Redstate

The Democrats are angry that we've called their bluff. They don't want to have to vote on this. They'd rather be able to hold press conferences, make irresponsible statements, and have a national media fawn all over them. That's not leadership.

Exactly.

How do you tell an 19 year old American fighting, bleeding for their country that this is all pointless? How dare you.

Maybe you should of thought of that BEFORE you sent him to fight in this pointless war.

I'll admit it. I take pleasure from having enemies this incompetent.

Unfortunately, we have a bandwidth bill to pay, and you're wasting it. Toodles.

tax cuts

a border fence

prayer in school

christmas displays

hate crimes

racial quotas

nuclear power plants

oil refineries

and whether judges or the people in states make law on abortion, etc

and put the lib dem msm fiction top bed

and the next day we would discover spine the senate loses every christmas after elections they win

You, Streiff, Nick, et al.; you lead, we follow: Get some, brother.

Nothing shatters the Democratic tranquility more than making them take a stand on something. The weathervane Dems are upset because you've flushed them out of the shadows and into the light. If nothing else we will get lots of great sound bites of Democrats flipping and flopping like freshly caught cat fish.

is that like amerikkka.

Idiot

Maybe I am unclear on the text of the resolution being voted on here.

Why are the Republicans voting Yea and the Dems Nay?

A pointless comment

From pointless troll

On a pointless day

In a pointless year

In a pointless life

On a pointless planet

In a pointless universe

Oh...the pointlessness of it All!

Would you people also think it's appropriate for the Democrats to write a resolution, and then claim it's a Republican resolution and insist the Republicans vote for it????????????????

Lets hope the audience of Red State call this stunt by the House Republicans as intellectually dishonest as it was.

It's okay, it's a procedural vote to allow debate on the actual resolution. Buckle your seatbelts, there should be another hour after this vote.

The vote you're citing is strictly procedural - it sets the rules for the debate.  The Republicans set the rules and vote yes, the Democrats (almost with out fail) don't like them and therefore vote no.

The vote on the actual resolution will come later tonight.

In the intrests of fairness, there were perhaps a handful of such votes the Republicans approved of over the 40-years they were the House minority - the minority NEVER likes the debate rules.  File under: Life in the Minority.

is, I strongly suspect, doomed to remain unfilfilled.

I'm with Cole on this one (same link Leon cites, if you've already been there)

You want the troops out. You consistently state the public supports you. You have spent the last two years saying Bush lied to you, this was a war for oil, and so on. You tell us over and over again the public is behind you. You now have a vote on what Murtha proposed yesterday - immediate withdrawal of the troops.

So shut up, quit your damned whining, reach down between your legs and (edited for family hour), and vote on the resolution. It is as simple as it gets. Do you favor immediate withdrawal of the troops from Iraq? Yes or no.

The Democrats, through Rep. Murtha and Minority Leader Pelosi, have demanded that our troops be immediately withdrawn from Iraq. The Republicans have brought this "idea" to a vote, by drafting a measure saying the same, and you call this a "stunt" that is "intellectually dishonest?"

If you are willing to propose a policy which is contrary to the interests of our country, why are you unwilling to have Democrats vote for it?

Your position is intellectually dishonest. It undermines our warfighters, and makes it more difficult to recruit Iraqis to fight for democracy. It jeopardizes America in the war against Islamic supremacy. If you want our troops out of Iraq, let your position be explicit. If you are unwilling to take responsibility for actions that increase the danger faced by deployed warfighters, withdraw your "suggestion". If you are willing to take responsibility for your actions, stand up and say so. This should be an easy call for any intellectually honest person.

"How do you tell an 19 year old American fighting, bleeding for their country that this is all pointless? How dare you. You may not agree with the way things are being managed, but don't you minimize the importance of what we're doing in Iraq."

I think she is absolutely right. The veracity of the justifications for the war and the potency of our efforts are not the most important things anymore.  We're in this war for the long haul.  In order to keep morale up, we should not question why the soldiers' lives are being sacrificed.

RS Audience flicks bics.

and Rep.Jean of Ohio. To question John Murtha? Jean will be crushed by a Democrat next time around. Tennesseans will be watching what Blackburn will dare to say about John Murtha on TV. And they will demand an apology...

Copyright violation AND trolling. In two posts, I think. I think it's fair to say that things are not going to work out between us.

Are you boring?

Do you post ridiculous things  and drive people batshit?

Do people need a Captain Marvel Decoder Ring to make sense out of your posts?

Do you have to answer the same guys post's and then they answer your's

back and forth and on and on yadda yadda yadda?

If so, you may suffer from Trolls Disease.

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If you don't agree with us, then get out of the debate.

Profanity is not tolerated. Note the humongous marquee above your post.

Isn't it impossible to have a debate where everyone agrees?

It's about a year's worth of Democrat lies and slander.  Murtha called for immediate withdrawal.  OK, shut up and vote.  If you really have the country behind you, it should be no problem.  Oh yeah, you don't...

Another one bites the dust.

I want to win this war, but i take issue with your comment.  Dissent and debate help formulate policy.  The administration has had no coherent plan for winning the war.  They steadfastly refuse to do what it takes...ie sending a few hundred thousand more troops, reinstituting the draft, etc.   If this debacle leads to a real discussion of what it will take to win this thing, then God bless Murtha.  He served his country and he's welcome to his opinion, just as we are welcome to disagree with it.

