Democrats Take the House
 

And George Allen will probably have to request a recount.

We need a "Snoopy Dance" smilie.

w00t!

Now that the balance of power in the Senate is one single seat, it is time to revisit how stupid the netroots kidz were to try to take Lieberman down. This is chess, think a few moves ahead, you morons.

In a truly shocking and unexpected development, Politicians Sweep Midterm Elections.

I think that Americans have finally decided that the pendulum has swung far enough to the right, and now it is time to start it moving back to the middle.

What the hell is a netroot?

dailykos.com and moveon.org, roughly, Wikipedia has more.

Ahh...so why did the netroots kidz want to scuttle Lieberman?

The stated reason is that he was pro-war and too close to the Rs. The real reason is that they experience a huge buildup of power, due to their communities and Iraq, and there *needed* to be a candidate they could use it on. They smelled blood in the water in the Spring, enraged by current events, and could not resist trying to take someone down, even though it was the primaries and a huge, gigantic, massive strategic blunder.

I see HM is active on the thread, surely he'll have a word on this.

It is really sad that we cannot collectively agree to do anything without a party affiliation. I am a registered independent because I hate having what I say based upon my "party" How bout we all just decide who will do the best for our country as a whole and lose the us/they mentality. It is really counterproductive.

I agree, yesman065. It's a counter-productive caricature of reality.

BTW, patting myself on the back, I said all this before in post #9 in this thread and also noted the split Senate consideration.

The Arrogance of Power

THERE ARE TWO AMERICAS. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power.

The Two Americas ~Sen. J.William Fulbright.

He is pro war, voted for cloture on Alito, voted for Gonzalez, he wants to allow hospitals to refuse emergency contraception to rape victims (they can always find another hospital), regularly supports immunizing corporations from lawsuits, he's a big censorship fan, and he voted against habeas corpus in Gitmo. He's the go-to guy when Hannity wants to get a Democrat to criticize the Democrats.

There are lots of reasons.

While I would have been happier to see the socialist-Democrats repudiated again, it's still politics as usual -- seldom far, in general, from the Republic's center. Everything else is mostly grandstanding on the one part and brand loyalty on the other.

The Democratic Representatives now have to behave in a responsible manner. They will have the responsibility, like it or not, of winning the war, and winning the war better than the Republicans.

I don't think the chances of that are good. The Democrats have no war-winning plan, but a near-gravitational, going-over-the-falls tropism for finding some substitute, any substitute, for victory. The Jackasses don't know there isn't one. Folly maintained as an article of faith since the Truman days is folly still.

Habeas corpus in GITMO? Who would you apply it to, Padilla? Habeas corpus is not appropriate for what are in effect POWs. No, HM, there's no reason to extend the rights of American citizens to not-American citizens; they are at war with us -- at war with you too, dummy. Remember, these guys are crazed anti-Americans: we must exhaust their enthusiasm for their sins. I have no problem with having these nuts die of old age in sunny, sunbaked even at night, Guantanamo. (I've been there. Lots of sun, lots of green iguanas.) This may take a while; they've all put on about twenty pounds since being incarcerated, so inhumanely do we treat them. One rather expansive fellow went from around 220 pounds to over 410, though I believe he's been dieting back down since that peak. Slow metabolism and endomorphic?

I didn't realize the Democrats won the White House and are now the Commander in Chief.

They will have control over the purse strings. They can also investigate things like secret prisons. That's about it. They won't control the military.

POW would be good, too. The problem is making a new category where no laws apply.Habeas corpus is not a right of American citizens. It is a restriction on the abilities of the American government.Some are, some aren't. That's the purpose of habeas corpus. Of course, the ones who weren't when we grabbed them may pick up a bit of the enthusiasm you refer to as a result of false imprisonment. It certainly won't be exhausted.

I listened to some Rush today and he came very close to getting it right. He said essentially that the Republicans didn't run as conservatives so the Democrats won running against nothing (outside the war). The bit he missed was that the Republicans failed to rule as conservatives by invading countries, exploding the deficit, and becoming as corrupt as the Dems they evicted. Here's to the blessings of divided government.:guinness:

We are to some degree in agreement here, but really about the only applicable model is that of the Prisoner Of War. They are realistic enough to see this, and have seen it from the Gitmo git-go.

In judicial dealings with American citizens, yes. It must not be used as a rallying cry to keep the GWOT from being won, the way the anti-Republican freakos have been doing.

