White House Wins On War, IMF Funds

As the clock began to count down the minutes that members of the House had to cast their vote on a war-funding bill topping $100 billion, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) waded into enemy territory.

The anti-war Democrat, who'd been whipping hard against the measure, stood behind a klatch of Republicans, watching the GOP computer and taking notes. It's not often that Kucinich and House Republicans find themselves on the same side. But the GOPers were determined to oppose what they call a bailout for foreign banks, and antiwar Democrats hoped to ally with them to block funding for wars they've long opposed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), meanwhile, hovered by the front desk, beaming. As the 15-minute vote wound down to zero, she was still far from the 218 she needed for passage, but she showed no sign of concern. The vote was held open as enough Democrats stepped forward to vote for the war money.

Fifty-one Democrats opposed the war funds the last time it came before the House. There was little pressure on them one way or the other. But when the Senate added the line of credit for the IMF and Republicans announced opposition, votes that had previously been worthless took on heightened value. The White House and Democratic leadership went into high gear, threatening and offering deals in exchange for a yes vote. This time around, 32 Democrats stayed as no votes.

Democrats who switched tapped Pelosi on the shoulder before walking back to their seats, swapping smiles, as Pelosi studied the lit-up board on the wall that displays the votes.

The tally hit 218, but Democrats seemed not to notice. When Pelosi looked up and saw it reading 220, she left the well of the floor and found Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wisc.), the Appropriations Committee Chairman, in his seat. The two shared a congratulatory handshake.

The vote was gaveled to a close, with five Republicans joining 221 Democrats. Pelosi turned her gaze back to the board, studying her members' votes.

She was no doubt pleased to see that these names sported a green box next to them this time, reversals from their previous no votes...

Clarke
Cohen
Cooper
Costello
Frank
Gutierrez
Inslee
Kagen
Markey (Mass.)
Matsui
McDermott
George Miller
Napolitano
Neal (Mass.)
Oberstar
Schakowsky
Thompson (Calif.)
Towns
Velazquez
Weiner

And those who stuck with their no votes...

Baldwin
Capuano
Conyers
Doggett
Edwards (Md.)
Ellison
Farr
Filner
Grayson
Grijalva
Honda
Kaptur
Kucinich
Lee (Calif.)
Lofgren
Massa
McGovern
Michaud
Payne
Pingree
Polis
Serrano
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Speier
Stark
Tierney
Tsongas
Waters
Watson
Welch
Woolsey

My book, This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America, is now out

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Comments

[gintheb]

How come republicans don't support the troops.....hmmmm???

[kappa08]

Where the Obama apologists?....What a freaking joke of a President.

[kareemachan]

oh you tr@//, you.

[kappa08]

you MUST be new....read my stuff yo. For me it's all about accountability and YES that includes the president i voted for that has 180's on:
wiretapping
Iraq extension
Gitmo
welfare for the rich
persecuting those that brake the law...

...some of us of character can handle speaking of the elephant in the room.
Go away rookie you don't have the a55 for this fight....

[Cookie100]

Baloney. There was enough money to bring them home, all of them.

He's turning into a neo CON, that's for sure. Why's he trying to please the right? They're

always wrong! No help for the polar bears even. The IMF is as crooked as a dog's

hind leg. The money goes to regimes, not the people. The people in the countries

face civil wars and strife, the money goes to fund junta's, pure and simple.

O is becoming someone I don't know, and in such a short period of time.

I volunteered and donated and called and called, for a progressive, not a CON!

[urnumbersix]

I'm mature enough to know that I will SELDOM support every provision in any legislation. I know better than to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

The way our Democracy is set up, guarantees that I won't like some provisions Obama and/or Congress supports. It sucks - but it's better than any other form of government in the world. As has been said, the legislative process is like making sausage - ugly to watch how it's made. I accept that.

What I AM glad to see is that when Obama wants something - he can work his will with Congress! Pelosi came through, she's got skills. They are iron fists in velvet gloves. (I'm still doubtful on Reid's skills.) This bodes well for health care reform and energy legislation.

So, Congrats, Mr. President. Keep up the good work.

[kappa08]

"It sucks - but it's better than any other form of government in the world."...­.definitio­n of American arrogance. You think so?
I guess scamming the a group that put Obama in office is "better"...
Wire tapping
Gays in the Military
Health Care
Torture
Reneging on Gitmo
Reneging on time lines to end our illegal occupation of Iran
...how much more evidence do you need to realize we got jobbed. By a feckless weak willed man only interested in making friends and forcing those that supported him to eat their vegetables while the other side gets to get their way....

