THE CRITICS OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS ARE BOTH UNINFORMED AND WRONG
WHILE THE 2006 ELECTION GAVE THE DEMOCRATS CONTROL OF BOTH THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE THE MAJORITIES ARE INSUFFICIENT TO OVERRIDE A BUSH VETO OR TO STOP A REPUBLICAN FILABUSTER
THEREFORE, TO GET LEGISLATION TO THE FLOOR OF THE SENATE FOR A VOTE TAKES, AT LEAST NINE REPUBICANS WHO ARE WILLING TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR PARTY’S LEADERSHIP
To override a presidential veto, it takes 67 votes or a total of 15-17 Republican votes (since the vice president’s votes in case of a tie and two of the votes are Independents) to override the presidential veto
THUS FAR, AN INSUFFICIENT NUMBER OF REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN WILLING TO DESERT THEIR PRESIDENT AND THEIR PARTY LINE TO ACCOMPLISH EITHER.
Or to vote to stop the war! It is not the Democrats, it is the Republicans in Congress who are blocking all of the Demos “bring the troops home in a reasonable and strategic timeframe” initiatives!
I get a little PO’d when stupid people make ridiculous comments on subjects about which they know nothing.
I often listen to CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to get an overview of the day’s events before the evening news comes on. Jack Cafferty, hosts The Cafferty File which invites emails on specific questions that Cafferty poses several times during the show. On (September 11, 2007) Cafferty posed a questions about the “do nothing Democratic controlled Congress.” I wasn’t near my computer or I would have scratched off a scathing email which I sincerely doubt he would have put on the air.
Before anyone associated with broadcast news starts to brand the Democrats “a do nothing Congress” they must understand the circumstances under which the Congress is working.
While it is true that the Democrats won control of both Houses of Congress, they did not win a sufficient number of seats in the Senate to bring legislation to the floor for a vote (it takes 60 votes) nor did they win a sufficient number of seats in the Senate to override a presidential veto (it takes 67 votes.)
Here is the breakdown of both Houses:
In the House of Representatives, the Democrats won 233 seats; and the Republicans won 202 seats.
In the Senate, 49 seats were won by the Democrats, 49 seats were won by the Republicans, and 2 seats were won by Independents.
Remember, that in case of a tie, the Vice President, Republican Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote.
This so called do-nothing Congress can do nothing because the Democrats did not win a sufficient number of seats to bring important legislation to the floor for a vote, and they did not win a sufficient number of seats to override Bush’s veto.
Regardless of how many times the Democrats vote to set a timetable for the return of our troops from Iraq, they do not have enough votes to turn the bill into legislation and nor enough votes to override the Bush veto which will inevitably be utilized.
The problem is that too many people continued to vote for Republicans to make this a victory for Democratic principles on the war, stem cell research, education, increased taxes for the top 2% of Americas wealthiest, health care insurance for all Americans, to allow Medicare to negotiate a volume discount for its purchase of prescription drugs from pharmaceutical companies, and on and on and on.
Of course, even if the votes were there and the Congress could pass a bill ending all funding to the war, the implications of such a piece of legislation are unbelievable: The following explanation appeared on Yahoo, September 12, 2007:
“The war is paid for through O&M, Operations & Maintenance. That is a huge pot of money that covers just about every military expenditure other than equipment purchases. It covers all of the bullets, some of the bombs, all of the food, all of the fuel, all of the transportation, all of the clothing, and all of the pay for the military.
…if you block the funding the military can not even pay the troops. They can not bring them home. They cannot feed them except from the stores of MRE. On those directly in harm’s way get anything at all. Everyone else gets …nothing, zip, nada”
We all want the troops home, but we obviously want them home
safely, without any deprivation of the necessities their life requires, and as quickly as humanly possible.
We would all love to see them come home having completed the assignment they were sent there to complete, even though most intelligent Americans know that it was the most dreadful foreign affairs error of any president in our history.
Victory is not possible in the civil war that has been on-going for the past two years. We are making some progress in minor areas of the country when we can station enough troops to not only get the job done, but to make in-roads with the community and soften their hatred of our occupation.
The problem is that once we leave the al Qaeda, or the renegade Shiite and Sunnis militia swarm back in and take over where we left off.
I believe that the best thing we can do is partition the country into three different states-one for the Kurds, one for the Sunni and one for the Shiites-- under the lose configuration of a federal central government which will hand out the money from the oil revenues which the Baghdad government has allegedly already begun to do.
To continue to try to create one democratically elected nation which will inevitably compromise the dominant Shiite sect is fruitless, costly and only a continuation of an attempt that has already failed beyond recognition.
Because Bush will not compromise and because the Congress does not have the votes necessary to override his veto, we must wait until this selfish, greedy little man and his minions leave office in January, 2009, ie. we must maintain the expenditure of $2 billion a week, with deaths mounting month by month and progress receding into the background like an old memory that fades slowly, but inexorably away.
4:54:08 PM 
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