Thursday, April 17th:

Mr. BLUNT. Also, we are now entering the third month since the expiration of the Protect America Act. I know you and I were in a meeting a week or 10 days ago on this, and I still don't see any scheduled discussion of legislation on the floor that brings us back to that whole issue of foreign intelligence surveillance, and I hope we are moving toward a conclusion of that important issue.

.

I would yield.

Mr. HOYER. As you know because we have had an opportunity to discuss it, I have essentially been coordinating this issue on our side with Mr. Reyes and Mr. Conyers, and also working with Mr. Rockefeller. And you and I had a meeting with Senator Bond, the ranking member on the Republican side.

I am hopeful that we can have a proposition passed through the House and hopefully by the Senate by the Memorial Day break. That is my time frame. I am working toward that. I have meetings tomorrow with respect to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I am going to have meetings this afternoon, and I had meetings yesterday. I am giving it a lot of attention, with others as well. As you know, we met briefly. I would reiterate to you that when I have some better fix on where I think the Senate is willing to go or where we are willing to go and where we can reach agreement, I want to discuss it with you because I am hopeful that we can work together to try to make that happen.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman. I think every day matters in this regard, and certainly going home for another work period at home without a conclusion here would be the wrong thing for us to do. I hope we can meet your goal and hopefully meet it earlier than the last day or two that we are here before the Memorial Day break.

[snip]

Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield, I want to thank the gentleman because I believe he is absolutely sincere in that effort. He and I have had an opportunity to have discussions. We are going to continue those over the coming days, and hopefully we can get this done sooner rather than later. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee have both expressed that objective.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=H2469&position=all

Also, the next blank check to continue the subjugation of Iraq is on its way [along with a cessation of legislative activity between the November election and installation of the new Congress, the alleged "distraction" impeachment hearings would pose to the "important work" of the Congress exposed for the lie it is]:

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

.

I still anticipate that. With reference to the gentleman's question regarding the number of bills, based upon the comments of Mr. Murtha, I have not talked to him personally but that have been reported, it is my understanding that he is thinking of one bill, not both an Afghanistan and an Iraq.

The problem is while there is, I think, pretty universal support for the effort in Afghanistan as being critical to our fight on terrorism, there is more disagreement on the Iraq component and what we ought to be doing there. But the way the budget is structured, it would be very difficult to consider them discretely, Afghanistan and Iraq. So it is my understanding that Mr. Murtha has recommended and intends to pursue it as one bill.

[snip]

Mr. HOYER. Those are my thoughts; my thoughts and my hope. I think that lame duck sessions, in my experience, have not been particularly productive, particularly when you are going to have a change of administration. Whether it is Senator McCain, Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, we are going to have a change of administration. I expressed it as a hope, and we are going to work toward not having a lame duck session.

Let me go back and answer your question. I think we had a week delay on the supplemental, and I think the week of May 5 is the week we are looking at for the supplemental. As you know, I said the last week in April, the first week in May. That is the first full week in May, so I guess I am still accurate. We are on for that week hopefully on the supplemental, which will be timely in accomplishing the objective of getting dollars in time before the depletion of the funds that have already been appropriated.

The opinions of the American people really don't mean a damn thing to our "representatives" in the United States Congress, do they?

As for the opinions of Iraqis...

Iraqi citizen Fatima Jameel - someone who most certainly has "skin in the game," unlike the reprehensible Rahm Emanuel or Nancy Pelosi - commenting today:

"I can only talk about al-Shula where I live and that was two days ago before I left Irak for this trip. No electricity, no water, very little food getting through. The Badr brigade death squads are back."

.

and

"I am Sunni, as is my husband. We live in a 'Shia' area and the two orphanages we run get their money equally from the Sadrists and a Sunni charitable foundation. Both of us are Sadrists. That is not an uncommon situation in Irak. You are very conveniently forgetting that the JAM [al-Sadr's Mahdi Army] has excellent relations with some of the more active sections of the so-called 'Sunni' resistance and that JAM fighters fought alongside the so-called 'Sunni' resistance in Fallujah, Hit, Ramadi …."

and

"The enemy is the government and people of the United States of America who are waging war against my people. I see no difference - NONE between the imperialist party called the republicans and the imperialist party called the democrats.

NONE."

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/18/adding-more-skin-to-the-game/