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News and Notes from Chelsea Neigbors United Against the War
Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War to be Honored
May 11, 2009 |
On Saturday, May 16th at 12 Noon Chelsea Neighbors to End the War will be honored by the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club at its fundraising brunch at Nisos Restaurant, 176 8th Avenue at 19th Street.
Chelsea Neighbors to End the War, which, recently commemorated the fourth year of Chelsea Stands Up Against The War, is proud to be recognized by another community organization for our contribution to the Chelsea community.
If you would like to attend the donation to the CRDC is $50 per person. The CRDC can be reached at 212-929-9188.
And please remember that Chelsea Stands Up Against the War continues Tuesdays at 6 p. m. at the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 24th Street. This Tuesday will be the 209th consecutive week. Join us. 4th Anniversary of Chelsea Stands Up Against The War this coming Tuesday
May 3, 2009 | May 1, 2009
contact: Chuck Zlatkin (917-693-9427) chuckzlatkin@gmail.com
MEDIA ADVISORY
Neighborhood Anti-War Group Commemorates the 4th Anniversary of Chelsea Stands Up Against The War on Tuesday, May 5th
Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War will commemorate the 208th consecutive week (4 years!) of Chelsea Stands Up Against The War on Tuesday May 5, 2009 at the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 24th Street in NYC at 6 p.m.
Each every Tuesday from 6 until 7 p. m. members of Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War, participate in Chelsea Stands Up Agaisnt The War by holding up banners and signs, distributing weekly newsletters, engaing in conversation with passersby, burning candles and playing musical instruments and welcoming suprise guests.
During life of Chelsea Stands Up Against The War participants have been joined by
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, State Senator Tom Duane and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, in addition to playwright Barbara Garson and filmmaker and journalist Danny Schechter.
The neighborhood anti-war group decided in 2005 that it wanted to protest the war in Iraq, do it in their neighborhood, and have an ongoing presence. The first Chelsea Stands Up Against the War began on Tuesday May 10, 2005 and has continued, weekly, without interruption ever since.
Chelsea Stands Up Against The War was designed as a community statement in opposition to the war in Iraq. Throughout the country, there have been similar actions, but recently with the election of President Obama, a number of such actions have ceased.
Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War made a pledge at the first StandUp that they would be Standing Up until the war was over and the troops were home safely.
208 weeks later it still goes on.
Chelsea Stands Up Against The War
Chelsea Neighbors United To End The War
P.O. Box 821
JAF Station
New York, NY 10116-0821
212-726-1385
http://www.chelseaneighborsunited.org
join our listerv: ChelseaNeighborsUnited-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com Obama to seek $83.4 billion for Iraq, Afghan wars
April 9, 2009 | WASHINGTON – Congressional aides say President Barack Obama is seeking $83.4 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into the fall.
Once approved by Congress, the money would bring the total amount for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001 to almost $1 trillion.
Budget office spokesman Tom Gavin says the White House will send an official request to Congress this afternoon.
Obama was a harsh critic of the Iraq war as a candidate. He opposed a war funding bill in 2007, when former President George W. Bush increased the tempo of military operations.
The upcoming request will include $75.5 billion for the military and more than $7 billion in foreign aid.
Obama announced plans in February to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq on a 19-month timetable.
Despite Obama’s Vow, Combat Brigades Will Stay in Iraq
March 26, 2009 | by Gareth Porter, IPS
WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) - Despite President Barack Obama’s statement at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina Feb. 27 that he had "chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months," a number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label.A spokesman for Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates, Lt. Col. Patrick S. Ryder, told IPS Tuesday that "several advisory and assistance brigades" would be part of a U.S. command in Iraq that will be "re-designated" as a "transition force headquarters" after August 2010.
But the "advisory and assistance brigades" to remain in Iraq after that date will in fact be the same as BCTs, except for the addition of a few dozen officers who would carry out the advice and assistance missions, according to military officials involved in the planning process.
