On Capitol Hill, the House Democratic leadership is intensely pressuring antiwar lawmakers to approve a controversial bill to give President Bush $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also establishes tough new readiness standards for deploying combat forces and sets an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline to bring the troops home. A vote is scheduled for Thursday. As of last night, it appeared the House leadership did not have enough votes to get the bill passed, in part because of opposition led by the leaders of the Out of Iraq Caucus, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey. The House leadership has tried a number of hardball tactics to secure the needed votes. The website Politico reports one Democratic congressman on the fence was warned that new funding requests for his district would be blocked if he didn’t support the war funding. In addition, Democratic leaders have added $21 billion to fund projects unrelated to wartime spending in a bid to gain more votes. Some of the money would go to help spinach growers, to build peanut storage facilities in Georgia, to help Atlantic fishermen and to fight wildfires. The House leadership has also gained the support of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey criticized MoveOn’s decision. Woolsey said, “For people who are undecided and looking for a reason to vote for the supplemental, MoveOn is going to make a difference, providing instant cover for these members.”