Kerry-Feingold amendment. click to tell your senators (memo from them)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: No time to play it safe!
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 10:57:24 -0500
From: Russ Feingold and John Kerry <info@johnkerry.com>
Reply-To: jk4p-0031G065EH@mailer.johnkerry.com
To: xxxx



JohnKerry.com

SEND A MESSAGE

Dear xxx,

We need you to stand with us -- and we need you to do it now.

In the next 24 to 48 hours, we will go to the Senate floor to press for passage of the Kerry-Feingold Amendment calling for the redeployment of U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by a deadline certain. Our country desperately needs a new vision for strengthening our national security, and it starts by redeploying U.S. forces out of Iraq so we can wage and win a more effective war on terror and give Iraqis the best chance to stand up for a stable Iraq.

Tell your Senators: support the Kerry-Feingold Amendment on Iraq

Our troops have served valiantly in Iraq. Under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, they've done their job. Now, it's time to put the future of Iraq where it belongs: in the hands of the Iraqi people and their leaders. And it's time to listen to General George Casey and acknowledge that the indefinite presence of large numbers of U.S. combat forces in Iraq will weaken chances of defeating the insurgency and weaken our ability to fight the global terrorist networks that threaten us today.

In recent days, we've seen Republican leaders in the House and Senate shamelessly reject the opportunity for a genuine, meaningful debate on Iraq. They've resorted to a Karl Rove strategy of blindly endorsing President Bush's failed "stay the course" policy in Iraq and challenging the courage and patriotism of anyone who dares to point out the disastrous consequences of their failed approach.

It's time for every Senator to reject the lack of wisdom in their Iraq policies and the lack of decency in their Iraq politics.

Tell your Senators: support the Kerry-Feingold Amendment on Iraq

http://www.johnkerry.com/action/iraq/?sc=e.20060620

We have to reject calls for an unquestioning, open-ended endorsement of George W. Bush's endless commitment of U.S. troops in Iraq. And we have to reject the "play it safe" conventional wisdom, inside D.C. punditry that would have Democrats stand on the sidelines without doing everything in our power to change policies that we know are deeply flawed and dangerous.

We urge you to tell your Senators that it's time for a new direction. Ask them to endorse the Kerry-Feingold amendment calling for the redeployment of combat troops out of Iraq by a hard and fast deadline. Tell them to act for one simple reason: it's the right thing to do -- for Iraq, and for the United States.

Tell your Senators: support the Kerry-Feingold Amendment on Iraq

Act now to add your voice to tens of thousands of others from around the country who are actively supporting the Kerry-Feingold amendment. We'll see to it that your letter gets delivered to the Senate.

This is a critical vote on the most crucial issue facing our country. It's time for every member of the Senate to send an important message that we must change course. And it's time for you to demand leadership from those you have sent to Washington to represent your views.

We urge you to act immediately -- and we thank you for standing with us on this critical issue.

Sincerely,

Russ Feingold and John Kerry

Paid for by Friends of John Kerry, Inc.

.

And signed up again for JohnKerry.com action alerts.

I'm hoping that Biden & Carper are on board with this. I would suspect that BIden would support this but Carper is the moderate DLCer of the group and could be a wildcard

a) the public wants out of Iraq
b) the Iraqi's want us out of Iraq
c) to get out of Iraq, the first step is to get the Republicans out of Washington.

The war is over. It is time (actually way past time) to end the occupation. Come Dems, run on that!

and my daughter will tonight.

with conviction and pride!

I hope that it makes a difference.

notice that if you read the letter in the OP and the petition itself, neither mentions the actual "target redeployment date" ...

well, that's because the actual date is total bullshit ... it represents yet another weak yielding and refusal to stand up and tell the American people the truth ...