[urnumbersix]

With all that name-calling, you must be a GOP Tr0ll.
Not even clever.
How much they paying you to comment on HP?

[kareemachan]

Okay, which government do you think does things better (now, not during Shrub's administration) than ours? I would really like to know, as I truly believe that some countries do things better than us, but I'd like to read what you think. Respond, or it's all BS, BTW...

[freedomis]

How can anyone smily when the object of the vote was to kill people in bogus war that is going to get bigger and in congress,pats on the back like we just won the big game?It is dishartening and disgusting.Tony

[freedomis]

Sorry about the spelling,I got mad.Tony

[LemonMeringue]

...proving that if the Dems want to pass something they can do it.

Let's see if they fail us on health care.

[SangZe]

Rest easy, they will.

[kareemachan]

Gee, you must want corporations to make money off our deaths, neh?

[RoloTomassi]

The most important point here is largely missed, or so it seems.

The funds for the IMF are what I truly hoped would cause defeat of this bill, but cluelessly the majority supports the troop funding bill with little consideration to what gets attached.

As progressives [some of us, anyway] we are anxious to see financial system and healthcare industry reform, yet many seem oblivious to the potential for IMF interference in US policy should our current "green shoots" of recovery turn out to be a false impression based on dishonest accounting at the mega-banks.

Should the US economy fail in a manner far worse than what is currently imaginable, we could be looking at IMF intervention; I assure you that the GOPer/free market fundamentalists know exactly what that means, and while such might be played up as a disaster to the general public, in actuality it would be a dream come true for such corporatists. Such would finally give them the excuse to kill ALL major social safety net programs, and likely remove any meaningful market regulations, all set out in a pre-designed IMF economic restructuring agreement, an agreement that is required to access IMF funds [never mind that we just contributed $108 billion to that pot].

Extreme paranoia? Perhaps, but there was a significant oppostion by progressive dems to this funding based on the heinous practices imposed on borrowers of IMF funds.

Such is to be dismissed at our potential peril.

[Sweet-Marie]

I am and always was against this war and escalation in Afghanistan. But we have troops there and are heavily mired down - are we to take money from our troops now? My only wish is that Obama doesn't make the same mistake Lyndon Johnson made with the Vietnam war, and will be able to wind down operations in the Mideast by the end of his term.

[Pleneras]

President Obama bill supports our military's shelter, food, protection, gear, salary, etc. It is not a bill to fight a 3rd country. Bush & Cheney have started 2 wars, one of which was innocent of any involvement with 9/11.

Any citizen who does not support a bill to fund the welfare of our soldiers is unpatriotic.

[Republicrats]

Why is he escalating the war in Afghanistan?

[Pleneras]

He is not escalating a war. That was Bush & Cheney. He is escalating a search for Bin-Ladin and Al-Qaeda. Big difference. He is not attacking the citizens or the government which is what your statement is implying! Bottomline this fund is to support our troops not to wage a war against a "country"!

[-swift]

Afghanistan was, not too long ago, a pretty reasonable place. Then the Russians invaded and we helped force them out. For a quick view of that history, watch the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". At the end of that, most of the population was children. We abandoned them. That's when extremist groups like the Taliban took over. Afghanistan became a safe haven and excellent recruiting grounds for terrorists.

If we walk away again, the Taliban will take over, Bin Laden and his ilk will set up camp again, and we'll be doing this all over again in a few years. We need to stabilize that country, build a working infrastructure, remove the extremists, and let the people choose what government they want. It sucks for our troops, but we have a pretty big share of the mess, and a big stake in the results.

[JanSP1971]

Agreed. I am against these wars and always have been but.... we have to take care of our women and men fighting and we MUST take care of them when they come home. Yes it is un-American not to take care of our brave women and men that have done their best to follow the orders they were given.

[Pleneras]

They need to be funding till we remove them slowly and bring them back home. Not funding them is like sending a naked person to the streets.

[WarrenChristmas]

QUOTE
____________

Any citizen who does not support a bill to fund the welfare of our soldiers is unpatriotic.
____________

There is no way in hell I am going to support any troops sporting swastika tattoos.


http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/neo_nazis_army/

Nor am I going to support any money that goes to gearing up swastika-tattooed skinheads to fight in the American armed services.

My brand of patriotism will not abide that.

[WoodyIV]

Ending the Iraq front responsibly takes money people.

[Republicrats]

It was about attaching bogus (IMF bail-out) strings to the war fund bill, not about the troops, responsible congresspeople from both parties understand protecting our troops while they pull out....

[Republicrats]

Why do US Presidents like to wage war?

Its about all they realistically can do.....

[SangZe]

Apparently they have murder in their hearts.

[YewNeekId]

From a videotaped interview, October 27, 2007

OBAMA: I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home, we will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.

Obama's promises don't mean anything anymore......

[t iessa]

Hate to tell you, Sport, but they never did. You all just didn't recognize what a bill of goods you were being sold. Oh, well...live and learn.

[Pleneras]

Go take a hike. He has promised to shift them to the proper location where al-qaeda is concentrated. Your just one person who is insignificant. Your primative colonial views keeps the USA in the dark ages. I hope you refuse social security, healthcare, educational deductions for your children, etc.

[scooperss]

Pffffft.

[UncommonSenz]

He NEVER said it would be done overnight. In fact, he used a 12 month deadline repeatedly, and ended with a 16 month deadline.

He ALWAYS said there should be more troops in Afghanistan.

The problem is not with his promises,. or in keeping them, it is in your refusal to LISTEN to what he said.

[SEQUOIABISON]

This is the first time since his election that I was hoping Obama lost the House vote he was pushing for.

It was Liberal democrats who originally supported Kucinich that put Obama over the top in the late primaries, I am very disappointed that the president has not utilized the many diplomatic skills of Congressman Kucinich, he needs to surround himself with people like the peace promoting congressman instead of high ranking generals.

Dennis Kucinich should have been his first choice for the Supreme Court or Secretary of Defense.

[LemonMeringue]

Dennis Kucinich and his lovely, accomplished wife should be our President and First Lady. But America is not that pure.

[UncommonSenz]

Kucinich is not taken seriously because his ideas are not at all practical. "Bring the troops home right now" is wishful thinking.

We should never have been in Iraq, but we are. WE destabilized it. WE made them defenseless and dismantled. If we left instantly, WE would be responsible for what followed, which would be mass murder (from an entire range of factions who want that).

As for Afghanistan and Pakistan, if you don't grasp how much the world will change if the Taliban acquires nuclear weapons, then you are willing to risk the planet to unspeakable damage, just because you can't grasp that in some horrible cases, war becomes a necessity to survival. This is one of those extreme cases.

Lastly,if you reduce the troops in Afghanistan, you INCREASE civilian deaths because you increase the use of air strikes, which is the main cause of innocent bystander deaths.

"Pure"... not a word that ever fits well in a political discussion.

[Nonamnesiac]

Just like the early years in Vietnam -- a liberal Democratic President and a liberal Democratic Congress aggressively funding war crimes, an escalation of war and an occupation in conjunctiion with some of the most corrupt "allies" in the world.

This is no longer Bush's war. As of yesterday's vote it is Obama's war, Pelosi's war and Harry Reid's war. It is clear that the lying, opportunist, war criminal Obama would have voted to invade Iraq in 2002 along with the majority of Senate Democrats had he been in the Senate at the time,.

After all of the crap about the Democrats opposing the war, the White House and the Congressional leadership actually put pressure on cowardly Democrats in the House to vote to continue acting as cowardly war criminals against a geometrically economically and militarily weaker adversary. It's clear that so-called progressives, even people like "Move-On. org", think it's OK for Democrats to order and commit war crimes but it's not OK for Republicans to do so.

Obama is a two-bit, lying, cowardly thug, just like his predecessor.

[Gretel1or2]

Yeah, I'm sure you knew that about Bush after 6 months of his presidency.

[UncommonSenz]

Vietnam didn't have nukes. Pakistan does.

It is bewildering that some STILL don't understand that.

[Nonamnesiac]

US troops in Iraq and/or in Afghanistan have no impact on nukes in Pakistan at all -- none. Another dishonest diversion by pro war crime forces to confuse the American people into supporting the war crimes and thievery that are the Iraq and Afghan occupations and wars.

[JackNasty]

Vietnam's allies China and the Soviet Union both had nukes.

[furey]

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/

[furey]

“The momentum of Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.” - Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, 1997

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/the-ones-who-attacked-us/