Gates has hinted that the withdrawal of combat brigades will be accomplished through an administrative sleight of hand rather than by actually withdrawing all the combat brigade teams. Appearing on Meet the Press Mar. 1, Gates said the "transition force" would have "a very different kind of mission", and that the units remaining in Iraq "will be characterised differently".
"They will be called advisory and assistance brigades," said Gates. "They won't be called combat brigades."
Obama’s decision to go along with the military proposal for a "transition force" of 35,000 to 50,000 troops thus represents a complete abandonment of his own original policy of combat troop withdrawal and an acceptance of what the military wanted all along - the continued presence of several combat brigades in Iraq well beyond mid-2010.
National Security Council officials declined to comment on the question of whether combat brigades were actually going to be left in Iraq beyond August 2010 under the policy announced by Obama Feb. 27.
The term that has been used internally within the Army to designate the units that will form a large part of the "transition force" is not "Advisory and Assistance Brigades" but "Brigades Enhanced for Stability Operations" (BESO).
Lt. Col. Gary Tallman, a spokesman for the Joint Staff, confirmed Monday that BESO will be the Army unit deployed to Iraq for the purpose of the transition force. Tallman said the decision-making process now underway involving CENTCOM and the Army is to determine "the exact composition of the BESO".
But the U.S. Army has already been developing the outlines of the BESO for the past few months. The only change to the existing BCT structure that is being planned is the addition of advisory and assistance skills rather than any reduction in its combat power. The BCT is organised around two or three battalions of motorized infantry but also includes all the support elements, including its own artillery support, needed to sustain the full spectrum of military operations.
Those are permanent features of all variants of the BCT, which will not be altered in the new version to be deployed under a "transition force", according to specialists on the BCT.
They say the only issue on which the Army is still engaged in discussions with field commanders is what standard augmentation a BCT will need for its new mission.
Maj. Larry Burns of the Army Combined Arms Centre at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, told IPS that Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey directed the Combined Arms Centre, which specialises in Army mission and doctrine, to work on giving the BCTs the capability to carry out a training and advisory assistance mission.
The essence of the BESO variant of the BCTs, according to Burns, is that the Military Transition Teams working directly with Iraqi military units will no longer operate independently but will be integrated into the BCTs.
That development would continue a trend already begun in Iraq in which the BCTs have gradually acquired operational control over the previously independent Military Transition Teams, according to Maj. Robert Thornton of the Joint Centre for International and Security Force Assistance at Fort Leavenworth.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, the commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command, has issued Planning Guidance calling for further refinement of the BESO. After further work on the additional personnel requirements, Casey was briefed on the proposed enhancement of the BCT for the second time in a month at a conference of four-star generals on Feb. 18, according to Burns.
Other names for the new variant that were used in recent months but eventually dropped made it explicitly clear that it is simply a slightly augmented BCT. Those names, according to Burns, included "Brigade Combat Team-Security Force Assistance" and "Brigade Combat Team for Stability Operations".
The plan to deploy several augmented BCTs represents the culmination of the strategy of "relabeling" or "remissioning" of BCTs in Iraq that was developed by U.S. military leaders in the wake of the surge of candidate Barack Obama to near-certain victory in the presidential election last year.
Late last year, Gen. David Petraeus, the CENTCOM chief, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, were unhappy with Obama’s pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades within 16 months. But military planners quickly hit on the relabeling scheme as a way of avoiding the complete withdrawal of BCTs in an Obama administration.
The New York Times revealed Dec. 4 that Pentagon planners were talking about "relabeling" of U.S. combat units as "training and support" units in a Dec. 4 story, but provided no details. Pentagon planners were projecting that as many as 70,000 U.S. troops would be maintained in Iraq "for a substantial time even beyond 2011".
That report suggested that the strategy envisioned keeping the bulk of the existing BCTs in Iraq as under a new label indicating an advisory and support mission.
Secretary Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen discussed a plan to re-designate U.S. combat troops as support troops at a meeting with Obama in Chicago on Dec. 15, according a report in the Times three days later.
