Democrats Will NOT Take Congress!

[mini]

<p>Don’t worry: Speaker Pelosi will hold hearings.</p>

<p>Stay the course.</p>

[TheDad]

<p>If the ID cards are free, readily and easily provided everyone from poor people without transportation to Indians living on reservations and don’t require secondary documentation that is expensive or unduly difficult to obtain, I have no problem with I.D. cards. Except that virtually every single Republican-sponsored I.D. card proposal is crafted to disenfranchise as many minority, poor, and/or uneducated voters as possible. </p>

<p>And, let’s address the problem that magnitudes larger: the prevention and suppression of eligible voters from voting. Republicans want to use cruise missiles to kill a mosquito.</p>

[itstoomuch]

<p>^ I noticed that too. But chemical warfare has been tried with our knowledge and you still got to get rid of the bodies. The cruise missles take more technology thus makes more profit, creates jobs, and leaves just pieces; even though the components are made overseas. One more day to buy stock in those companies.</p>

[Dadguy]

<p>Either way, the Republic will survive this election, although I’m not sure I will.</p>

[golani89]

<p>how are the ID cards crafted to disenfranchise as many minority, poor, and/or uneducated voters as possible</p>

[TheDad]

<p>Golani: if the ID cards can be obtained only in suburban or small town offices far away from urban centers, with no public transportation. Or if the ID card is free but the documentation to obtain the ID card costs substantial money (courts have already ruled that a back-door poll tax but I guess the Republicans figure you can’t hang them for trying). The problem is not the ID card…it’s how it’s implemented. </p>

<p>And there are sneaky little things like requiring one of two forms of a driver’s license and not recognizing the other and not sufficiently publicizing the requirement ahead of time. Designing requirements that statistically penalize people who move a lot, young singles, etc. </p>

<p>It’s just like the thing with requests for absentee ballots in Ohio, which were denied if they weren’t on a specified 60# weight of paper. Ken Blackwell deserves to fry for that one but at least he’s going to take it tough next Tuesday in the gubernatorial election.</p>

[sjmom2329]

<p>Before you start celebrating the Democrats victory, you might want to consider what a Democratic congress means to the war on terror.

If the Democrats gain control of the House, for example, the new head of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee will be Jack Murtha. The man who writes the Pentagon’s budget will be an advocate of immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. The House Ways and Means Committee, which has the most power over the federal budget, would be chaired by Harlem Democrat Charlie Rangel–who has already warned, “You’ve got to be able to pay for the war, don’t you?” </p>

<p>To be sure, Democrats are divided on how they would prefer to lose the war. Some want an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, while others want a phased withdrawal. Even worse, many Democrats have climbed aboard a campaign advocating negotiations with Iran and Syria–the two main sponsors of the insurgency in Iraq–over what these dictatorships would do to “stabilize” Iraq after we leave.</p>

<p>This, then, is the Democrats’ strategy in Iraq: declare defeat, and negotiate with Iran over the terms of our surrender.

As bad as things are now, a Democratic victory is likely to make things much, much worse very soon. The Democratic plan, if it is enacted, would deliver America into a period of retreat, humiliation, and uncertainty that we haven’t seen since the end of the Vietnam War–while giving our enemies a glorious victory that would be seen as a historical vindication of the Islamist cause. </p>

<p>And after such a victory, how long will it be before the Islamists decide that the time has come to strike an even harder blow against America, attacking us again on our own soil?</p>

<p>This is what is at stake next Tuesday.

