SPEAKER PELOSI - DON'T APPROVE COLOMBIA TRADE PACT UNLESS BUSH AGREES TO COOPERATE WITH DEMOCRATS

Deb Reichmann writes in today's washingtonpost.com that George Bush is hectoring Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to approve the trade deal with Alvaro Uribe and Colombia. Pelosi and the Democratic majority in the House should stand firm and refuse to approve the pact unless Bush cooperates with Congress. As a sign of Bush's cooperation, Pelosi should require that Bush agree to sign an extended health insurance bill for children (S-CHIP) that he has vetoed at least twice in the last year.

In fact, if Bush wishes the Congress to go along and pass the Colombian trade pact, Bush needs to show his good will on other matters of importance as well. He needs to show cooperation on the matter of Congressional subpoenas given to Harriet Miers and Andrew Card. In other words, Bush needs to tell Miers and Card to show up and testify under oath. He also needs to do away with his flouting of the law by inserting signing statements that go against explicit provisions of laws that have been subject to bicameral approval and presentment. And most of all, Bush needs to confer with Speaker Pelosi about Iraq and admit it has been a disastrous foreign policy fiasco.

Until Bush cooperates with the Congress on the above matters, I urge Speaker Pelosi to stand resolute and not approve Bush's pact with Uribe or Colombia.

INAPPROPRIATE SUBSERVIENCE - NANCY PELOSI KISSES POPE'S RING

I realize that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a Catholic born and raised in a Catholic family from Baltimore. But why did she think it necessary to kiss the Pope's hand when she met him yesterday? I hardly ever disagree with Speaker Pelosi and I hardly ever agree with George and Laura Bush, especially when it comes to foreign policy and W's war-making around the world. However, the Bushes handled it just right when they merely shook hands with the Pope but Nancy Pelosi did it all wrong.

Kissing the Pope's hand or ring is unseemly and inappropriate for a public official of the United States. It is a throw back to medieval practices that were meant to demonstrate fealty and subservience. Someone should have warned Nancy Pelosi. I am ashamed and embarrassed by her ring-kissing.

NANCY PELOSI STOPS BUSH'S DISASTROUS FREE TRADE PACT WITH COLOMBIA

What Nancy Pelosi did with regard to George Bush's free trade pact with Colombia was ingenious and brilliant. Thank you, Madame Speaker, for resisting that bully Bush in his push to reward his crony, Alvaro Uribe who is president of Colombia.

Paul Kane and Dan Eggen write in today's The Washington Post:

"The House today voted to delay consideration of a free trade agreement with Colombia despite fierce opposition from the Bush administration and accusations from Republicans that Democrats were subverting long-standing laws regarding bilateral trade pacts.

"On a mostly party line vote of 224 to 195, the House approved an internal rule change that altered the statutory timeline for congressional approval of trade deals negotiated by an administration. The rule, which was supported by all but 10 Democrats, gives House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as much time as she wants to bring the agreement to the floor, rather than the 60-day standard for previous trade deals."

Colombia and Uribe allow the Colombian military to kill Innocent campesinos and then claim they were members of the FARC, the Colombian revolutionary group fighting the government. Colombia has not put a stop to these killings, nor has it stopped the extra-judicial killings of trade union members.

However, Bush sees Uribe as a counter-weight to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a person Bush intensely dislikes. Condi Rice claims Chavez is very hostile to the U.S. Why? Chavez' mistake was calling George Bush "Satan" at a United Nations convocation. Because he called Bush the "devil," Rice and Bush now imply that Chavez and his Venezuelan government are the "enemy."

This is the worst form of diplomacy where George Bush uses his personal likings and animosities to decide which country is friend or foe. Which country to reward and which to bomb.

To stop this madness, Nancy Pelosi put a hold on the free trade deal. Again, thanks and kudos to Speaker Pelosi.

On a negative note, Rep. Jim Matheson, Second Dist. Utah, was one of 10 Democrats who voted against revising House rules. Shame on you, Jim Matheson.

