When WILL they start talking about all the money that's been spend that goes into the pockets of Halliburton and Bechtel and does NOTHING to support or protect the troops or the American people???

The D's were put into power to stop the madness of King George and his flunkies and hidden controllers. All the other things on their agenda have to take a back seat to this over riding goal. Bu$h is either nuts or he's involved with some cult like the Dominionists. In any event ENOUGH already. Cut the $$$ off.

This is awesome and I stand and cheer, but when I read this in The Independent:

"...Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies ... The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, ... It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972 ... The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said ..."

My hope is crushed. Nothing stops the big oil companies...nothing...nothing.

 Mainstream America is resolutely against escalation. The mainstream wants this stupid war to END. That's why the mainstream voted for Democrats last November.

 Nancy Pelosi is aware of this, and she is responding to the mainstream, and signaling that she believes in representing the majority public opinion on this critical issue.

 Barack Obama, on the other hand, is running away from the mainstream. Fleeing from it and taking refuge at the margins. How this helps him in his presidential run is a complete mystery, but it does show him as an exceptionally weak, substanceless political figure, the kind who won't walk across a room without first consulting his handlers.

 And there are people who think Barack is presidential material. Well, Bush has lowered the bar considerably...

 The Democrats might not be able to stop Bush from escalating. That much is true. But the Democrats damn sure better make the Republicans OWN this escalation, because it WILL be a disaster. And if the Democrats are even remotely associated with it, they're going to get killed in 2008.

Pelosi made a very strong statement in November on the day of her election to Speaker right after Hoyer and Rahm's caucus elections, that the war in Iraq needed to end and that our troops needed to come home soon.

Curiously it was ignored, and commenters on this site began to attack her as stupid and cowardly and to predict that she would fold.  She has been very bold in standing against the war and in pursuing a Progressive agenda but I am slowly coming to believe that we are just waiting for even the flimsiest of quasi-excuses to attack her as spineless.

The mainstream media narrative is that she is tough and courageous and willling to take a stand and to do battle--as has been quite obvious for well over a year now, although the media have only recently acknowledged this.   I think attacks by pro-business Democrats will merely strengthen that "tough Pelosi" narrative, but that it may be in the power of progressive critics to replace this media narrative about her with a new narrative that Pelosi is weak, cowardly, and clueless.  

The method will be to repeatedly and loudly predict that she will fold on the war, on the Jennings election, on the surge, on witholding funding for the war, on the Progressive agenda, and then ignore it when she does the contrary land to undo the reality of her steadfastness by making a new and loud prediction of her spinelessness and caving in.

I watched us destroy own own in the 1970s.  Repeated predictions of Pelosi weakness and faithlessness have a very good chance of succeeding in severely damaging the new Democratic caucus now as well, especially as they so closely miirror Republican talking points about why Democrats should not be allowed to govern.

Of all that has happened so far in the nascent Dem controlled Congress, this one is by far the best.  45% of the public wants Congress to deal with Iraq, crushing any other issue.  If the Dems do not deal with this firmly, their chances in 08 are dimmer.  If they can stop the escalation by cutting off the funds, you can stick a fork in Bush's ass and turn him over.  He's done.  

Pelosi knows this.  I am really psyched right now.  So psyched I linked to this post on my site.  Let's hope there is follow through.

The Democrats will not cut off funding while our troops are in Iraq - Pelosi said as much this morning on Face the Nation and so did Hoyer on Fox News Sunday. As well as Biden (surprise he's on TV again!) on CNN.

But I think the Democrats will make sure that the ownership of this excalation is sqarely on the Republicans and Bush.

Today's Political Wire says

Senior Republican senators are trying to get word to the president that any troop surge would be dead on arrival in Congress.

Is there some reason why senior Republican senators would have any difficulty contacting the president? Is Bush locked away in a bunker or something?

Bush might as well be locked away. It has always been his temperament to ignore advice and do it his way. He doesn't even recognize the other side.  Surely that's apparent  by now.

I'm going to put my faith into Pelosi's stand and resolve not to continue to fund a disaster.  Everybody should be emailing our own senators and and representatives as well as others.

This has just got to stop. Ford's death reminded a lot of people about Vietnam . . . must we repeat history and kill more and more people needlessly?

I was starting to veer Obama's way but now he is out of the picture for me. I don't want any more fencesitters testing the wind . . .

It took a woman to make a man out of England.

Margaret Thatcher

Maybe it will take a woman to give balls to the democratic party.

Go Nancy, I'm pulling for you.

Really, is it so wrong to bring up the manifesto of the Project for the New American Century?  What where those words again.."a catalyzing event such as a New Pearl Harbor".

And why is it that on every political board the entire subject of a real investigation of the events of 911 is a totally verboten subject.

Can I call this "progressively" burying one's head in the sand.

Thanks for postin the video.

I think the move by Pelosi in the video is very smart--to back increasing general troop numbers while at the same time demanding the Presidend justify any requests for additional troops sent specifically to Iraq.

It doesn't show oup on the main page only when you click into the link in this post?

Que pasa?

Pelosi deserves great praise for this interview.  She did an excellent job!  Keep it up Nancy Pelosi!

That said...many bloggers seem to be assume that the war funding issue is an either/or proposition:  either you fund everything the President asks for, or you cut off funding for everything in Iraq.  That is a false choice.

The reality is that Congress can demand, if it wishes, a detailed, line by line accounting of what is being spent on Iraq.  Then, with that detailed budget in hand, it can pick and chose what it wants to fund.  It can attach conditions to spending.  It can forbid spending on certain things.  It can exercise oversight over all the spending to ensure its restrictions are followed.  It can, if it wishes, deescalate or redeploy at whatever rate it wants.

With this in mind, go back to the interview, and you will notice that Nancy Pelosi is asking for a detailed Iraq budget from the President the next time. She wants one that includes spending on the present level of troops, and the costs of escalation. She has indicated that the House will delete those parts of the budget that call for escalation.  On the other hand, I doubt any member of Congress simply wants to zero out the entire budget.

Of course, going on in the background of all of this is the issue of who politically "owns" the Iraq war.  Right now, this is clearly and unequivocally Bush's war.  

If the Democrats wade into this mess, and begin to "steer" what is essentially a civil war with no end, an occupation of a country where about 80% of the citizens want us out, they must be careful not to "own" the final helicopter scene.  

Watch all the players in this drama.  Sometimes you will see morality.  At other times, you will see politics.  In the case of Bush, you will see unrelenting stupidity.  He is the fool, and the whole world is suffering for it.  

   I'm beginning to get the feeling that if there's one thing the progressive blogosphere and the Republican leadership have in common, it's that we've underestimated Nancy Pelosi. Certainly this interview feeds that (welcome) impression.

  I'm looking at the next few days with a measure of trepidation, but with a hopefulness that I haven't felt all century.

I heard a Rep. this morning say that they had to be more than "green eye shade" democrats.  It's about bringing this country away from facism (merger of corporations and government).  And to fix our infrastructure, to heal NOLA, to provide healthcare, the end of the PNAC great Iraqi adventure is over.