Gates and Mullen reportedly speculated at the meeting on whether Iraqis would permit such "re-labeled" combat forces to remain in Iraqi cities and towns after next June, despite the fact that the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement signed in November 2008 called for all U.S. combat forces to be withdrawn from populated areas by the end of June 2010.
That report suggests that Obama was well aware that giving the Petraeus and Odierno a free hand to determine the composition of a "transition force" of 35,000 to 50,000 troops meant that most combat brigades would remain in Iraq rather than being withdrawn, as he ostensibly promised the U.S. public on Feb. 27.
*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
Barack Obama's Kettle of Hawks
December 5, 2008 |
Monday 01 December 2008
by: Jeremy Scahill,
The Guardian UK
The absence of a solid anti-war voice on Obama's national security team means that US foreign policy isn't going to change.
Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy. But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill Clinton's network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.
When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: "I didn't go around checking their voter registration." That is a bit hard to believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House. But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth is that he liked what he saw.
The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from George HW Bush's time in office to the present.
Obama has dismissed suggestions that the public records of his appointees bear much relevance to future policy. "Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me. That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." It is a line the president-elect's defenders echo often. The reality, though, is that their records do matter.
We were told repeatedly during the campaign that Obama was right on the premiere foreign policy issue of our day - the Iraq war. "Six years ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically risky to do so," Obama said in his September debate against John McCain. "Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different judgment." What does it say that, with 130 members of the House and 23 in the Senate who voted against the war, Obama chooses to hire Democrats who made the same judgement as Bush and McCain?
On Iraq, the issue that the Obama campaign described as "the most critical foreign policy judgment of our generation", Biden and Clinton not only supported the invasion, but pushed the Bush administration's propaganda and lies about Iraqi WMDs and fictitious connections to al-Qaida. Clinton and Obama's hawkish, pro-Israel chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, still refuse to renounce their votes in favour of the war. Rice, who claims she opposed the Iraq war, didn't hold elected office and was not confronted with voting for or against it. But she did publicly promote the myth of Iraq's possession of WMDs, saying in the lead up to the war that the "major threat" must "be dealt with forcefully". Rice has also been hawkish on Darfur, calling for "strik[ing] Sudanese airfields, aircraft and other military assets".
It is also deeply telling that, of his own free will, Obama selected President Bush's choice for defence secretary, a man with a very disturbing and lengthy history at the CIA during the cold war, as his own. While General James Jones, Obama's nominee for national security adviser, reportedly opposed the Iraq invasion and is said to have stood up to the neocons in Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he did not do so publicly when it would have carried weight. Time magazine described him as "the man who led the Marines during the run-up to the war - and failed to publicly criticise the operation's flawed planning". Moreover, Jones, who is a friend of McCain's, has said a timetable for Iraq withdrawal, "would be against our national interest".
But the problem with Obama's appointments is hardly just a matter of bad vision on Iraq. What ultimately ties Obama's team together is their unified support for the classic US foreign policy recipe: the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of US militarism to defend the America First doctrine.
Obama's starry-eyed defenders have tried to downplay the importance of his cabinet selections, saying Obama will call the shots, but the ruling elite in this country see it for what it is. Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain", called Obama's cabinet selections, "reassuring", which itself is disconcerting, but neoconservative leader and former McCain campaign staffer Max Boot summed it up best. "I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign."
Boot added that Hillary Clinton will be a "powerful" voice "for 'neoliberalism' which is not so different in many respects from 'neoconservativism.'" Boot's buddy, Michael Goldfarb, wrote in The Weekly Standard, the official organ of the neoconservative movement, that he sees "certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush in his second term."
There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal. Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there are no alternatives to confrontation."
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Jeremy Scahill pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" and is a frequent contributor to The Nation and Democracy Now! He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.
Congress Gives Bush $612.5 Billion for "Defense"
October 9, 2008 | On September 24th, bowing to President Bush's demands, the House passed a mammoth defense-appropriations package yesterday that contains a pay raise for troops and billions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 392-39 vote sent the $612 billion defense-authorization bill to the Senate, which was expected to clear it this week.
