Critics of the California stem cell program are prescribing major surgery: their procedure, Senate Bill 1565, (Kuehl, Runner) amounts to a re-do of the program California voted into law.

Should we close our eyes and let them do it? What if they are wrong?

Make no mistake: Senate Bill 1565 is no routine checkup. It is a full-scale major operation.

And there is nothing wrong with the patient...

We confirmed this morning that the voting deadline for the first round has been extended to 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, January 30.  If you haven't voted yet, please consider voting for Nancy Skinner, a true progressive and environmentalist.  She has the backbone to vote her conscience and not back down.

Please read more at this diary at:
http://www.dailykos.com/...

Spread the word!

"The more successful we are, the more troops can return home."

The cornerstone of Bush's latest Iraq "plan," laid out in his prime-time speech Thursday, was reiterated in his radio address yesterday: "return on success." (Mr. Bush's spin team is seriously lacking in the waning days of his would-be reign.)

That plan is, of course, playing out the clock. That plan is telling the soldiers they can return to their homes when they achieve success, but gives them no hope of finding that elusive goal. To make that goal even more unattainable, Bush provides no definition of what success is. He just tells them that reinforcing troops will be pulled out, stretching the remaining forces even thinner, bringing them that much closer to the breaking point.

And yet there he forces them to stay, until they succeed. At something. He tells their families and those of us back home, essentially, that until our troops figure out how to fix this mess, then they just have to stay there and tough it out. Because it's his war and he'll keep it going as long as he wants, consequences (and body bags) be damned.

For 1600 days since "Mission Accomplished," and through the loss of at least 3,781 dutiful American lives, Bush has been a petulant commander in chief playing army men, as if those 3,781 men and women and their fellow soldiers were so many toy soldiers. He has proven unable to recognize the quagmire staring him in the face, refusing the advice of his military advisors going into Iraq resulting in this gawd-awful mess, and refusing the advice of the Iraq study group in January resulting in this pointless and failed escalation.

And today he has the gall to tell the men and women in Iraq that they will just have to be there until they do better, but he doesn't have any plan for helping them do just that. If that's not a hostage situation, I don't know what is.

A note to our leaders in Congress. As with a petulant pre-adolescent, there's no "negotiating" with Bush. He's not going to bend to your will unless you give him no other option. In other words, don't give him his money for this war without a deadline for its ending.

Chris Dodd has been crystal clear on this. Now Obama has joined that club.

Obama, who had resisted measures to tie money for the war to a deadline for withdrawal, said Sunday he would no longer support funding measures in the Senate that do not include deadlines.

“We are going to bring an end to this war and I will fight hard in the United States Senate to make sure we don’t pass any funding bill that does not have a deadline,” Obama told the crowd.

Perfect. Now can we hear this from Hillary? A unified front from the Senate presidential candidates on this front -- two of which are the two highest-profile Democrats in the land (Hillary and Barack) would go a long way toward framing the terms of this debate.

Are you as confused as I am as to who is running the war in Iraq?  Is it President Bush or is the Generals or is it the Congress?

[Originally published at Corrente]

Then: Commander Guy, introducing the surge:

BUSH: To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November.

Yesterday: the comedy stylings of Pony Blow:

Have our congressional leaders completely caved in on a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq?  If the story that’s running in this morning’s edition of the Los Angeles Times is correct, Democrats have given Bush a major victory.

WASHINGTON — Scrambling to send President Bush an emergency war spending bill he will sign, Democratic leaders have decided to drop their insistence on a timeline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

The move — which comes just days after senior Democrats insisted that White House officials should support nonbinding timelines — is a significant concession to the president and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill, who have steadfastly rejected any dates for bringing U.S. troops home.

The impetus seems to be the "necessity" to send the president an interim war funding bill before an artificially imposed deadline of Memorial Day.  

Democratic lawmakers are under pressure to send the president an emergency spending bill before the Memorial Day break or risk being blamed for withholding critical funding for U.S. troops.

