Ever since the new Democratic Congress was sworn in in January we have seen numerous futile votes to set a date certain for withdrawing from Iraq.

Apparently the Democrats in charge have finally seen the light and decided maybe they had better get to work on a domestic agenda because if they pin their hopes on us losing in Iraq those hopes are dimming.

“Iraq has always been the 800-pound gorilla in the room, but there are other issues to deal with,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “We did well with our initial agenda. Now we need to move on to a broader agenda.”

But there’s another driving factor under the radar: a latent concern that Iraq may not be as favorable a political issue for Democrats a year from now, as images of brigades of U.S. troops coming home could well be flickering on American television screens.

“They’ve run millions of dollars of ads and had untold rallies and protests, but they’re actually losing approval” on the war, said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “How’s it going to look when troops start coming home next year and, while most people are holding a ‘Welcome Home’ sign, they’re left holding a MoveOn.org ad or Code Pink banner?”

Of course I still have a problem with their domestic agenda.

They are going on about the SCHIP program as though President Bush cut the program and wants all children to not have insurance.

In fact, President Bush had an increase in his budget request for SCHIP, but no one in their right minds would think of a 25 year old as a child. No one, that is, except the Democratic party.

They want to fix health care. Fixing health care by nationalizing it is no fix. Subsidizing families that make over $80,000 per year by allowing their children free health care is not fixing health care. It’s socialism at its best, at least in the first stages.

My daughter is a teacher and says “No Child Left Behind” is a sorry program from her viewpoint. I don’t know anything about it except my grandchildren in Texas were in an underperforming school and were given the opportunity to transfer to a different school where they are both flourishing.

I think my daughter is complaining about all the t’s that have to be crossed and all the i’s that have to be dotted.

This was a bill President Bush asked Sen. Ted Kennedy to write, and yet the Democrats are unhappy with it.

If a child is in a failing school then let him go to another school where he can do better and let the failing school come up to standard or be closed and the teachers and administrators put in line to find a new job.

It’s strange that so many of the citizens of Washington DC want voucher choices for their children. Why would they want that if the schools were meeting expectations and why won’t Congress approve school vouchers? The teachers’ unions. That’s the answer plain and simple.

The Democratic leaders want to have negotiations to improve our energy program. We have some energy right now below the tundra in Alaska. It is on isolated land and can be gotten without harming the environment, but no one wants to touch ANWR because they have convinced themselves it will ruin the environment.

As pointed out in the Republican debate Tuesday, we haven’t had a new nuclear facility built in over thirty years and no new refineries built in over ten years.

One of the candidates mentioned liquefying coal and using it as a resource. We can’t depend totally on ethanol and the good graces of the oil producing nations or we’ll all be huddled in caves, burning what logs we can find to cook our food and keep warm.

There are plenty of things Congress can fix if they don’t care who gets the credit. It’s way past time for politics and way past time for bipartisan efforts to improve the future of our country.

Nancy had big words to say the day after last year’s elections, but it seems they were only words and her base is not happy with the leadership of the Democrats in Congress.

From a Sept. 26 editorial in the Boston Globe we read this:

LAST NOVEMBER, Nancy Pelosi proclaimed, “The American people spoke with their votes and they spoke for change and they spoke in support of a new direction for all Americans . . . nowhere was the call for a new direction more clear from the American people than in the war in Iraq.”…

…”We know that ’stay the course’ is not working. It has not made our country safer, it has not honored our commitment to our troops, and it has not brought stability to the region. We must not continue on this catastrophic path . . . The American people with their votes yesterday placed their trust in the Democrats. We will honor that trust. We will not disappoint . . . Democrats are ready to lead. We’re prepared to govern.”…

I haven’t seen much governing coming from Congress, in either chamber since the last election. All I’ve seen is futile attempts to set timetables to withdraw from Iraq.

Even now, with the surge apparently working, Pelosi told the Globe on Sept. 24:

“It was George Bush’s war,” she told the Globe. “It is now the Republicans in Congress’s war. . . . This is a historic blunder of such magnitude that it boggles the mind.

I’ve heard her repeat that line so many times now it sounds like the phrase “Culture of corruption” she tried out last year so much. Is this what the Democrats are going to run on in the next election?

What if we are successful beyond their wildest imaginations by this time next year and they have pinned their hopes on a useless phrase giving the credit to the Republicans in Congress as well as President Bush for being successful?