To avoid Bush's veto, House and Senate negotiators dropped several provisions that he opposed. They include a ban on private interrogators in U.S. military detention facilities and congressional veto power over a security pact with Iraq.
Negotiators had to address objections from some Senate Republicans to $5 billion in earmarks not requested by Bush. In the compromise, the earmarks are listed in a table accompanying the legislation.
The measure would permit $612.5 billion in spending for national-defense programs in 2009, including $68.6 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also includes a 3.9 percent pay increase for military personnel, half a percentage point more than Bush requested.
The $612 billion military authorization bill also would fully fund the request for a radar site in the Czech Republic, opening the door for the next U.S. administration to begin building a European missile-defense system.
Danny Schechter on Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War
September 10, 2008 | At last night's Chelsea Stands Up Against The War, the participants were greeted by Danny Schechter, a Chelsea resident and good friend of Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War.
Schechter has just released his new book "Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the 'Sub Crime Scandal'."
In 2006, Danny Schechter held a a benefit showing of his film award-winning film, "Weapons of Mass Deception for Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War."
He wrote about last night's encounter in his blog:
From Danny Schechter the News Dissector
"The wars are always with me, always on my mind, and last night, once again, I ran into folks in my neighborhood who are setting an example for all of us. There they were on 24th Street and Eighth Avenue brandishing anti-war signs to passing cars who almost invariably honk their support. They call it a STAND UP and call themselves Chelsea Neighbors United To End The War. They have been out there in rain, snow or shine for, get this, 174 weeks. Just one hour a week–but every week! Thank you for your service!"
The "Experience of Being Wrong"
August 27, 2008 | by Cindy Sheehan
I did not watch Ms. Pelosi's speech at the DNC. I was actually giving a speech of my own in another part of Denver, but I have read the transcript of Ms. Pelosi's remarks and I have also read the criticisms of this speech on all of the Democratic blogs. Ms. Pelosi did not get high marks, to say the least. I have read some things I cannot repeat, but criticisms of "wooden," "boring," "uninspired," and "hypocritical," are some comments coming from committed and rabid Democrats. It does seem pretty hypocritical when such a public failure can claim that McCain has the "experience of being wrong."
With Congress at a 9% approval rating, it is amazing to me that Ms. Pelosi can stand in front of anyone and claim "success" and claim that her leadership has taken this nation on a better path. Our economy is crashing; hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes despite the $300.00 "stimulus" check Ms. Pelosi sent them. Some Americans are being forced to choose whether to buy gas or food, despite the miniscule hike in the federal minimum wage, which affected a very small percentage of the population since most states already had minimum wages that exceeded the federal minimum wage. A true progressive "change" in that direction would be mandating a living wage, which differs from state/state and city/city; but based on the cost of living. It's easier to push people of color or poor people out of cities like San Francisco by increasing the cost of living, while not mandating a living wage.
Some other of Ms. Pelosi's "accomplishments" that she touted in her speech were:
Keeping toxic toys out of the hands of children.
(The toys that were put into our children's hands by the "free" trade agreements she supports and the outsourcing of jobs that pay slave wages to countries that make our consumer goods and encourage cutting back costs so we can go to Wal-mart and get "low, low" prices).
We passed legislation to keep hard working American families in their homes
(According to Reality Trak, 1 out of every 194 homes received foreclosure notices in the first quarter of this year and Congress was more interested in bailing out Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and predatory lenders than keeping "American Families" in their homes.)
And, we enacted a new G.I. Bill to thank our veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by sending them to college.
(Ms. Pelosi did not mention in her speech that her congress has funded the war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of over 400 billion dollars and since she became Speaker, over 1200 of our troops have been killed unnecessarily and hundreds of Iraqis/Afghans have been murdered or displaced from their homes. Ms. Pelosi should not be "thanking" our veterans, she should be apologizing to them for continuing to send them off to fight a war that has physically, mentally, or emotionally wounded tens of thousands of them for no reason at all).
