This is my first diary entry. With a wife on the list for an organ transplant and 15 year old daughter in my life, I haven't had the time to write anything so far.
Still, I went to my congressman's town hall meeting today, and he said some things that might interest the Daily Kos community. My Congressman is Xavier Becerra, who is from the 31st Congressional district which encompasses Downtown and Northeast Los Angeles. After some introductary remarks, he then went on to talk about some bills he voted on this week. He said he voted against DR-CAFTA, because he said he was concerned about the loss of jobs in the district.
He said he voted for the highway bill, but he said it was a compromise because the president would not support a bill for more than the 280 billion over six years that passed congress this week.
Then the Congressman went on to discuss Iraq, which took up most of the meeting. He said two years ago, the president went to Congress and said the war would have minimal costs in lives, time and money. Now he said its two years later and at least 1769 US troops are dead, there is no exit strategy and and the cost is 275 billion dollars and counting.
The Congressman discussed the Valerie Plame affair and the lies about yellowcake uranium being sent from Niger to Iraq. He discussed the fact that no
WMD have been found in Iraq. He then went on to say that if we could impeach a president for lying about sexual indiscretions, we can surely discuss impeaching a president for lying to Congress about the reasons for going to war.
Congressman Becerra then discussed the fact that the Democratic caucus has problems getting their story out to the media. I hope this diary entry helps him. I thought it was interesting that he overtly discussed impeachment. Have any other congressmen mentioned it? Becerra said he has joined a caucus dedicated to finding an exit strategy in Iraq. He said he supported Congressman Conyers' attempts at holding hearings on the Downing Street Minutes. He said they have had no support from the Republican House leadership, so the hearings have been held in a meeting room in the Capital basement.