There is no sense in opposing the GWOT just because it's a Republican President trying to win it, yet that is what I see over and over, not only among the most frayed threads of the lunatic fringe, but among Democrats who ought to know better -- and don't! The Democrats have abandoned fighting the war in favor of fighting the Republicans. Dopes. Dupes.

The problem with Gitmo is real simple. If we *say* you are an enemy combatant, you're an enemy combatant. It is irrelevant whether you actually are or not.

That's not the American way, and that's what sticks in American craws.

It's pretty easy to say so once somebody's emptied a magazine at our troops.

Sure, I've heard the same things about assorted anonymous people getting swept up, but to have exactly zero dubious cases like this is, well, an impossibility when lead and high explosives are flying. There is also the consideration of the sources of such allegations -- they don't stem from the parties that want humanity's cause to win, but from those who oppose humanity's cause because America is leading it, for crying in a bucket. Can you imagine any motive more disgusting?

Habeus Corpus is appropriate for EVERYONE!!! It's a HUMAN right, not an American right. Our rights don't come from government.

NO.

There was never habeas corpus for German or Italian POWs in WW2, nor habeas corpus for our men in the Hanoi Hilton.

NO. NO. NO.

Or anyone else in American custody. If a Japanese tourist is arrested, they get habeas corpus too. The "argument" the administration made about Gitmo is that it's not under US jurisdiction because it's in Cuba, which is asinine.
And it's exactly as easy if they haven't. What makes it harder to hold someone who hasn't is habeas corpus.

That's because they were POWs.
That's because they weren't in the custody of the US.

My point being that radar's argument failed by overreaching -- and whether in law they are in the letter of the law POWs in Gitmo, they are de facto POWs in any way that's really going to count.

GWOT? You mean T.W.A.T.? :eyebrow:

Nancy says they are "ready to govern". I gotta think they cant do any worse than the last bunch.
I am jazzed that Waxman will be able to get in there and account.

The house will be able to question and check and exercise some control over the use of the military in Iraq to hopefully ensure less missuse and abuse.

I'd rather they concentrate on the contractors misuse and abuse in Iraq. :(

The SENATE is theirs too!

I was hoping the Rs would hold on to their by-the-skin-of-their-teeth majority in the Senate, thus promoting the principle of Gridlock. The American public does best when their politicians do the least (damage, that is). Still, not a bad outcome.:thumb:

YAY! Both House and Senate! The American people have sent a message to Jr. as good as plunking him with a 2 x 4 (not that I think he'd notice being plunked with one -the brain damage is too severe, already).

A great day.
It is time to get out... it is not about not winning or losing. You cannot win an invasion.

A woman is third in line to the presidency... also making it a great day.

If Bush can figure out where Clinton left the veto stamp, gridlock is still possible.

:lol2:

Not to get all non-sequitur, but I'm kind of irritated with the far-left's championing of this election as COMPLETELY about Bush.

I think this election was just a vote for change; Republicans have had the checks and balances for a while. It wasn't a slap in the face, it was just a move toward change.

Oh come on. I know the Demcrats weren't exactly shiny happy people, but no way are the Republicans currently less corrupt.

Why is it that after this election, it's all "reach out, work together, blah, blah, blah", when after the last couple of elections, it's been all "now we'll shove our agenda down America's throats"?

Spexx, you need a longer memory. This goes on with every single election that produces a transfer of power or a redistribution thereof. It is simply something routinely done in this Republic, and nothing unique.

Spexx, you have the most unfortunate habit of pronouncing "r-e-p-u-b-l-i-c-a-n" as "enemy." The politics of division has you as its victim.

Refuse to be a victim, please.

Ha! Now you're doing it. Before the election you pronounced "d-e-m-o-c-r-a-t" as "enemy", and now you're decrying the politics of division. :lol:

I guess you do find it routine.

Why don't everybody see that the Communists are the real e.n.e.m.y.

Talking abt communists, whatever happen with TW?

And UG should realise that's it not the Dems who defeated the Reps, but those who use to vote Rep and were totally disgusted with the current Rep government. Blame them, not the communsists.

Collectivist totalitarianism is the enemy of prosperity, and thus of mankind in general. Less-collectivist totalitarianism is still the enemy of prosperity.

