Do Nothing. George Bush has thrown down the gauntlet and dared Congress to deny him funds to run his war against Iraq. Congress does not need to be confrontational. It need merely do nothing.
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Congress has done nothing about most of the things that worry and harass the American people. It won't so much as lift a finger on the things we want Congress to do. Why should they act on something we don't want them to do?
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Take, for instance, the assaults that 70 million and more Americans deal with every day from Internet scammers and would-be identity thieves. Every day, tens of billions of scam emails clog the Internet, as thieves of many different types from many different countries try in many different ways to rob us. But Congress does nothing about that. Why should it do more to fund the Iraq War?
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The people of the United States want the Iraq War to end. We also want our Government, and all the governments of the world, to take aggressive measures to end the rampant criminality that now infests the Internet. The latter requires strenuous, intelligent, and carefully targeted measures. The former, however, requires only inaction.
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The Democrats who control Congress should simply announce to the public, "We offered to fund the war in Iraq, but President Bush said he didn't want the money. So we are acceding to his wish and giving him no money whatsoever to pursue his evil war. We will NEVER authorize so much as ONE CENT of further funding for George Bush's war against the Iraqi people. We don't have to cancel anything or veto anything or do anything negative at all. The only thing we need to do is NOTHING. We will do NOTHING to fund the Iraq war. Let President Bush fund his war thru his own means. He will NOT take that money from the American people, because the American people want his war to END. For our part, we will merely sit on our hands and do NOTHING, as he has done nothing about so many other things that the American people care deeply about, such as ending usury, controlling the abusiveness of banks and credit-card companies, prosecuting scams run in plain sight on television, such as get-rich-quick schemes and penis-enlargement pills. It is not our job as representatives of the people to send young Americans to die in a war of aggression against people who never attacked us. It IS President Bush's job to protect Americans from scams, be they delivered via email (phony lotteries and Nigerian next-of-kin bunco), television (infomercials about work-at-home or no-money-down real estate scams or 'smart'-investing seminars or "male enhancement" pills and patches), about all of which the Government does absolutely nothing, leaving people to believe that "if it's on television, it must be true, because the Government wouldn't let it be advertised on television if it WEREN'T true".
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So, Members of Congress, do not actively oppose Dumbya's war in Iraq. Rather, do nothing. Just regard the issue as closed, as with any other piece of legislation that the President vetoes and you cannot override. What would you do with other legislation the President vetoes? Drop it entirely, or put it off to the next session of Congress, at which point there will, thanks to the Constitution, be another President. You really DO NOT have to fund this war. You just DON'T have to fund his war at all. Tell the public, "We offered him money. He didn't want it. So he doesn't get it. The only money we WILL give him is money to REMOVE our troops from Iraq. For that, we will give every cent required. But we won't give so much as a single cent to keep our kids in harm's way. Not one red cent."
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Let Dumbya find the money for his war in some other source than Congress. Let him move money from other executive departments, if that be legal, or from other Pentagon programs, to his war against the tragically-wronged people of that catastrophically devastated country that never attacked us. If he cannot fund his war from other sources, let him accept that he has no choice but to remove the troops from harm's way and bring them home, where they belong, or move them to Afghanistan, which really did attack us.
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Meanwhile, Congress, you should fund other things FROM THE MILITARY BUDGET, things that Americans really do want Government to do. Authorize the restoration of scores of thousands of cops for cities struggling against gang and drug violence, funding for which Bush ended. Enact free college scholarships for poor kids. Pass universal-healthcare legislation. Fund more Border Patrol agents to intercept illegal-alien invaders and potential terrorists pouring across our all-too-porous borders. Repair our highways and bridges. Rebuild New Orleans. Inspect food imports to protect our pets and ourselves from Chinese melamine and other poisons willfully inflicted upon us by stupid or malevolent foreigners. Send food to Darfur, and fund UN and African Union troops to make sure that that food reaches the people who will die without it. Subsidize solar and wind electric-generation installations in private houses, businesses, schools, and government buildings, and fund pilot projects on wave generators and other innovative technologies to cut our dependence on foreign oil. Reopen cropland once closed by Government mandate, to grow corn and other crops that can be used in creating ethanol and biodiesel to lessen our dependence on petroleum. Fund conversion of gas stations to electric-recharging and hydrogen-supply stations. Give money to local people in Brazil to pay them to protect the rain forest, to locals in Africa to protect rhinos and elephants, to villages in India and Thailand to save habitat for elephants, to the Philippines and Madagascar to protect coral reefs. And on, and on, and on, good cause after good cause after good cause, all to be funded from moneys that Dumbya wants to go to his war in Iraq. Make plain that the longer he delays, the more money will be taken from the military budget and moved to better causes, and if he won't spend that money for those causes, you will ask the people if you should impeach him for defying the will of the people's representatives, in Congress assembled.
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There is absolutely no reason for Congress to roll over and play dead. Congress is not powerless. Quite the contrary, when it comes to MONEY, Congress is ALL-POWERFUL. The Imperial President has NO resources of his own. CONGRESS controls the pursestrings, if nothing else. When you do control the pursestrings, you don't need anything else. Cut off all funding to Dumbya's war. Send him NO spending authorization for his war. NONE. Whittle away at those funds with multitudinous good causes, and force him to justify wanting to spend BILLIONS on destruction rather than on constructive measures all around this starving, violent, benighted planet. You are in the right. He is altogether wrong. Don't play his game. Make him play yours.
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When it comes to funding Dumbya's war, DO NOTHING.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,352.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:48 AM