[Peace-discuss] Re: Call Congress - defeat war supp - WE ARE CLOSE!! focus: Schakowsky, Gutierrez, Jackson

Thu Jun 11 07:51:03 CDT 2009

[Swanson's a good deal more generous than he should be.]

	Congressional Heroes and Frauds
	By David Swanson

Congress members know they were elected to end the war and that their 
constituents want them to follow through. Fifty-one Democrats recently 
voted against a war supplemental funding bill, knowing that the bill 
would easily pass. Now (because an IMF bailout scam opposed by all 
Republicans has been added to the bill) only about 40 Democrats need to 
vote No to block the war money. However, voting No when it could 
actually matter is very different from voting No for show only. We are 
about to see the original 51 split into heroes and frauds.

These are the 51: Baldwin, Capuano, Clarke, Cohen, Conyers, Cooper, 
Costello, Doggett, Edwards (MD), Ellison, Farr, Filner, Frank (MA), 
Grayson, Grijalva, Gutierrez, Honda, Inslee, Kagen, Kaptur, Kucinich, 
Lee (CA), Lewis (GA), Lofgren, Zoe, Markey (MA), Massa, Matsui, 
McDermott, McGovern, Michaud, Miller, George, Napolitano, Neal (MA), 
Oberstar, Payne, Pingree (ME), Polis (CO), Schakowsky, Serrano, 
Shea-Porter, Speier, Thompson (CA), Tierney, Towns, Tsongas, Velázquez, 
Waters, Watson, Weiner, Welch, Woolsey.

Some have committed to voting No, so we can tentatively move them to the 
Heroes category.

The rest, if they do not take a stand when it counts, may end up in the 
category of frauds. Even those who vote No may still end up on the list 
of frauds if the bill passes and they vote toward the end of the roll 
call. For example, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has told House Speaker 
Nancy Pelosi that she will vote No at the end of the voting if the bill 
has enough votes to pass.

Want to see who's a hero and who's a fraud?  Go to:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/43479

Robert Naiman wrote:
> We're extremely close. The private list of Democratic no commits is 
> 25-30. We need 36 to be absolutely sure of victory.
> 
> It's all about Democrats now. Tim Johnson is a sure no vote.
> 
> Using Firedoglake's Citizen Whip tool, you can call any Member of
> Congress:
> 
> http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/Supplemental
> 
> and you can report results there.
> 
> I particularly call your attention to three Illinois Democrats:
> 
> *** Jan Schakowsky - leaning no. She voted against the war 
> supplemental in May. She has been good on IMF reform - a champion, 
> actually - and signed the Waters IMF letter. Washington rumor has it 
> that Rahm has threatened her over her planned Senate race. This is
> the best case for folks in C-U to call out of district - because she
> plans to run for Senate statewide, and will be looking for support in
>  Champaign County in the primary. But also, folks on this list know 
> folks in Jan's district in Evanston. Make sure your friends have 
> called.
> 
> ** Luis Gutierrez: represents Pilsen, just west of the University of 
> Illinois at Chicago. Many folks at UIC live in Pilsen (I lived there 
> when I was at UIC.) Voted no on the war supplemental in May. Signed 
> the Waters anti-IMF letter.
> 
> * Jesse Jackson Jr.: represents south side and south suburbs. voted 
> yes on the supplemental in May. signed the Waters anti-IMF letter. 
> Highly critical of the IMF in the past.
> 
> Pass it on. This is history in the making...
> 
> Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org
> 
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:42 AM, C. G.
> Estabrook<galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
>> "Put Wars and Banksters on PAYGO" 
>> http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/43454 By David Swanson
>> 
>> On Tuesday President Obama proposed that any increases in federal
>> spending on anything useful, such as healthcare or retirement
>> security, must be balanced by cuts and savings to something else
>> useful, such as healthcare or retirement security.
>> 
>> "The pay-as-you-go rule is very simple," Obama said. "Congress can
>> only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere." Except that
>> it's not so simple. Obama would make an exception to allow Bush's
>> tax cuts for millionaires to be extended past their 2010 expiration
>> date, as well as to prevent the alternative-minimum tax from
>> impacting the overclass. Still, the White House insists that
>> everything is very simple:
>> 
>> "PAYGO would hold us to a simple but important principle: we should
>> pay for new tax or *entitlement* legislation. Creating a new
>> *non-emergency* tax cut or *entitlement* expansion would require
>> offsetting revenue increases or spending reductions."
>> 
>> But, guess what? War supplementals and bankster bailouts are
>> "emergencies" and the Pentagon and regular budget war funding are
>> not "entitlements." (Someone will have to explain this to the CEOs
>> over at Boeing, BAE, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General
>> Dynamics, and Raytheon, but it's true). With roughly half of every
>> dollar of income tax going to the military and wars and debt for
>> military and wars, we again have a public discussion of "government
>> spending" that ignores the military and wars. Contrary to popular
>> myth, by the way, team Obama just increased -- and therefore did
>> not decrease -- what had been the largest military budget in world
>> history. And let's not forget the Bush-Obama bankster bailouts that
>> suddenly made military spending look /small/.
>> 
>> As it happens, however, there is a perfect vehicle available right
>> now for an expansion of PAYGO: the war supplemental cum IMF bailout
>> now being debated in the House. Here's an extra $97 billion for
>> wars and military that was not included in the regular budget. This
>> is an expansion of spending, and nobody has explained where the
>> money can come from. Then there's a $5 billion gift accompanied by
>> $100 billion in loans to bailout European banksters through the
>> IMF. Nobody has suggested where that money could possibly be found.
>> And then there are the gimmicks being added in to bribe 
>> unscrupulous congress critters to vote for the thing: cash for
>> clunkers programs and so forth. The drafters of the bill have not
>> been reducing the money for airplanes the Pentagon doesn't want or
>> for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to cover the cost of
>> buying clunkers. Everything is just piled on top.
>> 
>> Now, in reality, the idea that you have to pay for what you
>> purchase is as close as one comes to a "law" of economics that will
>> take effect eventually whether or not it's made into what passes
>> for a "law" in Washington, D.C. Every trillion dollars we throw at
>> banksters and bombers is a trillion dollars we cannot use to
>> provide free quality education from pre-school through college,
>> high-speed trains, green energy, or healthcare. But, as long as
>> we're making things explicit, it might be worth phoning Democrats
>> in the House 
>> <http://www.democrats.com/progressives-and-bluedogs-can-defeat-war-supplemental>
>>  and asking them what they are going to cut to pay for the war
>> supplemental. What useful "entitlement" or, for that matter,
>> military waste are they prepared to slash by $97 billion plus all
>> that money for the IMF to use in ruining other people's economies?
>> If one word characterizes the responses you're likely to get (and
>> please report on them 
>> <http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/supplemental>) that word is: 
>> "elusive."
>> 
>> "Paying for what you spend is basic common sense," says President
>> Obama. "Perhaps that's why, here in Washington, it's been so
>> elusive."
>> 
>> But note that 15 House Democrats thus far have said they will vote
>> No, and with all the Republicans voting No we only need a couple
>> dozen more representatives of the party we keep electing to end the
>> wars. We CAN win this one.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> David Swanson is the author of the upcoming book "Daybreak: Undoing
>> the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven
>> Stories Press.  You can pre-order it for a discount price at 
>> http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook
>> 
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>> 
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>> 
>> http://davidswanson.org/node/921
>> 
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