Reuters reports this afternoon:
Democrats who lead Congress likened President George W. Bush on Thursday to a bully on Iraq war policy and vowed to spend no more on combat without a deadline for bringing U.S. troops home.
"He damn sure is not entitled to having this money given to him just with a blank check," Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrats' Senate leader, told reporters.
"Americans need someone fighting for them taking on this bully we have in the White House," he said.
Reid and other Democrats, who hold slim majorities in both houses of Congress, accused Bush of wanting a free-flow of hundreds of billions of dollars for the Iraq war, all the while being tight-fisted on the home front.
"Every dollar we spend in Iraq comes at the expense of people in America," Reid said.
Also, Reid is threatening to "keep the Senate in session until Sunday in order to vote on a $50 billion stopgap-spending bill for the Iraq War that also would call for a significant drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of next year."
"We'll either do it the easy way or the hard way. It's up to the Republicans," Reid said. "We will have a Sunday vote scheduled. ... If they want to give us consent to have a vote earlier, we'll do that. But if they don't, we're not only going to be here, we're going to be here working."
Reid said he would file a motion to limit debate, or invoke cloture, on the House-passed bill on Friday. If Republicans insist on using all the time available to them to debate the cloture motion, the vote would occur Sunday.
Reid also hinted that he would schedule a series of quorum call votes to make sure Senators stay in town through Sunday for the vote.
"There will be some votes," Reid said. "If people think they can leave town and avoid missing votes, they can't. There will be votes during the day [this weekend]. I have the right to call those votes and I will do that."