On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted No and blocked
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's latest proposal to throw another $165 billion
into the occupation of Iraq. This happened in large part because
ordinary citizens pressured their representatives to vote No. In the
final count 149 Democrats voted No, 132 Republicans voted Present
(neither Yes nor No), 12 members did not vote, and only 141 voted Yes.
Here's the roll call.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll328.xml
While the Republicans had less of an impact than the Democrats, the
cor****ate media is quickly giving the Republicans credit for blocking
the vote. This is nonsense. This vote was blocked by 149 Democrats
finally - FINALLY - doing the right thing. We should thank them
immediately. We should thank each other for having moved them. We
should contact the media and praise them. We should have flowers
delivered to their offices on Friday.
Now, the possibility remains that we're being played for fools, and
that many of those who voted No intend to make a lot of noise about it
and then turn around and try to quietly vote Yes on a different
version cooked up by Pelosi or on a version that comes back from the
Senate for final approval. But that's all the more reason to make a
big giant humungous stink about how amazing it is and how grateful we
are that 149 of our representatives FINALLY saw fit to represent us.
If we can make this thing stick, we can end the killing and give birth
to an opposition Party in one stroke.
In other news, the two separate amendments that went along with the
war money did pass. One of them includes money for useful things like
veterans care. It may fail in the Senate or in conference or cause a
veto. The other restricts the war money to particular illegal
activities while prohibiting its use for others. That one looks even
more ridiculous than it originally did, because it's now restricting
money that wasn't passed. These two amendments were passed by the
Democrats, by the way. The Republicans are a minority and were
decisive in none of the three votes.
David Swanson
--
http://gssites.com/bbg/index.html
--
"We wouldn't have a police department that had to show a profit every
year - or a fire department that had to show a profit every year. We
shouldn't do that with our health care system, either."
~~ Michael Moore
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