Looking at King's picture, maybe Pelosi should introduce a bill outlawing 'Really Bad Combovers' in Congress. Wow, that's awful.

That would make as much sense as what King tried to do.

This guy Steve King is pretty extreme. He even defends cockfighting in America.

well, i can understand barring house members as a whole from using state department funds while traveling. if they want to travel on official business they should use congressional funds.

and i can understand there being some serious issues with congressmen (from either party) going and playing at foreign policy with states that we are in conflict with against the wishes of the president. after all, the president is vested in the constitution with the power of making treaties and such. besides which isn't there an actual law on the books about elected officials negotiating with foreign powers without the consent of the president being illegal? i think it's the logan act (not sure tho)

but i don't like what king did with this measure where it would only apply to the speaker. that's just petty. if you're going to do this, make it apply to everyone equally. or don't do it at all.

KE, I think all that Pelosi -- and the Pub officials -- were doing was *talking* with the people there. If they had been actually negotiating a treaty, that would have been totally different. But we have elected officials all the time going to other nations and meeting with government officials. But usually it's with nations considered friendly to us so nobody makes a big deal out of that.

i don't know who the Pubs had been talking to because that didn't get any attention in the press until after Pelosi's junket (at least that i saw). but nancy said some stupid things while she was in syria, that is for sure.

you know, foreign policy issues are going to have a lot of viewpoints. and we should vigorously debate them on our own shores.

but the US really needs to speak with one voice to other countries. regardless of whichever party is in the white house. that's all i'm saying.

KE, you are right about speaking with one voice. The problem was that Bush wasn't speaking at all. His idea of diplomacy was either to threaten someone or to ignore them completely. Obviously that didn't work, so it's not surprising that if he executive wasn't doing it's job, the legislative might step up. But a bipartisan delegation would have been the best solution.

BTW, I'm not counting my chickens, but did you see that he North Koreans might shut down their reactor? This has happened after we've had several people go over and talk with them, and it shows that in spite of Bush's delusions about being the baddest mother on the block, there are still some things which are best handled with talking.