Pelosi on brink of big win with Iraq funding test

[Dover]

Source: MSNBC

Five members to watch in the House vote Friday



WASHINGTON - If Speaker Nancy Pelosi wins in the vote in the House Friday on $124 billion in funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, her victory will be largely due to two groups of Democrats:

Anti-Iraq war House members who voted last year against additional money for the war, but who’ve switched their votes, partly because the spending bill prescribes an August 2008 deadline for withdrawal of some, and perhaps most, U.S. troops from Iraq.
Rookie Democrats elected last November, most of them on an out-of-Iraq platform, who’ve decided to support the speaker in what is by far the most significant vote of her two-month tenure.
A Pelosi victory seemed increasingly likely Wednesday afternoon with one leading opponent of the spending bill, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., sounding fatalistic, telling reporters “it probably will” pass...cont'd





Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17728295/

[Robbien]

1. Wrong

Blue Dogs are fighting for control of the party. It is not surprising that it was the Politico who was was the first to spread the rumor that Pelosi will be a loser if she cannot twist enough Progressive's arms to vote along with this Blue Dog prowar bill.

Now MSNBC is picking up the misinformation.

Russ Feingold weeps.

[Monkeyman]

3. They are short two dam votes

[rodeodance]

2. Woolsey has fought the good fight but Bluedogs/mods rule.

[Hailtothechimp]

4. Jan Schakowsky stabbed me in the back by switching sides.

I have already called to express my disappointment, and will be composing an angry, but respectful, email shortly.

You don't end this war by voting to fund it. It's that simple.

[cali]

7. And I think you're wrong.

And that I'll send her an email thanking her.

This whole mess is anything but simple and simple minded sloganeering won't change the complexity of it, or the fact that House Dems span ideologies ranging from quite far left to quite far right, and represent districts that are comprised of the same.

[noamnety]

5. I wish they wouldn't phrase funding the war for another year

as a "Pelosi victory."

I imagine if I were an Iraqi, I'd find that incredibly insulting. As an American, I find it incredibly insulting.

[MadHound]

6. How can this be spun as a victory?

Bush is going to veto this as soon as it hits his desk. All this does is provide cover for the Dems, who can then throw up their hands and say "Well we tried, but got shot down. Now vote more Dems into power and into the White House so that we can stop the war at some vague point in the future." Meanwhile, the means for bring this war to an end lies fully within their grasp, burying all war funding bills in committee, thus effectively defunding the war.

But sadly, it doesn't look like that will happen, and the war will grind its bloody way on. And frankly, the Dems will continue to have only slightly less innocent blood on their hands than the 'Pugs.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Everybody calm down, and don't let the war profiteers fuzz your brains.

Our war profiteering corporate news monopolies call $124 BILLION in war spending a "victory" for the left. Typical. That's how they sold their plausible narrative for invading Iraq. By lying.

We have to figure out how the war profiteers can get away with this. It's not the narrative. That's just bullshit. How can they get away with it as a practical matter--with 75% of the American people against the Iraq War and wanting it ended? And I think the answer is quite simple: We have rightwing Bushite corporations "counting" all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code. I mean, what do you expect?

One of the Founding Fathers of the "Blue Dog" Democrats was Gary Condit, a man with at least three mistresses who proposed placing the Ten Commandments in every public building; a man who met with Dick Cheney on the day that one of his mistresses disappeared, and three days later voted for Bush/Cheney's first tax cut for the rich. This is who the "Blue Dog" Democrats ARE: BLAZING HYPOCRITES, who want to cut spending on everything but the military. They are the Dick Cheneys of the Democratic Party. And how do 'Democratic' Dick Cheney's get "elected"?

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things).

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy. These are the people who are STILL "counting" 80% or more of our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy--in 2006. The people were able to outvote the machines, in some cases, but not everywhere. By my estimation, these bad guys are putting a 5% to 10% thumb on the scales for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists, in both primaries and general elections. American democracy and the great progressive American majority are alive and well, but this great handicap on their backs is WHY they can't get their will implemented. There are, of course, other problems, but this is the coup de grace. This is the one that tips the balance in Congress toward the war profiteers and other fascist policy.

And THIS is what you should be asking Nancy Pelosi about. Not about the war and war spending. But about 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY vote counting in our elections, fast-tracked into place between 2002 and 2004 with $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding from the Anthrax Congress, engineered by Tom Delay and Bob Ney, and abetted by war/corporate Democrats, all of whom voted for it, and all of whom have been mind-bogglingly silent about this fascist coup.

If I saw the new Democratic majority addressing this OUTRAGEOUS Bushite corporate takeover of our election system in a meaningful way (which they are not), I would have more sympathy for them in dealing with an out-of-control tyrant. But their plan to reward these Bushite electronic voting corporations with billions MORE taxpayer dollars to "fix" an election system that they deliberately broke, is wearing my sympathy very thin. At best--at best!--they are going to keep the 'TRADE SECRET' code, and add a "paper trail" and a lousy stinking 2% audit*, meaning that 98% of the votes will never be counted, and the burden will continue to be on the public at large to prove who didn't get elected, rather than election officials having to prove who did.

This fascist coup occurred in October 2002--nearly simultaneous with the Iraq War Resolution--with the passage of the "Help America Vote for Bush Act." If you're going to have an unjust, illegal, heinous war, in a democracy--especially one with the Vietnam War in living memory--you have to fix the elections. That's what they did.

STRATEGY: Our no. 1 priority MUST BE restoring transparent vote counting, and it isn't going to be easy, and it's going to be quick. Congress isn't going to do it. We have to do it ourselves at the state/local level. One way may be to mobilize the big Absentee Ballot vote to get THEIR votes counted by hand, and results posted BEFORE any electronics are involved. It doesn't matter what machines they're using, as long as we have a count BEFORE the machines are employed. This will begin to build a transparent system by default. And it will snowball. Let the corrupt officials keep their crapass shiny new machines for data storage and reporting, but COUNT THE VOTES. And start by counting the votes of the voters who specifically want a paper ballot--the AB voters. And if we can get Congress to AT LEAST require a paper ballot backup everywhere--in the many states right now that have NO AUDIT TRAIL AT ALL--that would be a great help in restoring democracy. I'll be surprised if Congress does even that--a paper backup--we may have to fight that one out locally as well. And consider the OUTRAGEOUSNESS of this situation! --if you have any illusions about Congress. They TOOK AWAY our right to vote, and we have to beg them to give it BACK!

STRATEGY (near term): We need studies of the "Blue Dog" Democrats' elections. We need to discredit and disempower them. Were they (s)elected in touchscreen elections (no paper trail)? I would bet money on it. And, in that case, they have no legitimate right to be sitting in Congress.

STRATEGY: Every antiwar protest should have a prominent sign, "HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS!" We have 75% of the people opposing this war, and this is WHY they cannot get their will done.

HAVE FAITH! American democracy was not destroyed in a day, and it will not be restored in a day. But it CAN be restored. And if you don't believe me, Google Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and contemplate the huge, peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) revolution that is sweeping Latin America. If they can do it, so can we. And the keys to that revolution, that I have gleaned from study of it, are:

1. Transparent elections (!)
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.


-----------------------------

*(Venezuela handcounts FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the ballots, as a check against the machines--and that is in an OPEN SOURCE CODE system (anyone may review the code by which the votes are counted). WE audit ZERO % to 1%--in a 'TRADE SECRET' CODE system--depending on the stranglehold that Diebold/ES&S have on election officials and legislators. 0% to 1%! You wonder why Venezuela has a president that represents the interests of the majority, and we do not? This is why.)

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. How is continued death and destruction a "win"?

:wtf: