Literacy with Laura
Posted on 10/10/2002 8:21:15 AM PDT by BigWaveBetty
WASHINGTON - The House headed for a strong vote Thursday to open the way for President Bush to wage war against Iraq if he decides force alone can subdue Saddam Hussein. The Senate brushed off more efforts to weaken the measure.
By a 66-31 vote, the Senate rejected an amendment by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. [ha-ha!] — the most outspoken Senate opponent of the war resolution — that would have ended the authorization for him to use force against Iraq after two years.
Bipartisan support for Bush's request for war authority was growing steadily, and chances seemed good he'd have the measure on his desk by week's end to put the nation on combat-ready footing.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the administration believed the House will give the measure "a large bipartisan vote" approving it.
"The president hopes this will send a strong message to the world, and to Iraq, that if Iraq does not obey the U.N. resolutions, that the United States is prepared to enforce the peace," Fleischer said.
A bipartisan vote for the president appeared likely in the House, and the Senate could follow by the end of the week, putting the nation on a combat-ready footing.
Bush, who has stressed that he has made no decision on launching a military strike against Baghdad, has urged Congress to stand with him as he presses the U.N. Security Council to approve a new resolution demanding that Iraq abide by comprehensive inspections and disarmament or face the consequences.
The Senate was likely to clear a hurdle Thursday with a vote to deter a possible filibuster by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., a tenacious opponent of ceding congressional warmaking powers to the president.
"Congress is being stampeded, pressured, adjured, importuned into acting on this blank check," said Byrd, the Senate's 84-year-old president pro tempore. [boo-hoo!]
Progress was slower on the diplomatic front, where three members of the U.N. Security Council — France, Russia and China — continued to hold out against a U.S.-British proposal sanctioning military action if Iraq does not comply with coercive inspections.
A 25-minute telephone call between Bush and French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday failed to yield a breakthrough over wording of a new Security Council resolution to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "This is intricate diplomacy and we are continuing our consultations," White House spokesman Sean McCormack said.[will this frog ever learn?]
In Paris, Chirac spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said the French president was open to strengthening the powers of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, but still could not accept making military recourse an automatic response should they be hampered. In Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov relayed a similar stance.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, interviewed on CNN's "Larry King Live" program, said world leaders were coming together on Iraq. "There is a new determination, a new understanding within the international community that we cannot turn away from it this time, we cannot look away and trust Saddam Hussein to do the right thing," he said.
Debate in the House went deep into the night both Tuesday and Wednesday, with nearly every member intent on expressing the necessity, and gravity, of granting authority to send Americans into war. [Yea!]
"I know the heartache and pain of the families that are left behind," said a tearful Rep. Randy Cunningham, R-Calif., who was a pilot in the Vietnam War.
But Cunningham and almost every Republican backed the president. "It's time we go straight to the eye and dismantle the elements from which the storm of brutal, repressive tyranny and terrorism radiate," said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., He said that as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, "I can attest to the evilness of Saddam Hussein." [Go Porter Go!]
About half the Democrats were ready to vote for an alternative proposal, sponsored by Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., that would authorize the use of U.S. force in conjunction with U.N. punishment of Iraq, but require the president to come back for a second vote if he wants to act unilaterally against Saddam. The White House-backed resolution encourages cooperation with U.N. efforts, but gives the go-ahead for unilateral action.
Many Democrats said unilateral action could come at a terrible cost in lives and resources, set a bad precedent for other countries seeking to depose the leaders of other countries and create a backlash in the Muslim world. [yadda, yadda, yadda]
"It is not a victory to strike down one tyrant and breed 10,000 terrorists," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., a supporter of the Spratt proposal.
A similar proposal offered by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and debated Wednesday night in the Senate also seemed headed for defeat. An amendment by Sen. Bob Graham , D-Fla., to expand Bush's authority for pre-emptive military action to include five terror organizations, went down, 88-10.
At the same time, several senior Democrats said they would support the White House-backed resolution, with reservations, including Sen. Harry Reid [Reid is a nut. He calls Art Bell in the middle of the night to talk about aliens.] of Nevada, the Senate's second-ranked Democrat, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del.
