There were so many amendments that I could hardly keep up-- most being Republican members asking for military pork for their districts-- but in the end, the House passed warmonger Buck McKeon's H.R. 1540 by a predictably, albeit shamefully, wide margin 322-96. A slim majority of Democrats joined all but six Republicans in favor of endless aggressive war, with all that that means towards undermining a democracy. The antiwar Republicans were all extreme right-wingers-- Ron Paul (TX), Justin Amash (MI), John Campbell (CA), Jason Chaffetz (UT), John Duncan (TN) and Tom McClintock (CA), although moderate Republican Walter Jones (NC) joined the Democrats' perfunctory effort to head this off with a Motion to Reconsider providing our troops with a $100 per month increase in combat pay. Every Democrat + Jones voted for it and every Republican voted against the pay increase. It failed 185-233.
Most progressive Democrats voted NO, although-- despite her early morning rah-rah tweet, Pelosi joined the Republicans and other war-mongers in voting YES. First, though, she-- and most Democrats +26 Republicans-- voted for Jim McGovern's amendment to wind down the occupation of Afghanistan.
The 8 worst Democratic warmongers, the ones who opposed ending the occupation, were the usual excruciatingly bad suspects:
Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Joe Donnelly (DSCC Senate recruit & Blue Dog-IN)
Larry Kissell (NC)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Dutch Ruppersberger (MD)
So, another wasteful $690 billion pork-laden military budget that the even the Pentagon says is too much and that President Obama has threatened to veto. These people have no shame. They should all be defeated. Some of the provisions include:
• Indefinitely expanding presidential power to conduct military action in the so-called "war on terror" while leaving ambiguous who the enemy is (aka the Authorization of Use of Military Force or AUMF)
• Blocking the repeal of DADT and other provisions for gay servicemembers (despite statements for Adm. Mullen and others in support of DADT)
• Re-instating the F-35 2nd engine (for which DoD has issued a stop-order calling it "a waste of taxpayer money")
• Restricting implementation on New START / U.S. nuclear policy (WH veto threat points out this raises questions of constitutional authority)
I don't understand why Democrats voted for it. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) co-sponsored a bipartisan amendment-- along with Justin Amash (R-MI), John Conyers (D-MI), Walter Jones (R-NC), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Ron Paul (R-TX)-- that would have deleted Section 1034, the part of the bill which expands the scope, and blurs the definition, of the war on terror. “How will anyone be able to declare success when the objective itself is so amorphous?” he asked in the debate Wednesday night. “How will we know when we have won the war? ... The President must not have the total discretion to take this country to war with anybody, at anytime, under any circumstances under his sole discretion.” It lost 187-234, 21 Republicans voting with the Democrats and 20 Blue Dog types voting with the Republicans. Watch:
