The 2008 Defense Budget is an integral part of the wars we are now fighting, in addition to being essential for preparing for conflicts to come. It's the base funding for the entire Defense Department - our military. This bill in particular takes care of some issues that have been in the news recently - increased military pay, increased benefits and care for soldiers that have been wounded fighting our wars, and more armored vehicles - to name just a few. These are all things that the Democrats have been screaming about for months. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once promised that the bill would go through clean, with no unrelated extraneous amendments added to muddy it up.

So why are the Democrats now jeopardizing the passage of the bill by adding, at the last minute, a Ted Kennedy authored homosexual hate crimes amendment, having nothing to do with the Defense Department, to the spending measure? The Army Times reminds us that the House passed the 2008 Defense Budget in May. Since then, the Senate has spent alot of time attempting to attach anti-Iraq War amendments to their version of the bill, but each one failed. So they throw one last minute unrelated liberal social agenda amendment onto the bill, in effect challenging Bush to veto the entire measure. It's almost as if the Dems did this out of spite.

The Kennedy amendment is a transparent attempt to get back into the good graces of the Left after the Democrats failed to do what they had promised (actually guaranteed) their base that they would do - get the US out of Iraq. The amendment passed, gaining 60 votes, but that's not enough to override a Presidential veto. Let's say the 2008 Defense Budget passes, and gets to conference committee with the House. There's a good chance that this amendment won't be in the final version sent to the President. But let's say it survives.

Harry Reid pulled the plug on an effort to get the DREAM act passed in the defense authorization bill:

"We will move to proceed to this matter before we leave here. I"m going to do my utmost to do it by November 16," Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said last night.

The proposal faced strong opposition from Republicans who objected to mixing immigration with the defense bill and who vowed to filibuster to defeat the measure if Democrats insisted on bringing it up now.

The atmosphere around any kind of immigration reform is extremely poisonous. The flaw of this bill is in the proof of residency, as this Heritage report tells us:

There is no upper age limit. Any illegal alien can walk into a U.S. Customs and Immigration Ser­vices office and declare that he is eligible. For example, a 45 year old can claim that he illegally entered the United States 30 years ago at the age of 15. There is no requirement that the alien prove that he entered the United States at the claimed time by providing particular documents. The DREAM Act's Section 4(a) merely requires him to "demonstrate" that he is eligible-which in practice could mean simply making a sworn statement to that effect. Thus, it is an invitation for just about every illegal alien to fraudulently claim the amnesty.

There might be a good law waiting to be made around the idea of a pass to illegal aliens who broke the law through the actions of their parents and not on their own accord. But this isn't it.

Reid and the other Democrats may give this another go, but without key Republicans and the White House on board, it's probably a lost cause for them.

67-29 which is a veto sustaining majority in the Senate. President Bush has already declared an intention to veto, with some extremely masterful language:

Today, the Senate passed a State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill that fails to focus on poor children, and instead creates a new entitlement program for higher income households. In fact, the bill specifically eliminates the requirement that states enroll 95% of children in households under 200% of the federal poverty level.

The President will veto this bill because it directs scarce funding to higher incomes at the expense of poor families.

We encourage Congress to send the President a continuing resolution extending SCHIP so coverage for the children who rely on the program will not be threatened. We should take this time to arrive at a more rational, bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization bill that focuses on children in poor families who don't currently have insurance, rather than raising taxes to cover people who already have private insurance.

When the bill passed the House, it did not do so with enough votes to sustain a veto in that body. I would expect that the Democrats would want to put it up for another vote, just to increase the pressure "for the children." This issue is just too easy to demagogue, they won't give up that opportunity.

On the merits of the bill, I'm with the president completely. If the politicians want to do something to help working class families around health care, how about full tax credits for health care? How about coming up with a comprehensive solution to the portability problem? In my opinion this is all about fixing a problem that largely does not exist for the opportunity to beat your political opponent about the head and neck.

Pass SCHIP as it was last year and move on to a real issue.

A few hours before last night's Democratic Presidential Debate in New Hampshire, the Senate overwhelmingly passed Joe Biden's non-binding resolution declaring that Iraq should be divided into three separate regions. The Hill newspaper is calling it a major boost to Joe Biden's campaign for the Vice-Presidency (oops, Presidency), but it's only a boost to those who don't understand: 1) that being non-binding it's meaningless; 2) it can't be implemented, so it's meaningless; and 3) if it ever were to happen it would plunge the region into a more serious war, so it's dangerous in addition to being meaningless.