HURRAY FOR NANCY PELOSI AND DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS - NO TELECOM IMMUNITY AS BUSH SOUGHT

Wonderful news that the House left on Thursday for a twelve-day recess without approving Bush's immunity for the telecoms. If the phone companies violated the FISA law by allowing the government to spy and wiretap without a valid court-issued warrant, then they should face the music, both civil and criminal. Bush and Cheney have no right to grant them immunity. I suspect that the purpose of the telecom immunity is to shield Bush and Cheney themselves from evidence adduced in possible telecom suits that thse government officials broke the eavesdropping law with knowledge aforethought. So by proposing immunity for the telephone companies, Bush and Cheney are really trying to obtain immunity for their own illegal and reprehensible actions.

GAO PAINTS BLEAK PICTURE OF BUSH'S "PROGRESS" IN IRAQ

So now that the GAO has found that Iraq has missed or failed in 15 of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks, the White House and the Pentagon are disputing the findings. In other words, fit the evidence around the policy. If the report is not what Bush and Cheney want to hear, then change it!

Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks write in yesterday's Washington Post:

"Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

"The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq."

This is truly embarrassing for Bush & Co. We know that the White House is writing the report to be given by Petraeus and Crocker, notwithstanding Petraeus' protestations that he is writing his own report. And we can predict the content of the WH report: good progress is being made in Iraq; the Iraqis are standing up so Americans can stand down; Al Maliki is creating a unity government, etc., etc. ad nauseam. Does Bush think that anyone really believes his spin? Even Republicans must cringe when they hear Bush's propaganda on how good things are going in Iraq.

Karen DeYoung writes a follow-up in today's WashPo:

"Democrats seized on the GAO draft conclusions, first reported in yesterday's Washington Post, to warn that President Bush would be likely to distort the Iraq situation when he makes his own report to Congress in mid-September after long-awaited testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. "As in the past, President Bush stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the facts on the ground about the sectarian civil war in Iraq or the growing bipartisan opposition to his failed policies," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

"Pelosi cited negative conclusions in the GAO report and last month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to say that "the Iraqi government has failed to achieve required reforms." Influential Republicans have joined Democrats in recent months to demand that Bush begin drawing down U.S. troops. Bush has argued that the strategy he announced in January, which increased the U.S. presence to more than 160,000 troops, is succeeding and deserves more time."

GEORGE BUSH'S NON-EXISTENT FOREIGN POLICY

I thought George Bush and Condi Rice were against sitting down and talking to the Syrians and Iranians. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took a lot of criticism by Bush for her visit in early April to Syria and her talks with Syrian leaders. See the New York Times story by Hassan M. Fattah and Hugh Naylor on April 4, 2007.

Yet yesterday in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, we see Condi Rice doing just that, sitting down with the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and having talks. Helene Cooper and Jon Elsen report in today's The New York Times on the meeting:

"Ms. Rice’s talk here on Thursday with Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, lasted only 30 minutes but was substantive. She asked that Syria, with its porous border with Iraq, do more to restrict the flow of foreign fighters."

Where is George Bush's expression of displeasure? If he criticises Democrat Nancy Pelosi because he says meetings with the Syrians and Iranians are unproductive, let's hear him say the same things about his Secretary of State Condi Rice.

I am sure George Bush does not have a clue about diplomacy and a sane policy of foreign relations. That's what makes this president so dangerous.

BUSH, MODERN JULIUS CAESAR, WANTS UNLIMITED FUNDING FOR WAR IN IRAQ

Bush is meeting with Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi today about the supplemental budget request to continue his damned war in Iraq but claims he is not negotiating. I guess this means Bush wants to issue a fiat about war funding to the Democrats. And no dissent or time-tables, please! This guy Bush thinks he is king. He is the modern incarnation of the Roman tyrant Julius Caesar who thought he could take over the Roman republic by force of the Roman army. Similarly Bush thinks he can bypass the input of Congress. That's why Bush gives his speeches only to the army.

Here's a suggestion made by Dick Orenstein, a letter writer to the New York Times yesterday. April 17, 2007.

"No big fuss, just adjust the tax rates up to pay for the troops and their activities. Then let’s see who wants to support the troops! That will bring the cost of the war into everyone’s sight!"

Give Bush all the money he wants, but make it "pay-as-you-go," to be financed by current taxes. Do not add one cent to the budget deficit by spending on this unjust war.