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WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Even as Democrats controlling Congress continue to struggle with a long-overdue war funding bill, they are starting work on a series of spending measures for next year that are doomed by veto promises from President Bush. The first of those 12 bills, funding agency budgets for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, would award an almost 6 percent increase to the Homeland Security Department. A House Appropriations panel approved the $39.9 billion measure unanimously on Wednesday. The measure is likely to earn a Bush veto threat for costing too much and it's unclear whether Democrats will even...

In a move likely to doom billions of dollars that Democrats had sought for domestic programs, Senate leaders agreed Wednesday night to focus a funding bill on Pentagon operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but allow a vote on a huge expansion of veterans' education benefits. The Senate was slated to vote Thursday to provide $165 billion for the wars, funding those operations until the new administration takes over next year. GOP leaders were expected to try to block the amendment aimed at the GI Bill — authored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. — to send a "clean" war funding bill...

5 YR AMNESTY ATTACHED TO WAR FUNDING BILL BY Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) TRAVESTY Disastrous Ag Jobs Amnesty Attached to Iraq Funding Bill! Millions of Illegal Aliens and Their Families to Get 5-Year Amnesty! The pro-amnesty coalition is once again attempting to force another illegal alien amnesty onto America. Sen. Feinstein sponsored a proposal to grant a 5-year amnesty for up to 3 million illegal aliens and their families into the Iraq War supplemental bill. Knowing that the war funding bill is desperately needed to support our troops in battle overseas, the amnesty plan was attached covertly in attempts that...

In an amazing turn of events, the House of Representatives today voted AGAINST the supplemental funding for the war in Iraq!! The bill would have provided $166 billion in war funding, the largest single provision since the war started in 2003. In a move that no one expected, dozens of Republicans voted "present," which is the same as abstaining on the vote.

House Democratic leaders are putting together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet, a measure that is expected to fund the war through the end of the Bush presidency and for nearly six months into the next president's term. The bill, which could be unveiled as early as this week, signals that Democrats are resigned to the fact they can't change course in Iraq in the final months of President Bush's term. Instead, the party is pinning its hopes of ending the war on winning the White House in November. Bay Area lawmakers, who represent perhaps the most anti-war part...

After yesterday's all-night Iraq war "defeatathon," as radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham described it, House and Senate Democrats continue to illustrate why Americans so distrust them when it comes to national security. Antiwar lawmakers have been losing momentum of late, to such an extent that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and representatives of liberal humanitarian organizations like the International Crisis Group found it necessary to warn that a precipitous troop withdrawal could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe for Iraqis. So yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid staged an overnight session where senators debated abandoning Iraq. Mr. Reid came up eight votes short...

July 19, 2007 By Jennifer Harper - The tidy cots, the earnest speeches, the candlelight vigil. After staging a 21-hour debate over the war in Iraq on Tuesday night, Sen. Harry Reid pined for drama, publicity and pundit chatter. Did the Nevada Democrat's dream of buzz and popular appeal come true? Well, not exactly. "It was a smoke screen. Senators talk all night of ending the war and bringing our troops home, and they still give Bush billions," peace activist Cindy Sheehan said yesterday. "This was a buzzless venture if I ever saw one," writer Lucianne Goldberg said. "I think...

Both parties' candidates are busy wooing their bases REPUBLICANS may think theirs is the godly party, but they do not expect God to intervene at their presidential debates. On June 5th Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front-runner, was on the spot. Mr Giuliani says he hates abortion but thinks it should be legal. A Catholic bishop had likened him to Pontius Pilate saying: “You know, I'm personally opposed to crucifixion but I don't want to impose my belief on others.� Mr Giuliani, a Catholic, was asked to respond. As he started to speak, lightning knocked out the sound system, briefly silencing...

Like kids in a candy shop Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took the reigns of power in Congress 4 months ago and began to issue declarations and ultimatums, “A new Congress in town!” And then they blew the smoke from their legislative six shooters that were raised in the air in celebration.

WASHINGTON, May 18 — Congressional Democrats and the White House remained at odds over a war spending measure on Friday after a crucial negotiating session ended with both sides expressing disappointment and accusing the other of being intractable. Democrats said the White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, rejected their offer to eliminate non-Pentagon spending and give President Bush the authority to waive a timeline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq in return for their approval of about $95 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30.“No — everything was no,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada,...

Vice President Dick Cheney strongly criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday over comments Senator Reid has made about the Iraq war in recent days.

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 04/24/2007 Pelosi: ‘Working Women and Their Families Deserve Equal Pay for Equal Work’ Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement this morning at an Education and Labor Committee hearing on equal pay: “I want to thank the Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller for convening this critical hearing today on Strengthening the Middle Class: Ensuring Equal Pay for Women. “I also want to recognize the leadership of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a champion for equal pay in the Congress, who for 10 years has been introducing the Paycheck...

President Bush, standing firmly against a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, said Tuesday that he will veto the latest war spending bill approved by Congress. "I'm disappointed that the Democratic leadership has chosen this course," Bush said. "They chose to make a political statement," he said. "That's their right but it is wrong for our troops and it's wrong for our country. To accept the bill proposed by the Democratic leadership would be to accept a policy that directly contradicts the judgment of our military commanders."

WASHINGTON, April 24 — President Bush said today that he was disappointed in Congressional Democrats for making “a political statement” with an Iraq war-spending bill, and he said their version of the legislation would harm the United States and its fighting men and women. Skip to next paragraph Related Democrats Back Date for Start of Iraq Pullout(April 24, 2007) Mr. Bush took exception to parts of the bill that call for American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq by Oct. 1, and other limits on the conduct of military operations there. “They know I’m going to veto a bill containing...

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Seventy-eight days ago I sent Congress a request for emergency war funding that our troops urgently need. I made it clear to Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill that I'm willing to discuss our differences on the way forward in Iraq. But I also made it clear our troops should not be caught in the middle of that discussion. Yesterday, Democratic leaders announced that they plan to send me a bill that will fund our troops only if we agree to handcuff our generals, add billions of dollars in unrelated spending, and begin to pull out of...

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement yesterday on war-funding legislation that would begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq as early as July, setting a goal of ending U.S. combat operations by no later than March.The $124 billion bill, slated for final votes in the House and Senate tomorrow and Thursday, sets up a veto clash with President Bush by week's end. Some congressional Democrats had considered making advisory all dates for withdrawing U.S. troops in the hopes of persuading Bush to sign the bill, which Democratic leaders said provides $96 billion -- more than the White House requested --...

The Democrats' cynical timing David Frum, National Post Published: Saturday, April 21, 2007 This war is lost." No, that was not said by some angry protester, not by some gloating terrorist, but by the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid, in remarks to journalists Thursday. That's the same Harry Reid who voted only three months ago to confirm General David Petraeus as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus appeared before the Senate -- Reid's Senate -- to describe a new strategy in Iraq, backed by almost 28,000 additional US troops. Petraeus detailed his plans and...

KERRY ADVISOR ON VOTE AGAINST $87 BILLION IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN TROOP FUNDING: "Off the record he did it because of Howard Dean. On the record he has an elaborate explanation." (Philip Gourevitch, "Damage Control," The New Yorker, 7/26/04)LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS' COSMETIC CONVENTION AT WWW.DEMSEXTREMEMAKEOVER.COM