The Grant Catton Blog

Just as soon as I got done lamenting the fact that Congress--more specifically, the Democrats--can't get anything done, they accomplish something extremely difficult, and which has so far not been done to George W. Bush; they overrode his veto.

The vote was on a Bill to authorize $23 billion in improvements to the nation's water-related infrastructure. Bush apparently opposed it because he felt it contained too many unnecesary projects. That's a fair enough reason to oppose it, I guess, but given that the projects involved repairs to levees, dams, beaches, and sewage systems--as well as money for hurricane damaged areas in the Gulf Coast--I would be curious to see exactly which ones he considered unnecesary. The override vote was reportedly 351 to 54 in the House, and 79-14 in the Senate, meaning a serious load of Republicans joined in.

I'm not well-informed enough to expound at length on the possible ramifications of this, and I'm not optimistic enough to hope this …

Last night, a so-called Town Hall meeting was held in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. This was organized by the Central Brooklyn Independant Democrats, one of various Democratic party organizations in the area. Three U.S. Congressional Representatives from New York City were there; Yvette Clark, Jerrold Nadler, and Anthony Weiner, along with other state and local politicians, even the former U.S. Congressman from the district, Major Owens.

Each politician was allowed to say a few words about the war in Iraq and what could possibly be done to stop it and pull out U.S. troops. Then, the Congressmen took questions from the audience. Despite a few outbursts of angry boos and catcalls, the event remained fairly civilized, and the politicians were allowed to speak their minds and answer the questions without disruption.

I went into the meeting with an unbiased (I'd like to think) attitude, and I came away with the following impressions...

1.) Despite having a majority in the House and Senate,…