Democrats in the Senate just keep pushing that date back and back and back ... they know it's bullshit too ... they know that the likely path in Iraq will lead to total failure yet instead of pushing for the right policy, out now (i.e. as quickly as troop safety allows), they're peddling more useless politically calculated do nothing bullshit ...

no thanks ... you go get your warm fuzzies going along with this crap ... i signed on to the last proposal that called for "immediate withdrawal by May 22 if the Iraqi's didn't form "an effective unity government" ... does anyone actually believe the Iraqi government is an "effective unity government" ... i've been lied to for the last time ...

This is how he and Murtha have chosen to keep the pressure on to DO SOMETHING and keep the American people keyed to the discussion.

What was he supposed to do after May 22, go away and sit in the corner with his better plan? He is adjusting and doing it FOR US and the troops, whethet you see it or not. He's taking all the attacks for every move he makes - you aren't and I am not.

did you read the "editor and publisher" piece that the WP turned up? devastating ... nothing is going right in Iraq and nothing will ...

Democrats should put the pressure on bush with an "out now" message ... we should make it clear to the American people that our presence in Iraq is making things worse ... what message has Kerry delivered? his pitch is that by putting a little pressure (is it really?) on the Iraqis, maybe they will step up to the plate and things will get better ...

Kerry doesn't believe this will happen ... he knows the score in Iraq ... what's the point of sending this wishy-washy message? it makes no sense ... and when the next date comes and goes, like the others, he'll spin the wheel again to pick yet another date ... it's a party with a gray message ...

it's time for Democrats to really take a leadership role and say that US presence is making things worse, not better ... another year in Iraq? you've got to be kidding ... that's another 750 dead Americans ... and maybe another 5 or 6,000 badly wounded Americans ... and we leave the poor Iraqis with no path to resolution ... they're dying daily by the scores ... if civil war lies in their path, then civil war may be necessary ... the US is certainly not preventing the violence ...

and btw, get ready for the next massive US slaughter ... the rumors are ripe with a flattening of Ramadi ... how many more will Americans kill during "Kerry's year"??

you don't need to explain to me Democrats aren't calling the shots ... and you don't need to convince me Kerry would be handling this differently if he were president ... but the message we send, especially the message while we're out of power, is critically important ... this message, investing in another year of bush's madness, is just plain weak and non-descript ...

i think, even as pure politics, that "we've had enough", you know "enough is enough", is the right message ... let the republicans play their little "cut and run" games ... we need to go to the American people and say that bush has been given every chance and he has NOT MADE PROGRESS ... to fail to acknowledge what a disaster bush has made and to give him yet another year is "fuzzy logic" ... with an "out now" message, the republicans will be forced to reject bush's approach or truly take full ownership of the war ... with the Kerry-Feingold grayness, the message is: we'll buy in for another year and hopefully you can do better ... it's poor politics and horrible policy ...

i thought Mr. Kerry and I had a deal ... apparently i was foolish to think so ... i won't make that mistake again ...

ya to do in May" - where does that move anything forward? How does that pressure Bush?

He's applying PRESSURE to get SOME MOVEMENT from BushInc and doing it WITH other senators willing to stand with him and it likely took this tweaking to do it - they are going with a wider strategy now to spply that pressure. This is making for more of them, and it's still sooner than what the alternative Dem plan is.

You aren't taking the hits for it - he is - and he doesn't even CARE that he's getting trashed left and right - he keeps sticking his neck out anyway.

trust has been destroyed ... if he was planning to play his game of calendar roulette, he should have said so up front ...

i endorsed his April statement ... i'm done with him ... he gave his word and now he's off on his latest strategy du jour ... another year of guarding bush's oil wells doesn't cut it with me ...

rationalize this any way you want to ... it no longer matters to me what he says ... and btw, just so it's not personal, that goes for Feingold too ...

Kerry has never been a game player - and if you TRULY understood the battles he's undertaken, you would know that already.

