Republican leader agrees Bush bringing down Republicans

In the last post and in prior ones I have been laying out the need to "keep Fossella connected to Bush." Now Rep. Boehner, the Minority Leader for the Republican party agrees that doing so is damaging. via Politico;

Polls show the public holds congressional Republicans in low esteem. Boehner’s effort to craft a new agenda for Republicans remains under wraps. And in the minority leader’s own words, their fundraising “sucks.”

“Now the money sucks for two reasons,” Boehner said in a Politico interview. “People are mad at the president; they are mad at the party. And then [there is] this whole immigration fight. People just turned off the spigot.”

LTE: Bush vs. Democratic Congress

I am moving on from writing introductions to these. I think you understand the drill by now. A recent LTE in the Advance;

Bush's little war, which was going to pay for itself, will cost over $1 trillion. Even with that, we could have kept our economy stable, but not when Republicans gave billions to the top 5 percent.

Who is going to get stuck with the bill? The poor, the elderly, the middle class, but not that 5 percent. Then you read article after article saying things like, President likens Congress to teen with credit card.

Where is it written that the media has to regurgitate Bush's lies? When they know a politician is lying and media repeats the lies as though it were the truth, that's called propaganda.

I sense a larger amount of letters coming through expressing displeasure in either Fossella, Bush or government as a collective whole. Continue to connect Fossella to Bush and you have a campaign strategy.

Fossella and Bush oppose alternative energy funding

You pay $3 a gallon at the pump because of six years of Fossella's majority acting like this;

via the Houston Chronicle;

The House approved the first increase in federal automobile fuel efficiency requirements in three decades Thursday as part of an energy bill that also repeals billions of dollars in oil company tax breaks and encourages the use of renewable fuels.

snip

The bill would roll back $13.5 billion in tax breaks enjoyed by the five largest U.S. oil companies with the money to be used for tax incentives for development of renewable energy sources like ethanol from grasses and wood chips and biodiesel and for energy efficiency programs and conservation.

snip

The centerpiece of the bill is a requirement to boost automobile fuel economy by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, the first such increase since 1975, when Congress enacted the federal auto fuel economy requirements.

Rep. Vito Fossella opposed this long term energy alternative legislation, no surprise really. This is a bill that President Bush has promised to veto so that Exxon and other oil giants don't lose their tax breaks while they are pulling in record profits. Vito Fossella happily obliged President Bush's wishes and sided with Exxon.

Fossella hurts district by having zero clout in DC

Vito Fossella has absolutely no clout in DC which is not a good thing for his constituents considering he is their Congressman. And it is not as if this is his first term, he has served for 10 years.

via the Brooklyn Paper;

President Bush will send disaster relief funds to victims of the Aug. 8 storm that unleashed a tornado on Bay Ridge — but the White House is only sending money to Queens, not Brooklyn.

snip

“People are having difficulty recovering from the tornado because the process for making a decision has been too slow,” said Rep. Vito Fossella (R–Bay Ridge), who had urged the Federal Emergency Management Agency — and his fellow Republican at the head of the executive branch — to do the right thing by Bay Ridge.

It was one thing when Rep. Fossella was part of the majority and theoretically could get legislation passed and influence bills. He never was able to do that. Now he is in the minority in Congress and all signs say that will not change in the near future. Now with a Republican administration in the White House and a presidential appointed head of FEMA he can't even get aide for his district after the recent tornado damage.

You might want to ask yourself what Rep. Vito Fossella is really able to do for the district. Maybe if you wait ten more years they will let him play with the grown up members of Congress who actually accomplish things.

see also:
Vito's Clout in DC
What Exactly Does Vito Do?

