Well, though I doubt we'll see a filibuster, it'll at least be vetoed and I really really really really doubt they have enough votes to override a veto on this one. Water funding is one thing, ending a war is another.

Godspeed.

Do you want to help end this war in Iraq? The citizens will have to do this. I have a plan to force congress to end this war by having citizens call the companies that give money to regressive conservatives in the house and senate. On the Liberal Democratic Party forum you will see that plan.

Finally a political party for progressives and liberals. We don't have conservatives attempting to turn back the clock on America or bowing to too much corporate power.

You can also reach our progressive forum at

http://progressives.dmocrats.org

for progressives and liberals only.

I consider it the point where we take America back even from our conservative Democrats, who replaced some of the meanest conservative Republicans in congress.

Should I call my Senator, Diane Feinstein, and lie to her - telling her that I want full, unrestricted funding of Bush's folly in the Middle East? I mean for the last eight months or so she has consistantly voted diametrically opposite of my express wishes . . .

When the Representatives no longer represent . . .

The last line of Eric's post above, the part about pushing the fight over funding into February, is doubtless the real object of this exercise. The more funding votes, the more progress reports, the more hearings, the more opportunities to peel away enough Republicans to start forcing some policy changes. That should start getting easier once we get past some primaries (and primary filing deadlines) and Republicans in swing states and districts start worrying more about facing Democrats and general election voters than they are right now about primary challenges from their right.

I tend to believe that brick wall we've been beating our heads against is showing sighs of weakening, but it's still a ways off from falling. Democrats need to keep grinding away and then grinding away some more at Republicans on this. It's their only viable option for forcing any meaningful policy down the throat of an administration that won't listen to reason and regards compromise -- a.k.a., the fundamental glue that holds any democracy together -- on any issue from the largest to the most trivial, as a sign of weakness (kind of the same way some people on the left do).

Small cracks have been starting to form between rank-and-file Republicans from more purple areas and their radical, Bush-enabling leadership on this and many other issues since before the mid-terms. They have so far managed to keep the rank and file in line but if Democrats can keep the pressure on, something will have give eventually. The only way they can do that though is to make this issue keep coming up, and keep coming up, and keep coming up again in fights over funding, status reports and hearings, any way they can find to make Republicans wear their war in public.

Of course Republicans aren't defenseless. One major problem Democrats still have even with public opinion generally trending their way is that they kind of suck at PR, whereas the Republicans have gotten quite good at it. So at each skirmish, people who are basically victims of advertising and sound byte culture and unaccustomed to stopping and thinking things through are as nearly as likely to blame Democrats as Republicans for the apparent lack of progress. But I guess you fight with the army you've got, not the one you wish you had.

Anyway, the funding fights are key because they trigger all the other stuff. Democrats need to put the administration on a much shorter leash so that supplemental funding requests are no more than three months apart. Six months to a year is way too long. The public needs to still be riled up from the last time each time the administration comes back to the well in order to maximize the pressure on Republicans to attach more strings to funding.

Democrats tried to do that back in the spring but the Pentagon countered effectively saying they would be unable to commit to purchases of life-saving equipment like up-armored vehicles if they didn't get the whole package they were asking for in one shot. But when Reid staged that all-nighter stunt last summer it was kind of a two-fer. Not only did it create one more opportunity to hold Republicans up to the light on Iraq, he was also able to use it as a pretext for postponing a vote on the regular Defense appropriations bill. I have always suspected that the latter was his real intention all along and precisely so that the next time the White House came calling for more war money, the regular defense bill would be under consideration at the same time -- the regular defense budget of course being the more proper place for things like up-armored vehicles.

I don't care if it is filibustered - Democrats must STAND UP and WAIT THEM OUT. How would we feel if the soldiers said, "we'll we're probably going to suffer if we raid that village - so perhaps we'll just LOOK like we're going in and in the end, pull away"?

Stand up for our men and women - once and for all.

You might also give out a list of the GOP names that thinking about siding with you - but aren't ready yet. Perhaps if you let Americans TELL them what they SHOULD do - they will help you.

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