<a href=“http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/11/d_stands_for_defeat.html[/url]”>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/11/d_stands_for_defeat.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[Dadguy]

<p>So what you’re saying is that since the current adminstration has placed us in a no-win situation, anything the Democrats are likley to do will just make things worse.</p>

<p>Whatever you think is the purpose of our continuing to stay in Iraq, it’s not happening. If staying there is really the best option, then we really are going to have to try a different approach, pronto.</p>

<p>The Adminstration was slow to realize they needed to have a Plan B, assuming they ever had a Plan A. Most Americans don’t favor an immediate pull-out but beleive there has to be an end to it at some point. We want a set of clear objectives for Iraq and no one is very good at articulating them.<br>
When is the “mission accomplished”? </p>

<p>That’s what helping the Democrats the most in this election. Usually people have a fear of the unknown. These days, there is more of a fear of the known.</p>

<p>If the Adminstration had firmed up the details of the reconstruction a bit better and committed the resources to get the job done, the results of this election would have been quite different.</p>

[TheDad]

<p>Yes, SJMom, if Democrats win control of Congress, they will release the inhabitants of Guantanamo and distribute them around the country and have them invite their friends from overseas so that every American neighborhood will have a terror cell of its very own.</p>

<p>What !@#$%^&*! idiocy. The Republican propaganda you cite is for the naive, the credulous, and the gullible.</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>Fareed Zakaria has an excellent article on the way out of Iraq in this week’s Newsweek. We WILL get out of Iraq, since the American public has had enough of this unwinnable war, and no, complete withdrawal isn’t going to happen either. </p>

<p>

Rethinking Iraq: The Way Forward
The drawdown option: It is past time to confront reality. To avoid total defeat, the United States must reduce and redeploy its troops and nudge the Iraqis toward a deal. Here’s how.</p>

<p>…Something like the close of the Korean War is, frankly, the best we can hope for in Iraq now. One could easily imagine worse outcomes—a bloodbath, political fragmentation, a tumultuous flood of refugees and a surge in global terrorist attacks. But with planning, intelligence, execution and luck, it is possible that the American intervention in Iraq could have a gray ending—one that is unsatisfying to all, but that prevents the worst scenarios from unfolding, secures some real achievements and allows the United States to regain its energies and strategic compass for its broader leadership role in the world.</p>

<p>But in order for that to happen, we have to see Iraq as it is now. Not as it once was. Not as it could have been. Not as we hope it will become, but as it is today. There will be ample time to assign blame and debate "what if"s. The urgent task now is ahead of us.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15459024/site/newsweek/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15459024/site/newsweek/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[sjmom2329]

<p>

What !@#$%^&*! idiocy. The Republican propaganda you cite is for the naive, the credulous, and the gullible.

I think your name-calling is getting a little out of hand.</p>

[TheDad]

<p>I think the crock you posted is getting a little of hand. A cartoon horror show designed to frighten little children. Even.</p>

<p>

Democrats are divided on how to they would prefer to lose the war.

</p>

<p>What complete and utter b.s. Bush and his crew have inflicted more damage on the U.S. and more damage on the Middle East than the terrorists have. They mistake rigidity for strength, arrogance for decisiveness, and expediency for principles. We are going to be paying for their mistakes for decades.</p>

[kluge]

<p>C’mon, TheDad, don’t sugar coat it, tell us how you really feel:</p>

<ul>
<li>WAR IS PEACE

<ul>
<li>FREEDOM IS SLAVERY</li>
<li>IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>

The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink

</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>Welcome to Opposite Land.</p>

<p>Homer Simpson</p>

[sjmom2329]

<p>TheDad</p>

<p>I am always willing to listen to logical arguments explaining a point of view that is different to mine. But the continuing bombastic opinions you post do nothing to excite my interest in the liberal point of view. Some posters – Kluge and Allmusic come to mind – present alternative analyses that I find interesting, even if I don’t agree. Your method of debate seems limited to yelling at people in cyberspace and beating them up with name calling. It’s like you invented the concept of hyperbole.</p>

[JHS]

<p>sjmom:</p>

<p>I’ll try to remain rational, here.</p>

<ol>
<li> This is what I feel: All of the Democrats face an intolerable situation. The Bush Administration has screwed things up so badly, that there is literally no good way to proceed. That’s why the Democrats often sound so incoherent on the war. It is almost impossible to propose a program that has any chance of a good outcome. There are some Democrats (and probably some Republicans, too) who favor a more-or-less immediate withdrawal, but I think the mainstream of Democrats believe that doing that will make things worse, so I don’t think it’s likely to happen at all.</li>
</ol>