There is an argument to be made that not only Iraq, but the entire nation structure of the Middle East, was botched when it was originally set up by the Allies after World War I. (For an excellent accounting of how the modern Middle East was created, I encourage anyone who is interested to read David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace - it will astound you.) But we have to deal with the countries as they exist today, imperfect as they are. If we were to separate Iraq into more autonomous regions, the time to have done it would have been when we were occupiers. Now we're not - the Iraqi Government (another imperfect entity) is in control. So Biden's about four years too late for this suggestion to be meaningful.

But it raises a good point. Why didn't we do this in the first place, as people like Rich Lowry of National Review was suggesting at the time? I believe that it's because it would have created, almost immediately, a larger regional war. Turkey would have tried to claim the Kurdish north, at the same time the Turkish Kurds would attempt to secede from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan. Iran would have moved to claim the Shiite south. And the Sunni middle would have been ripe pickings - they'd control Baghdad and Tikrit, but would have little natural resource wealth. Eventually, the Shia/Iran south would attack the Sunni middle to enact revenge for what the Sunnis did to the Shia during Saddam's reign. We'd be in the middle of all of it.

Thankfully, that is not going to happen. The article in The Hill does have a good quote from a Republican aide which shows just how empty Biden's victory was:

One GOP aide went further, saying that most Republicans decided against opposing Biden's plan after revisions made clear that it would not force any decisions on Baghdad. "What is the Iraqi government going to do [in response]? Say, 'thanks for the input, but we're fine'?" the aide said. The aide described Republicans' perspective as: "This doesn't really do anything, and why not let [Democrats] have it, for practical reasons."

Joe Biden, former plagiarist and Senator from the not-so-great, yet first state of Delaware has succeeded in accomplishing nothing and is elated about doing so:

In a strong rebuff to the Bush Administration on Iraq, the Senate overwhelming approved a plan by Biden that essentially calls for breaking Iraq into three sections: Kurd, Sunni, and Shia. While the amendment is nonbinding, it's the first measure to pass, (vote was 75-23,) that goes against the administration's war strategy.

Biden's chief co-sponsor was Brownback. Fellow candidates Clinton and Dodd also supported the plan. Obama and McCain did not vote. (bolding in original)

Wow, I'll be beating a path to the Biden for President headquarters in the morning. I'm entirely sure that President Bush felt "rebuffed" by this huge victory that is er, nonbinding. It's good to know that fellow candidates Hillary, Chris Dodd and Sam Brownback aided in passing this momentous bill that actually means nothing. It's a microcosm of the new Democratic Senate, is it not? Ineffectual, meaningless and proud of it as is made entirely too evident by this statement:

Republican Senator John Warner, instrumental and influential in almost all things related to Iraq, called the vote an "extraordinary moment because it marks the high-water mark of all the many debates and resolutions we've had in terms of bipartisanship."

The high-water mark? Bipartisanship? Jeez, the "influential" Senator is crowing about a nonbinding resolution that will have no effect on anything.

I have less faith in both sides of the Senate than I did just five minutes ago. Please tell me this is satire on MSNBC. Please tell me that correspondent Domenico Montanaro is really John Stewart and this whole thing is make believe.

Sadly, I fear it's not and with the day MSNBC has been having, this is probably the highlight of Dan Abrams day.

Senator Larry Craig just does not know when to give up the proverbial ghost.

Craig fell from grace and saw his political career crash and burn in the aftermath of an arrest in a Minneapolis Airport when an undercover police office accused Craig of soliciting sex. Craig eventually pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and has denied he was seeking any sexual favors. Regardless, public disclosure of the guilty plea led to a firestorm of controversy and the embattled Senator has now decided to fight back by seeking to petition the court to have the guilty plea wiped away.

It is doubtful this will be a successful motion. Consider the following excerpt from the AP:

"He's already gotten lots of justice and fairness," said Mary Jane Morrison, a professor in criminal law at Hamline University. "A court will view this as taking not just a second bite at the apple, but a fourth and fifth bite. Because he had the right to refuse to plead in the first place, and put the state to its proof. He had the right to have an attorney help him figure out what was in his best interest."

