Greetings,

Well, it is almost all finalized: the Democrats have a decent majority in the House of Representatives, and when Virginia can declare a winner in their Senate race, the Democrats may have a majority of one. So far (barring any recounts) the Dems have gained 5 of the 6 seats in the Senate, that they needed to do this. In Virginia, the Democrat is leading by a few thousand votes, with 99% of the votes counted.

And Donald Rumsfeld is resigning as Secretary of Defense. (The president has asked Bob Gates to be the new S of D.)

In my state, we have a new Governor: Duval Patrick, who is the first black elected in this state, and only the second in the history of this country -- Douglas Wilder was the first, IIANM. Patrick was elected with 56% of the vote, with the Republican getting 35%, an Independent candidate 7%, and the Rainbow Green party candidate got 2%.

The turnout across the country was very high, especially for a midterm election. The main reasons for why people voted the way they did (as I have heard on all the newscasts) are the Iraq war, and corruption and scandal. People want more oversight and accountability, and they want more bipartisan compromise so that the work that needs to be done, starts getting done.

I cheered when I saw this on the news; Rumsfeld is widely perceived in Europe as symbolizing everthing that is wrong with the USA's current foreign policy, from waterboarding to Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib to his intransigent and slavish adherence to GWB's failed policy in Iraq; hopefully Robert Gates will be able to bring a more flexible and intelligent approach to the subject.

That election may be over, but I doubt that this post will reach the 13-pages long Bush wins, Kerry Loses topic.

Let the subcommittees and investigations begin!!!

With 100 seats, there are no majorities of one, but two (or, if the republicans would win VA, no majority but the tie-breaker vote (Cheney)). Just nit-picking, though

yay first election I was allowed to vote... nice!

by absentee voting by the way, as my location might lead to guess.... so can't comment on the machines.

Resume our march into the future.

Wait until you find out some more about him before you get your hopes up too much.

Hello,



Of course you are technically correct -- but there is one Independent senator: Joe Lieberman!

Anything "big" in the Senate needs at least 60 votes anyway -- which is as it should be. The majority gives that party the committee chairs, and the majority on each committee.

We really do need to get going on investigating the no-bid contracts for Iraq and Katrina. They need to re-fund the office that has been watch dogging in Iraq -- the person is a Republican, and he has had his budget cut by the current Congress.

The 750+ signing statements that Bush has signed need to be dealt with. Everybody has to obey the law -- even the president in "war time"!

The torture policy must be stopped.

The EPA, FDA, FEMA, IRS, the "whistle blower" office, FTC, etc., etc., need to be re-built (better than before) -- the Bush administration has gutted most of these important agencies, that do the work that we all need them to.

Wishful thinking here.....Perhaps Bush will stop his failed war against terror in Iraq, and consentrate his efforts on where the real war against terrorism should have been waged in the first place. Namely, the terrorists already in the USA, whose brothers caused all the war-making by their 9-11 attack on the USA.

At least one good thing happened for the Senate....the new female Senator from Missouri is real good at making cookies and coffee for those long Senate committee meetings.....

This whole disaster for the USA proves to me again, that politics and religeon should not be mixed. The Rebublicans were relying on their conservative evangelical followers to pull off another win. Didn't happen. The good Senator Talent from Missouri, bible thumping and all, lost to a left-wing scumbag. Should not have happened.

In general, I agree with your first and last paragraphs. So, why do you have to go and prove to us all over again what a charming and intelligent person you are, by making a silly, sexist statement?

I agree that there is a reason to keep religion and the government apart -- for the protection of both from the other!

Neil...the voters from Missouri have proved to me once again, they don't have a clue. Remember Mel Carnahan, the dead democrat Missouri elected to the Senate a few elections back? He was replaced by his wife, Jean Carnahan, who turned into the laughing-stock of the Senate...no wonder. She baked good cookies though.

I expect this new female Senator will be more of the same.....probably worse. This one is more than just stupid.....she's stupid, crooked, and dangerous. Poor Jim Talent......

You weren't the only one. And how long ago did Bush say Rumsfeld is staying on another 2 years. I now see that statement and say "Thanks GWB for giving the public that extra oomph they needed to make a solid change."

Now lets hope The Who were wrong.

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

I saw a funny one-liner this morning on another board. It said "Well, folks are obviously tired of greedy, corrupt Republican scandals. Bring back the greedy, corrupt Democrat scandals!"

