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House Shoots Down Draft, 402-2
The House of Representatives voted on bill to reinstate the draft by Democrat Charles Rangel (NY), and defeated it soundly, 402-2. The bill, which languished in Congress with no real support since its introduction in January 2003, has often been used as evidence the Republicans favor a draft, despite the fact that a Democrat sponsored it, 14 other Democrats cosponsored it, and no Republicans supported it. The rumors reached urban legend status, leading the House Republicans to take the uncommon step of voting on a bill that was not under remotely serious consideration. The two voting in favor of the bill were Democrats John Murtha (PA) and Pete Stark (CA), who was one of the cosponsors. Republican Senate majority leader Bill Frist said the Senate will not address the issue.
that the secret plan is to pass those bills and have a fully operating draft by june of this year.
Given how many paniced brothers and sisters of mine received that e-mail, the Republicans did the right thing.
Clear, Dark Skies
The bill was introduced by Charles Rangel to prevent wars. His stated intentions:
...to make it clear that if there were a war, there would be more equitable representation of people making sacrifices...
I truly believe that those who make the decision and those who support the United States going into war would feel more readily the pain that's involved, the sacrifice that's involved, if they thought that the fighting force would include the affluent and those who historically have avoided this great responsibility.
His point was that we'd be less likely to go to war if people of all classes, rich and poor, had to fight.
Senator Tim Johnson's son is in the 101st Airborne and served in Iraq.
Representative Duncan Hunter's son is a Marine and was in Iraq as of February 2004.
Senator Joe Biden's is on active duty, but not in Iraq.
Outside of Congress: John Ashcroft's son is active duty Navy, deployed to the Persian Gulf
Rep Kennedy - the guy Moore mocks in the movie? His nephew is active duty, but Moore edited that out of the final movie.
So, excluding nephews and Ashcroft's son, and excluding the guy who wasn't deployed to Iraq, that gives us 2 sons out of 535 congressmen, a ratio of 268 to 1. According to the cenus bureau, 104,705,000 households in the United States in 2000. If we guess that 300,000 service men and women have been deployed to Iraq and different times, the ratio of households to Iraqi vets is 104,705,000 to 300,000. This reduces to a ratio of 349 to 1.
Thus, children of congressmen are over-represented in Iraq.
Clear, Dark Skies