He visits wounded soldiers everyweek.  He has been a staunch supporter of the military for 20 years.  Your ideas about stifleing speech you don't agree with is counter-productive.  Growth comes from honest debate.

you actually believe what you and your GOP collegues just pulled was an actual statement of principle or a playground stunt? I mean is the Congress serious? For how long is this childish stuff going to continue and serious matters are not being debated?

should me more than willing to pull the troops out of Iraq. If they are not willing to vote where their mouth is, they should ST*U

I think Tennesseans are quite happy with Rep. Blackburn's performance in her duties.

Anyone else concerned about the $8 billion the House wanted to cut which is the total funding for preparation against the bird flu?

Are you going to tell me they couldn't find $8 bil in pork and waste first before going after this?

Even the most Libertarian of my friends believe the government has some role in public health, or am I wrong?  What did you guys think about this?

that this thread has drawn quite a contigent of Kossacks.  I can understand that.

I can appreciate the politics of the moves.  Very shrewd.  The Republicans, knowing that there is no way the Democrats would vote for such a measure, put up a measure that would certainly embarass the Democrats.

On the other hand I find this sort of politics somewhat vile.  It is not Congress' job to dictate to the President what he should be doing with our military.  They can cut his funding but they really don't have much authority to tell him to do anything with the military.  This measure would do precisely that*.  So they put the Democrats in a position of having to vote on a bill that is quetionable Constitutionally AND a bill that was completely ridiculous in concept.  Even if the Democrats want to get out of Iraq immediately it will take months, if not years, to do this.  This bill seems to have proposed and immediate withdrawal.

I would also like to add that Jean Schmidt's comments went way over the line.  For thos who may not have read them here they are....

Yesterday I stood at Arlington National Cemetery attending the funeral of a young marine in my district. He believed in what we were doing is the right thing and had the courage to lay his life on the line to do it. A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bop, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do. Danny and the rest of America and the world want the assurance from this body - that we will see this through

This is not the sort of language that is appropriate for our leaders.  Personally I think those remarks will come back to haunt her.

So congratulations on for the political gamesmanship but let's not call this anything more than it is, a stunt to embarass the Democrats.

* - I haven't read the full text as it hasn't been sent to GPO yet but the title of the bill "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately. "   seems pretty clear.

Your being intellectually dishonest.

THESE ARE THE FACTS..undisputable.

Murtha wrote a resolution, the house put to a vote a

doctored version of his resolution.

You should be ashamed of this tactic.  JUST ASHAMED!

Murtha's resolution:  End deployment immediately, supported by cloudy rhetoric and accompanied by a vague "get out of jail free" practicability clause -- which, if you peruse the statement posted on his web site, actually means "as soon as can be safely done".

Hunter's resolution:  End deployment immediately.

Hunter's resolution boils off the political condiments and presents the meat.  If you don't like the meat, don't eat it -- but don't pretend that the mustard you like so much changes the substance of the sandwich.

well we can all agree it was a political stunt, Hunter didn't even vote for his own resolution.  But there is nothing wrong with political stunts.  

To me it seems if your going to attempt the sort of political stunt the house did yesterday, you at minimum have to use a version the opposition wrote,

or at least a version similar enough that the opposition considers the difference to be a non-meaningful difference.

The point is, it wasn't a meaningful difference.

Hunter correctly decided not to allow the Democrats to define the terms of the debate and grant them their wiggle room. He showed them only the core language many of them would happily have been endorsing in the Murtha amendment.

And they ran like bunnies from it.

to an axiom of communication, that it seems to me people often disregard.

If I say a sentence, and then you restate it, in a different way, a way that does not convey the meaning I originally intended, who is the judge of meaning I originally intended?

well if your goal is to have a serious discussion, you always let the speakers meaning of his words be the meaning.  If your not goin to allow the original speaker to intend the meanings he originally intended, then there is really no point for him to talk to you, because your not really interestedin in engaging in a meaningful discussion.

... is stated more directly in his own words on his web site:

My plan calls:

To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.

The Hunter resolution called for:

the deployment of United States forces in Iraq [to] be terminated immediately

The resolution does allow the original speaker to intend the meanings he originally intended -- compare the two statements above and show me the difference if you can.  Rather, the Hunter resolution asks him to own it, despite his attempt to cloud his own clearly stated intention.

It's the Democrats who aren't interested in engaging in meaningful discussion. If they were, they'd stop their posing and say clearly what they really do mean.

its very simple if there were really no meaningful difference between the two resolutions, than why not just have them vote on murtha's resolution?

the fact that they refuse to put murtha's resolution up for a vote, is admission they even they realize there is some difference between the two resolutions.

-- and you're probably smart enough to decipher this on your own, absent your instinct to protect your party -- is the obfuscatory language inserted into Murtha's resolution that allows him room to deny it says what it says.

It was brilliant for Hunter to wipe away the meaningless language of justification and present only the core holding (i.e., the meaningful part) for a vote.

If you'd be inclined to support Murtha's resolution and not Hunter's, then that says something about your intellectual honesty, just as it says something about the intellectual honesty of all save three in the Democrat caucus.

I actually don't understand the Democrats or Republican stand on this vote...

that is I don't understand how the additional language is obfuscatory, nor do I understand how the language makes a big difference.

But to me it is self-evident that both sides agree the language is significantly different..otherwise

the Republicans would have just put Murtha's text up for a vote.

My basic point is, it doens't work as a political stunt if you don't put the Democrats language up for a vote.  But in the end the only real judge of a political stunt is the American media, I guess will just have to wait and see how the American public judges this stunt.

were my representative,