Pelosi talked without perhaps realizing she was in her own quagmire, straining to repeat and amplify what she said last November. She called Iraq a “war without end” and a “catastrophic blunder . . . I feel poverty stricken for the words to describe what a mistake this was for our country, for our national security, for our reputation, for our young people first and foremost.”

The reality is that the Democrats remain poverty stricken to find the words that truly get Americans behind them to force Bush to get out of Iraq….

…The Democrats have not yet impressed the country. Last month, a CNN poll found that 55 percent of Americans thought the Democrat-led Congress has been a “failure.”…

…Pelosi promises that the Democrats are “taking off the gloves” on Iraq. It is clear that Americans would like to see more clearly what is behind the punch.

Or, to go with my analogy, I would like to see how strong her dentures are. I’m betting not very.

Imagine for a moment that this was a Republican Congressperson. There at a minimum would be cries for apologies to this reporter.

While the Congresswoman had no business putting her hands on this woman, I am sure it will be played as no big deal if it is pursued which I doubt it will be.

Isn’t it sad when journalists have to “ambush” elected officials to secure information which pertains to taxpayer money.

It has come to the point that these people are so insulated by the walls of the House and Senate that there is absolutely no access unless they choose to allow it. Why can’t they just answer a simple question? Silly me, I always thought they were there in our best interest.

The President gave an interview to a few journalists Wednesday afternoon. There is a terrific overview of all the topics addressed at NRO.

I wish I would have been there to hear the President comment on Moveon.org’s ad pertaining to General Petraeus.

The president blasted MoveOn for their “Betray Us” ad in the New York Times and the Democratic silence in response to it. “I was incredulous at first and then became mad.” The president said, “It is one thing to attack me — which is fine.” But the president’s view the attack on Petraeus as “an attack on men and women in uniform.” He said pointedly: “I was looking for the voices from leadership on the Hill and I didn’t hear too many.” He said, “This is wrong” and added that the ad “was uncalled for…and so was the silence” from the Democrats on the Hill.

Mr. President, I don’t think there is any leadership on the Hill any longer, at least not the kind to which many of us were accustomed.

Thanks Mr. Thompson for saying what needed to be said. And in short order no less..we don’t see that very often these days in the political arena.

Also, if you missed it, courtesy of Fox News here is Rudy Giuliani on the President’s speech and Hillary Clinton’s remarks to General Petraeus at the Senate hearings.

We need more of this strong, to the point talk. Lot’s more.

After the Petraeus report it seems the Congressional Democrats’ hope for Republican defections to order a quick withdrawal from Iraq is going to end up in frustration again.

Senate Republicans, bolstered by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus’ war report this week, are closing ranks and say Democrats will continue to fall far shy of the votes needed to force a pullout from Iraq.

Republicans facing intense antiwar pressure in home states, such as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, and the party’s war critics, including Sens. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, say the general’s congressional testimony helped persuade them not to switch their votes.

“I’m supportive of a reasonable plan which they offered,” Mr. Lugar said on PBS’ “NewsHour” after Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq, called for withdrawing about 30,000 troops by July.

President Bush, in a prime-time address tonight, is expected to endorse the general’s plan to return to the pre-surge force strength of 130,000 troops by July.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who failed repeatedly to muster enough votes to compel the president to accept a pullout plan, yesterday said he will try again next week with measures to force significantly larger troop reductions.

“I call on Senate Republicans not to walk lockstep with the president as they have done for years,” the Nevada Democrat said. “It is time to come over and join us.”

Mr. Reid said Democrats will introduce four to six war bills, including measures for large-scale troop reductions and to transition the mission from combat to training Iraqi forces and conducting counterterrorism operations.

He did not provide details of the legislation, but the characterization of measures was nearly identical to failed bills from earlier this year.

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott has been checking the votes and feels the Democrats will, once again, fall short of the 60 votes necessary to pass any of these bills.

Someone once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. This is the very definition of partisan insanity on the part of the Democrats, but they really don’t seem to have any plan other than get out of Iraq.

Republican leaders also say the Democrat-led Congress’ fixation on the war is preventing action on essential legislation, such as fixing the alternative minimum tax and passing spending bills for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.

Can anyone name any significant legislation passed by this Congress?

