’luci is right. The dems need to do whatever it takes that is consistent with their stated principles to take control of this country. The hour is now. Let’s rally 'round the flag, boys.
Well, GollyGee. Seems like it was only yesterday that Kerry was selling out his comrades in arms to further his personal political ambitions. Now he’s selling out his fellow party members to further his personal political ambitions and you’re surprised?
That’s one leopard the sure didn’t change his spots.
You mean back when The Leader was bravely defending the skies over Amarillo from the Viet Cong Air Force?
What about Hillary? Doesn’t she have a few bucks of her own? Of course, she does have defend that Senate seat against… who?
But I agree with the OP. The Dems need to pull out the stops, and now.
Sic 'em!
You know, as a Republican, there has been a few times I’ve genuinely said, " Wow, my party isn’t too hot at the moment." The Clinton impeachment was one of those times.
This, isn’t one of those times. I’m pretty happy across the board with the current Congress and President. When I see a rambling rant from a Democrat who quite possibly is mentally ill or if not extremely weird and mentally deficient in some manner and then see his Democrat buddies pat him on the back after he’s actually been ludicrous enough to categorize the opposition as “the forces of darkness” it really convinces me of how right I am to be a Republican. It also serves as a poignant reminder to me as to exactly why it is Democrats are so terrible when it comes to winning elections, they’ve genuinely gone off the “deep end” so to speak, in recent years. There was a time when a rant like elucidator’s would be regarded as extremely over-the-top, use of terms like “the forces of darkness” would be ridiculed by persons on both sides of the aisle who were remotely serious about politics. However we’ve actually reached the point where behavior like that is no longer ridiculed by accepted and encouraged.
I can see the support for the President if you are a card carrying member of his base, but if you are happy with Congress, that puts you in pretty rare company. In the latest Reuters/Zogby poll, only 23 percent of the population agreed with you on that. Which makes me wonder if you consider yourself a conservative, how can you feel happy about federal spending by the current Republican Congress? Happy with their action on immigration? Happy with their Social Security legislation? What specifically are you happy with that has come out of Congress recently? Terry Schiavo?
You know, Fear, I rarely agree with you, but in this case I agree 100%. Martin, can you tell us what you like so much about the current state of affiars?
I should clarify.
During any given congressional session an enormous amount of legislative work is done. No, I am not claiming I uniformly agree with every bill passed, nor do I even claim to be aware of every bill passed and the specifics of said bills.
The current state of affairs (some of these attributable to the President, some to the Congress, some to both):
-An ever improving economy
-Lower income tax, lower capital gains tax
-I approved of the March, 2006 USAPATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act
-I approve of the continuing dialog and international consensus-building we’ve engaged in with regard to the North Korean issue
-I continue to support our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and feel that both military missions continue to remain important and that we’re currently doing fairly well
-I approved the Military Commissions Act and feel it has put in place a system to equitably and judicially deal with a host of issues we’ve dealt with rather badly relating to classes of captured enemy combatants for which a traditional framework did not exist in regards to dealing with said combatants
-I approved the Pension Protection Act of 2006
Throughout the span of his Presidency I’ve also supported:
-Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
-Bankruptcy Reform Act
-Unborn Victim’s of Violence Act
-The free trade agreements signed with: Jordan, Chile, Singapore, Morocco, Australia, Dominican Republic, and Bahrain.
-Withdrawal from the ABM treaty and the Kyoto Protocol (never ratified by the Senate)
I actually question the reasoning behind the low approval ratings for Congress. I have a strong suspicion it is because the Congress has always been judged harshly and in a negative light by the country at large. I also suspect it is because of things like the Tom DeLay indictment and the Mark Foley resignation, two things that were both dealt with and were incidents involving 2 of 435 elected officials and to judge the entire Congress based on their behavior is foolish.
I also suspect the overreaction to deaths in Iraq and current troubles in Afghanistan has earned the Congress some negativity, demonstrating the misunderstanding most Americans have about how our government is run–otherwise they would recognize such military events are not the responsibility or result of anything Congress does.
Gee whiz, Hydee, don’t screw up my stuff, ok? Its not “forces of darkness” it’s “Forces of Darkness”, it’s capitalized for a reason, to suggest mockery and derision at faux dignity, a backhanded honorific. Yoiu feel compelled to kill a joke, as so many are, you don’t have to dress it out, no joke is improved by autopsy. I mean, you say “Richard Perle, prince of darkness” it just doesn’t make it. You do see that, don’t you? Am I typing too fast?
Like when I used to say “Tom DeLay (R-Undead)” before his karma started catching up with him, I didn’t really mean that Tom Delay rises at night to feast on the blood of the living! It would be wrong to judge by appearances.