Craig's actions will serve little purpose than bringing additional bad publicity not only to the GOP, but to the Harry Reid led Senate in general. The public is growing weary of a congress that they perceive as elitist and self serving as indicated by outrageously negative polls. The perpetual continuation of the Craig circus will certainly not help public perception at all.

New Virginia Senator James Webb tried an end run to stop the war in Iraq, by limiting the deployment options of the military. The idea of guaranteeing time between deployments made great sense rhetorically and it was hoped the idea of supporting the troops while stopping the war would enable them to pick off enough senators to get it done.

But it was not to be, as the WaPo reports, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now giving up on clever strategies and going back to the old strategy which did not work last spring:

Instead, Reid will again push for a firm deadline, this time June 2008, along with a stronger effort at cutting off war funding.

"It's all definite timelines," Reid said.

The Senate will resume the war debate today, and Reid invited Republicans to offer proposals. His spokesman said that several possibilities are being negotiated, although it appeared unlikely they will meet the 60-vote threshold to pass.

Yes, that's about the size of it. 2006 was actually supposed to be a good cycle for the GOP. 2008 favored the Democrats already, as the Republicans will be defending more seats. But the situation just keeps getting worse as Dick Morris details here:

If the Republicans lose Virginia, Nebraska, Colorado, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon and Minnesota - and pick up no new seats - the Democrats will have 57 votes in the Senate (counting Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who votes with them). It's enough to let a new Democratic president have her way legislatively without too much trouble.

I can see the GOP saving Nebraska, Maine, and New Hampshire and picking off Lousiana, but that's about the best they can hope for. Swinging the other way 60 is probably hopeless, but the Democrats could get close.

One implication is that the current GOP senators in these states will not put their necks on the line for George W. Bush whether in Iraq or on any other issue. In fact, its amazing that President Bush is doing as well as he is with the Senate so far!

The big implication is that Republican primary voters need a win for the presidency and they will be willing to cut a deal with a certain pro-choice, anti-gun, thrice divorced former mayor if he can guarantee that he will keep the White House out of the hands of Hillary Clinton. On the Republican side, all the money will flow into the presidential and House contests, not the Senate.

The nonpartisan nonprofit organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has just released its list of the most rotten to the core politicians in congress. Titled, "Beyond Delay: The 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and two to watch)" the list is full of old favorites and a few new surprises.

Members of the Senate:
Pete Domenici (R-NM)
Mitch McConnel (R-KY)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Ted Stevens (R-AK)

Members of the House:
Ken Calvert (R-CA)
John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Doc Hastings (R-WA)
Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
William Jefferson (D-LA)
Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Gary Miller (R-CA)
Alan Mollohan (D-WV)
Timothy Murphy (R-PA)
John Murtha (D-PA)
Steve Pearce (R-NM)
Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
Harold Rogers (R-KY)
David Scott (D-GA)
Don Young (R-AK)
Jerry Weller (R-IL)
Heather Wilson (R-LA)

Dishonorable Mention:
Larry Craig (R-ID)
David Vitter (R-LA)

If you want to know the ins-and-outs of what makes you eligible for the list, you can have a look-see here.
Pretty much what you'd expect. Graft, graft and more graft.

Well, sort of. Given that he most often sided with Democrats on almost every issue, this is more of a formality than usual, but Lincoln Chafee is apparently making it official. The Providence Journal has it:

Chafee said he disaffiliated with the party he had helped lead, and his father had led before him, because the national Republican Party has gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues, from war to economics to the environment.

Here's the part where I grit my teeth:

Ironically, after all of Chafee's opposition to the Republican policies he disagreed with, the party helped him survive a primary challenge from the right, from former Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey. National Republican leaders supported Chafee, having concluded that even though Chafee had voted against many of President Bush's initiatives, including authorizing the Iraq war, he was the only Republican who could win in Rhode Island.

Would Senator Chafee have stayed a Republican if the GOP had retained control of the Senate? The NRSC had better hope that the answer to that is yes, because otherwise, they spent a ton of money to safely place a Democrat in Rhode Island forever. As it is they have some explaining to do, considering that the slender reed that justified keeping was his vote for the GOP caucus, is gone.