The idea that Kerry should shut up now and offer NOTHING new and that he should STICK to a date certain that has passed is just.............. absurd. And it's UNPRODUCTIVE - it does NOTHING to keep even a challenge to Bush's way out there for the American people and the troops who want to get home SOMEHOW.

i certainly never said Kerry should "shut up now" ... what i said is that i will never trust what he says again ... what he should do is tell Americans that we are not and will not succeed in Iraq because Iraq is no longer a military problem ... he knows that; he should say it to the American people every single day ... silence is the last thing i would call for ...

and as for "offer NOTHING new", that is truly absurd ... how about offering the right answer instead of an idea du jour??? there's no inherent virtue in having a new idea every two months ... Kerry's April plan was much better than this latest nonsense ... new isn't always better ...

the result of negotiations between Kerry, Feingold, Boxer, and a few others in order to get an amendment that would include a deadline rather than an open-ended committment. (Kerry actually offered his plan a week ago, and, when this plan was brought to the floor by the GOP, received 6 votes for it).

I am a little bit disappointed that they felt compelled to change their date in order to get a few more democrats with them. But, from what you can see if you look around, even that is very impopular with many democratic senators, who clearly would have preferred to have nothing at all.

So the issue is really: would it have been better that he does not propose something in the senate (or that he let Reid bury his amendment). I am personnally not sure.

I think the real issue at this point is whether people can be effective within the US senate.

Kerry does NOT expect his amendment to pass and he does NOT expect things to improve in Iraq ...

the one place i disagree with your comments is "I think the real issue at this point is whether people can be effective within the US senate."

i think the one place we most need leadership is leading the American people and creating political pressure in November ... the Senate is dead ...

and none of this addresses what I, and I'm sure many others, viewed as a commitment to the anti-war movement ... some of us believed we finally had a voice in the Senate ... it's clear now that we do NOT ...

it's interesting to note that in Kerry's email about his amendment and in his online petition, the "redeployment date" is NOT even mentioned ... was this just an oversight or is someone playing games here?? sure looks like games to me ... adding six more months to this insanity is something he probably thought was best hidden away ...

bottom line: i thought we had a real handshake and a deal ... what's the point of tacking on 6 more months when no one is going to go along anyway??? pretty weird way to "negotiate" and it walked all over the progressive wing while doing so ...

He says what you want in almost every speech to keep it out there for the American people to hear truth they will never get from BushInc.

If you can't see that he is doing whatever he physically CAN do, then that's your deal.

Kerry's Amendment doesn't have a chance. Everyone knows this. Kerry admitted as much on TV. The Republicans are still committed to Bush and would never go for anything that has the word deadline or withdrawal in it. At all. Ever. They are married to the Bush policy, for better or worse.

The Democrats are inching toward a more unified position. There are a lot of Senate Dems, like the Nelsons and perhaps Blanche Lincoln, etc that are not for a withdrawal plan at all. They don't believe they can take this home and sell it to their constituencies. It is obvious that pressure was applied to Kerry, Feingold and Boxer to make them modify their amendment to withdrawal by next year.

As of right now, there are 6 or so votes for this. Six votes for the modified withdrawal that you believe doesn't go far enough. Kerry, et al, are trying to push the envelope and get the Democratic Party to take a withdrawal stand into the fall elections. So far, it doesn't look good.

The question people have here is why are you mad at Kerry? What about the 38 other Democrats who won't even utter the word deadline and who flinch at even the mildest mention of 'withdrawal plan'? Those are the people who need to be pushed. Those are the Democrats who won't face reality.

Kerry's amendment is legislation. It is not unilateral executive action. It is an amendment to a piece of legislation that has to pass by 100 Senators. Kerry doesn't have the power to enforce his will on the Senate or on the Dems in the Senate. He is trying to force a debate on getting America out of Iraq. It is also obvious that he is pissing off Democrats by doing that much. (Harry Reid wouldn't even mention him by name tonight. He called him just 'the Senator from Massachusetts.')

