Dems vote for Pork and Surrender

[KevinTheOmnivore]

So is this how the new Congress is going to clean up Washington...?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...201883_pf.html

Retreat and Butter
Are Democrats in the House voting for farm subsidies or withdrawal from Iraq?

Friday, March 23, 2007; A16



TODAY THE House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill that would grant $25 million to spinach farmers in California. The legislation would also appropriate $75 million for peanut storage in Georgia and $15 million to protect Louisiana rice fields from saltwater. More substantially, there is $120 million for shrimp and menhaden fishermen, $250 million for milk subsidies, $500 million for wildfire suppression and $1.3 billion to build levees in New Orleans.
Altogether the House Democratic leadership has come up with more than $20 billion in new spending, much of it wasteful subsidies to agriculture or pork barrel projects aimed at individual members of Congress. At the tail of all of this logrolling and political bribery lies this stinger: Representatives who support the bill -- for whatever reason -- will be voting to require that all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by August 2008, regardless of what happens during the next 17 months or whether U.S. commanders believe a pullout at that moment protects or endangers U.S. national security, not to mention the thousands of American trainers and Special Forces troops who would remain behind.
The Democrats claim to have a mandate from voters to reverse the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Yet the leadership is ready to piece together the votes necessary to force a fateful turn in the war by using tactics usually dedicated to highway bills or the Army Corps of Engineers budget. The legislation pays more heed to a handful of peanut farmers than to the 24 million Iraqis who are living through a maelstrom initiated by the United States, the outcome of which could shape the future of the Middle East for decades.
Congress can and should play a major role in determining how and when the war ends. Political benchmarks for the Iraqi government are important, provided they are not unrealistic or inflexible. Even dates for troop withdrawals might be helpful, if they are cast as goals rather than requirements -- and if the timing derives from the needs of Iraq, not the U.S. election cycle. The Senate's version of the supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan contains nonbinding benchmarks and a withdrawal date that is a goal; that approach is more likely to win broad support and avoid a White House veto.
As it is, House Democrats are pressing a bill that has the endorsement of MoveOn.org but excludes the judgment of the U.S. commanders who would have to execute the retreat the bill mandates. It would heap money on unneedy dairy farmers while provoking a constitutional fight with the White House that could block the funding to equip troops in the field. Democrats who want to force a withdrawal should vote against war appropriations. They should not seek to use pork to buy a majority for an unconditional retreat that the majority does not support.

[kahljorn]

i dont know it's too hard for me to decide if this is a good or bad thing or if it means absolutely nothing, but I'm leaning more towards the latter now a days.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/144325.html

Cal Thomas: Buying votes in Congress



By Cal Thomas -
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, March 27, 2007

There are laws -- even ethics rules -- against buying votes in Congress. Lobbyists (Jack Abramoff and others) went to prison for attempting to buy votes and congressmen (Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Bob Ney) went to prison for selling them.
As with so many things Congress does, the rules they make for others do not always apply to some of its members.
In the scandalous, shortsighted sellout of American troops in Iraq, a slim Democratic House majority passed a measure that Speaker and top vote buyer Nancy Pelosi claimed would "end the war in Iraq." The claim is preposterous because, even if the Senate were agreed, there are insufficient votes to override a presidential veto.
One can hear the cheering in the enemy camps, as they exhort their young suicide bombers to kill themselves, and just a few more infidels, for Allah, because the worldwide Islamic empire is drawing nearer.
While the Democratic "leadership" and media acolytes crow about the "historic day" when the measure was passed, the real historic note is how so many were willing to sell their votes for blatant self-interest.
Attached to this bill of surrender, as chronicled by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), is $21 billion in pork to buy the votes of some members. Among items offered in exchange for votes was $283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract program; $74 million for peanut storage costs; $60.4 million for salmon fisheries; $50 million for asbestos mitigation at the U.S. Capitol Plant; and $25 million for spinach growers. I'm surprised no aid was provided to pet food manufacturers to help them recoup the losses incurred after rat poison was found in their products. Oh, well, maybe next year.
The Senate is waiting to lard on to the emergency war supplemental bill multiple pounds of its own pork. CAGW reports that among the outrages in the Senate measure are $24 million for sugar beets; $20 million for reimbursements to Nevada for "insect damage"; $3.5 million for guided tours of the Capitol (don't most people expect to buy tickets for such things?); and $3 million for sugar cane and the transfer of funds from holiday ornament sales in the Senate gift shop.
Seeking to justify the unjustifiable, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said nonmilitary items in the spending bill were necessary because those stingy Republicans who held the majority for 12 years neglected important needs. If that's true, why not introduce a measure that would fund such projects and then debate whether the federal government should spend our money on them?
This is the kind of politics many people, regardless of party, have grown to hate. Democrats promised to "clean up" the way Congress operated when they became the majority in January. They are rapidly becoming much like those they replaced, as Republicans mimicked the Democrats they replaced with their misspending and grabs for power for its own sake. The influence of lobbyists and the temptations that come with power are truly bipartisan.
President Bush correctly noted the "political theater" indulged in by the Democrats who know he will veto the bill if it arrives with timetables for a troop pullout from Iraq. The president should publicly name every member who slipped in pork to the supplemental spending bill, charge the Democratic leadership with vote buying and shame them before their constituents.
Why should a Congress that can't resist pork be expected to resist an enemy that never talks about timetables for withdrawal? The Islamofascists wish to use Iraq (and Iran) as a base to destroy Israel and from there subjugate Europe before going after their ultimate objective: the United States.
That isn't propaganda or politics; it's fact. They say it, and prove they mean it, every day.
Meanwhile, disgraceful members of Congress buy and sell votes for self-serving purposes and in doing so fail to serve the nation and the freedom they have promised to preserve, protect and defend.