LTE: Bush and Fossella gravy train

In a recent 'Letter to the Editor' (LTE) in the SI Advance a writer comments on the economic state of Americans and our country after years of Bush and Republican policies;

Since Bush took office, 5.4 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty; nearly 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance; median household income has gone down by nearly $1,300; 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost; the real earnings of college graduates have gone down by about 5 percent; entry level wages for male and female high-school graduates have fallen by 3.3 and 4.9 percent respectively; 3 million American workers have lost their pensions. Home foreclosures are now the highest on record; the personal savings rate is lower than at any time since before the Great Depression; wages and salaries are at the lowest share of gross domestic product since 1929; and the top 3 million Americans (Bush and friends) earn nearly as much income as the bottom 150 million (the rest of us) combined. [SI Advance]

Fossella (and Bush) votes against allowing troops time off from war

Vito Fossella has once again voted against the interests of our troops by opposing HR 3159. The bill calls for equal time at home for troops as they have spent deployed and would prevent back to back deployments with no rest or rotation. Clearly allowing our troops time to recover and see their families after engaged in war for months on end is a threat to Vito Fossella's war in Iraq. Certainly Vito Fossella is not making any similar sacrifice, but he certainly feels qualified to split spouses, remove parents from their families all in the name of "supporting the troops."

And if it wasn't obvious, once again President Bush and Vito Fossella are coordinating their efforts and Bush has now threatened to veto this bill after Fossella's NO vote was not able to stop it.

via the Navy
Times;

It would impose, in law, specific deployment lengths and time at home between deployments. Active-duty members would have to spend at least as much time at their home station as deployed before they could be deployed again to a war zone. National Guard and reserve members would be promised they would not be deployed until they had been home at least three times the length of time of their previous deployment. The legislation allows those standards to be waived in an emergency.

"Our troops and their families are tired. They are being stressed by the continued and extended deployments. It is time for Congress to take a stand on behalf of our families and say in a clear, unequivocal voice that it is time that service members have a minimum dwell time between deployments," said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the House Armed Services Committee chairman.

"The Bush administration's current strategy of multiple back-to-back deployments has stretched our military and is breaking our all-volunteer force," said Tauscher, a senior member of the committee. "If we fail to act, we do so at the expense of our military readiness. We need a posture that allows units adequate dwell time to recover, train and equip before their next assignment."

update
Apparently there were some formatting issues when I pasted that, sorry.

Bush and Fossella oppose insuring our children

Apparently President Bush is going to step up and help Vito Fossella by vetoing the recent SCHIP bill that passed the House expanding health care coverage to millions of children.

via NY Times;

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

But clearly this is a partisan issue right? Democrats are trying to burden the government with additional costs and ALL republicans oppose this. Not so fast;

The Children’s Health Insurance Program has strong support from governors of both parties, including Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Sonny Perdue of Georgia. When the Senate passed a bill to expand the program this month, 18 Republican senators voted for it, in defiance of a veto threat from Mr. Bush.

As you read that remember back when Vito Fossella tried selling that he was an Independent fighter for this district. Well once again, no surprise really, he sides with President Bush even in opposition to Republicans. Hooray for a Congressman who can finally stand up to uninsured children and just say no and focus on the needs of private companies who clearly are struggling.


see also:
More on Fossella refusing to insure children
Bush follows Fossella's lead, opposes insuring children
Why did Fossella vote against extending health care to our children?
Fossella votes against providing children with health insurance

Fossella staunchly supports Bush

The withdraw of troops from Iraq is not a partisan issue. The belief that we should bring our troops home and commend them for their sacrifice is not a partisan issue. However the desire to continue to stay embedded in Iraq and to continue to put our troops at risk is clearly a Rep. Vito Fossella and Bush priority.

Two leading Republican senators say they will demand President Bush offer a plan to start reducing U.S. forces in Iraq by the end of the year.

snip

"Our amendment mandates that the administration immediately initiate planning for post-September contingencies, including a drawdown or redeployment of forces," Lugar's statement says. "It requires those plans to be presented to Congress by October 16 of this year, and it states that the plans should be designed to be executable beginning not later than December 31." [via CNN]

You can be a Republican and oppose Rep. Vito Fossella's absolute failure to support our troops.

Fossella opposes troops, votes for more war

Thursday Congress took up a bill, H.Res.533, representing the interests of a majority of Americans which called for bringing American troops home from Iraq by April 2008. Rep. Vito Fossella voted against it [Roll Call no. 621]. He voted against supporting our troops. He voted against returning enlisted parents to their children, sons and daughters to their worrying mothers and fathers. Rep. Vito Fossella however is not alone as he voted exactly as President Bush hoped for, and stands side by side the President in supporting an ongoing failed strategy. Fortunately with bi-partisan support of Republicans crossing the aisle the bill passed the House by a vote of 223-201.