Kerry is not the problem, nor is Feingold. But this piece of legislation will not pass because other members of the legislative body will not allow it. It seems to me you should be mad at them, not at the people who are trying to push them toward a policy that you do agree with.

are you supporting Kerry's call for another year of war?

if your argument is that this is an effort to build unity in the Party, i would ask "what price unity?" i'm all for unity; i'm not for offering a seriously flawed and deadly alternative ... not to worry though ... if you think i'm only furious at Kerry and Feingold, you're wrong ... i couldn't be more disgusted with the Senate Dems than I am ...

but Kerry gets a special award for going back on his word ... i compromised my views to support his April plan; i've had it with him ... trust has been destroyed ... when the next plan falls through and the next and the next, Kerry will be calling for all troops out by 2015 or 2020 or 2050 ... there's no end in sight to this game of calendar roulette ...

at a time when the anti-war movement was searching for a voice in the Senate, Kerry stood up and gave us a few moments of hope ... i defended him against his many attackers because his position was important ... it was also just Kerry's position du jour ... his April position held up for two whole months ... did the situation change so radically that a new position was called for? the clear answer is: NO!!

oh, i just can't wait for my next call from the DSCC ... i thought Schumer's latest idiocy was going to be the headline ... not anymore ...

i will continue to support the Democratic Progressive Caucus in the House ... i will never support the Democratic Senate again ... let's hope our next presidential candidate does not emerge from the Senate ... if that happens, whoever it is will NOT have my support ...

just to be clear, btw, what Kerry's year buys bush is another year of using American troops to guard his oil wells ... the argument that the Dems have no real power doesn't wash ... the political pressure has to be to acknowledge we need to leave now because we are making things worse ... Kerry's message is that with the right strategy, we can still "win" ... the sad truth is, even Kerry doesn't believe this ...

I see this a pressure to get the Admin to get out of Iraq. I see this as a practical move to agree with the Iraqi government that also wants US troops out. I want the troops out of Iraq. Bush and his enablers in the Congress are not going to do this. Kerry is trying to get this done.

He and Feingold and a few others have been lone voices on this. They are trying to get a withdrawal. That's how I see it. You don't. Again, agree to disagree.

Just out of curiousity, who do you see emerging that will push the withdrawal plans any more than Kerry, Feingold et al are doing? In Vietnam, a major turning point happened when RFK turned against the war. Tip O'Neill turned against the war and that was sort of like when Cong. Murtha came out for his withdrawal plan. Still, it took years after these central people began to push hard for the war to actually end.

How else is it done? Who do you think will do this?

the support for the position i have in Iraq is found in the House ... hopefully, someone from there will "emerge" as a party leader ...

as for RFK, a couple of points ... my history, actually my memory, is not great ... if i recall correctly, RFK did NOT say we should "get out of Vietnam in one year", did he? truthfully, i can't remember but his words would have been meaningless if that's what he said ...

Kerry's "year of war" sends exactly the wrong message ... it says "we can still win" ... he knows it will never happen ... instead of putting pressure in the right place, i.e. on the republicans in the fall elections, he's entered into a quagmire of drivel ... and in doing so, Kerry just flushed any relationship he might have had with the anti-war movement down the toilet ... the relationship was tenuous but it had possibilities; that's blown to hell now ...

when trust is gone, it's gone ... way gone ...

the pressure to end the war was coming from the midterms ... guess we can forget about that now ... instead of making the republicans own the war, Kerry, and yes, the Democratic Senate too, just handed them a one year get out of jail free card ... it's hard enough to nationalize an election and make bush's performance in Iraq a "local" issue in the congressional races ... now, i think the issue will carry close to no weight ... what exactly will Americans understand about the distinctions between the parties regarding Iraq? whatever difference you might see will never sell this fall ... the wrong pressure was some vague pretense about giving the Iraqi government a deadline (a deadline they could never meet btw); the right pressure would have been domestic political pressure ... absent an "out now" or near-term deadline, you can kiss that goodbye ...

:applause:

They are my senators. It depresses me but I fear, I'll be stuck with the idiots, even after November.

PA here. But I signed to support Kerry and Feingold.
Thankfully, I'm likely to be rid of the worst of my two rethugs in November.