As to being “pretty happy with the current Congress and President”…I am reminded that we have yet to pick a poster child for the 2006 Mother’s March Against Cognitive Dissonance, and wonder if you have a recent photo? Its for a good cause, and we are as non-partisan as present circumstances permit.
This thread has got fuck-nothin’ to do with The Leader. Run Kerry again, I’ll be pleased to vote against him again, no matter who the opposition is.
Elaborated idiocy is idiocy nonetheless, no matter how much you try to spin your stupidity as some sort of charming humorous quality.
I won’t argue the individual merits of the legislation you approve of, but I still find it amazing that, on balance, you found more to approve of than to disapprove. I should think the record pork barrel spending (something you righties always beat up Democrats mercilessly over) would wipe out the good will generated by half the legislation you listed. Or is fiscal conservatism waning as a guiding principal of the Republican party?
Pork barrel spending is one issue. The deficit isn’t really that bad in comparison to the size of the economy as a whole, relatively speaking we’ve had much higher deficits in the past. We’re also fighting two wars that I happen to agree we need to be fighting, and I’m a pragmatist who knows wars cost money. Sans Iraq and Afghanistan I’d be a lot more upset about our current budgetary issues, but I recognize that you cannot conduct large scale military operations and still stay in the black, they are just too expensive.
Pork barrel spending on the other hand is something that goes to the heart of the political system, it’s something that’s been around for a very long time, is probably sometimes maligned more than it should be, and is perpetrated by just about any Congressman worth his salt on both sides of the aisle. One of the most prominent providers of pork is Ted Stevens who is a Republican, but Robert Byrd is also one of the big movers of pork and he’s a staunch Democrat.
To a large degree representatives are expected to work in the interests of their constituency. The public tends to like representatives who get things for them. They take notice of the Robert C. Byrd Cancer Research Laboratory or the Ted Stevens Community Center.
Sometimes “pork” spending goes to things that really aren’t bad (the Cancer Research Center is real that I mentioned above), sometimes they are absolutely indefensible and are clearly just an effort by the politician involved to run back home with the biggest sack of money they can manage. Ted Stevens has infamously had several bridges constructed that were not necessary to improve the transportation infrastructure of the areas in question.
I think it is telling that the biggest Republican pork mover is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the biggest Democrat pork mover is the ranking Democrat on that Committee and its Chairman anytime the Democrats control the Senate. The two men with the greatest power to generate pork use that power to the utmost, and both of them are in fact good friends who help one another out when it comes to creating pork. Byrd and Stevens are the most prominent examples but pork is something that is basically culturally part of the Congress. Congressmen all want to get it because it helps them get elected, and hell some of it genuinely improves the constituents lives, which is sort of why they’re in Congress–ostensibly. Congressmen will often support other congressmen in making pork even if they are a member of the other party or have ideological differences, because standard congressional etiquette is if someone helps out one of your pork projects you’re going to do the same for them sometime down the road.
For example this quote, “The Democratic Party…has periodically inveighed against the extravagance of the present administration, but its representatives in the Legislature have exercised no critical surveillance over their appropriations. They have preferred to take for their own constituencies whatever could be got out of the Congressional 'pork barrel” is from 1909, this has been the situation for a very long time. The only way we’re going to fix pork barrel spending is with some sort of change in House & Senate rules which make it harder to attach riders and earmarks to bills or perhaps even a constitutional amendment (in fact one has been proposed–and by a Republican.) And some of the most prominent critics of rampant pork barrel spending are Republicans.
Unfortunately I imagine that even Tom Coburn and John McCain have sent gravy trains back to their home state, and it’s always going to be questionable what is a really a justified, appropriate spending of Federal funds that a zealous representative has secured for his constituents and what is a poor use of fund being diverted back home for purely political reasons.
I also wonder if we really have record levels of pork-barrel spending if adjusted for inflation, or in relative terms to the budget itself or the current GDP. If anyone has any figures I’d be appreciative.
Earmarks have been growing steadily in the last two decades, but have really exploded in the last six years:
John Carter of Mars, I do not believe you get to make a statement like this:
Then act all supprised and offended when you are answered with this
You started it. Your crack was bullshit, and you brought it on yourself.
I don’t believe that it is standard practice to cut taxes during times of war exactly because there is a recognition that wars cost money.
The energy bill and the transportation bill were packed with more than the usual amount of pork.
My “crack” was a comment on the traitorous history of John Kerry; a trait that is still with him today, except now with regard his fellow party members.
It seems that no matter what, it’s impossible to have a political discussion without someone chiming in with “Yes but Bush…”. Is Bush now such a paragon that he is the standard by which all others should be judged? (shudder)
Yeah, heard about that, Kerry’s a traitor. So what do you think, he was an agent of the Comintern? Or maybe Mossad? Or was he merely the slave of seductive corruption by Joan Baez and Jane Fonda?