Note the addition of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), the latest potential candidate. Here are links to the audio and transcript of a recent commentary piece he did, and a recent interview with Laura Ingraham.
Republican Congressman Sam Johnson (TX-3) has introduced a discharge petition that would force floor consideration of a bill to fully fund our troops in harm’s way – no strings attached. The Clerk’s website at the link above lists all House Members who have signed it so far. Once the discharge petition gets 218 signatures, the bill automatically comes to the floor for consideration. As of this posting, his staff has rounded up 173 signatures in three days- very impressive. If your congressman hasn’t signed the petition, please call them right away to ask them to! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Rep. Johnson, he is a true war hero, serving in the U.S. Air Force for 29-years as a highly decorated fighter pilot. He flew combat missions in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars and was a Prisoner of War in Hanoi for nearly seven years.
This is the first discharge petition filed in this Congress- which means that Rep. Johnson is the first Republican to stand up to the liberal Democrats who are blocking their bills in committees. The Dems. are more concerned about keeping their extremist financial base happy than they are about the future of the Middle East, winning the War on Terrorism, or the welfare of our troops.
God bless Congressman Johnson and his staff as they work to support our troops.
Courtesy of the Patriot Post
It gives us great pleasure to report that, one month after the commencement of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq and the enactment of a new plan to secure Baghdad, American troop deaths are down by 60 percent. Areas of the city previously controlled by militias and insurgent groups—specifically Sadr City, Al-Azamiyah and Al-Doura—are steadily coming under the control of the U.S.-Iraqi combined force.
Since the launch of the 14 February operation, the number of civilians killed in Baghdad has dropped to 265, compared with 1,440 killings from mid-January to mid-February; a drop of 82 percent. By contrast, terrorist deaths are up in Baghdad: 94 dispatched from mid-February to mid-March, up from 19 killed in the 30 days prior.
Similarly, Baghdad suffered 102 roadside bombings in the February-March period, a 37-percent decline from 163 during the January-February period. Other statistics include: 36 car bombs in February-March to 56 in January-February (down 36 percent); 109 mortar attacks in February-March to 204 in January-February (down 47 percent); ten kidnapping incidents in February-March to 98 in January-February (down 90 percent); and 22 assassination incidents in February-March to 519 in January-February for a staggering drop of 96 percent.
That’s the good news from 14 February to 14 March. This, of course, doesn’t mean that our enemy is on the verge of surrender or that we won’t see troop and civilian casualties in the future, but these numbers are very encouraging—unless you’re a Bush-hating Democrat or a headline writer for The New York Times. What, you ask, was the Gray Lady’s front-page headline for 15 March? Why, “Iraqis’ Progress Lags Behind Pace Set by Bush Plan,†of course.