Missed votes: Obama 38.8% - Clinton 27.1%

[zabet]

Barack Obama has missed 182 votes (38.8%) during the current Congress.
Hillary Clinton has missed 127 votes (27.1%) during the current Congress.

Barack Obama has voted with a majority of his Democratic colleagues 96.5% of the time during the current Congress. This percentage does not include votes in which Obama did not vote.
Hillary Clinton has voted with a majority of her Democratic colleagues 97.1% of the time during the current Congress. This percentage does not include votes in which Clinton did not vote.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c001041/

Hillary shows up more often to vote, and
she votes more in line with the Democratic party
than Obama does.

Missed votes by Obama:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/votes/missed/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/votes/missed/page2/

Missed votes by Hillary:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c001041/votes/missed/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c001041/votes/missed/page2/

Hillary is voting 72.9% of the time, Obama is voting 61.2% of the time.

Go to the links, compare who missed what vote and
see what the vote was about.

Hillary is there more, she votes more along the Democratic
Party lines. Bipartisanship does not mean voting Republican.
After today, it should be obvious to the least politically savvy
individual out there, there is no 'working with' the Republicans,
it is their way or a fight to the bitter end.

I will take Hillary who is ready to fight the Republicans before
I will take someone who wants to work with them by voting their way.

[JTFrog]

1. Bipartisanship isn't necessary when your candidate helps toe the republican war mongers line. n/t

[jkshaw]

3. JT

It's Toe the line.

[JTFrog]

4. oops. n/t

[zabet]

7. Like voting for the Repubs?

They both are guilty of that.
The key here would be, as a voter,
which of the issues were most important
to you. That is why I provided links,
so you could be more informed.

[Bill McBlueState]

2. "votes more in line with the Democratic party"

You're really going to make an issue of 0.6 percentage points? How many votes does that represent?

[zabet]

9. It is not the number that should be the issue..

it is the votes and what they were
for and as a voter, if they are relevant
to you.

[MadBadger]

5. Not so Far this year

This year Hill has missed 18 of 21, and Obama has missed 10 of 21

[zabet]

8. When they are both touting experience,

it all counts.

[THUNDER HANDS]

6. and yet, he's the most liberal member of the senate

as John Kerry was when he ran...go figure.

[zabet]

10. These are according to voting

along the party lines. As far as
I know, there is no Liberal Party
represented in Congress. ;)

[FrenchieCat]

11. Yep.. he missed Kyl-Lieberman.....on Iran, Hillary voted for it.

[zabet]

12. And Obama voted for the ban on clusterbombs

when it was shown before hand that
the Iraqi forces intentionally placed
strategic groups, equipment and arms in
densely, civilian populated areas.
Taking away the clusterbombs, for the
civilians the Iraqis were willing to
intentionally sacrifice, would have cost
us more dead US soldiers. Why does Obama
not support keeping the soldiers safe
above all if he opposes the war and funds the
war?

[FrenchieCat]

13. I would have voted against Clusterbombs in civilian areas as well.

You want Americans to use Cluster Bombs in Civilian areas? Really? :wow:


Cluster Bombs, Get Your War On, Land Mines, Mine Ban Treaty, Breaking Politics News

If you're a friend of mine, or a fan of "Get Your War On," you probably know how important the issue of cluster bombs and landmines is to me.

It was America's use of cluster bombs during Operation: Enduring Freedom that led me to start GYWO seven(!) years ago this fall, and it has been my pleasure and my honor to donate the royalties from the two GYWO anthologies to Mine Detection & Dog Center Team #5, a landmine removal team in western Afghanistan.

If you ever attended a GYWO reading, you probably sat through my video of landmine removal teams in the field, or listened to me read off statistics about that dangerous mission, or indulged me by taking an informational flyer about MDC Team #5 and the sacred work they do.

(If you bought one of the GYWO books, you've helped that work, and I thank you.)

Cluster bombs and landmines are particularly terrifying weapons that wreak havoc on communities trying to recover from war. They are fatal impediments to reconstruction and rehabilitation of agricultural land; they destroy valuable livestock; they disable otherwise productive members of society; they maim or kill children trying to salvage them for scrap metal.

Over 150 nations have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. It pains me that our great nation has not. But in the autumn of 2006, there was a chance to take a step in the right direction: Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.

Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.

Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.

Analysts say Clinton did not want to risk appearing "soft on terror," as it would have harmed her electibility.

