Feingold: You're Getting Nothing for Xmas

Keeping with my theme of This Week in Zombie News, Russ Feingold has prognosticated:

Feingold: 'We're headed in the direction of absolutely nothing'

Russ Feingold tells a Wisconsin crowd of the prospects for health care legislation:

"Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens," Feingold said. "The divisions are so deep. I never seen anything like that."

Feingold reiterated his appraisal a bit later.

"We're headed in the direction of doing absolutely nothing, and I think that's unfortunate," he said when asked about the plight of uninsured Americans.

Shorter version:

Quote du Jour: Impeachment

Jimmy Breslin via Newsday (the entire editorial is worth a read):

Say impeachment and you'll get your troops home.

That's where the disconnect is as far as the Democratic leaders go. It's either/or. They won't impeach. They won't defund the war. Perhaps if they squeezed the Bush administration hard enough and actually began holding impeachment hearings, Bush would stand up and take notice, but the Democrats are too afraid to even try.

Meanwhile, one of the "liberal" heroes of the left blogosphere, Russ Feingold, just wants to give Bush a slap on the wrist by censuring him. You'd think that toothless gesture would be something even the rest of the Democrats could get behind, but no:

Feingold's own party leader in the Senate showed little interest in the idea. An attempt in 2006 by Feingold to censure Bush over the warrantless spying program attracted only three co-sponsors.
[...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Feingold's proposals showed the nation's frustration. But Reid said he would not go along with them and said the Senate needs to focus on finishing spending bills on defense and homeland security.

"We have a lot of work to do," Reid said. "The president already has the mark of the American people — he's the worst president we ever had. I don't think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove that."

They are incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

Spineless, spineless, spineless, and nothing but a dereliction of duty as the Democratic party seems to have taken an oath to protect itself rather than the US constitution.

As for Feingold's intentions with his censure resolution:

This is an opportunity for people to say, let's at least reflect on the record that something terrible has happened here," said Feingold, D-Wis. "This administration has weakened America in a way that is frightful."

Yes. Let's "reflect". As thousands more people die in Iraq. Let's "reflect".
 

Wexler to File Resolution to Censure Bush

Via the congressman's site:

(Washington, D.C.) Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) has drafted and will file a Congressional resolution censuring President George W. Bush for his egregious and politically motivated commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence. The censure resolution, which is attached below, will be formally introduced in the House of Representatives on Tuesday July 10, 2007 when Congress reconvenes from the 4th of July recess.

You can read the text of the resolution on Wexler's site.

Here's the last "whereas":

Whereas in commuting Mr. Libby’s sentence, President Bush has finally and unalterably breached any remaining shred of trust that he had left with the American people and rewarded political loyalty while flouting the rule of law: Now, therefore let be it --

Resolved, That the United States Congress does hereby censure George W. Bush, President of the United States, and does condemn his decision to commute the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison, his unconscionable abuse of his authority with regard to the deceitful chain of events concerning the falsifying intelligence on Iraqi nuclear capabilities and the exaggeration of the threat posed by Iraq, his involvement in the clear political retaliation against former Ambassador and Ms. Wilson, and his decision to reward the perjury of Mr. Libby, which effectively protected President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other Administration officials from further scrutiny.

This comes on the heels of the announcement that the judiciary committee will hold "a full committee hearing next week titled, “The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials.”

Now, I don't know why it's taken Libby's sentence commutation to finally push the Dems into doing something to punish this pResident considering there are so many crimes they should be impeaching him for, but it's about damn time.

And, as a sidenote:

Before the holiday, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton asked lawyers on both sides of the Lewis "Scooter" Libby case to submit briefs outlining their positions as to whether the former White House aide should still be required to spend two years on probation now that President Bush has decided to overturn his 30-month prison sentence.

"Strictly construed, the statute authorizing the imposition of supervised release indicates that such release should occur only after the defendant has already served a term of imprisonment," Walton wrote Tuesday.

So, even though Bush said Libby would be on probation (after admittedly not consulting with experts on these issues in his justice department) the only punishment Libby may actually "suffer" is the fine he paid today.

Censure via wiki:

Censure is a procedure for publicly reprimanding a public official for inappropriate behavior. When the President is censured, it serves merely as a condemnation and has no direct effect on the validity of presidency, nor are there any other particular legal consequences. Unlike impeachment, censure has no basis in the Constitution, or in the rules of the Senate and House of Representatives. It derives from the formal condemnation of either congressional body of their own members.

If the Dems can't even manage to find a majority to support this slap on the wrist censure, they might as well pack their bags and sit out the rest of their terms at home.

Don't hold your breath on this one though. The Dems refused to get behind Feingold's call to censure Bush over the illegal wiretapping last year - a crime he admitted to.

Feingold, defending his censure plan today on Fox News, said: “I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide…too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they’ll say we’d better just focus on domestic issues…[Democrats shouldn’t] cower to the argument, that whatever you do, if you question administration, you’re helping the terrorists.”

Well Russ, they're still doing it. Having the majority hasn't changed a damn thing.

Related: The Center for American Progress has more about Libby's commutation.
 

Today is brought to you by the word "cave"

Because that's exactly what the Democrats did on their Iraq bill:

Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package yesterday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months.
[...]
The spending package, expected to total $120 billion when the final version is released today, would require Bush to surrender virtually none of his war authority. Democrats were working to secure two other priorities that the president had previously resisted -- an increase in the minimum wage and funding for domestic programs, including veterans' benefits, Hurricane Katrina relief and agricultural aid.

Instead of sticking with troop-withdrawal dates, Democrats accepted a GOP plan to establish 18 political and legislative benchmarks for the Iraqi government, with periodic reports from Bush on its progress, starting in late July. If the Iraqis fall short, they could forfeit U.S. reconstruction aid.

And lordy, lordy:

Reid called the benchmark language "extremely weak," but he noted that Bush had initially demanded a bill with no strings attached on Iraq. "For heaven's sake, look where we've come," Reid said. "It's a lot more than the president ever expected he'd have to agree to."

Yes, for heaven's sake, it's not like there's a totally fucked up war going on or anything. Lighten up, people!

Meanwhile, Pelosi is singing Tomorrow, tomorrow, we'll end the war tomorrow...

"This is another stage in the sequencing of ending this war," said Pelosi, who added that September would be "the moment of truth."

Riiight...see you in September, Nancy.

The NYT reports:

But even so, many Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, indicated that they would not support the war money, meaning that a significant number of Republicans would have to sign on to ensure the plan’s approval.

Ms. Pelosi made clear that if money for the war was going to be provided without a timeline for withdrawal, it would be without her personal support. “I would never vote for such a thing,” Ms. Pelosi said as she entered the office of Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, to put the final touches on the $120 billion proposal.

So, what was the point of all of this?

That's what Russ Feingold would like to know:

“There has been a lot of tough talk from members of Congress about wanting to end this war, but it looks like the desire for political comfort won out over real action,” said Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who was unsuccessful last week in his push for a withdrawal of combat troops by spring. “Congress should have stood strong, acknowledged the will of the American people, and insisted on a bill requiring a real change of course in Iraq.”

Just wait til September, Russ...September...only a few more thousand people will have died by then...and hey, maybe Buscho will have strong-armed the supposedly democratically-elected Iraqi government to sign that oil law (because that's what this waiting game is really all about - getting the oil profits into the hands of private US war profiteers.)