You can't win, seriously. There's been a lot of very dishartened Republicans in the last 10 years over the fact that post 1996 there was really no further advancement of the so-called conservative agenda. Government was in gridlock until GW was elected, at which point all caution was thrown to the wind and government spending, creation of new agencies, all went through the roof.

Medicare? No reform, just free prescriptions now. Social Security? No reform here either. They moved the bankruptcy date up a year or two in fact. No reform, no balanced budget, more government. Seriously, how did any Republicans think they could run on their record and claim they're any different from Democrats?

I just hope the Dems pursue America's best interests instead of this global crusading of the neocons.

I want to visit Trip's fantasy land.

I'd rather have my ideals than allow myself to believe an alternative to Bush is necessarily better especially when reason tells us it will be worse. Obama and perpetual war, spending, immigration, foreign aid, and social liberalism (incl genetic meddling) in 2008 I'm afraid. At least we might gain a little trade protection and an exit from Iraq... If we can declare Iraq a failure and exit completely before the end of Bush's term, it will be a death knell for interventionalism that only an attack on America could undo. Also, when the 2006 trade deficit is reported, it could be a similar death knell for free (America Last) trade. That at least is something to be grateful for.

What I realise in my fantasy world is that both parties are the same.

This election could be a sign of a new America First direction, but voters will have to keep the pressure on their elected crooks who will sell out to big business if given the chance. If you look at polls, voters tend to side with me on every issue except spending.

Some realize Spitzer can do that as well. No let's see how well he cleans house as governor. I enjoyed reading how Delay was complaining about the double standard of corruption of democrats, I thought he invented that double standard.


I second that, but I'm not holding my breath.

The Democrats will pursue what they believe are America's best interests; that may or may not be the same as what you believe are America's interests.

Regardless, it's obvious the Democrats have neither the desire nor the power to do any sort of "global crusading". Congress can use its oversight power to curtail Presidential overenthusiasm, but it has no power to actually send any troops anywhere.

It's funny...the usual effect of divided power is gridlock and nothing gets done. But in this case, what's the difference? Aside from scandals and Shaivo's law, what did the last Congress do?

Ironically, we're going to actually start seeing stuff get done as a result of this election. Bush is motivated by wanting to leave some sort of (positive) "legacy", and the Democrats in Congress are motivated by immense pressure to differentiate themselves from the "Do-Nothing Congress".

It's worth noting that President Bush actually got a lot done with the divided Congress he started off with. We could be entering a new age where the conventional wisdom that split power results in gridlock is turned on its head.

A year ago, I thought bipartisanship was completely dead--a dinosaur of the 1990's replaced by permanent demonization and "winner-takes-all". But here we are in 2006...it's back!

This seems like a good time/place to mention that for anyone who is interested in voting records of their representatives, http://www.govtrack.us/ is a great website to check on these folks. Power to the people. I wonder what Ted Stevens would think of this site...

"The Democrats will pursue what they believe are America's best interests".....If what the new Senator McCaskill from Missouri said before the election comes true, expect federal spending to go through the roof, along with your taxes of course.

The Dems love to spend your money, but apparently don't like to pay their own taxes. Some of Senator-elect McCaskill's property was sold at auction to pay back taxes. Hope she can make good cookies.....

Hello,

In case you haven't noticed, the last balanced budgets were under Clinton -- in fact the huge deficits and debts were paid off under Clinton. Reagan and "41" had record deficits -- and now with Dubya, we are back to where we would have been if Clinton had never been President!

How is it admirable that the Bush administration has left all this debt for our children and grandchildren to pay off? They have been criminally irresponsible with this, and just about everything else they have touched!

BTW, the Democrats will have the (slimmest possible) majority in the Senate, now. Both remaining Republican senatorial candidates conceded today (Montana and Missouri). Bipartisan work will still have to be done, but at least the Dems will have the committee chairs -- and no more "John Boltons" or "Sam Alitos", thankfully.

neil...balanced budjets under clinton were a fantasy, achieved on paper only by number manipulation, and other tricks. I'm sure you know that, but might not admit it. Dems=higher taxes to pay for increased federal spending. Fact of life in the USA.

Hello Carl,

Well, if it was smoke and mirrors, then why haven't the Republicans duplicated it? Sheesh.

Where's your proof?

I just think that you cannot admit to reality, when it doesn't fit your idea of what "should" be?