HM, your cheap shot is noted, as being about the only kind you can actually afford. (I suggest you capitalize the D on editing, for reason of it being a specific party, and not democratic practice in general.) It's hardly the "politics of division;" it's the politics of don't screw up the Republic. Simply put, don't debase the currency (why I'm a libertarian and not a Republican, as they are none too good on this point either), do recognize enemies and identify them correctly (the Dems have fluffed this one since sometime in 2002 and haven't stopped yet, I think), do not overregulate business and economy (see above) while at the same time not killing the only biosphere we've got (for instance, I'm eating even less fish than I used to) -- driving the cost of employment upwards is unwise, as it mandates unemployment, which means less wealth to go around. There's no need to buy extra unemployment.

yeah, just leave businesses to set the rates.....they wouldn't try and get away with paying as little as possible with total disregard for fairness or the cost of living eh?

False shibboleths both, DanaC, and government-mandated increases of the cost of employing a worker mean it's too expensive to hire anybody! That is the reason European unemployment is thrice that of the American. It won't come down until the government-imposed costs of employment go away.

Free-market rates, undistorted by government mandates, work. And if you want the workers that are worth more, you, as an employer, make them the offer of more. This is how America grew to one quarter of the world's entire economy through the nineteenth century: no interference, plenty of opportunities.

You've been thoroughly conned, DanaC: start making a study of economics. I recommend starting with Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson, as the clearest introduction to economic basics I've ever heard of, let alone read.

Take a lesson from PM Winston Churchill too: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal distribution of benefits. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal distribution of misery."

You've been told all your life, living in a welfare state, that all you should rightly hope for is your share of the misery. I say there's something better around. You'll have to be the one to make it -- a lot of Yorkshiremen went to America to do just that, and they did it. This is a fundamental tenet of American thinking --the famous "can-do attitude" -- and it is why we do as well as we do. We suggest it works for any human being alive, at any time, in any place.

Y'know at face value that makes sense. Which is why Cliometricians approaching the subject of slavery in the ante-bellum South assumed, like most historians and economists that their studies would show that slave labour was less efficient than free labour. They were extremely surprised to discover that in fact Slaves were significantly more productive than free-workers, on average producing in 35 minutes, what a free worker produced in 60 minutes.

The needs of the employer are not the same as the needs of the employee. left to itself, the market traditionally produces lower wages and therefore lower living standards for those working in unskilled and semi-skilled work. The only people who get to set that rate and carry some kind of weight in negotiations are those with a union behind them (more a historic reality these days than a current one) or people working at professional or managerial levels.

The Republicans are taking a second look at Nancy Pelosi's "Minority Bill of Rights"... it seems to be a bit more attractive right now.

Yes, there are government imposed costs of employment, but it's not minimum wage.... it's not workers pay that's the issue.

It's the health and safety standards that the government imposes. It's the environmental standards the government imposes. It's the employer matching contributions the government imposes to cover their mismanagement of the SS funds.
The worker gets some benefit, and the country gets even more, from these regulations on any company doing business in the US.

The reason we have these government regulations is we as a nation decided that we shouldn't make our citizens work in sweat shops where life and limb are in jeopardy. Businesses shouldn't be fouling the water and air in the name of profit. That's why businesses have done an end run and gone offshore where they can maim and kill their workers with impunity. Where they can pollute the water and air without regard for the natives.

Given their way, Big Business would have the whole country looking like Pittsburgh, PA, in the first half of the last century, except a few places where only they could go to live or play.

I don't think those people that were incinerated in Nigeria would care about a smokestack nearby, but Americans don't want to live that way.
But since Big Business didn't give a shit, the government had to. We all know there is no slower or more expensive way to accomplish any goal, than the US Government, but the capitalists forced that upon us.:(

That's a riot, HM. :D

This GOP effort is considerably different than what Pelosi proposed if you read the fine print.
Posted by: joejoejoe

Even better. Pelosi can enact exactly what she proposed while in the minority, and look even better.

Where did you see that? :confused:

Yesterday NPR's tone shifted to the triumphalism they celebrated Clinton with. It is possible that their unpaid advertising could help shift the perception, which they've promoted, that the President is the ultimate authority in this country, by giving too much credit to Congress.

I followed the original link and that was one of the opinions of a poster (4th one down).

OK, thanks. I hadn't read the comments by the peanut gallery and hadn't seen any more than her introduction at the top of the Rep's letter.

After reading her original proposal, it sounds like a fair approach to the minority party. Conversely, the Republican letter, seems to be three paragraphs of whining and three ideas she had already covered in her proposal. Kind of a thin outline. :cool: