From The Huffington Post:Just moments ago, Senate Republicans succeeded in a filibuster in which they refused to end debate on Virginia Democrat Jim Webb's S. 2012, which would have placed strict limits on National Guard and reserve deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as mandating more downtime at home before active-duty combat troops are returned to battle.So let me get this straight: The Senate was 4 votes shy of deciding whether to vote on this Amendment?! This was not even the actual vote on the amendment, but the vote on whether to vote. Yep. Your tax dollars at work folks.
The vote was 56-41 to end debate, with 60 votes needed to move to a full, up-or-down vote on the Webb measure. Once again, the GOP has been successful at destroying another Democratic attempt at helping service members and their families caught in the buzzsaw of the Bush administration's lies and incompetence.
And by the way, what was in S. 2012? Oh, just that active duty troops have at least the same time at home as the length of their previous tour of duty overseas. Is that so undreasonable to the Republicans that they cannot even agree to vote on the idea?
Here is the list the votes. See how your folks voted.
5 comments:
I read in the Washington Post Express earlier this week that armed services recruiting were way below target the past two months. No new fodder obviously means the old fodder must be recycled more often. Reuse. Recycle. Reduce. :O
Ha! Who knew the Bush Administration were secret environmentalists!
Good to hear from you again, Mean Dave.
I looked at the bill, meaning I basically skimmed over the contents page. What caught my eye was the inclusion of defense contracts and other defense spending programs. The Senate may be trying to protect their investments by not allowing more tighter monitoring of the contracts. I also saw a lot of wonderful military programs that are long overdue to be fixed. Wouldn't it be nice.
It looks like the real issue is the 3.5% pay raise for the military. Bush threatened to veto HR 1585 (which is the original bill) if it passed through the Senate stating that the pay raise was unnecessary. Yet, no one is accusing him of not supporting the troops. Ass. I've never heard of a President vetoing more legislature than this monkey.
There are a bunch of amendments to the bill that are being debated this week. Webb's was just one, and his really focused on number of deployments and time home.
I just find it outrageous that the Republicans kept it from coming to a vote.
Thanks for the update. Both my Republican Texans voted Nay. I just sent 2 emails to them discussing my disappointment. I might post them on my site.
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