***UPDATE: West Tweets***
Maybe I am missing something here, because I just don’t get it.
The House defeated two competing measures Friday that would have given President Obama differing levels of authority to continue the war in Libya, signaling a majority want to limit the president but that there is no consensus yet on how to do it.
Taken together, nearly 300 lawmakers voted against fully backing Mr. Obama — a devastating rejection of the president at a time when he has deployed troops overseas.
Yet those lawmakers were split between authorizing a limited support mission and wanting no involvement whatsoever, that division meant the House was unable to agree — essentially leaving Mr. Obama with a free hand to continue to fight the war as he wants.
I wonder how Gaddafi will react to this news.
Here is the roll call for the defunding bill, and I have listed a sampling below of some of the “No” votes you might find surprising:
- Michele Bachmann
- Marsha Blackburn
- Jason Chaffetz
- Steve King (IA)
- Thad McCotter
- Mike Pence
- Ben Quayle
- Paul Ryan
- Allen West
These names are about as good as gets for conservatives in the House, which leads me to believe maybe I really am missing something here. I’ll be interested to hear the explanation.
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UPDATE (TRS): Allen West tweeted that he would vote no on the Rooney resolution:
Rep. Rooney’s resolution to stop funding Libya “with exceptions” doesn’t go far enough and I’ll vote No. There aren’t exemptions to the law
We must stop funding Libya- without exception!
I also remember hearing a few other Republicans suggest that they didn’t like the exceptions, but were going to vote for it anyway because they felt it was a good starting point.
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