Ms. Pelosi even said that Iraq was: "a catastrophic mistake that has cost thousands of lives of our men and women in uniform and trillions of dollars, as well as has weakened our standing in the world and our capability to protect the American people, Barack Obama is right and John McCain is wrong. Very, very wrong." Well, if John McCain has been wrong and the occupation of Iraq (she says nothing about Afghanistan, and, in fact, she supports the Obama plan of redeploying troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to fight the "real war on terror"), then Nancy Pelosi has also been "very, very wrong." One doesn't pour funds to the tune of "trillions" of dollars into a "catastrophic mistake."
Borrowing the rhetoric of the right, Ms. Pelosi wants to honor our troops that have made America the "Land of the free and the home of the brave." Collaborating with the Bush regime to foist upon us a "
Prevention of violent radicalism and homegrown terrorism law
" and working with the City of Denver and the State of Colorado and Homeland "Security" to turn Denver into a fascist police state, would have made a person of conscience choke on those words. I certainly know that my son did not join the US Military and die in a "catastrophic mistake" to turn this nation into one that is looking more like a bi-partisan repressive despotic dictatorship every day. I have a radical idea for Ms. Pelosi! How about she honors our troops by obeying her sworn oath to "uphold and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic," the same oath our troops take.
Ms. Pelosi is famous for taking our constitution "off the table" and will go down in infamy as the Vichy-enabler of the Bush regime and along with her beloved "party" will be known as the party that killed the 4th amendment to the Bill of Rights (with her support of warrantless spying on Americans and immunity from the felonious breaking of the FISA laws) and the 8th amendment as the sanctioners of torture.
During her speech, Ms. Pelosi is giving evidence that her leadership will also further dissolve the separation between church and state that has accelerated during the Bush "catastrophic mistake" of a Presidency. She assured the convention goers and lapdog media that the Democratic path is one to the Christian heaven: "It is the path that renews our democracy by bringing us together as one nation under God." Whose god? Bush's god? Obama's god? Pelosi's god? Osama's god? Olmert's god? The god of the "two" party system: mammon? The very words, "God," or "religion" do not belong anywhere near public political discourse. Obviously, not everyone worships the same god, or any god, or gods. We must end the rhetoric of "holy wars" and remember that we do not elect a Pope of America, but a President. I also have another question...how is democracy "renewed" by forcing us together as a "nation under God?" This was not only an un-American thing to say, but the rhetoric is as empty as the treasury of the USA.
The "successes" of Pelosi's leadership look an awful lot like failures when we know that she mostly capitulated to the Bush regime and when her failures have been so catastrophically tragic.
In September, Ms. Pelosi, will have a few weeks left of her leadership position when she will go back to lead a congress that has that abysmal approval rating and has passed the least amount of legislation in the last 20 years. Congress will take up business for about three weeks in September and a good start will be to arrest Karl Rove on the first day for ignoring a congressional subpoena. On day two, begin to roll back the executive branch excesses of the last eight years and reclaim the separation of powers that were ensured by the founders before the next president takes over and takes the scepter of an empire and not the mantle of public service as only the "first of equals."
There's nothing more important for her to do.
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Cindy Sheehan Bugged in Denver
August 26, 2008 | by Rob Kall
Cindy Sheehan reported, in an email,
"As I walked toward my room, I noticed that the door was opened with the security bolt blocking the complete closing of the door. I knew immediately that I had not left the door open, and I double checked to make sure it was the right room because, as a frequent traveler, I have been known to forget my room number, but it was the right room.
I was upset at first thinking that housekeeping had made a mistake and left my room open and I was worried that something might be missing. So I walked into my room and bigger than life, there was a man standing by my desk holding the room phone with a screwdriver in his hand!
I immediately said; "What the hell are you doing? Are you putting a bug on my phone?" He looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and stammered out: "N--no, we are having problems with the phone." I told him to get out of my room because my phone was fine and I called the front desk and the person at the front desk stammered something out about "problems" with some of the phones.