President Bush was quick to criticize it and threaten a to veto the bill, demanding as Fossella wished, that we keep our soldiers in Iraq, embroiled in trying to control a civil war the Iraqi government itself does not have any interest in trying to stop.

"Now, when [the Bush administration] keeps making mistakes as they have made, we have to intercede. The public spoke in the last election and said clearly we want the troops redeployed."

"We are wasting the time and trying the patience of the American people for no useful purpose," said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, one of four Republicans who voted for the measure. [via CNN]

For Rep. Vito Fossella the lose of 3,600 Americans thus far is a perfectly acceptable outcome. Fossella of course has posters saying he supports the troops in his offices which in his mind must balance out the lose his votes continue to inflict on our American society.

This is Vito Fossella's war, we can never forget that.

Support Stem Cell research by opposing Bush

Recently Rep. Vito Fossella choose bipartisanship over more Bush support. He was one of a handful of Republicans to cross party lines and vote with nearly every single Democrat in favor of a Stem Cell bill. Normally we criticize Fossella for the mockery he makes of his "independent" partisan identification he ran on in 2006 as he votes time after time ideologically with President Bush. This time however is different, and we commend his trip to this side of the aisle and his support of a successfully passed bill.

President Bush has since used only his second veto in nearly seven years in office to veto this bill that would provide much needed research access to stem cells in hopes of curing some of humanities most horrible diseases. Rep. Fossella's son has Type I Juvenile Diabetes, and stem cell research seems the only promising route to any cure. That research now looks as though it is delayed at least another year, or until this bill or a similar bill can come back to the House floor.

In a letter he wrote to his Congressional Representative, who happens to be his father, Dylan wrote, “The U.S. Congress has always been supportive of diabetes research and I hope for that support to continue. I am very grateful for those who are dedicated to finding a cure.” He added, “Let’s all try to team together so that none of us have to go through what we do every day of our lives.” [via BrooklynEagle.com]

In 2006 we saw Fossella run away from his party and from President Bush, but in reality there was little in the way of his voting record or public criticism that showed this. Today he has a chance to reverse this. We know Fossella speaks with President Bush, he flew on Air Force 1 with him after all, so we encourage him to use his bully pulpit and call out the President and his veto of this bill for what it is, anti-life. In a 2005 press release praising his work along side Rep. Castle to introduce a stem cell bill Castle proclaims:

One more day wasted, is another day a cure or treatment isn't found. We cannot hold up hope any longer.

Rep. Fossella, two years has past, and the President has stayed the course. Two years have past and there is no new movement or hope for stem cell research. I urge you to stand up to President Bush and explain what his veto is doing to hope for so many Americans. If we want change we can not continue supporting President Bush and hoping this time he will act different.

LTE: The American Sacrifice for Fossella's War

In a recent 'Letter to the Editor' (LTE) in the SI Advance a writer wonderfully calls out this administration this Congress, Fossella included for the true costs of the misguided war in Iraq with a simple call to action, vote them out in 2008 and bring our Americans home;

They have defied the more than 60 percent of Americans who are fed up with the bloody occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every day that our military personnel are kept in these countries continues their exposure to death or life-altering injuries.

The number of American military personnel who have died as a consequence of the invasion and occupation of Iraq now tops 16,000, which includes 13,000 who have died in military hospitals outside Iraq. Add to this number 24,000 permanently injured as a consequence of service in Iraq and the total number of casualties tops 40,000.

You can read the whole eloquent piece. Remember this is Rep. Vito Fossella's Iraq war just as much as it is Bush's. This needs to be his albatross. Not once has he voted to end it, to bring our troops home or to force this President into laying out a strategy for victory or even an exit strategy. In fact he continues to take to the House floor and support Bush while other Republicans are switching their views and realizing the horror that is happening in Iraq.

Army Lt. General denounces Bush's leadership on Iraq

via Rawstory;

The man who commanded US-led coalition forces during the first year of the Iraq war says the United States can forget about winning the war.

"I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will -- not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat," retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said in an interview.

Sanchez, in his first interview since he retired last year, is the highest-ranking former military leader yet to suggest the Bush administration has fallen short in Iraq.

"I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time," Sanchez told AFP after a recent speech in San Antonio, Texas.

1,498 Days Later

Bush supports timetables, Fossella supports withdraw plan

A little reminder.