The GOP's ability to recapture the Senate required miraculous intervention before, and now they have one more seat to make up.

Abraham Lincoln has a big memorial statue and Sen. Larry Craig gets... a bathroom stall. Well, Abraham Lincoln was a president, so it is understandable.

Yes, the infamous Minneapolis bathroom stall has now become a tourist attraction of sorts. According to the AP, travelers from all over the world who pass through the airport ask to be directed to the infamous stall where the notorious "hand signal" that led to Craig's disturbing the peace misdemeanor conviction occurred. The conviction also led to a lot of embarrassment for the Republicans and cast more dark clouds over the Senate as a whole as it reaffirmed in many people's eyes the negative stereotype of elected officials being self absorbed elitists. Of course, this is not of many elected officials – or even Craig for that matter – but for many, perception is reality.

While the entire Craig episode has been reduced to a comedic vehicle for pundits, the truth of the matter is that with the nation at war, a looming mortgage crisis, climate change, etc, the public needs (and demands) strong and solid leadership. The emergence of the "Craig bathroom attraction" highlights what has become endemic to the woes of the very unpopular Congress and its foibles as public disapproval grows.

Big news from Ohio... The senior senator speaks and the Cleveland Plain Dealer Openers Blog reports:

U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, largely silent in the weeks since a visit to Baghdad, said today he is proposing a middle-ground plan to hasten withdrawal of American troops from the four-year-old Iraq war.

The Ohio Republican would draw down troops next spring to at least the level before this year's surge, leaving 130,000 troops, possibly fewer. He also would demand "a new definition of the mission in the country," he said, one in which the United States supports Iraqis as they take control of their fractious nation.

This would be "a well-thought out, concrete plan that would redefine our mission there, that would make very clear to the region -- the Iraqis, the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds -- that there is light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

This is huge. Voinovich is a moderate Republican who is quite arrogant and independent. If you recall he is the one who cried in the Senate while opposing Bolton's nomination to the UN (later recanted). He is exactly the sort of senator the Democrats need to pick off to put together a package to undermine President Bush and get out of Iraq.

It looks as it the Bush Administration's plan for Mexican trucks carrying cargo into the US has hit a major brick wall in the Senate as the Senate overwhelmingly voted against funding for the pilot program that would have allowed Mexican truck drivers access to American roads. This has proven to be another major failure in the Bush Administration's attempt to lesson the restrictions on commerce between the USA, Canada and Mexico. According to the AP, the vote on Sen. Byron Dorgan amendment barring the trucks was a veto proof 74 – 24 with much of the reasoning behind the ban centering on concerns over the safety and reliability of the trucks. This vote came on the heels of the recent tragedy this week when a truck carrying mining equipment exploded in Mexico in a tragic occurrence that killed many bystanders.

Of additional concern was the impact that the inclusion of Mexican trucks on US roads would have on American trucking jobs. The Teamsters Union was strongly opposed to such a measure mainly because lower cost labor would had serious negative effect on its members. Teamster President James Hoffa Jar was a vocal critic of the program and had appeared on numerous media programs to denounce the pilot program.

Throughout his career, Senator Chuck Hagel was loyal to his party and voted the party line. However, he was not a lemming. His courageous stances against the Iraq War resulted in his party creating opposition to him in the upcoming election. Wouldn't it be sweet justice if the seat fell into Democratic hands?

Nice job, Chuck. You served your country well.

Senator Chuck Hagel has called it a career. The AP reports that the senator from Nebraska has announced that he will not seek re-election in '08. Now, while such an announcement usually gets Republican voters somewhat worried about having to work harder to defend the seat, there is very little lamenting in conservative circles regarding Hagel's departure. To put it bluntly, many conservatives are happy to see him go as Hagel has hardly been a favorite of the conservative base.

Hagel's problems with the base centered on his pro illegal immigration amnesty stance and his very public anti-Iraq war posturing. In fact, the base was so annoyed at Hagel there were calls on talk radio and on the internet for a primary challenger. This led to the bizarre rumors that Hagel (acting out of spite if a primary challenger was selected) would act as VP to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's presidential bid on a third party ticket for the White House. Of course, these rumors were never validated although there were some credible rumors that Hagel would seek the Republican nomination for president, but to say such a win would be a long shot would be the understatement of the century.