This room was reserved soon after we got to Denver last night because the room we had was inadequate for 3 people. The room was reserved under my campaign manager's name with a CFC debit card. By the time we left for the march, it could have very well been ascertained that I was the one in this room, and the room we did reserve could be bugged, also. I am confident that that's what was happening when I walked in on the "maintenance" man"
You don't come in the room with a screwdriver if there are problems with the hotel phones. You do it electronically, through the system or you hook up a new phone.
She said to me, "How many hotel rooms have I been in the past four years? It was so obvious."
I asked, "Do you think it was Pelosi's people?" since Sheehan is running against Pelosi, for her congressional seat.
She replied, "Of course, I don't know."
I asked, "Have there been any other episodes that would make you believe this kind of action is being taken against you?"
She replied,
"Not since I've been running for congress, but there were several times when I was in Crawford, or protesting in D.C., when I felt like we were being surveiled. And actually, in Washington D.C., for a period of time, they would just blatantly follow me, and I would just invite them to come in and have coffee with me. Whenever I was in D.C., whose ever jurisdiction it was, I'd have either the Metro police, the Capitol Hill police or the Park police right on me. Sometimes they were in uniform and sometimes they were plainclothes. But they were very obvious.
Asked how her campaign is going, Sheehan replied,
"I believe the momentum is definitely on our side, especially the last couple weeks, with our signature drive.
The department of elections started to mess with our signatures and say that so many were in-valid, when we knew for a fact that they were valid, because I was checking them myself, on the computer. That really motivated people to help us-- to come to the office to help us or sign the petition (to get Cindy on the ballot) or whatever, that said that they had been meaning to help and that this was something that got them of the fence and got them to actually come into the office and volunteer. We've had t
en of thousands of dollars come into the campaign since then and we really have a comfortable amount of money to get our message out-- the message that our country is in deep trouble and Nancy is definitely not the solution. She's part of the problem. And we're going to educate the people of San Francisco about this using alternative forms of media and convince them that I am the alternative-- that I will work to be the voice of the people of San Francisco. And that's something that she has not ever been. I think there is a lot of positive excitement and momentum. Her book tour didn't help her out any.
The campaign's going great. We've been able to hire more staff.
Asked about her goals for Denver, she described,
"after protesting the Republicans for so many years, the Democrats have been moving steadily to the right. We want to show that we're not okay with that, that we want to bring the party closer to the people and further from the corporate lobbyists.
So many people are waking up and starting to realize that there is very little difference in the leadership of the two parties. Working for an altenative third party or independent is one way to bring about real change.
So many people with Obama shirts and pins have come up to me and told me that they're 100% on my side and they're very distressed with the right turn of the Obama campaign and the democratic party and they're hoping that demonstrations that we were at earlier, and that will be happening all week, will bring their party to where they think it should be.
So many people are waking up and starting to realize that there is very little difference in the leadership of the two parties. Working for an altenative third party or independent is one way to bring about real change.
So many people with Obama shirts and pins have come up to me and told me that they're 100% on my side and they're very distressed with the right turn of the Obama campaign and the democratic party and they're hoping that demonstrations that we were at earlier, and that will be happening all week, will bring their party to where they think it should be. War funding would break Dem promises
May 6, 2008 | House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is about to lead her party into a major showdown over Iraq funding by violating two Democratic campaign pledges in one fell swoop.
To the critics, whether anti-war activists or House Republicans, Pelosi has made her feelings clear: Get over it.
This week’s maneuvering over a $200 billion war spending bill has revealed Pelosi self-confidently playing what she believes — with increasing evidence — is a strong hand.
Strong enough that she is expected to break one promise — her 2006 pledge for a more open and inclusive committee process — by circumventing the powerful House Appropriations Committee on the Iraq bill.
And when the final Iraq bill reaches the president’s desk, any troop withdrawal conditions are likely to be gone from the legislation. That is another 2006 pledge that has fallen by the wayside.
Pelosi’s calculation, say political analysts, seems clear. Democrats are using the Iraq bill as leverage for billions of dollars in domestic spending priorities. As for anti-war activists, they seem to accept the speaker’s logic: More than 40 previous Iraq votes have left Democrats maxed out in terms of legislative efforts to dictate an end to the war over a veto-wielding President Bush.