I'm not a single-issue voter. But as Obama and Clinton share many policy positions, this vote was revelatory for me. After all, Amendment No. 4882 was an easy one to vote against: Who'd want to risk accusation of "tying the hands of the Pentagon" during a never-ending, global War on Terror? As is so often the case, there was no political cost to doing the wrong thing. And there was no political reward for doing the right thing.

But Senator Obama did the right thing.

Is Senator Obama perfect? Of course not. Nobody who voted for 2005's wack-ass energy bill is perfect. Nobody who voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act is perfect.

But of the two remaining Democratic candidates, one decided her vote on Amendment No. 4882 according to a political calculation. The other used a moral calculation.

I'm 35 years old, and over the years, I've had two experiences in the voting booth: I've voted for politicians I really respected, who I knew could never win. And I've voted for politicians I didn't really respect, because I knew they could win.

Tomorrow, I'm going to vote for a politician I really respect, who I know can win.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-rees/clinton-obama-and-clust_b_84811.html

[Alexander]

14. Good. That was the right call for Obama to make.

"when it was shown before hand that the Iraqi forces intentionally placed strategic groups, equipment and arms in densely, civilian populated areas."

This is typically the excuse people provide when they go to war with someone and end up killing a large number of civilians (like Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon). We've already killed up to a million Iraqis, according to the UN. Any future engagements should be precise and designed to avoid excessive civilian casualties. It seems like Obama understands this.

"Taking away the clusterbombs, for the civilians the Iraqis were willing to intentionally sacrifice, would have cost us more dead US soldiers."

A life is a life is a life. Are you saying Iraqi lives not worth the same as American lives? I don't buy that argument. If we know Iraqi insurgents are intentionally hiding behind civilians (which I'll ask you to cite), we should take extra care that we don't kill these civilians, right?

BTW, invading Iraq cost us thousands of US soldiers to begin with. You want to save the troops? Get them out.

"Why does Obama not support keeping the soldiers safe above all if he opposes the war and funds the war?"

At this point I can't even tell if you're serious.

[zabet]

16. Go beyond just the surface appearance of that vote...

it all started over dud rates of remnant muntions
killing civilians, not about collateral damage when
the cluster was dropped. You can also take into consideration
that this is a very layered issue. Starting with wanting
to purchase such munitions from a manufacturer that provided
a 1% or less dud rate compared to the 5-25% dud rate from
a foreign defense contractor that was/is being used. Take into
consideration we have members of our government that are, or
their spouses are involved with defense type businesses. When
they cannot get the business standards of quality control out
of reach of the current supplier, then they want to stop using
them at all.

The clincher is, Biden and Dodd voted to continue to use clusterbombs.
I know Joe has far more expertise in this field than any candidate
we had or have running. He was my first pick and this was one issue
I agreed with him on because I trust his judgement.

From the Air Force Law Review...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-133368631.html

"Significant collateral damage incidents resulted from Iraqi forces using civilian shields, feigning surrender, commingling with the civilian population, and misusing emergency relief vehicles or hospitals to conduct military operations (Figures 3-5). (217) Iraqi forces transferred ammunition from military depots to smaller bunkers in civilian neighborhoods, schools, cultural sites, religious sites and other civilian facilities to avoid attack (Figures 6-9). (218) Anti-aircraft weapons were placed on the roof of the Ministry of Information (Figure 10) (219) and the Iraqi 51 st Warning and Control Regiment relocated to a mosque before hostilities. (220) Perfidy, deception and attempts to acquire sanctuary in civilian communities was commonplace for Iraqi forces:



To sum up, we are now observing an activity that has
been going on for over 10 years. The Iraqis have regularly
placed air defense missile systems and associated equipment in
and around civilian areas, including parks, mosques, hospitals,
hotels, crowded shopping districts, and even in cemeteries.
They have positioned rocket launchers next to soccer stadiums
that are in active use, and they've parked operational
surface-to-air missile systems in civilian industrial areas.
This is a well-organized, centrally managed effort, and its
objectives are patently clear: preserve Iraq's military
capabilities at any price, even though it means placing innocent
civilians and Iraq's cultural and religious heritage at risk. (221)
Iraqi forces were in many cases very well integrated with the civilian community, even to the point of commingling with civilians on buses during combat. (222) Iraqi civilians regularly reported seeing Iraqi troops out of uniform. One witness expressed concern that the practice resulted in numerous civilian casualties. Dr. Abd al-Sayyid, director of al-Nasiriya General Hospital, said "Fedayeen were among the civilian homes.... he problem was with the Iraqi troops and Fedayeen dressed as civilians." (223) Iraqi witnesses in al-Najaf and in the al-Yarmuk neighborhood of Baghdad reported similar practice among Iraqi forces. (224) Almost every member of the Coalition interviewed by HRW commented on the practice. One senior officer observed, "By March 24 , we were already seeing a large number of irregulars out of uniform. It was clearly a combination of systematic and conscious ." (225)

