No surprise… the war profiteers, Wall Street, the weapon makers, and all their lobbyists won. American workers and their children who live in poverty lose.

So it was just more kabuki from War Inc, and the representatives of the Corporate States of America.

How about a vote to impeach?

The second vote is muddled. It should have defunded all operations related to the Libyan war.

I do agree that Congress generally does not want to exert their authority. However, there were different reasons for voting against the second resolution. Looking at the vote results, Kucinich, Woolsey, Lee, to point out a few, voted for the resolution, and Paul, Amash, Grijalva, and Baldwin voted against the resolution. The latter group presumably voted against the resolution because it authorized too much funding and defined the United States’ support role too broadly.

Hail Caesar, I guess.

it is hard to know exactly where we stand in the whole Libya dust up

I disagree. I agree with wagthedog @ 1. We know where We the People stand. Hopefully though Dennis has already written the impeachment papers… so as the primary season begins we will have an opportunity to challenge The Incumbent Party and their Wall Street Masters.

Yep F*&^ Main Street the normal for congress/wh/ws

When is it finally admitted that the U.S. Congress has as much power as the Senate under the Ceaser’s. It’s all farce all the time.

” …how complicated the whole issue of war and support for a wartime president has become.”

It’s just so darn complicated, decisions, decisions, decisions.

Ye$. It i$ $o very complicated, e$pecially for member$ of Congre$$.

Why do you $uppo$e it i$ all $o $pectacularly and $eriou$ly difficult?

Must be con$cience.

We look around and see many things which need to be done, many jobs, like rebuilding the infrastructure of the nation and rebuilding civil society. And quess what? There are millions of people who need work.

Guess what? Work + resources = wealth.

Money is NOT wealth, merely the measure of it …

And those who control most all of the money did NOT “earn” it, neither did they do the work which created the wealth which money represents.

But those people with the money, let us call them the MONEY PEOPLE, do not want to rebuild the infrastructure OR society.

The MONEY PEOPLE want EASY MONEY, Money that they can easily get their hands on. “Confu$ion” helps …

Ergo: Endle$$ War$.

Ye$. It i$ $o darn complex and complicated, Bill, it likely will NEVER be re$olved, so the damned environment is SIMPLY going to have to take care of itself … and the same SIMPLE truth applies to every other bootstrapper who ain’t SIMPLY filthy rich.

Can’t mess with the Divine Right of Money.

DW

More savagery. Made in America. Our biggest exports: the ruin of war and financial shell games.

The WPA is irrelevant because it only applies to attacks against the U.S. or after a declaration of war, neither of which apply.

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

In any case, elective war is always against the UN Charter. This is an impeachable violation of presidential obligations.

What infuriated me was when HRC asked “whose side are you on?” It reminded me of Rand Paul’s argument over the Patriot Act. Kucinich and Paul are not siding with Qaddafi. Dennis and Ron are siding with The Rule of Law. But obviously HRC and Obomba don’t give a hoot about the rule of law.

Dennis, I hope you’re drafting the impeachment papers. Maybe by the fall, there will 218 CongressCritters who realize their constituents have slightly different priorities from those of the MIC and its minions, such as The Big 0.

Follow up: only about 20 members of the CPC voted for the second resolution.

How could you omit hypocrisy/BS as one of our prime exports? USA stands for Unending Source of Aggression.

Hypocrisy Clinton was just in Guatemala instructing their government on the necessity for the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share to support their country. She is simply amazing.

I don’t know. I may be wrong, but I sense the beginning of the ice cracking under the whole war enterprise. People are beginning to realize that they can express a question about these wars without being attacked and shouted down like they were back in the beginning. Ten years. Ten years of solid war in Afghanistan is a long time.

Even my spineless, total opportunist, for all practical purposes Republican, Blue Dog, NRA loving democrat Senator Joe Manchin has made a speech the other day calling for us to put an end to the war in Afghanistan and use the money at home. I never would have expected that in a million years.

It happened that way at the end of Viet Nam, just little by little until Nixon could not stand it and he gave the word to Kissinger to get us out. President Thieu told his cabinet, “This war was never about Viet Nam. When it suited the Americans, they came in. And when it suits the Americans they will leave.”

Hope you’re right, but it sure doesn’t look like these greedy vultures plan or want to end their pipeline into our pocketbooks via endless War, Inc. I dearly love to be proven wrong.

Anyone want to step up and tell us all how Hilary Clinton is “more progressive” than Obama, and that if we had just voted in HRC, then things “would be better”??? From where I sit, I don’t see even a shred of sunlight’s worth of difference between BHO & HRC. If anything, HRC seems even more hawkish, if that’s at all possible.

Of course, imo, both HRC & BHO *sold out* a loooong time ago and both are highly compensated poodles of the MIC/WallSt, etc.

Kabuki Show, anyone?????

Ah, the Kabuki Show Dawgs, onitgoes.

They can “sit”, walk at heel, “shake” paws, and bark most all of the time … except when “astute” tyranny, treason, and theft are afoot, when they sit meekly mute … but they are oh so cute!

And clever, it is said that they are clever, among the most clever that ever there were.