Most of all, the early signs are that there will not be a backlash from voters. Democratic victories in recent special elections — Don Cazayoux in Louisiana and Bill Foster in Illinois — suggest that individual candidates are not suffering from the low public approval ratings that are afflicting the Democratic Congress.
House Republicans, protesting the bypassing of the Appropriations Committee, promise floor theatrics, with numerous floor votes when the Iraq bill comes for a House vote.
Explaining the threatened tantrum, Jo Maney, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Rules Committee, said: “You said you were going to do something and you didn’t. They are using process for political objectives.”
Democrats countered that Republicans wanted to slow down progress on the floor. “Voters are frustrated about Iraq, but they know Democrats have pushed to bring the war to a responsible end,” said Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami.
Some important voices in the anti-war movement, meanwhile, are not blaming Democratic leaders for the inability to move war policy despite the 2006 campaign promises.
“People appreciate the leadership of the party have pushed this issue and advanced this cause,” said Tom Andrews, the head of Win Without War. “Are we frustrated? Yes. But do we understand the dynamics [of Congress]? Yes. We’re doing everything we can.”
Political analysts also say voters don’t care about procedural power plays, and those who care about the war realize that Democrats have stymied filibusters and vetoes when they tried to force troop withdrawals.
“In general, the public associates the war with Republicans and the president — there doesn’t seem to be any political fallout for Democrats,” said Julian Zelizer, a political science professor at Princeton University. “This [election] is not about the will of the Democrats to stop this war. ... And Republicans can’t focus on Democrats’ abuse of power. Democrats have only been in power two years.”
Even so, the next few weeks will be a tightrope walk for Democratic leaders as they negotiate what is essentially the last major bill of the year and the last big fight with the Bush administration.
First, Pelosi will have to soothe the egos of committee chairmen like Dave Obey (D-Wis.) and John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) if she bypasses the committee process and strong-arms a bill through the House.
In her campaign pamphlet in 2006, which is still posted on the speaker’s website, Pelosi declared that “bills should be developed following full hearings and open subcommittee and committee markups, with appropriate referrals to other committees.”
If that promise is not upheld, Republican strategists say the GOP will be justified in creating as much procedural havoc as possible over the next few days, and California Rep. Jerry Lewis, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, has warned of GOP floor protests.
“The Democrat leaders of the House and Senate are attempting to jam a 200-plus-billion-dollar spending bill through the Congress, with absolutely no oversight or scrutiny by the vast majority of members, senators or their constituents,” Lewis wrote Monday in a letter to Obey. “Never in my 30 years in Congress has there been such an abuse of the processes and rules of the House.”
When Republicans ran the House, however, they frequently bypassed committee, engineered strict procedural rules and, most notably, once held a vote open for three hours on a landmark Medicare drug bill. Still, Lewis points out that the GOP never skipped committee on an Iraq funding bill.
Democratic leadership aides don’t dispute the fact that the majority has been unable to keep this promise of open committee debate, yet they lay the blame on Republicans in the House who have crafted one poison pill after another to wreak procedural havoc on otherwise noncontroversial bills.
The final version of the Iraq bill — the one that reaches the president’s desk — will inevitably fund the troops with no strings attached, aides from both parties admit. Sure, there will be a conscience-soothing vote on a troop withdrawal timetable, but Democrats acknowledge such provisions will yet again fail to make it to the final version.
“The troops will get what they need,” said one Democratic aide.
In 2006, Democrats promised to “ensure 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty ... with the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces.”
And even though anti-war activists have been hard on Democrats for failing to live up to this campaign promise, they believe the blame will lie with Bush and congressional Republicans for the failure to move war policy.
“Voters need to know Democrats are fighting for an end to this war,” said Nita Chaudhary, a top official at MoveOn.org, a leader in the anti-war movement. “Voters are smart enough to know who really stands in the way in terms of an end to the war.”
Politico
May 6, 2008
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=BB9F56AF-3048-5C12-0064FDC724B0CAD0
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