Today Members Of Congress Vote For Lots Of Death, Destruction And Calamity

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who remembers Senator Barack Obama talking about how dishonest and unacceptable emergency supplemental budgets to fund war are. And it looks like today he's back asking Congress for another one. As he said, "unacceptable." Congress couldn't find money to keep the economy from turning around towards Depressionville but for the tragic farce in Afghanistan...? I was in college during the Vietnam War. I couldn't sleep at night because I felt like my taxes-- sales taxes is all I was paying-- were somehow being used to kill women and children on the people of Southeast Asia in a war the Military Industrial Complex demanded from Democratic presidents and which was continued by a Republican president. I burned my draft card in the very first big NYC anti-war demonstration and went to jail with Allen Ginsburg, Dr. Spock and the Fugs. I left the country... ironically, for Afghanistan! I stayed abroad for almost 7 years. I don't really want to do that again. But I'm starting to feel very much the way I did when we were slaughtering Vietnamese civilians.

It looks like the House'll be voting on whether or not to just keep shovelin' the money down this toilet. It's as though Vietnam never happened and no one ever learned a damn thing. On a call with bloggers yesterday Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) made it clear that he did learn: "We’re going bankrupt; we can’t extend unemployment insurance, but when it comes to Karzai, we’re a bottomless pit." It's exactly what the Republicans want to happen. What did we need Obama for again? (Watch Alan Grayson explain why the fiscally responsible thing to do it to end the war.)

$700 million a month, every month-- and, let's be real, with no end in sight-- is an awful lot of money, particularly for a country that can't afford to pay unemployment insurance to two million Americans thrown out of work because of failed socio-economic experiments by conservative ideologues and greed-obsessed banksters. In a live chat at Crooks and Liars yesterday, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, in response to a question about what the Progressive Caucus is going to do about stopping the war funding, he said, "We have demanded a separate vote on the war supplemental so that all members can take this vote of conscience without being asked to vote against teachers and other necessary domestic programs and spending. The Caucus itself doesn't have a singular position, I'm afraid to say. A significant group within the Caucus is voting 'no'." He's joining the other members of John Conyer's Out of Afghanistan Caucus before the vote today to talk about congressional opposition to the war and how the public has been turning more and more against it.

“This failed effort has cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars and more than a thousand lives,” Grijalva said. “We have no indication from our foreign policy leaders what we hope to accomplish in Afghanistan or how we intend to do it. The country has literally become a dead end for our troops, and our economy can’t sustain billions more in spending that we’ll never see back. This $33 billion is not an investment in our future or Afghanistan’s future. It’s time to put a stop to it.”

As we saw yesterday, the transpartisan War Party-- the Military-Industrial Complex which President Eisenhower warned us about and that has a firm grasp on the levers of power in our country-- had to do a balancing act, allowing progressives to vote for domestic funding while holding onto the GOP votes that oppose domestic funding but will spend anything on military wastefulness. Later today, after the vote, we'll update this page with the names of any significant good guys or bad guys in the debate and vote. Meantime, here's something from our man on the Paul Ryan beat, Dave Sherbula, that makes more sense than what we're likely to hear from half the Members of Congress:

I'm confused. The US is spending billions to protect us from the evil doers in Afghanistan. Boatloads of money. Or, more accurately plane loads of money. To keep us safe.

They said. But now they say it is the evil doers and the mineral wealth.

Which is it?

They can't even keep us safe here. From US, natural born and bred citizens.

Have you read the daily body count in Chicago and Milwaukee? 

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago when John Wayne Gacey was burying the 30 something boys in his crawlspace. Then you have Jeffery Dahmer snacking on people in Milwaukee.  Don't forget the granddaddy of them all Ed Guin, the inspiration for Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. The cast goes on and on. Just ask Charlie Manson or Son of Sam. How about the Hillside Strangler?

Then you have the gangs.