Could it be that U.S. troop presence in Iraq is fueling unnecessary violence and if they left, that aspect of the violence would subside? Anbar Province offer clues for a U.S. exit: leave it to the Iraqis to rid their country of al-Qaeda.

More below the fold

While Republicans bristle at the notion of "artificial deadlines" and "handcuffs on our generals," as if civilian control of American foreign and defense policy isn’t enshrined in the Constitution, the rest of us know we’ve been down this path before.

 Pres. Bush just vetoed the Iraq funding bill passed by Congress.  In explaining his veto, Bush said, "Here's why the bill Congress passed is unacceptable. First, the bill would mandate a rigid and artificial deadline for American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq...Second, the bill would impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat."

 The Dems were all too eager to defend the bill and its deadlines.  They were all too eager to talk about the viability of benchmarks.  They were all too eager to flex their political muscle and assert their resolve to change the course of this war.  

 Thats all well and good.  I am all in favor of changing the course of the war too.  But the Dems will lose this debate if they continue to allow Bush and co. to frame the arguments.  The Dems have to engage in the Iraq Funding Bill debate on their terms.  Here's the frame:

Someone please explain these votes against the Iraq funding bill (the one with the withdrawal deadline in it ) to me, I don't get it....

Courtesy of Think Progress....

But before the president wipes the dust off his veto pen he should tell the American people where he believes we’ll be 11 months from now. Democrats have been clear on this: by next spring the bulk of the U.S. fighting force will be redeployed from Iraq. What about the president? Where does he believe we’ll be then?

When America needed a leader, the president was caught up in the "political theater" he claims to abhor. Instead of coming up with a real plan to get U.S. troops out of the middle of a Sunni-Shiite civil war, Bush was pandering to the small minority who still support his handling of foreign and domestic affairs. With nothing but failed policies left in his wake, this president resorted once again to bluster in an effort to intimidate Congress and deceive the American people.

There is an absolute right in this debate, troop funding legislation backed by the House of Representatives that calls for an end to U.S. military involvement by the end of next summer; and an absolute wrong, the "stay the course" policy offered by the president and his allies on Capitol Hill.

I don't mean boots and olive drab. I'm talking about basic training in successful planning. I suspect that waiting around the Whitehouse for Teh Call about the miraculous turnaround in Iraq is getting on Dudya's nerves. I know as I have been waiting for a call from Ed McMahon for years.

Anyway, last weekend I went out to a local Vietnamese restaurant. After my wife and I had finished our meal, the waitress brought the check and fortune cookies. I don't care much for the cookie but I like the fortunes. The one I got that night was something that reminded me of what is so wrong about the administration's stance on timelines.

A couple of months before the U.S. invaded Iraq, Kerry called on Bush to exhaust all options and only go to war as a last resort. His exact words were "...show respect for the process of international diplomacy because it is not only right, it can make America stronger - and show the world some appropriate patience in building a genuine coalition. Mr. President, do not rush to war." After Bush launched his illegal invasion, Kerry called for regime change here at home. During the debates, Kerry stressed that America should have no "long-term designs on staying in Iraq."  When the Iraqis held their election in January 2005, the Bush admin and media hyped it as validation for the war. Kerry warned that while the election was significant, the training, reconstruction, delivery of services, diplomacy and international community involvement were lagging.  Kerry was right!

from Think Progress

Mitchell: Petraeus Held Closed-Door Strategy Meeting With Republican Caucus

This morning on the Chris Matthews Show, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell revealed that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, met "very recently" with the Senate Republican caucus to discuss their strategy on Iraq legislation.

"Petraeus went to the Republican caucus and told them, I will have real progress to you by August," Mitchell said. The Republicans claim they told him that after August, they will end their support for the war. "They have told him at a caucus meeting as very, very recently, that if there isn’t progress by August — and real progress means not a day of violence and a day of sanity — that they will pull the plug."

At this point, only the president is standing in the way of funding for the troops.