Iraq,Resolutions and Our Government

   It's been a busy week up in the Capitol. It has been for the House of Representatives anyway as they have spent the entire week debating and working on a resolution against Bush and his war plans.

   Did you know that Senator Joseph R. Biden, a Delaware Democrat who happens to lead the Foreign Relations Committee said the he is working on a repeal of the 2002 war authorization vote hoping to close down the war? 

   When the House resolution passes today, with bipartisan support,  it will be the first congressional message of disapproval over the war in Iraq.

Nancy Pelosi: “I don’t know that the president can completely ignore us. We are the voices of the American people. They were clear in the election that they wanted a new direction, no place more clear than in Iraq.”

   Then we have the Senate coming in on Saturday to do whatever it is that the Senate does which thus far hasn't been a whole lot.

  A Republican official having to work on a weekend day? I'll bet that just sent them all to the medicine cabinet when Sen. Harry Reid made that announcement. Must be a shock to the system when you're not even used to working five days a week yet!

   Got a few Democrats ( Biden, Reid, Murtha, Pelosi, Clinton ) carrying some big sticks this week. Now let us see if they can swing those things and get some results with them.

 

 

Technorati tags: Iraq, Resolutions, Government, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Biden

 

State Legislators Come Up With Own Resolutions

  It would seem that some states are getting fed up with the Senate and the Congress over their inability to come up with and to pass a war resolution denouncing Bush and his escalation so the states are acting on their own under pressure from their constituents and advocacy groups.

                  More below

   Resolutions have passed in chambers of three legislatures, in California, Iowa and Vermont. The Maryland General Assembly sent a letter to its Congressional delegation, signed by a majority of the State Senate and close to a majority of the House, urging opposition to the increase in troops in Iraq.

Letters or resolutions are being drafted in at least 19 other states. The goal is to embarrass Congress into passing its own resolution and to provide cover for Democrats and Republicans looking for concrete evidence back home that anti-Iraq resolutions enjoy popular support.

“The end of this war has to start sometime and somewhere,” the president of the Iowa Senate, John P. Kibbie, a Democrat, said Thursday. “And stopping the expansion of these troops needs to happen now.”

The activity was spurred in a conference call last month that included state legislators; Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts; and advocacy groups like the Progressive States Network and MoveOn.org.    NYTimes

 

Technorati tags: State Legislators, Iraq, Congress, Resolutions