We shall see …

DW

In response to DW @ 19…

perhaps that’s the differenc with Dennis… whereas Obomba and HRC simply repeat the words they are told to speak… Dennis is an actual ventriloquist. Perhaps the MICs jedi mind tricks don’t work on ventriloquists??

Ventriloquists aren’t dummies who simply spout the words given to them by others! lol.

At least Democrats aren’t totally hypocritical now, at least when it comes to liberal beliefs in foreign policy. A liberal who doesn’t think human rights are worth securing abroad is not a liberal.

The vote shows that Congress is dithering. Not authorizing the intervention is to save face with constituents. Not cutting off funding is to save face with those who know what’s right.

Lemme guess. Boener cried after the vote. If there was ever a less effective speaker than he, I do not know who.

Yep, even Gen. Michael Hayden is not so hot about this mishegas in Libya. That oughta raise some more eyebrows in neocon-land. (:>

These bills are not what they are represented to be. Both bills were actually an authorization for the war according to Ron Paul.

Here’s his statement on the floor:

Statement on HR 2278, a bill to limit the use of funds appropriated to the Department of Defense for United States Armed Forces in support of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Operation Unified Protector with respect to Libya, unless otherwise specifically authorized by law.

Mr. Speaker I rise to oppose this legislation, which masquerades as a limitation of funds for the president’s war on Libya but is in fact an authorization for that very war. According to HR 2278, the US military cannot be involved in NATO’s actions in Libya, with four important exceptions. If this passes, for the first time the president would be authorized to use US Armed Forces to engage in search and rescue; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; aerial refueling; and operational planning against Libya. Currently, absent an authorization or declaration of war, these activities are illegal. So instead of ending the war against Libya, this bill would legalize nearly everything the president is currently doing there.

That the war in Libya can be ended by expanding it and providing the president a legal excuse to continue makes no sense. If this bill fails, the entirety of what the president is doing in Libya would remain illegal.

Additionally, it should not really be necessary to prohibit the use of funds for US military attacks on Libya because those funds are already prohibited by the Constitution. Absent Congressional action to allow US force against Libya any such force is illegal, meaning the expenditure of funds for such activities is prohibited. I will, however, support any straight and clean prohibition of funds such as the anticipated amendments to the upcoming Defense Appropriations bill.

I urge my colleagues to reject this stealth attempt to authorize the Libya war and sincerely hope that the House will soon get serious about our Constitutional obligations and authority.

Kucinich was apparently recommending a vote for this GOP bill, and the actual votes were really hokey. I’m not sure if Kucinch actually read it.

Ros-Lehtinen voted to defund a war. Does that make sense?

McGovern, Jackson Lee (TX), Grijalva, Donna Edwards, and Chaffetz(R-UT) voted no

A liberal who doesn’t think human rights are worth securing abroad is not a liberal

Thats a bunch of crap, these kinds of liberals have a name around here. Useful idiots and cruise missile liberals.
You can’t have a country that financially supports bloody dictators in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia etc.. and then bomb a country to rubble in the name of human rights, or cause a massacre to stop a hypothetical one and remove a dictator that isn’t doing your bidding.

“war time president”

A redundant phrase since 1941.

Foreign Policy:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to put lipstick on the pig of today’s admonishment of the administration by Congress, saying that she was “gratified that the House has decisively rejected efforts to limit funding” for the intervention. She was referring to the House’s rejection of a bill put forth by Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) that would have shut off the spigot of funds for most, but not all, U.S. military operations in Libya.

The vote failed 180-238 – but, in fact, there were more than enough lawmakers to pass the measure. Of the 149 Democrats who stuck with the president, up to 70 of them are totally opposed to the Libya intervention and want to see it completely defunded as soon as possible. They voted “no” on the Rooney’s bill because they thought it was too weak, did not cut off all funds, and implicitly authorized the intervention.

These 70 Democrats make up the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), the largest caucus within the House Democratic Caucus, whose leadership includes Reps. Mike Honda (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ).

“Members of Congress voted no because the bill provided funding and legal authority for everything we’re currently doing. It was back door authorization. Members didn’t support authorizing what we’re doing now in Libya,” Michael Shank, Honda’s spokesman, told The Cable. “The majority of the CPC voted no on the Rooney vote because of this.”

While I realize there is a debate, and some take part’s of the US Constitution when making an argument, they seem to leave out the rest.

The United States is a founding member of the UN and ratified the UN Charter, which is a “TREATY”! Under the US Constitution it says this:

Article. VI.

………….

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The action in Libya was authorized by the UN Security Counsel which has declared war on no one.

Article 24
In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.
In discharging these duties the Security Council shall act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. The specific powers granted to the Security Council for the discharge of these duties are laid down in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII.
The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration.
Article 25
The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.

The UN Security council authorized the intervention into Libya and under the US Constitution as such is the “Supreme Law of the Land”

When Bush atacked Iraq he had no UN Security Resolution, which is required except in self-defense, not “pre-emptive strikes“!

I think this would make an interesting debate as I do not buy the Congresses interpretation of our responsibilities under the UN Charter, though they could effectively stop our involvement through defunding it. That would be a huge slap in the face considering their restraint when Bush and the “coalition of the willing” unilaterally violated the Charter of the UN.