Reid urged Bush to use his war-making powers carefully, saying: "As president of the United States, you are the leader of the free world, not its ruler." Biden, who had favored more checks on presidential authority, came along as well, saying the measure would help give the administration more leverage before the Security Council.
"If Saddam Hussein is around five years from now, we are in deep trouble as a country," Biden said.[I knew there was a tiny bit of brain in that Biden head somewhere!]
I'll do my best to find some news but I'm really sick today. It started creeping on me yesterday and now I feel completly awful.
But there are short periods of normal, I'll try to seize those moments for news. bleeeeeeech!
Here's what the Oralndo Slantinel has to say.
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bob Graham said Friday that frightening classified information about the threat of sleeper terrorist cells inside the United States led him to vote against giving President Bush the power to attack Iraq.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee branded the resolution "timid" and said it did not go far enough in allowing Bush to attack the training camps of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, which have cells in this country.
Link for the rest of the story. I still feel so lousy I can't muster a witty retort to this banal no vote.
Thanks for the wishes of well! I'm not alone anymore, hubby came home last night. Haven't seen much of him today, been asleep all day.
He's off to get me a lovely Steak and Shake dinner, mmmmmmmm. I hope I can taste it. :-)
Just posted a thread one this and pinged you to it. I have to go back to bed now. That Nyqil is some strong stuff. :-) nighty- night! zzzzzzzzzzzzz
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LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Jamie Lynn Spears is looking for the show business equivalent of lightning striking twice, if not exactly in the same place.
"I'll probably do a lot of acting first, then go to singing," says the precocious kid sister of pop star Britney Spears.
"But I am going to definitely sing someday," she adds after a brief moment of reflection. "So when I do start singing, buy my album!"
For now, the youngest of three Spears siblings (the oldest is a brother, Bryan), says she has her hands full balancing school and her responsibilities as the youngest cast member of the comedy-variety show "All That" (Saturdays, 8 p.m. Eastern).
A sort of "Saturday Night Live" for kids, "All That" is in its eighth season on Nickelodeon; Jamie Lynn joins a veteran cast of actors who are an average of 4 years older than her.
It was a slightly awkward adjustment for the stick-thin 11-year-old from Kentwood, Louisiana, who looks like a younger, skinnier version of her 20-year-old superstar sister.
But having wrapped a season of new episodes that began airing in September, all concerned say Jamie Lynn fit right into what she acknowledges was her first substantial acting job. Earlier this year, she made a brief appearance as a younger version of her sister in "Crossroads," Spears' film debut, and she's done a handful of commercials.
"At first I was too scared to act in front of these people, so I was real shy," says Jamie Lynn, gesturing toward castmates Shane Lyons and Chelsea Brummet as the three unwind on a couch backstage.
"But then," she adds, "they were actually really nice. I thought they were going to be these serious people. But they were a lot of fun."
It didn't hurt, the others say, that Jamie Lynn was willing to jump right into scenes that included dousing her with egg yolk and tossing her into trash bins. Soon she was engaging in the cast's seemingly endless stream of offstage banter.
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"I was expecting someone who was going to be a little kiddish, kind of immature," says Lyons, 15. "But what we got was someone who could relate and talk and just mess around with us on our level."
"Jamie has the maturity level of, like, a 15-year-old, which is awesome," Brummet adds.
High praise indeed, which Jamie Lynn acknowledges with a shy nod of her head; it's one of the few times the diminutive chatterbox is quiet. Usually she's full of stories, particularly about school and her home in Louisiana.
"You know how everybody says thingy-mah-jig?" she asks. "I could swear I made that up. Everybody says it, from Kentwood to California to New York, and I'm telling you, I made it up. I said it one day, and the next day the whole school was saying it."
She'd like to be as big a star as her sister, she says, but she really doesn't think of Spears as a famous person.
"She's just her," Jamie Lynn says, adding that her sister gave her tips on making it in show business after she'd auditioned and won a spot on "All That."
"She did, yeah, I'm sure she did," she says, trying to recall the advice. "But I don't know what she said now."
Yes, I miss my updates, too!
Hi, everyone, from London. Having a wonderful time but, tut tut, it looks like rain later today. We found an internet cafe just up the street from the hotel, and have eight minutes left! So I'll hurry. Hope you're all doing well, and will talk to you later. Righto.
Barbequed cheeseburger pizza
What a concept
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