Fossella supports withdraw plan
via VetoFossella.com;

"The President has a responsibility to articulate America's long-term strategy before placing even one soldier in harm's way. He has asked the Congress and the American people to follow his lead, but he has shrouded in darkness where that road will take us. Leading military and foreign policy experts have questioned why the Administration won't define the mission and what plans are in place for us to withdraw."

"The President must have a frank discussion with the American people as to what our military's mission is, when victory will be achieved and how it will be achieved." -Rep. Vito Fossella

Bush supports timetables
via Think Progress;

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.” - George W. Bush, Houston Chronicle:

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.” - George W. Bush, Scripps Howard/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The fine print, is that both of these men were criticizing President Clinton and our involvement in Kosovo, a war that had no US casualties, a war that had real NATO and allied support. Of course Kosovo never attacked us, if only Bush and Fossella knew Iraq didn't either.

1494 days later

Increased troop pay deemed 'unnecessary', Fossella silent

via the Army Times;

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

snip

Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”

“When combined with the overall military benefit package, the president’s proposal provides a good quality of life for service members and their families,” the policy statement says. “While we agree military pay must be kept competitive, the 3 percent raise, equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index, will do that.”

I think we are all agreed that the President in suggesting extra troop pay is "unnecessary" is rather unsupportive of our troops. The question though is where is Rep. Vito Fossella's outrage over this? I know he flies on planes with the President and the two are BFF (best friends forever, its an internet slang thing, ask your kids) but every once in a while you could actually stand up and support the troops when they need it. Does anyone else think Fossella will suddenly find his voice in 2008 if there is a Democrat sitting in the White House? Eight years of Fossella's silence and indifference will cost us dearly.

Bush and Fossella flying around together

Remember this when Rep. Vito Fossella tells us he is independent. Remember this when he rolls out his one time he disagrees with Bush and claims he is above partisanship. Via Tom's polit.bureau

Bush was flying back to Washington, D.C., from New York last week with Fossella's nephew, Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn), when the congressman told him that his uncle was a little under the weather.

That picture is one of the many other times Fossella has flown around with Bush on Air Force One, not this time around, although for visual reference I have to believe it is close enough. We can only imagine that Rep. Vito Fossella is chiding the President for threatening to veto the Congressional bill funding troop training, equipment and plans to bring them home safely. Who in their right mind vetoes troop safety?

Bush & Fossella, wrong then, wrong now

Americans don't support Bush and Fossella veto

via MSNBC;

As the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House clash over an Iraq spending bill, with President Bush vowing to veto it because it contains withdrawal deadlines, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that a solid majority of Americans side with the Democrats.

In addition, a nearly equal number believe that victory in Iraq isn't possible, and about only one in eight think the war has improved in the three months since Bush called for a troop increase there.

69% of Americans don't approve of the way Bush is handling Iraq

60% of Americans want a deadline set before fall 2008 for the removal of US troops
55% of Americans do not think victory in Iraq is possible

Fossella supports Bush's partisan stall tactics

Back in February when Congress was discussing a new strategy for Iraq, and put forward a Supplemental bill that among other things required troops training, preparedness and benchmarks Iraq needed to met, Fossella bravely stood up on the floor of the House attacking the plan, with these remarks (via the SI Advance);

With an open mind I have spent hours this week listening to the debate. Like many Americans I was willing to listen to new ideas and explore a new course in Iraq.

But an opportunity was wasted because all I have heard is “no” from the other side. I have not heard a plan…nor have I heard a strategy.

Apparently Fossella has forgotten that as part of the Republican majority that controlled Congress, he voted for this war, and voted to authorize the President to have a blank check to do as he pleased all in the name of the war on terror. Despite that, he thinks it is Democrats job to produce an alternative plan (we got you into this, now you get us out), which in part I commend he for. After all this is nothing short of realizing Americans voted for a change, especially in Iraq and not more of the same. While Fossella attacks Democrats for not having a plan, then voting against their plan, he continues to stand behind President Bush. Via Yahoo News;

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 taking shape in 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."

So Rep. Vito Fossella with that open mind of yours you talk about, why is it that you support President Bush and oppose a new course of action in Iraq? It appears a great opportunity is indeed wasted, to borrow your words, because all I hear from you and Bush is vetoing a plan you have been asking for.