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"It goes well beyond current Defense Department involvement in stabilization and conflict prevention," said Gordon Adams, a defense and foreign affairs budgeting expert at the Stimson Center think tank. "And the sizeable money they're asking for seems unrealistic." Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said the proposal wasn't a Pentagon power play but "an attempt to get people out of the business-as-usual approach."

"We need to be much more quick to respond to allies who are in need of security assistance so they can handle these problems and they don't devolve into emergencies that require American forces," he said.

"I've just not seen, and you almost never see, filibusters used against uncontroversial items to use as leverage against controversial items. It's one thing to filibuster an issue straight up. It's some other thing to use it in this way," said Ornstein.

"The caveat to that is, we've often seen instances where you're right at the end of the year and there's must-pass legislation, and individual Senators will hold them up as hostages to get things done," said Ornstein. "A pet issue or a state thing -- but a party to use a filibuster in this way, it's not anything I've seen."

The source tells the story of a
senior Democratic lawmaker protecting his turf, who may have helped a GOP
staffer zero out the account for the program. According to the source, Murtha,
who is in charge of writing the bill, feared that PNSR might make
recommendations that would alter his ultra-powerful subcommittee's jurisdiction.

Importantly, Murtha took the PNSR
portfolio away from his staffer Chris
White, who was said to have been a
huge champion of PNSR funding in years past, the source said. Murtha allegedly
told White that PNSR's recommendation to create "select committees on national
security" had better not impinge on the power of his defense approps panel
(PNSR never thought it would). White was also told not to be involved with PNSR
funding in any way after being taken off the case, according to the source.

But the real opposition came from
committee minority staffer Jennifer
Miller, the source said. Miller and White banged heads on a number of
issues and some believe that the relatively small amount of PNSR funding got
caught up in their personal disputes. White had warned PNSR that the House
funding was risky and told the group to focus on the Senate, which they did.
But after he was taken off the case, House opposition strengthened.

"Whoever the new majority staffer
was didn't know PNSR, wasn't terribly interested in it and was no match for Ms.
Miller, who was vicious on this issue," the source said. 

Both Murtha and Miller refused to
meet with Locher, the source said, although Locher did get a meeting in the
office of Bill Young, the ranking
Republican on Murtha's committee. At that meeting, Locher was allegedly told he
would get $1.6 million, or 80 percent of the Senate's number. That didn't
happen.

In the conference, Senate
Intelligence Committee ranking Republican Kit
Bond was hugely supportive, the source said. Senate Appropriations
Committee chairman Daniel Inouye and
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne
Feinstein were also helpful, but ultimately unsuccessful.

"[Kentucky Republican Congressman] Geoff Davis, a big PNSR supporter, did
what he could to rally support on the House side," the source said. "But I
guess in the end no one was willing or able to fall on their sword for PNSR."

You can read PNSR's latest and
perhaps last report on the dysfunction state of the U.S. national security
bureaucracy here.

Previously, Americans (unlike Iraqis or even Afghans) were allowed to vote in the District of Columbia but were not allowed to have those votes actually affect public policy. Because the District's inhabitants were too black liberal for some of the more hardcore Republicans and Democrats from other parts of the country to allow them to govern themselves. The vote to legalize medical marijuana in 1998 arrived at a 69 percent majority in favor. This was not a narrow vote - it was an overwhelming popular majority more than ten years ago, long before the big increase in public support for medical marijuana over the last ten years.

I'm not entirely sure what the procedural steps are when Proposition 59 is allowed finally to take effect. But it seems to me that the moment the appropriations bill passes, and the block on Prop 59 falls, medical marijuana must become legal in the district.

One pool of money at the center of the debate is what's called "1206" authority, which covers money, over $1 billion since 2006, for all equipping and training of other countries' security forces who are involved in the "overseas contingency operations" but not Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here, the Pentagon brass is said to be amenable to allowing the initial funding to go through State, provided they have some influence over its distribution, such as a "duel key" mechanism whereby they would be able to approve or veto expenditures.