 2007) by a vote of 280 to just 142 and the Senate also voted yesterday by a vote of 80 to 14 to not merely give Bush his record nearly $95 billion worth of war money, but to do so completely and utterly without conditions on his war policies. The only war policy conditions -- the requirements of proper training for soldiers and the conditions of $2 billion worth of reconstruction money for Iraq -- were made non-binding in the final bill by way of giving Bush the authority to waive both. While the bill does at least include a favorable domestic spending package that includes, among other things, long-overdue Katrina relief, health care for children, and an increase in the minimum wage over a period of two years from the current $5.15 an hour to a whopping $7.25 an hour (still not a living wage), it fails to, in any way, restrain the president's authority over war policy. To say that I am appalled would be an understatement! I am absolutely infuriated! This Congress was elected to end the Iraq War, and here it is giving Bush the green light to continue on doing as he wishes without condition. This move comes as public opposition to the war reaches a record high and a fevered pitch: a new opinion poll (as cited in the first article) shows that -- get ready for this -- an overwhelming 80% of independents oppose the Iraq War. That's four out of every five! Is the mandate of Congress not abundantly clear?

And what of the presidential candidates, you might ask? Where did they stand on this bill? It might be important to note in deciding who to vote for next year. Thanks to his early declaration of support for the bill and ultimate vote in favor of it, Joe Biden is now officially off my list of considerations for the general election. If he wins the Democratic nomination, I will not vote for him in the general election. The "front runners," Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, remained non-committal on the measure until the end, when they finally ultimately decided to vote against it, fortunately. House Representative Dennis Kucinich voted against it without hesitation, as he has every war supplemental. Senator Chris Dodd, who usually votes in favor of war supplementals, came out against this one early on and was the Senate's first presidential hopeful to announce his opposition to the bill. John Edwards also came out early against the measure and published a calculation that, even if one favored the measure (which Edwards doesn't anyway), Democrats cannot politically afford to give Bush his war money without conditions or they will lose their base next year. Personally, I will not vote for any candidate next year that voted in favor of this bill. While I have endorsed Dennis Kucinich as my primary candidate of choice and remain firmly behind him, my secondary (that is, back-up) options are increasingly looking Greener and Greener. John Edwards now is the sole Democratic candidate I would vote for for sure in the general election other than Kucinich if he won the party's nomination. I remain uncertain about Mr. Obama, but, having seen his health care proposal and his hesitancy on this of all bills, am leaning toward opposition.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law this afternoon.

Tell Congress to Stand Up to Bush

To briefly catch you up on what's gone down: Last November, Democrats were voted into control of both chambers of Congress running on a platform of beginning troop withdrawals from Iraq immediately (as in upon their ascendancy to control of Congress in January). Then, after the election was already over, they quietly removed the withdrawal tenet from their First 100 Hours Agenda. Four months after the beginning of the 110th Congress, we now have 30,000 more troops in Iraq. It took the Democratic leadership in Congress over two months to even begin considering binding legislation on Iraq at all. About a week ago, Congress finally passed the first ever binding legislation that even mildly challenged Bush's position on the war: it required that combat troops begin to be withdrawn from Iraq by October (a far cry from the Democratic Party's original January pledge) and imposed non-binding deadline for the completion of the withdrawal of the combat troops (which do not include all troops and contractors, but rather only about 50% of the troops), in addition to giving Bush more than all of his $100 billion request in war funding and passing his next budget, which quietly extends war funding into 2009. Confident that they had taken a real stand for peace, the Democrats in Congress held a celebration last Tuesday (May 1st). Only short hours later, President Bush held a press conference announcing he had vetoed Congress's fulfillment of his war funding request, brilliantly explaining that Democrats were responsible for his actions. In light of this new development, House Speaker Pelosi led the charge in declaring that "The president wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him."...right before announcing her intention to seek further compromise. One might wonder exactly how any further compromise is possible, considering how non-restraining the legislation already sent to Mr. Bush's desk was. One possibility that comes to mind is that of making the date by which troops must begin to withdraw non-binding as well. Congress is set to begin the debate over a new war funding bill immediately and may send the president a new one as early as this next week. This is where you come in.

John Edwards, anticipating this scenario, has recently authored a petition. His petition calls on your representatives in Congress to vote against anything but a binding timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. That is hardly an unduly demanding expectation. To send this message to Congress, the Edwards petition requires 100,000 signatures in the immediate future, as in before a vote is held on any new war funding bill, which, as I mentioned above, could happen as early as this upcoming week. With two-thirds of the American public in favor of establishing a binding timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, there is clearly sufficient support out there for such a petition to succeed. But this is a race against the clock. Please sign this petition now and urge your friends to sign as well. Moreover, I urge you to please add a comment to your signature specifically stating that you expect your Congresspeople to vote against any bill that provides more money for the war. This is very urgent! Please add your signature now! Thank you for supporting peace.