Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Sometimes I bang my head against the wall because it feels so good when I stop.


From CBS News:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that passage of a massive war supplemental spending bill may slip until after the Memorial Day recess, as the political calculations on the must-pass bill continue.  "It is going to be extremely difficult for us to get from where we are today to completing this legislation in a timely fashion," Reid said Tuesday morning.  "We're going to have to finish our work on Thursday or this war funding bill will not be completed. That may not be the case...But [it is] not [going to be] an easy chore."  The Senate is set to begin consideration of the $194 billion package to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday afternoon.  Reid said that work on the bill will be complicated by the absence of several senators this week, including all three presidential candidates and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), who is recovering after suffering a seizure in Cape Cod over the weekend (and has been diagnosed as suffering from a brain tumor.)  The delay did not sit well with Senate Republicans, who have been agitating for months for quick action on a "clean" supplemental bill, which does not include domestic spending.  "The Senate must pass a bill funding our troops free of restrictions on their ability to win and free of spending unrelated to this mission," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  "And we must do it by Memorial Day." 

As of today, there are 4,569 dead, 31,984 wounded, 10,180 injured, and 28,451 reported as "ill".
299,585 soldiers have received treatment, and 287,790 have filed a disability claim.

Does anybody remember what we're being told we're there for now?

Meanwhile, we wait...
allvoices

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Kennedy's have been a sort of mile posts of my life. My first memories were of the day JFK was shot, I remember my mother crying, my brothers and sister getting the day off of school and John John saluting his father's during the prossession. I was one of the babies that RFK had to kiss on his way to becoming a NY senator when he attended a bridge dedication in the name of his brother. Then Teddy, not that I always agreed with his politics, but he was the last one of the Kennedys. As someone from Massachusettes put it so well on the occasion of one of Teddy's re-ellections, "he's Teddy K, he can have the seat for as long as he wants it". I hope he gives it a good fight.