So today Nancy Pelosi did what she was elected to do, AGAIN

House votes to pull troops out of Iraq.... for the second time this year.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/12/iraq.vote/index.html

(snip)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to require most U.S. troops to leave Iraq by April 1, 2008.

President Bush with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She was part of a successful effort to pass a House bill that pulls troops out of Iraq.

President Bush vetoed a war-spending bill with a similar withdrawal date in May and has threatened to spike any new effort to set a timetable for a U.S. pullout. His Republican allies in the House said the new measure has no chance of passage.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday's mixed report on the progress of the war shows it's time for American troops to come home.

:sarcasm: <--- just in case

In the senate, so it was just a waste of time. Actually I'm supprised she didn't 'take it off the table'.

she calls Impeachment a waste of time. How is this any different? This bill has no chance at all of passing the Presidents desk without a veto. How is this any different than attempting Impeachment. At least with Impeachment if it snowballs and we get the votes we win, this has no chance at all of becoming law with Bush in the WH.. I really want to be satisfied with the Dems in Congress but they seem to be talking and acting in circles.

to this. If Bush vetoes it, it makes HIM look bad, not the dems. It puts more pressure on congressional republicans to support this. There's no downside.

A failed impeachment has a big downside.

The republicans failed to impeach Clinton and they took the House, The Senate, and the Executive.

:thumbsup:

Let's give her Nancy's job.

;)

First off, no fewer than 10 GoP Senators who failed to support the last vetoed bill bring the troops home in 08 are talking of supporting a new pullout resolution in the Senate. If for example all 10 of those Senators flip, that gives our side 64 votes. Just 2 short of veto override. So the wheels are turning on that.

Anyways, so basically you're saying that bills to end the war are a waste of time because they won't get past Bush's desk. What's different about impeachment? We wouldn't even come remotely close to the 66 votes needed to convict in the Senate. So what's the point? He's not going to be removed. Sure the House could pass the articles, but it will die in the Senate anyways. So how is Congress's time better spent on Impeachment when they could be busy twisting arms trying to get out of Iraq.

I keep hearing that we "don't have the votes" but how will we know till we try? And what I am saying is Impeachment is no more a waste of time than this is. Any means to the end. The quickest way out. Whatever will cost the least amount of lives. The Dems are acting as if there is no urgency to ending the war.. time, time, time, it takes time. Well I have plenty of time but the guys in Iraq don't.

That's reality.

a bare majority and one of our votes is Lieberman.

How do we get anyone to testify in an impeachment trial when Bush will claim Executive Privilege and the courts will back him up?

but I'm apparently in the minority. I think we should be throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. The Repubs didn't have the votes to get Clinton, they knew it. They went for it anyway. I would be on everyones side in this if there weren't lives at stake. But honestly everyone seems to talk about this like there is nothing on the line but political ideology, while that may be true for the politicians and us at DU, the grunts in Iraq aren't as lucky. They have no more time.

They didn't lose their majority, but they lost enough that the Democrats were able to recapture the Senate in 2000 (barely).

switched parties? I may be wrong about this but I think the Repubs had control till this dude switched sides..

that's correct. Then Jeffords switched to independent, caucusing with the Democrats, placing the Senate in the Dems control, yes.

I can't remember the majority that the Repubs had in 1996... maybe 54 to 46? But that lead erased in 1998.

Okay I looked it up:

In 1996 the GOP gained two more seats, making their majority 55 to 45.

And I stand corrected they did not lose one seat in 1998 - it remained 55 to 45.

But they did lose four seats in 2000, making it a tied Senate at 50 to 50.

That does make a difference you know. How is Bush going to defend himself if gets charged with articles of impeachment?

It's a whole lot different to stand up for a guy like Clinton who was at 65% in the polls than it is to side with a known criminal who is at 26%.

And that's the main point here. Everyone on the planet knows these guys are criminals, they admit it. They argue instead that they have a right to be criminals because they are above the law.

No one will stand with them on this in the Senate, not now, and if we do something soon, not ever. If we don't do anything about it though, who knows what's in store in the future.

People actually liked Bill. :)

we should be focusing on now -- and we should all be lobbying our Senators about the upcoming vote.

investigation, such as impeachment. Nixon tried it. Because it was an impeachment investigation into crimes, it isn't applicable.

Bush* will veto this bill and any the Democrats put forward. It takes the same number of votes to overcome a veto as it does removal from office. It only takes a simple majority to Impeach.

to over-ride a veto.

And it will never pass the senate, the Senate just turned down a bill yesterday to give the troops adaquate r&r.

There are so many pressing issues that need attention instead of pushing ideas that are doomed to fail from the start..../sarcasm

This one rare time I gotta disagree with you. I think with our tenuous hold on a Senate majority and only 18 months till we're rid of the little puke and his Master that and attempt at impeachment would be a waste of time. Plus it would tie up the government for the next year at least and would turn the electorate against us.

I really think that the Dems time would be better spent exposing the crimes of the Bush Cabal. I like what Conyers, Leahy, Waxman, etc are doing in their committees. I also think this motion by the house, if vetoed, should be submitted again and again to Shrub. I think that they ought to send a carbon copy of Webbs amendment to Shrub for him to veto. Every time he vetoes it and his Repug buddies back him up during the override vote then it paints them as the pro-war party. That makes them very vulnerable come election time when they actually have to face actual voters who are getting more and more sick of this war.

I know that it takes time man but so would impeachment. Sooner or later we'll get enough Repugs that want to get re-elected to get the veto's overridden. Then the troops begin to come home finally.

Precedent of failed accountability.

and it improves the chances that some on the GOP side of the aisle will see the wisdom in joining the DEMS- currently, that is the ONLY way to get further down the road TO impeachment.

THE PUBLIC has to make enough noise, exert enough pressure on THEIR reps, not just the one woman from one congressional district in California, to make impeachment do-able.

Every time bush vetoes something the public wants, it ratchets up the emotions, increases calls to D.C. and puts more pressure on GOP bots on the Hill.

It is not a waste of time to set bush up to fail in the public's eye. It makes We The People mad enough to do OUR job. That is a good strategy when a leader on the Hill does not have the solid numbers just yet to do what needs to be done. When a rip-roaring majority of THE PEOPLE put the pressure on, our reps on the Hill will be able to pull off some amazing things. But, there HAS TO BE a whole lotta constant pressure from most of the people in America to make it work. That is democracy in action: We The People.

She is being a good leader. She is leading the people to do THEIR jobs too. She isn't supposed to do this all alone. Expecting, and allowing a 'leader' to decide it all is exactly the mess we have to extricate ourselves from. Leaders LEAD and she is doing that.

You are saying that leglislation removing us from Iraq has no chance of passing, so try impeachment which has even less chance of passing since fewer congresspeople support impeachment than getting out of Iraq.

And if the point is to get out of Iraq and you have more votes for getting out than impeaching, wouldn't you focus on getting more votes to get out than getting impeachment which doesn't actually get us out of Iraq (Cheney, remember).



So, getting out of Iraq via leglislation requires:

veto proof margins in both houses

So, getting out of Iraq via impeachment requires:
impeaching Bush
impeaching Cheney
a new president that will get out of Iraq
legislation to get out of Iraq by majority or veto proof margins

Which is easier? It actually appears that impeachment gets in the way of getting out of Iraq which is garnering more votes as we go along.

there are a ton of other crimes that are worthy of impeachment - lying us into the Iraq war, outing Valerie Plame, the US attorney scandal, torture, signing statements, etc, etc, etc.

than not having the votes to stop the war.

and need to understand that this is a far more difficult process than debating a piece of paper on the House floor.

Nancy saw a few more R's had moved over and seized her opportunity... so when she may have to abandon this again, perhaps after the next Bush veto, I hope there are a few less DU'ers ready to lynch her.

all sides is that? Another 1,000 GIs?

much of its equipment. It has to be done in a coordinated, well-planned way in order to save the lives of as many of our troops as possible.

April is better than September, their last token attempt. It's still 9 months later than it ought to be (or 5 years later, depending how you look at it).

what it would take to get such bills past bush or why do it at all.
That evades the whole point. Of course, there is the publicity value, showing the country what a turd we have in the white house and there's no downside to that-more and more people will see and understand, but there's more.

What it does is show the country that that the democrats are pissed and willing to get emotional about it. As Swopa, over at firedoglake pointed out, liberals and progressives tend to be "dispassionately intellectual." We assume that the victory, in election debates and public persuasion, goes to the person who presents the tightest, most accurate and well reasoned argument.

'Taint so. People go for the decision or person who most appeals to them emotionally.

This is brilliant politics. Not like we haven't been calling on them to do this until we grew hair on our palms from frustration. Keep presenting the same bill, or a new one that more precisely makes the same demands and force the republicans to keep voting on them and exposing them to the public, over and over.

Today's bill had all the networks and all the talking head channels that I checked talking and barking. Coupled with the dramatic announcement showing the republicans' failure to rein in terrorism, even making it far worse and dangerous, it is beginning to sink in that they are total fuck ups who can't be trusted on any issue and their arguments sound shrill and nauseatingly repetitive.

Nancy and the house have gotten the message and even some zoned out "conservative" talking hairdos are starting to speak positively and a bit in awe about democratic backbone. We'd better be ready to apply some really good solutions and go to work-I predict landslide victories in both houses and the presidency, next year. (Then we can get on their asses about corruption and how to avoid it.)

Hit the bastards from all angles,and keep doing it over and over.Impeachment is what I want,but it's just one of many ways to go after them.They're all valid and doing their own part to end it.

If(big if) this makes it through the Senate, Bush will veto this bill much like he has vetoed past efforts of this sort.

While this looks good for Pelosi's future political run, it will change nothing. All that's going to happen is once again the lapdog Dems will throw their hands up in the air, claiming that they've done everything they could, while thousands continue to die.

But the little lie contained in this message is that the Dems haven't done everything they could. Impeachment should be back on the table, if for no other reasons than to show the world that we take our Constitution seriously. The Dems also need to grab the bull by the horns and defund this war. Hold up each and every supplemental war funding bill in committee and force the troops to come home. Anything else is morally wrong, consigning thousands and thousands to death and destruction.

How much of this bullshit are we going to take before we say enouogh is enough? How many non-binding resolutions and meaningless gestures are the people willing to swallow before they wake up and realize that nothing of any consequence is being accomplished with these political manuevers?

The surest, most certain way of ending this war, defunding it, requires no vote, no signature, just a collective spine on the part of the Democrats. Well, given their past record, I can see where that will be a problem.