"Tax and spend" is a worn out and misleading slogan. The Bush folks have "spent and borrowed", and driven the debt to staggering levels: $40 Trillion!!!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it...

aristide1 and Isaac,

It might turn out to be well. I'm just saying that I don't have my hopes up.

Anyway, the House is where impeachment starts Do you think Bush will be the third?

Neil, I think the Dems do tend to spend more than the Republicans in general (though there are many big spenders in the GOP), but as you say tax and spend is far preferrable to passing on the cost to future generations (borrow and spend).

No. There are no positives to impeaching Bush if they can help it, and there's too much pressure to distinguish themselves from the infamous "Do-Nothing" Republican Congress. It's a short two years to 2008, where they get to try and convince voters to re-elect them all.

There are, however, a lot of investigations which are long overdue, like figuring out where all the missing money went in Iraq contracts. It's possible that these will uncover inconvenient facts which would more or less force impeachment...

...but I doubt it. Even if such investigations came up with stuff, it could be months before such things were uncovered and it'd be hard to justify impeachment procedures which could take many months just to impeach a lame duck President with less than a year before the 2008 elections.

And then, there's these two words:

"President Cheney"



Regardless of who's in power, there's no way to avoid massive spending when waging war. The fact that Bush tried to wage war while also cutting taxes and also not cutting any spending is mind-blowing. (Oh yeah, theoretically Congress also had a say in that...but well trained mouthpieces don't get their own say.)

I think it's funny how the USA is split between democrats and republicans. And how it seems that neither party never admit the good the other have accomplished. Only a blame games. And both partys are in denial of their own mistakes.

For example: "balanced budjets under clinton were a fantasy, achieved on paper only by number manipulation, and other tricks". To my ears this sounds quite funny. From what I have heard USAs economy was on a constant growth under clinton administration. It did better then ever. It's really hard for me to believe, that it was all just a sham, a trick to decieve rest of the world (luckily there are republicans, who were able to see the truth).

There are so many people in Europe who hate USA and I think republicans make it too easy for them.

Waging an un-winable and costly war in rthe middle-east, ruined any chance for a balanced budget under BushII. But take that huge expense out of the picture, and Bush's budget had a chance to be balanced.

Keep in mind what the Dems did to Bush's father......tricked him into breaking his "no new taxes" promise (we need more money George, to make the USA a better place). Then when BushI came up for re-election, held this broken promise against the guy, costing him an election, and bringing the slease-bag Clinton into power.

G W Bush was not about to repeat that mistake (raising taxes for any reason). Can't say I blame him......

IMHO...Europeans are less likely to like republicans because republicans are less likely to hand out foreign aid.

I dont really understand American politics, but I do understand their overseas politics, they really suck.

I can certainly appreciate all of the good things that America has done for other countries around the world, but thats not what people remember, people remember America as trying to dominate poeple who dont want to be dominated.

I really hope that the new bunch in the Whitehouse understand that more than half of the world HATES America, the only way America can sort this out is to stop interfering in the bad way that they have become known for, and only interfere when they actually should, such as Yugoslavia.

And of course stop trying to financially crush the Cubans, let free trade go once more and experience "Bacardi", I found some really fascinating facts about Cuba from the CIA fact file, compare the country to the US.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fa ... os/cu.html
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fa ... os/us.html


Andy

PS: I dont know a single person who doesnt think that George Bush is a complete "Tit".

"(adj) An extremely stupid person"
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tit

It was out of balance even before the war started.
Funny, I always thought it was about doing what's right for the people, not about winning elections. Maybe there were other reasons for the loss, like gulf war? It's also pretty funny, that you call Clinton slease-bag, when he is one of the most respected US presidents ever, even despite the Monica scandal.

I disagree, the part of the world that hates America needs no reason to do so. Children in Middle-East are tought/brainwashed in schools that all their suffering is USAs fault, they are tought to hate. And the clueless European commie/green/socialists hate USA because it's hip to hate root-of-all-evil-Bush, USA, capitalist pigs that don't comply to Kioto treaty etc... If a western person HATES USA it means that they are pretty much retards and they should be ignored. Disagreeing with policy is one thing, but hating... especially for all their lame reasons.

Yeah, the embargo is something I cannot really understand. It must be pride. And both partys are probably afraid of angering cuban-americans and tipping the balance of power in Florida.