I was suprised to see in the paper Sunday that Representative David Price voted on the 19th against HR 2642, giving Bush and Cheney $162.5 billion more dollars for the supposed "War on Terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill even prohibited permanent bases in Iraq, but to end the war, funding has to be cut off, though that might not be why Price voted against the funding. Then on the 20th he voted against HR 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (online at thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.06304:), which abets the government's warrantless spying on Americans and immunizes those companies that gave the government access against lawsuits. Unfortunately both bills passed in the House. Butterfield, Watt, and Miller also voted no on the war funding bill and Watt and Miller also voted against the FISA bill, and Jones for whatever reason did not vote.
Price did vote on the 11th to refer Kucinich's H. Res. 1285, Impeaching George W. Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors. I assume this means referring it to the House Judicial Committee, which probably is a neutral act, but everyone must expect the Committee to bury yet another impeachment bill. With the war funding and FISA bills, Congress bought into Bush-Cheney's crimes once again. The Senate is even more "responsible" in its decisions than the House, so I assume the bills will pass easily, and I think Obama has expressed support for the FISA bill.
One question is whether Price is voting this way because he is coming up for re-election. Either way it is a good trend, but he needs to do more. He is willing to lead on limiting military contractors, but he is more willing to talk about Bush-Cheney's crimes than to take decisive steps to stop them. There is also no reason to think he won't vote to openly support imperialism again, like he did in the summer of 2006 when he voted to endorse Israel's war on Lebanon and villify the resistance to Zionist expansionism.
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