It’s been eight months since the Democrats took over the legislative branch of our federal government and, other than a minimum wage hike attached to a war funding bill, no significant legislation has been passed.

They say Americans voted for a change in November, and maybe they’re right, but I doubt the American electorate voted for the same futile votes to be taken over and over again.

The Senate is going to be hard for the Republicans in the next election due to retirements and so many senators’ terms being up for re-election.

Based on the last election I’d say things are very close in this country as the Democrats didn’t win huge majorities in either chamber or huge victories in many districts or states.

If the American people begin to see the surge working they are not likely to insist we give up. We like victory too much and I doubt we have changed that much over this one war.

Americans need to understand we must prevail in this war against radical Islam or we will all be doomed to their rule over us in the future.

Unnamed sources have told the AP the GAO will give a mostly negative report about the progress made by the Iraqi government in the benchmarks set by Washington in January.

WASHINGTON — Congressional auditors have determined that the Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush’s Iraq war strategy, The Associated Press has learned.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure progress in the rush into Iraq of increased numbers of U.S. troops are unfulfilled ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline for Bush to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is not yet public, also said the administration is preparing a case to downplay its findings, arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, “all or nothing” standards when compiling the document.

The GAO is to give a classified briefing about its findings to lawmakers on Thursday. It is not yet clear when its unclassified report will be released, but it is due Sept. 1 amid a series of assessments called for in January legislation that authorized Bush’s plan to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq. The Americans already have more than 160,000 in-country.

I guess it all depends on how one measures progress. How much legislation the people wanted when we elected our Congress has been passed since January?

We’re heading into September and no sign of an official budget has been seen as ready by our Congress.

What major accomplishments have our experienced Congress members made since January? Can you name them? Some would say the minimum wage increase but that was tacked onto a war funding bill and not done as a standalone.

The pork has been sliced pretty well for all those folks back home though. Served with gravy and all the other trimmings.

So far what I’ve seen from our Congress are members standing on steps or in offices or hallways to proclaim there’s a new sheriff in town or a new investigation being launched or they have a mandate to do certain things such as stop the war, and that’s all they’ve done.

If we compare the two maybe Iraq’s government comes out ahead or at least is equal to the dismal job our Congress has done.

Speaks for itself.

One of the Senate’s top Republicans has called on President Bush to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by Christmas, telling reporters Thursday that a pullout was needed to spur Iraqi leaders to action.

Sen. John Warner, the influential former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he has recommended that Bush announce the beginning of a U.S. withdrawal in mid-September, after a report from the top U.S. officials in Iraq.

Story

I guess that they take care of their own.

Florida’s top police agency said Wednesday its investigation into former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley’s lurid Internet communications with teenage boys has been hindered because neither Foley nor the House will let investigators examine his congressional computers.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says it hopes to conclude its investigation next week. Foley, a Florida Republican, resigned from Congress on Sept. 29 after being confronted with the computer messages he sent to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill.

“We have requested to review federally owned computers that Mr. Foley used during his time as a representative, but the U.S. House of Representatives … cited case law restrictions that prohibited them from releasing those computers,” said Heather Smith, an FDLE spokeswoman.

Smith said that the House claims the computers are considered congressional work papers, and that only Foley can release them for review.

Story

It couldn’t happen soon enough. Who knows? With a new leader peace might be possible.

Declaring the government of Iraq “non-functional,” the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq’s parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.

“I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.

Story

I guess the once gutless wonders are coming out swinging. Good for you.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., has been summoned to court on assault and battery charges after an incident at Dulles Airport on Sunday night where he allegedly pushed a United Airlines bag claim employee.

Filner allegedly attempted to enter an employees-only area, pushed aside an employee’s arm and wouldn’t leave when asked, according to a statement from Courtney Prebich, assistant media relations manager for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Filner disputed the account in a brief statement issued by his office.

“Congressman Bob Filner is on his way to Iraq, visiting our troops, and will have a full statement when he returns. Suffice it to say now, that the story that has appeared in the press is factually incorrect _ and the charges are ridiculous,” the statement said without elaborating.

Story

The Democrats came into office promising things that they couldn’t deliver on. Now it’s time to pay the price.
This post isn’t meant to be for or against the war. I only posted it because I am tickled that congressmens feet are being held to the fire. It’s about time.

Anti-war groups knew U.S. Rep. Timothy Murphy was going home to Pittsburgh for this month’s congressional recess, so they baked him a cake.

