CNN/AP: Congress weighing strength of its war powers

[DeepModem Mom]

Congress weighing strength of its war powers
January 30, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- No one challenges the notion that Congress can stop a war by withholding the money to pay for it.

In fact, Vice President Dick Cheney challenged the Democrat-controlled Congress to back up its objections to President Bush's plan to put 21,500 more troops in Iraq by zeroing out the war budget.

Few expect such a drastic move, but there are other legislative options to force the war's end, say majority Democrats and some of Bush's traditional Republican allies.

The alternatives range from capping the number of troops permitted in Iraq to cutting off money for troop deployments beyond a certain date or setting an end date for the war.

"The Constitution makes Congress a coequal branch of government. It's time we start acting like it," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin, who is chairing a hearing Tuesday on Congress' war powers and forwarding legislation to eventually prohibit spending for the deployment of troops to Iraq.

His proposal, like many others designed to force an end to U.S. involvement in the bloody conflict, is far from having enough support even to come up for a vote on the Senate floor.

Closer to that threshold is a nonbinding resolution declaring that Bush's proposal to send 21,500 more troops to Baghdad and Anbar province is "not in the national interest." The Senate could take up that measure early next month....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/30/war.powers.ap/index.html

[C_U_L8R]

1. Oh come on.. stop posturing

and DO SOMETHING !

[The Stranger]

2. No wonder the Democratic Party is so fucked -- even after being swept into power across the nation,

it still can't do the very god damnned fucking thing it was elected to do, and which polls overwhelmingly support -- stop the fucking war.

[Kagemusha]

3. That'd take 2/3rds majority power in both houses

So fucked? This is normality. Congress needs unity to make full use of its power.

[The Stranger]

4. The polls show 2/3 majority power of the people want it to happen.

Give the people what they want.

[Kagemusha]

5. Go tell that to the Republicans.

Please.

[The Stranger]

7. Does that assume all of the Democrats are on board?

Or are they all still trembling with fear that Faux News is going to show pictures of them with the caption: "Abandoning the Troops?"

[Kagemusha]

8. Even if they were all on board, it doesn't matter.

So why act with burning outrage that the Democrats can't force the war to end? On their own, they can't, and it doesn't matter what they do. Fine to criticize them for not doing enough. But to blame them for not being able to do it at the snap of their fingers and making a little dance is a bit unfair and unrealistic.

[The Stranger]

9. Not necessarily -- if they were all on board (like the GOP often is), the dynamics would change.

Two-thirds may not be a problem -- especially with a leading Republican and Senator from Nebraska practially leading the charge.

As it is now, by settling for less with a non-binding resolution, they have made it seem difficult even to get that. The non-binding nonsense should have been their fall back position.

[Kagemusha]

10. I repeat: thoroughly unrealistic. The dynamics would not change.

Hagel has been isolated and mocked. The party has rallied around its leader, the sitting President. They have no intention of allowing another Republican president to resign, let alone see him impeached like Clinton, let alone removed like Clinton was not. Those are long term vital political interests of the Republican Party and from their perspective, outweigh even the political damage Bush is doing right now, and far outweigh the damage to the US Military in Iraq.

The Republicans will not magically come around.

[The Stranger]

11. Repeated wrongs do not a right make. Imminent Iran attacks mean that the Democratic Party

(and, honestly, any conscious American) has -- at the very least -- "long term vital political interests" at stake and, "from their perspective, (these) outweigh even (any) political damage" to which they could possibly be exposed by failing to override a veto.

[Demeter]

6. An Alternative? Declare War on the Executive Branch

It would be the logical reaction to BushChenyCo policies over the last 6 years....