House GOPers Say White House Measure Will Help Terrorists — But It’s Backed By Rice, Powell, And Kissinger
House GOP leaders Eric Cantor and John Boehner have waged an aggressive campaign against a measure sought by the White House and Dem leaders to provide funding for the International Monetary Fund, claiming the cash could end up funding terrorism.
But I’ve learned that the initiative is strongly backed by none other than Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Henry Kissinger — not folks who are known for their terror sympathies.
The measure in question — meant to meet Obama’s vow to world leaders — would add $5 billion to the current war-spending bill to fund the IMF. Republicans oppose the IMF cash, forcing House leaders, who lack enough Dem votes, to scrap a vote until next week, setting up a big showdown over Obama’s war supplemental.
House GOP leaders have blasted the IMF cash as a giveaway to terrorists, seizing on Dem Rep Brad Sherman’s claim that Hezbollah has petitioned for some of it. Cantor says the cash could “fall into the hands of terrorists,” and Boehner said it “could line the pockets of terrorist regimes.”
But I’ve obtained a letter sent last month to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid from Rice, Powell, Kissinger, and other GOP foreign policy bigs backing the additional IMF funding in strong terms. They sent it as officials with the Bretton Woods Committee, an elite group created to urge Congress to fund the World Bank and IMF.
“We are writing to express support for the Administration’s request for prompt enactment of additional funding for the International Monetary Fund,” the letter reads. “A stronger and more responsive IMF is essential to the restoration of confidence in the global economy…We urge Congress to move expeditiously on the President’s request.”
You can read the letter right here. It will be interesting to see if this changes the debate.
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…and James Baker and Frank Carlucci. Sheesh.
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Tip of the hat, Greg. You aren’t sitting on your *** over there at the WP.
thanks, Bernie. appreciate that.
Scoop Factory!
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Great job as usual Greg.
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But I think I understand what the House GOP has been doing. They realize that Washington is still wired for Republicans so they just keep throwing sh*t at the wall hoping something sticks. The reason being is they aren’t really held accountable when the stuff they are saying turns out to be bullsh*t. The closest the media has come is over the debacle of their “alternate” budget. But even at that the media still showed up the next week when they again offered their “alternate” budget which while it had more numbers still was a load of cr@p. And even after all that, after all of their lying over the stimulus bill, all of their offensive behavior over the Matthew Sheppard hate crime bill, this bullsh*t over Nancy Pelosi which they all eventually backed down on, STILL the media lends them the credibility they have not earned. So now they will come out lying again and even though there is evidence they are blowing smoke it will be another he said she said story in the media where their view is given equal weight to 3 former Secretaries of State and other luminaries. Its easy to keep throwing around lies and innuendo when they keep finding a receptive audience with the media. Now KO and Maddow and maybe Shuster and or Sanchez will site your blog as pushback but you won’t find that in print write ups or other cable shows. It will just be, “House Republicans say Obama is supporting Hezbollah, some other people disagree”
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Very very frustrating to watch.
This is Teh Wacky™ (sic), a phenomenon wherein Republicans engage in fringe paranoia to get attention.
Am I the only one who remembers the GOP coming to power in ‘94 with several freshmen who were “proud” of having never held a passport? I wonder how many of those know-nothings are still in Congress. To them, the world is just a scary place to be bombed, exploited, or ignored.
thx SG — I think you’re definitely right, especially in the context of national security…the strategy is to keep up a drumbeat based on whatever is available designed to raise doubts about obama’s ability to keep us safe, particularly in context of his mideast trip.
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and matt, kind of surprising to see Brad Sherman engage in this same stuff…
Hey Greg, and everybody else
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Had you heard about this?
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http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/intel-firestorm-gop-reveals-briefing-info-2009-06-04.html
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The Democrats had better go after these jerks for violating national security or else this will end up happening on a regular basis.
Geeez. These two clowns, Cantor and Boehner are about as stupid as tree stumps. I don’t know if their ignorance is purposeful or not. Greg, you are wired in to the DC journo scene. Why do these two clowns draw the steno-pad crowd who gladly reprint whatever idiocies they come up with? You can’t say that they are bound to give the other side a hearing, because when the Dems were out of power, the Congressional Dems couldn’t draw flies to their news conferences. Even the decent journalists write about these clowns with a straight face.
O Greg for heaven’s sake – it’s gallup.
Tena
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I think you might have posted on the wrong thread.
Brad Sherman is behind this because Israel wants him to be. The IMF does business with Iran. It’s as simple as that.
http://thejewishstate.net/may809aipac.html
You know what really helped terrorists?
Letting Osama bin Laden get away.
That’s George Bush’s signature achievement on terrorism. He responded to 9/11 by letting bin Laden get away, and then getting us bogged down in Iraq for no good reason.
Heckuva job there, Republicans.
Every once in a while a blind squirrel does find an acorn, although not always the kind they look for. Here I think a strong case for the IMF being a terrorist organization itself can be made. Remember they have been in the business of destroying national economies and trampling the poor and working class into the mud for decades. You saw what they did to Argentina and Indonesia and countless other countries that needed money to get through a hard spell. Malaysia and Malawi have shown you what can happen when you tell them to go away.