“Rep. Murphy Welcome Home Bring Them Home,” was the Iraq troop withdrawal message written in green icing that greeted the conservative Republican at his district office on August 8.

For the 535 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, the August break traditionally is a time for family vacations, foreign travel, campaign fund-raising and meeting with voters.

For Democrats and lobbying groups working to end a war now in its fifth year, August has been a chance to challenge supporters of President George W. Bush’s war policy on their home turf and in the run-up to Congress’ war funding debate next month.

Congress is catching up with public sentiment against the war and Democrats have several times won approval of troop withdrawal plans only for them to be vetoed by Bush or tripped up by Republican opposition. Still, there is a bipartisan realization that tens of thousands of U.S. troops are likely to stay in Iraq for many years.

Story

Is he the worst? I don’t know. One thing you have to realize is that this article is from the nation and even I as a Democrat know it’s a liberal publication. It does make for an interesting read.

Dennis Hastert, who served eight years as the most lamentable Speaker of the House in the chamber’s history, began a slow exit from the Congress Friday. It was on that day that the former wrestling coach, who attained the speakership not on the basis of any political skills or policy expertise but because he was willing to front for the unpalatable Tom DeLay, announced his decision not to seek reelection from the Illinois district that has elected him since 1986.

Among the fifty men and one woman who have held the speakership since a German-born pastor named Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg filled the position for the First Congress, there have been more than a few disappointments. Aside from the indicted, the disgraced and the disreputable, there have been the indefensible — like Howell Cobb, who used his pre-Civil War speakership to promote the extension of slavery. Cobb would eventually find his true calling as the speaker of the Provisional Confederate Congress and the acting president of the southern states that seceded from the U.S. in treasonous defense of human bondage.

Could the shambling, ineffectual and frequently inarticulate Hastert really have been a worse Speaker of the House than a crude proponent of slavery, or a crook like Jim Wright or a conniving partisan like Newt Gingrich? Absolutely.

Story

It’s a little late to shape anyone’s opinion about Congress. We know what you’re all about and I hope you pay the price in every district in every state. I’m talking about Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats and Republicans are mounting a fierce battle to shape voter impressions of Congress during August’s political lull, convinced that they must define the story line of the 2008 congressional election before voters are swamped by the presidential campaign.

The opening salvo of television and radio advertisements, automated calls and fundraising appeals is unusually intense this early in the election cycle, and it comes just seven months after the Democrats took control of Congress.

But lawmakers, pollsters and Congress watchers say it is not clear whether the Democrats have convinced the public that they can do the job an angry electorate handed them in November — or whether, once again, all incumbents will be vulnerable next year, regardless of party.

Story

This just isn’t right. Thank you my fellow dems. for screwing me again.

Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.
Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.

They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.

The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.

Story

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has announced he will not run for re-election in next year’s race.

“It was a great personal privilege and honor for this former teacher and wrestling coach to have been elected and to have served the American people,” Hastert said in a news release.

Hastert was scheduled to speak publicly about his decision at an event for supporters outside the Kendall County courthouse.

The L A Times reports this discussion in today’s edition, in which Hastert talks candidly about how he felt as Speaker of the House.

Rep. J. Dennis Hastert on Thursday said he had felt like a “prisoner” of his office as House speaker, unable to enjoy the camaraderie of his fellow lawmakers.

As Hastert prepares to formally announce today his decision not to seek reelection to the Illinois seat he first won in 1986, he reflected on a political career in which he became the longest-serving Republican speaker.

After the 2006 election gave Democrats the majority, ending Hastert’s eight-year reign as speaker, he lost the trappings of a grand office, plane service to and from Washington, and the security detail provided to the second in the succession line to the presidency (after the vice president).

But returning to the life of a simple congressman from Plano has been rewarding, Hastert said, letting him renew friendships with other members that hadn’t been possible when lawmakers were looking to him for favors.

“When you are speaker, you’re almost a prisoner in that office,” Hastert said. “You really didn’t go out of your office, because they had 26 people asking you for something without an appointment, just trying to grab you. You were vulnerable every time you walked out.”

Now, he said, “I can get on the floor and talk with people and kind of touch everybody without the same people in your face asking for something all the time.”

Still, Hastert said it was time to leave Washington and his diminished role in shaping policy.

“I see an awful lot of policy being made that, you know, I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “But that’s what being in the majority and the minority are all about.”

He said he planned to serve his full term, but he wouldn’t rule out leaving early.

The only thing I’ll say is if he didn’t like the trappings of the office he should have stepped down and let someone else do the job. No one forced him to remain Speaker.

Senior congressional aides are saying the White House wants to limit the Petraeus report to a private congressional briefing, while the White House says that has been considered but they will not shield Gen. Petraeus from public testimony to the Congress and will abide by the legislation passed in May.

The congressional aides say the White House wanted the Secretaries of State and Defense to deliver the public testimony, but since the White House acknowledged making the proposal and still says Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will make the public testimony, it seems like much ado about nothing at this point. In other words, it seems settled it will be public testimony by the General and the Ambassador in addition to a private briefing, so why go public with the argument when it was already decided?

Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration’s progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense.

White House officials did not deny making the proposal in informal talks with Congress, but they said yesterday that they will not shield the commanding general in Iraq and the senior U.S. diplomat there from public congressional testimony required by the war-funding legislation President Bush signed in May. “The administration plans to follow the requirements of the legislation,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in response to questions yesterday.

Gen. Petreaus is quoted by the AP in the same article as stating that by about a year or so from now we will have a smaller troop presence in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters traveling with him in Iraq yesterday, Petraeus said he is preparing recommendations on troop levels while getting ready to go to Washington next month. He declined to give specifics.

“We know that the surge has to come to an end,” Petraeus said, according to the Associated Press. “I think everyone understands that, by about a year or so from now, we’ve got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now. The question is how do you do that . . . so that you can retain the gains we have fought so hard to achieve and so you can keep going.”

Rep. J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Speaker of the House of Representatives longer than any other Republican is rumored to announce his resignation from Congress after this term.

I was never a big Hastert fan, although I can say it seems nice looking back now realizing I didn’t see his face in the news every day.

When he sided with those members of Congress who thought the F.B.I. could not search William Jefferson’s congressional office for evidence in a bribery scandal, he lost me for good. He showed that he and other Republicans as well as Democrats think they as Congresscritters are above the law.

He presided over a lot of corruption in the House; corruption that is still going on and some that is still being investigated after having been carried over to this term.

He was not the first choice to be Speaker of the House when Newt Gingrich resigned, but because Larry Flynt was all excited about revealing sexual peccadillos of Republican Congressmen, the chosen leader, Bob Livingstone was forced to resign. Enter Denny Hastert.

The rest, as they say, is history.

We’ll see if his seat, which he has held for many years, will flip or remain Republican.

I don’t know what to say except that I am so disappointed in these Democrats.

For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. “This is the issue,” said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, “that makes my blood pressure rise.”

McConnell viscerally objected to a Democratic proposal to limit warrantless surveillance of foreigners’ communications with Americans to instances in which one party was a terrorism suspect. McConnell wanted no such limits. “All foreign intelligence” targets in touch with Americans on any topic of interest should be fair game for U.S. spying, he said, according to two participants in the Aug. 2 conversation.

McConnell won the fight, extracting a key concession despite the misgivings of Democratic negotiators. Shortly after that exchange, the Bush administration leveraged Democratic acquiescence into a broader victory: congressional approval of a Republican bill that would expand surveillance powers far beyond what Democratic leaders had initially been willing to accept.

Yet both sides acknowledge that the administration’s resurrection of virtually unchecked Cold War-era power to surveil foreign targets without warrants may be only temporary. The law expires in 180 days, and Democrats, smarting from their political defeat, have promised to alter it with new legislation to be prepared next month, when Congress returns from its recess.

“The real train wreck happens in September,” said a senior administration official involved in the negotiations with Congress. He was referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s declaration hours after the bill’s passage that portions are “unacceptable” and that the public will not want to wait six months “before corrective action is taken.”

Story

I’ve been hearing a lot from Congress and some presidential candidates that we need to undo the tax cuts of the Bush Administration to make things fair.

I have a proposal for all the millionaires and multi-millionaires in Congress and on the presidential trail. It’s quite simple, really.

When they publicly show they have returned their tax cuts and paid the higher rate I will do the same.

I still have the old Turbo Tax software that shows the old rate and I’ll calculate it to get to the rate it would have been before the tax cuts.

Until then I don’t want to hear about tax cuts from any politicians.