I can't speak for everyone, but these guys scare me a heck of a lot more than some poppy farmer on the other side of the world. Who lives the same way they did a thousand years ago.

The way they choose to live. But not the way we want them to live. 

If the mineral wealth in Afghanistan is so valuable, lets just let China exploit it. They will do a much better job than we can reforming the Afghan society. They will just replace it. They could send millions of people there tomorrow. Problem solved. They aren't so sensitive about collateral damage. I guarantee no embedded reporters. And we will be able to buy their products even cheaper.

Call me crazy, but I can't see why we should pay to secure minerals that will end up in electronics made in a communist country at great loss of US lives when we can't even secure Chicago or Milwaukee... And no, I don't feel safer with our troops overseas...

UPDATE: Confusing... But War Wins And We Lose, Of Course

Our political elite ain't changin' nothing. Obama had threatened to veto a bill that upset his one-term little applecart sweetheart deal with the Military Industrial Complex though the first amendment the House voted on tonight, Dave Obey's (the one he threatened to veto) passed 239-182, forcing the bill back to the Senate. It adds fully offset education funding-- keeping teachers in their jobs-- to the war bill (by taking it away from some slush fund the Administration was holding back to further debilitate public education by pushing charter schools.

The amendment adds $10 billion for an Education Jobs Fund to help keep 140,000 school employees on the job next year. It also provides funding for Pell Grants, border security, innovative technology energy loans, schools on military installations, Gulf Coast oil spill, emergency food assistance, and to build a new soldier processing center at Fort Hood.
 
In order to hold the total amount to the President’s requested level over a ten-year period, the amendment includes $11.7 billion in rescissions from programs that no longer require the funding, have sufficient funds on hand, or do not need the funding this year or next and $4.7 billion in savings from changes to mandatory programs. In total, the amendment saves the Federal Government $493 million over ten years compared to the President’s request.

Generally speaking, the Democrats voted YES and the Republicans and some scummy Blue Dogs voted NO. Then came 3 bill to cut off war funding in various ways. They all failed. The first one, to simply strike all Afghanistan military funding from the bill, lost 376-25 (with 22 Democrats voting "present"). That was the vote for people with cajones. The 3 Republicans voting for it were John Duncan (TN), Tim Johnson (IL) and Ron Paul (TX). The Democrats were Yvette Clarke (NY), Lacy Clay (MO), Donna Edwards (MD), Keith Ellison (MN), Bob Filner (CA), John Garamendi (CA), Alan Grayson (FL), Raúl Grijalva (AZ), Luis Gutierrez (IL), Jesse Jackson, Jr (IL), Dennis Kucinich (OH), John Lewis (GA), Mike Michaud (ME), Jerry Nadler (NY), Grace Napolitano (CA), Chellie Pingree (ME), Kurt Schrader (OR), José Serrano (NY), Albio Sires (NJ), Pete Stark (CA), Nydia Velázquez (NY) and Peter Welch (VT). I'm unclear why anti-war stalwarts like Tammy Baldwin (WI), Barbara Lee (CA), Jim McGovern (MA), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Maxine Waters (CA) and Diane Watson (CA) voted present.

Next up was Barbara Lee's amendment to limit funds for military operations in Afghanistan for only force protection and to begin the redeployment of all troops and military contractors, a tad less drastic but also a clear indicator of the party being OVER. It attracted 93 Democrats and 7 Republicans and went down to a 321-100 defeat. And the final vote, McGovern's amendment, would have required the president to present Congress with 1) a new National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan by January 31, 2011 and 2) a plan by April 4, 2011 on the safe, orderly and expeditious redeployment of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, including a timeframe for the completion of the redeployment. It had considerably more support than anyone expected and was defeated 260-162. There are two Democrats with strong primary opponents this month who voted against all three amendments and who are both as pro-war as any Republican: John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA) and Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK). I would strongly recommend that if you'd like to see this war end, you support their anti-war opponents' primary bids. That would be Regina Thomas and Jim Wilson.