The Iraqi strategy to conceal military assets with civilian objects, wear civilian clothes, and commingle with the civilian population was problematic to operations, creating a high potential for civilian casualties and increasing stress on U.S. forces instructed to spare civilian life when engaged."

[stillcool]

19. are you arguing

for the righteous use of cluster bombs??

Time bombs
The legacy of cluster bombs is as lethal as landmines
Rosy Cave
New Internationalist magazine, March 2004

Despite the fact that cluster bombs leave legacy as lethal as landmines, they are not covered by international law and there are no specific controls on their use.
The problems with cluster bombs or munitions are two-fold. First, they are an inaccurate weapon scattering up to 200 bomblets or submunitions over an area the size of a football field, often causing significant civilian casualties.
As an indiscriminate weapon with a heavy impact on civilians, under the Geneva Convention cluster bombs should never be used in built-up civilian areas. Yet Coalition use of cluster munitions in Iraq in March and April 2003 has been confirmed in many populated areas including Baghdad, Basra, Hillah, Kirkuk, Mosul and Nasiriyah. Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 1,000 civilians were killed or wounded by cluster bombs dropped by US and British forces during the conflict - that is more civilian casualties than from any other Coalition-related factor.
Secondly there is a high failure rate amongst the bomblets. Between 5 and 30 per cent of bomblets fail to explode on impact and effectively turn into anti-personnel mines. These go on killing and maiming civilians long after the conflicts have ended, preventing people from returning to their homes and working their land.
According to the British group Landmine Action, at least one million submunitions were dropped in Iraq by Coalition forces. A failure rate of even five per cent will have left a minimum of 50,000 unexploded time bombs threatening people's lives and livelihoods. The real number is likely to be much higher as full details of numbers and types used have not yet been revealed.
While anti-personnel mines - now banned by 141 countries - are designed to maim, cluster bombs, along with other explosive remnants of war such as unexploded and abandoned bombs, mortars and rockets are more likely to kill or cause severe injuries.
The Cluster Munition Coalition, representing 106 organizations from 46 countries around the world, was launched in November 2003 to campaign for international law to deal with the problems of cluster bombs and other explosive remnants of war. Unlike the anti-landmines campaign, the Cluster Munition Coalition is not calling for a total ban on cluster bombs but demanding that there should be no use, production or trade of them until their, humanitarian problems have been resolved, that there must be an increase in assistance to those affected and that those who use them must accept responsibility for their clearance
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Landmines_html/Time_Bombs.html

[zabet]

20. No.

This was a no win vote. Vote to take
away and put soldiers at risk and appear
soft on terror and non-supportive if the
troops. Vote to keep them and appear to
show no concern for collateral damage to
civilians in Iraq.
If you do not think for a minute that
issues like this can be skewed to show
Obama in a less than perfect light, than
you will be surprised when the republican
slime machine cranks up.

[stillcool]

21. There is absolutely nothing..

that can not be massaged to skew perception. As witnessed right here, in politics, and on the daily talk shows people refer to as the MSM. That is no excuse to disregard facts.

[elixir]

15. Good to see that Hillary is committed to serving.

[Maddy McCall]

17. Kick

[zabet]

18. Thank you.

:hi:

[Hill_YesWeWill]

22. Crap that's depressing, Hillary has missed a 3rd of the votes? nt

[zabet]

23. By your math...

if Hillary missed a third,
Obama missed half. :crazy:

[Hill_YesWeWill]

24. Yes, I see, thanks for the info!

:thumbsup:

[miceelf]

25. Wow

97.1% vs. 96.5!!!!!!

That's a HUGE difference. Well, that changes everything!!!!!

[usregimechange]

26. Assuming voting with the majority of Dems is the progressive vote... often it is not

[oasis]

27. Let the truth be told. Obama is not even doing an adequate job as senator. This

guy wants to be our president.:eyes: