From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The House approved the largest war-spending bill to date Thursday, bending to President Bush's call for $162 billion in war funding with no strings attached and giving his successor enough money to wage the wars until July 2009.
In exchange, Democrats won Bush's blessing for several of their domestic priorities, including a 13-week extension of jobless benefits for workers who have exhausted theirs, and a new GI bill benefit allowing veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to attend a state college tuition-free.
The deal, negotiated between the White House and allies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, takes the issue of the war off Congress' plate for the rest of this election year. Lawmakers also intended to give the next president some time to set a new Iraq policy before having to return to Congress for more money.
But anti-war activists called it a betrayal by Democrats, who had pledged to end the war. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, dubbed it "the biggest blank check ever." Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, said the vote was a "profound disappointment to the millions of Americans who put Democrats into power hoping we could force a change in Iraq."
With "leadership" like this, we probably will be in that hellhole for the next 100 years.
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