<p>But the fact is that the Republicans don’t have a program with a shred of credibility, either. There is no “course” to “stay” anymore. They have tacitly abandoned all of the highflying objectives that we had at the outset of the war: replacing Saddam’s dictatorship with a multi-ethnic, secular democracy, rebuilding Iraq’s human and physical capital, preserving Iraq as a unified nation, fostering a strong, friendly Iraqi government as a counterbalance to Iran and Syria, making Iraq a model for democracy in the Arab world. None of that has happened, and none of it is going to happen in this generation. As far as I can tell, all we are trying to do now is to avoid confirmation that yet another populist insurgency has thwarted us and to limit the ethnic bloodbath that is occurring in slow motion.</p>

<ol>
<li> If the Democrats, as expected, win one of the houses of Congress in this election, I expect to see some interesting things happening in the Republican party. Right now, the entire strategy of the Bush Administration seems to be geared towards putting off the day of reckoning so that no one can accuse them of “losing” Iraq. They want it to be the next President’s problem.</li>
</ol>

<p>But none of the possible Republican Presidential candidates is going to want to run on this Administration’s record and non-strategy, to be 2008’s version of Hubert Humphrey. So I think sometime around the middle of next week there will suddenly be a lot of quiet pressure on Bush to take responsibility for ending the war himself, or at least setting out a course that results in U.S. disengagement. I don’t know if that will be successful, but I know that if I were a Republican strategist I would want my 2008 candidates to be running on a positive platform, not the defensive, fear-mongering positions that they (and you) have been forced to adopt in 2006. For that to happen, Bush has to take responsibility for the bad outcome of the war.</p>

<p>Therefore, I would not be surprised at all if there is a major change in U.S. policy over the next few months. The set-up is already in place: the Baker Commission. Maybe Bush, as a lame-duck President, most of whose advisors are too old to have any hope of a significant role in a future Republican administration, will be able to resist the pressure. But if he does, you are going to see an open break between him and the rest of his party.</p>

<p>And, as I suggested above, the Republicans don’t have any different tools to deal with Iraq than the Democrats would. The rhetoric will no doubt be different, but I’m not certain the actual policy will be. There is a very good chance that, in one form or another, something like the Zakaria proposal becomes the official position of the Bush Administration, or of the Republican party, within months.</p>

[wrathofachilles]

<p>Bush has lost Iraq in that there is simply no way that a democratic, unified, prosperous Iraq will emerge. Few Democrats actually want to cut and run, and even the ones that do will find it impossible to do so once they’re actually in power. I forsee iraq being split up into three countries, as even some republicans have begun to advocate. This is what’s going to happen eventually, it’s just a question of how long it takes and how many will die before we get to that point.</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>And then there will always be the question of whether the whole misadventure, ending in a country split in three, was worth the 3000+ American lives (now on par with the 3000 lost American lives that apparently precipitated this war) and the $300+Billion it has cost. Not to mention the uncounted Iraqi lives, which are in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, and the tens of thousands of American war injured, whose mental and physical anguish will live with them forever.</p>

[conyat]

<p>Just out of curiousity, how much further in debt to the Red Chinese are we supposed to go for the war in Iraq? We are already slated to borrow $170 billion in the first three months of 2007 alone.</p>

<p>According to the Goavernment Accounting Office, we are already on the verge of economic disaster, having saddled at least the next two generations with more debt than they can pay off in their lifetimes. </p>

<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061028/ap_on_go_ot/america_the_bankrupt[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061028/ap_on_go_ot/america_the_bankrupt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Beyond turning the greatest economic surplus in the history of our country into the greatest deficit, Bush has racked up more debt in 6 years than presidents usually do in about 70. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm[/url]”>http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Soon we won’t even be able to make the interest payments on what we owe; payments that for the most part are going to foreign investors and not people in the US.</p>

<p>Is imposing our will on Iraq really worth causing the economic collapse of our own country? Because this is where we’re heading, if we don’t stop borrowing billions from China to give to the likes of Halliburton and Blackwater.</p>

[wrathofachilles]

<p>it may be better to lose Iraq than to lose America’s economic future to China.</p>