If taxes were raised to pay for the war, it would be over by now. What the congress needs to do is raise taxes everytime the war budget comes up.I Gurantee the war will be over sometime next year.

Discontented Cows

A guy goes into Circle K to buy a gallon of milk.

The clerk scans the milk and remarks to the store manager, “The price has gone up again. Did you know about that?”

The manager shrugs.

“Yeah, fifty cents,” the customer says.  “Damn greedy cows.”

“Yeah,” says the clerk. “Looks like they aren’t content with grass anymore.”

We might all soon come to the conclusion that: WAR is what they want.  To continue to pour Trillions into their greedy hands so they can build things up and destroy it again, over and over as they inwardly laugh, but overtly apologetic, and taking all that money into their banks and some offshore account that no one can touch.  They already have a vault full of it, but they want more.  Those greedy fucking bastards.  If this congress votes to funding this war, it should be a day for reckoning for them all.
Take care and this fight goes on and on…

Maybe it doesn’t apply, but Members of Congress might think about whether or not they would be liable for war crimes for funding it.

In a “stranger than fiction” world, don’t be surprised if Bush and his war-of-agression conspirators face indictment on war crimes. Some in Congress, like those who voted for the Military Commission Act, are treading close themselves:
http://gdaeman.blogspot.com/2006/12/bush-and-conspirat ors-should-be.html

I’m afraid I don’t get the angle that says the Congress is “controlled by” the Republicans.  The Democrats certainly are free and able to filibuster, read floor speeches, vote against the Republican position, and generally remind the President that only the Congress has War Powers.

Unfortunately the Democrats are not doing these things.  Which means that the Congress is not “controlled by” the Republicans… but rather, the Congress AS A WHOLE, DEMOCRATS INCLUDED, is acting the unctuous sycophant to Dubya Bush’s immature, whimsical prerogatives regarding war profiteering and the destruction of the Iraqi people.

Stop blaming the Republicans while giving Democrats a free pass.  When there’s no opposition voiced by either party’s members, then it’s the fault of both parties.  Plain and simple.

WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS. This is what we are told from the first remembrances of CIVIC COOPERATION. WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS. We are
conditioned to follow the laws of our communities, respectively. We are taught that hard working, honest, people that FOLLOW THE LAW are rewarded, and people that BREAK THE LAWS suffer consequences.
This band of TREASONOUS CRIMINALS have lied to get AMERICA into an ILLEGAL INVASION of A SOVERIEGN NATION, that had absolutely nothing to do with TERRORISM, PERIOD. They have set it up so that AMERICAN TAXPAYER MONIES are distributed amongst SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS by way of awarding NO BID CONTRACTS to the very companies that those EXECUTIVES were in charge of just prior to them taking their respective positions in this current administration.
This administration has TOTALLY DISCARDED OUR CONSTITUTION, and attempted to implement laws that will undoubtedly be found to be UNCONSTITUTIONAL. This administration has constantly INTRUDED into the personal lives of ordinary citizens, breaking so many of our laws that one would have to consult an attorney just to know where to begin.
All of this and I haven’t even gotten to THE OATH that these CRIMINALS all took to hold their respective positions in this current administration, which actually charges each and every one of those TRAITORS with the task
of PROTECTING AND DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION, not the PEOPLE, or THE CORPORATIONS. 
Now I will add to the CULMINATION of CRIMES. That which is the most DISPICABLE.  The amount of AMERICAN BLOOD, which at last count stood at 2842 soldiers killed in action, not to mention the IRAQI BLOOD, which depending on whatever poll you choose to believe, ranges from approximately 45,000 INNOCENT CIVILIANS to over 600,000(IRAQI) people killed, pouring over the hands of those EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS of this CURRENT ADMINISTRATION.  This BAND of TREASONOUS CRIMINALS cannot be allowed to ESCAPE from OUR LAWS without being held ACCOUNTABLE for the crimes they have committed against the AMERICAN PEOPLE. They must also be made to stand for the HORRIFIC ATROCITIES committed against the country of IRAQ. IT IS TIME FOR IMPEACHMENT. 

Sincerely,

George Grover
408-732-2523

The President cannot (long?) prosecute a war that no longer formally exists. The article talks about the “helplessness” of Congress and the people to do much about the current problem, but neglects to point out that, under the Constitution, Congress is empowered to say when we are OR ARE NOT at war. President Bush has derived most of the authority for his abuses in warmaking—and in prosecuting the War on Terror at home—from the congressional authorization to use force. Congress can rescind that authorization and direct the Executive to bring the troops home as soon as possible. But will they? Do we really want to bring the troops home, or do we simply want to bash Mr. Bush for another two years?

I agree that the GOP may have sprung a trap for the Demos: the pincer forces of the flagging economy on the one side and the tarpit mideast war on the other may so encumber the Demos that only a hawkish ex-military candidate can win the Presidency, with the promise to get us out of Iraq (given the cooperation of a friendly congress, which the voters will also be asked to elect). Very likely, such a candidate will come from the GOP. Who on the other side can credibly out-hawk the Republicans?

It amazes me to see how our politicals parties claim to be different, even though it is becoming increasingly evident that they pursue the same greedy goals.  How can they think that the American people cannot see through this double talk?  Funding this Neo-Con agenda amounts to treason.  Rather one claims to worship Democratic Greed or Republican Greed it is still Greed.

Forcing DoD to “pay for replacing hardware—planes, ships, vehicles—out of its regular budget. The troops would still get their money; rapacious defense contractors might not”—is a very good first step.

Democrats will have to determine a careful strategy for de-funding this war; but de-fund this war THEY MUST. Congress has the power of oversight, and the power of the purse, so the responsibility now falls to the Democrats--thank God--to implement those powers in full, according to the Constitution of the United States.

Summoning Gates and Pace to justify every dollar in public hearings for each funding request to explain why US troops should remain and the American public must pay for it is Congress’ job. The Bush administration must defend, to the American taxpaying public, why we should sacrifice our nation’s security, and treasury on the alter of Bush’s illegal war.

But that is not enough: Bush and Cheney should be impeached. They’ve bankrupted our national defense, as well as our treasury and committed the gravest of crimes--treason--by lying to Congress and to the American people about the reasons for it.

Please, let’s not take lessons in Constitutional law from a dunce who once said “It’s the Legislature’s job to make the laws and the Exexcutive’s job to interpret them.”

Article 1, Section 8:

“The Congress shall have the Power To...Declare War.”

We’re in Iraq becuase the Congress passed the Joint Resolution of OCtober 2, 2002, not because Georgie Boy feels like having an excellent adventure to show off to his daddy.  If the Congress decides there is no further reason for us to be in Iraq, they can resolve that too, and Georgie’s job as Commander in Chief will then be to command 150,000 American soldiers to get their asses out of Iraq - nothing more than that.

And speaking of that resolution, take a look at it again:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/200210 02-2.html

(Now, I’m presuming that the White House hasn’t doctored their presentation of it...big assumption, I know.)

Take a look at all of the “whereas” clauses and count for yourself how many of them have any remaining validity.  Wonder why there has been a such a big argument about whether Iraq is involved in a civil war?  What does it matter?  Well, the reason it’s relevant is that none of the “whereas” clauses of the Congressional authorization will still have any validity if Iraq is indeed engaged in a civil war.  A country half way across the world that is being ripped apart by civil war constitutes less threat to the security of the United States than does, oh, I don’t know...Canada?

Should we feel guilty about destroying Iraq?  Sure.  Unfortunately staying there does nothing to fix it.  The situation is roughly analogous to an infection caused by a sliver.  You can throw all the meds you want at the infection, but until you remove the sliver the infection will not go away. 

We are the sliver in Iraq.

Only time, a lot of bloodshed and a lot of sorrow will bring Iraq to whatever resolution is in their future.  America, led by George Bush, supported by a majority of his fellow citizens, blinded by white hot, bigoted rage, caused it all.  The only question before us now is how long we want to compound our sins by staying there. 

We need to get out of Iraq now.

WAKE-UP FOOLS,THE BILL$ AIN’T BEEN PAID YET !
From Justin’s column today(antiwar)
**********************************************
Mearsheimer-Walt thesis on the Lobby’s vanguard role in fomenting war with Iraq is taking root. As the two distinguished professors put it:

“Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”

Citing Philip Zelikow’s by-now infamous remarks that the war was really all about the threat to Israel, and not the U.S., Mearsheimer and Walt reference a report in the Washington Post that

“‘Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.’ By this point, according to Sharon, strategic coordination between Israel and the U.S. had reached ‘unprecedented dimensions’, and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programs. As one retired Israeli general later put it, ‘Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non-wmd.....

How can anyone, with any common sense, think that we need to support the troops by, allocating a huge sum of money, that I, or many Americans can not even comprehend, to leave them in that part of the world, were they live with the very real possibility that their next second on earth, might be their last. Our brave men and wonen in uniform have done everything they have been asked to do, and so much more. They now truely need the support of the American People, please phone, E-mail, write your elected representitives, and let them know, we are not in favor of allocating one more cent to this attrocity.
This congress was given a mandate to end this debacle in Iraq, if they do not have the fortitude or guts to do so, then they need to resign their elected position, for they do not represent those who put their faith in them to do the right thing, for our troops, our citizens or the surviving family members of the 650,000 Iraq dead.
It is time to bring our heros home.

Before he spends a penny......he NEEDS to get approval from “parents of Authority” sitting in the 110th.

And yes I was hoping that he the occupant could NOT have that doggie in the window!

It cost to much in BLOOD and $$$$$.

All the best,
Sincerely,
Concerned Mother

Yes, spending, and the red-ink fountain that drives the wheels of ‘progress’...8.5 trillion in red ink, to be more precise, 8.5 trillion that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon unless somebody sharpens up the budget axe, and has at this growing hydra-like monstrosity that’s still mostly welfare checks. I think we do a lot of things for ‘the economy’, try this, do that, experiment over there, but one thing we’ve quit doing is being a manufacturing country. A lot of that has been permanently ‘outsourced’, and not coming back anytime soon, companies like Ford and GM have established toe-holds in other countries to forestall disaster the day the housecleaners stop by to clean house. Ford has bought out something like 15,000 of their former career employees, offering them lump-sum retirement in order to balance their books.

How many of our 50 states run ‘in the black’, any that you can think of? Me either...there must be some, maybe we should seek to emulate their principles and example once they’re identified.
There’s no earthly reason to run deficits other than that the politicians and their lobbyist cronies will it to be so…

help stop this country from becoming a fundamentalist theocracy aiding and abetting a kleptocratic war profiteering police state that continues to remove civil liberties from americans on the premise of fighting a never ending war on a transitive adverb

Dick Cheney’s Halliburton needs more money for the honcho before his second term goes to an end and only huge masses of people are taking pain to survive.

Democrats either are clueless, scared to death, or both.  They are being set up for the ultimate takedown, and that is in 2008 they will be paying the price for the Iraq war becaue the Republican slogan will be “well they kept funding
the war so they must be for it.” They have no choice but to cut the President’s out of control allowance.

As sad as this president is in his lying and manipulations, it is even sadder that the Dimmos are starting to climb on board with K street. We all know the military-industrial complex is one of K street biggest consumers.
Already the “ Free Trade “ status of Vietnam has been endorsed by the dimmo Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)as a boon for American workers...pure bull shit.Vietnamese labor is even cheaper than China. As always, the power of Washington just crosses the street and the status quo is copacetic, once again.

It’s pretty simple, even for politicians, cut off the money to anything and it ends. The funding for the current debacle is the one thing the Democrats can do something about and we’ll soon see if the last election was worth the trip to the polls.
No one is going to leave the troops in the field without ammunition or equipment, they will simply be brought home. If the Democrats consider it “unpatriotic” to save lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, well then we’ll all see just what we’ve elected.
Sadly enough I think we already know.

Many Americans know of Ike’s warning about the Military-Industrial Complex, but it remains a nameless, faceless and abstract entity in the minds of most people. For a clearer explanation of the concept, it should be called the Military, Industrial, Congressional Complex. The concept becomes clearers still when we realize that it is a jointly owned and controlled economic enterprise shared by politicians and corporations, and not just American politicians and corporations. It is also an Internationally owned and controlled enterprise with many foreign fingers in the pie.

Many of the companies with a finger in the pie are publicly owned corporations but others are privately owned. Most of these companies are owned and controlled by American allies, but some are not. Our new Global Economy is so mixed, it’s hard to know who owns what anymore. But in any event, we would be wise to acknowledge that foreign politicians and investors may not necessarily have America’s best interests at heart. They are all seeking profit, but at who’s expense.

Marie Cocco and legions of other reasonable and responsible commentators continue to write and speak about Iraq as if it were (and might be dealt-with as) a ‘thing’ in itself, rather than only one component in a conglomeration of circumstances entangling absolutely every element in the make-up of the United States.  They also insist on treating the overall “situation,” in all it’s overwhelming complexity, as just another, albeit a particularly difficult, “day-at-the-office,” rather than the totally “through-the-looking-glass” trip into uncharted existential territory that it is.
That “White House official” who boasted of their having become creators of “realities” everyone else could only react to had it exactly right.  Just because everything they’ve come up with so far turns out to be constructed of group psychoses, grandiose delusions, monumental ignorance, and juvenile pipe-dreams (among other such flawed materials) doesn’t render the claim any the less valid.  And those who dismissed it out-of-hand as mere hubris or rhetorical over-reaching set themselves and others who listen to them up to be pretty easy pickings for the mind-fucking vampires who’ve so-far shown remarkable resistance to all these “voices of reason” who fall further and further behind-the-curve every time they shake their “cooler” heads in-wonder at the latest plot-twist in this “Tale Told By An Idiot” brought to life before their very eyes.
Ronald Reagan wasn’t kidding when he kept telling you “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Well, this Indian has, and I’m here to tell you it’s coming soon to a neighborhood near you, America.  The howling emptiness at the core of your all-American “dream” has finally found its perfect expression in the corporate national security apparatus ......this monstrous ‘changeling’ squatting where your strangled republic used to be. 
You can’t blame the “opinion-makers” for shying away from the terrifying prospect so plainly before them.....especially since so many of ‘em have worked so faithfully for so long putting “the best face” on something Native Peoples saw first-hand, in all its ravenous madness, over half a millennium ago.  Better forget about “normalcy.” You can’t get there from here, except by going through hell.  Americans have taken their first nervous steps on a trip through the ten thousand fates worse than death.
It might be small comfort to you now, but some of us have made the journey, and lived to tell about it.  Maybe some of you will, too.

As the jaded Vietnamese bar girls on Tu Do Street in Saigon used to taunt the broke and hard-up GIs: “No money, no honey!”

As Dennis Kucinich says, we should withdraw our military from Iraq using the $70 billion already appropriated by the last Congress. The Warfare Welfare and Make-Work Militarism porkers can fight over the rest later.

I cannot believe the Democrats can’t see this Republican trap shaping up. Time to call their bluff and end any further spending on military occupation or operations on Iraq’s territory or in its airspace. Time to respect the “sovereignty” that we relinquished to those poor people years ago.