Top 10 things you don't know
about the Iraq spending bill
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by Madeline Zane, Unknown News
April 30, 2007
The top 10 things you may not know about the Iraq spending bill, as reported through the haze of the mainstream media's insistence that the Democrats are stubborn idiots, who can't override a veto, and who are simultaneously hurting the troops and risking serious damage to their public image by trying to end a pointless unpopular war...
1. The federal government itself says that there is plenty of war funding until July, so we are not on a hurry-up deadline, no matter how "amazed" White House spokesperson Dana Perino claims to be about the fact that the Democrats are spending time actually debating the most important issue facing our country.
2. The Democrats' spending bill includes the overwhelmingly popular hike in the minimum wage, as well as subsidies for small business to help them through the transition period.
3. Oh, also, for all the Republicans' kicking and screaming, the pull-out dates are completely non-binding.
4. Several anti-war Democrats voted against the bill because they feel it does not pull out troops soon enough and because the pullout dates are completely non-binding.
5. Possibly, many of the anti-war Democrats who voted against the bill could be counted on to switch sides for the purposes of overriding a presidential veto. In addition, support for a timeline is increasing daily in both the general public and among our legislators. So the constant drumbeat we hear that there aren't votes to override a veto is at best premature.
6. The other extra-added "pork" included in this bill that has been condemned by Republicans includes Humvee armor, equipment for National Guard units, funding to fix Walter Reed, funding for soldiers' health care, extra funding especially for soldiers suffering from brain injuries, much-belated funds for hurricane survivors, funds to bail out child health-insurance programs, and money to FINALLY start screening airport baggage for explosives. Special interests, indeed.
7. The bill will be presented to the President on Tuesday, on the fourth anniversary of his "Mission Accomplished" speech. In other words, the Democrats are not, in fact, the party who has been playing politics with the troops, recent White House smears to the contrary.
8. In every poll conducted in the last few months, the American public solidly stands with the Democrats on this issue. This means that the Democrats are not wild-eyed radicals, fringe group panderers, in thrall to the special interests, or any of the other nonsense epithets that are being hurled at them by Republicans and the mainstream news media alike.
9. Senate majority leader Harry Reid said a couple weeks ago that if Bush vetoes the first version of the war spending bill, the Democrats will counter with a bill that actually does cut off war funding by March 2008.
10. Debates are not dangerous. Dissent is not un-patriotic. One of the few things that hurts our country more than an endless war that creates enemies faster than we could ever hope to kill them, is the White House's demand for complete, abject obedience to an all-powerful executive branch who must not be questioned. To hear the Republicans' recent claims that this reasoned, long-overdue exercise of the democratic process is harmful to our country is obscene.
The Democrats aren't damaging our country. They are damaging the Bush regime. And the Bush regime's monarchical belief that they themselves ARE America is what got us into this mess in the first place.
© by the author.
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The Democrats aren't damaging our country.
They are damaging the Bush regime.
And the Bush regime's monarchical belief that they themselves ARE America is what got us into this mess in the first place.
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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