Democratic leaders in Congress, among them Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank, may vote against the supplemental war funding bill unless the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)-destroying Lieberman-Graham legislation, which is included in the bill, is taken out.
Here is Donny Shaw at Open Congress:
Earlier this week I wrote about a special provision that the Senate had stuck inside the Iraq/Afghanistan war funding supplemental to block, at the discretion of the Pentagon, the public release of photographs of detainee torture. More specifically, the provision would block the release of any “photograph that was taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.” The provision is sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham [R, SC] and Sen. Joe Lieberman [I, CT], and supported by President Obama.
Now liberal House Democrats are threatening to block the bill – and funding for the wars – unless the photo suppression provision is taken out. Usually the liberal bloc of House Democrats don’t have the numbers (or the will) to block major legislation that is supported by the Democratic House leadership, but because of a separate provision to increase funding for the IMF, which is opposed by Republicans, they are in a position to actually make a meaningful demand. …
The IMF, by the way, is the International Monetary Fund. No one explains these things — you’re just supposed to know. The deal here is that the GOP won’t vote for the bill unless the IMF funding is removed, and the Democrats (liberal faction) won’t vote for the bill unless the detainee photograph legislation is taken out (which obviously the Repubs want to retain). This gives the Dems leverage they would not ordinarily have, because they can agree to strip out the IMF money if Republicans agree to do the same with the Lieberman-Graham legislation. However, Republicans are apparently trying to have it both ways by insisting that the IMF funding be removed and the detainee photograph legislation stay in.
I’m explaining all this because it took me a lot of time and reading, and re-reading to understand it. Bloggers (not to mention members of Congress) tend to write in a telegraphic style that simply assumes everybody else alrready understands or can figure it out. But I get very confused by the multiple provisions, conflicting positions, and complicated horse -trading that goes on in situations like this.
As D-Day puts it, in a post that actually helped me understand what’s going on, “There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of strange bedfellows.”
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