Russ Feingold isn't content to let Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama suck up the media's attention.
Although he's out of the running as a presidential candidate, he doesn't want to step out of the spotlight.
Feingold has made a name for himself by being ahead of the pack when it comes to extremist lib proposals.
First, he called for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by December 31, 2006.
Oops! Never mind.
Then, he joined with the emotional John Kerry and set July 1, 2007 as the new deadline for the troops to leave.
That didn't work out either, but Feingold is still plugging away and sucking up to the fringe Left.
The Maverick Man isn't satisfied with the symbolic, nonbinding resolutions that the Dems and the spineless Hagel and Warner-type alleged Republicans are introducing. Feingold claims to want action.
Actually, Feingold wants a hearing on cutting off funding for the war. He desperately wants to be heard.
I think he's becoming addicted to these hearings. They give him an opportunity to huff and puff before C-SPAN cameras. If he's really lucky, he might get a quick sound bite on the news, saying something outrageous. You can see the thrill he gets from performing.
Feingold will have another chance to shine next week.
He will be chair of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to force the issue of cutting funds out from under our troops as a strategy to end the war in Iraq.
Feingold's press release:
On Tuesday, January 30th, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold will chair a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled, “Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War.” Earlier this month, Feingold, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, became the first Senator to call on Congress to use its power of the purse to redeploy our troops safely from Iraq so that we can refocus on the global terrorist networks that threaten our national security. Feingold proposed this action after President George Bush announced plans to escalate our military involvement in Iraq despite the objections of members of both parties, military and foreign policy experts, and the American people.
“Congress holds the power of the purse and if the President continues to advance his failed Iraq policy, we have the responsibility to use that power to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq,” Feingold said. “This hearing will help inform my colleagues and the public about Congress’s power to end a war and how that power has been used in the past. I will soon be introducing legislation to use the power of the purse to end what is clearly one of the greatest mistakes in the history of our nation’s foreign policy.”
Witnesses at the hearing will include:--Louis Fisher, Library of Congress:
--Prof. Walter Dellinger, Duke University School of Law, former Solicitor General of the United States
--Prof. David Barron, Harvard Law School
--Prof. Robert Turner, University of Virginia Law School
Who: U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution
What: Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing -- “Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War.” Feingold will chair the full committee hearing.
Where: SD - 226
When: Tuesday, January 30th – 10:00 am ET
I have to give Feingold credit for this stunt.
At least he's not afraid to take a stand.
He's not dancing around the issue with silly, nonbinding resolutions that express no confidence for the President.
At least he's got the chutzpah to address Congress' role, and therefore responsibility, in the funding of the war. He's horribly misguided as Dems tend to be, but his grandstanding is over a meaningful approach.
John Kerry lover Harry Reid and the amazing blinking woman Nancy Pelosi, as well as Chuck Hagel and John Warner, are just posturing over nothing.
If they want to manage the course of the war in Iraq, all they have to do is what Feingold wants to do -- cut off the money. If Congress is so against the presence of our troops in Iraq, then they can bring them home by taking away the money to keep them there.
The media keep yapping about Bush's Iraq policy having no support from Dems and little support from Republicans. They repeat that Americans are "war weary." They want out.
So why screw around with symbolic motions?
On January 24 at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on Iraq, Feingold spelled out his intentions.
This is not a time for legislative nuancing. This is not a time for trying to forge a compromise that everybody can be a part of.
This is a time to stop the needless deaths of American troops in Iraq. This is a time to refocus our country in the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11.
And we have a moral responsibility, as well as a responsibility to the lives of the American people, to start doing it now.
And I believe in good faith that this chairman means it when he says that's what we're going to be doing. And so I'm going to support what we're doing here today.
Next week, I'll be holding, as chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, a hearing to make it very clear that we have the constitutional power to use the power of the purse, to remind our colleagues and the public of that power.
And I will introduce legislation that will combine a timeline with the ability to use the power of the purse so that we can finally redeploy these troops.
Feingold's turning into quite a blowhard.
Redeploying the troops, of course, means cutting and running, admitting defeat.
Still, I like what Feingold is doing. There should be a binding resolution, one that's not just a slap at Bush.
Let's see how many legislators are like Feingold. How many are willing to vote to end America's military involvement in Iraq by drying up the money?
I think it's ridiculous that Warner and other Republicans are wasting their time trying to come up with compromise resolutions.
Weakening the President is what our enemies want. They want us to lose our resolve. They want exactly what Feingold is proposing.
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