The people have spoken. They have put the Democrats back in charge of the House, and–as of this writing–are two seats away from retaking the Senate. Furthermore, on the state level, another attempt at banning gay marriage was voted down, along with a ban on abortion and a nod for stem cell research. Virtually all of this can be attributed to Bush’s policies on everything from Iraq to science to morality.
President Bush, the acclaimed uniter, not divider, now has a choice: To honor the will of the people and do everything he can over the next two years to work with the new political landscape and try to give the people what they want and need. Or to do everything possible to block any and all progress on any number of issues the Democrats may try to make while foisting the blame for gridlock onto the Dems in an attempt to put the GOP in position to retake their power base in the next election.
I have every confidence in which direction he’ll go.
PAD
• 
“Sure enough Dems win, the people have spoken, GOP wins they stole it, typical.”
You are entitled to your opinion, but IMHO, this statement is not an accuracte reflection of democratic sentiment.
It’s not entirely made up of whole cloth though.
Nancy Pelosi said that the number of Democratic House victories could be higher or lower and said her greatest concern is over the integrity of the count — from the reliability of electronic voting machines to her worries that Republicans will try to manipulate the outcome.
“That is the only variable in this,” Pelosi said. “Will we have an honest count?”
Even more apocalyptically, columnist Robert Kuttner said “unless there are levels of theft and fraud that would truly mean the end of American democracy, a Democratic House seems as close to a sure thing as we ever get in American politics three days before an election.” he repeated the assertion later– “November 2006 will be remembered either as the time American democracy was stolen again, maybe forever, or began a brighter day.”
Typical? Not really. But I didn’t hear too many protests of these statements from the left.
Well, with both the Senate and the House Democrats will ahve a great opportunity to put into place policie sthat will ensure that everyoen who is legally able to vote has the right to do so and that the simple steps it would take to minimize voter fraud will be implemented. If they truly believe that they have been robbed in the past they will make this a priority. If not–we can assume they never really belived all teh disenfranchisment talk and it was just red meat for the rubes.
Katherine Harris was the Florida sectretary of state and the 2000 Bush/Cheney campaign chair. She took the opportunity to systematically flush the votes from entire black counties, and all of Florida came down to a ~600 vote lead for Bush.
In 2002, 100,000 lost votes from Broward County were found after Jeb was declared the winner.
Republicans shelter their conflicts of interest and abuse of power to a severe degree. So, yes, when the GOP wins, it is suspicious.
But I didn’t hear too many protests of these statements from the left.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
When you have a travesty like Florida in 2000, and then you have the Republican-supporting CEO of Diebold saying that he will “deliver Ohio to the Republicans” in mid-’04, and then Ohio turns out to be the key state, any reasonable person should be able to see why the results may be questioned when they are in favor of one side, and not the other.
“Typical? Not really. But I didn’t hear too many protests of these statements from the left.“
Please do not take offense, but I am not sure if this line of thinking is helpful. Specifically, to argue against a position you disagree with, you find one isolated instance where you can make a point, and then attribute characteristics of the isolated instance to the whole group. This is the bread of butter of Bill O’Reilly.
I think we can both agree that it is in the best interest of everybody to have elections decided fairly. If we believe in what America stands for, we should rather want a candidate voted fairly into office that we disagree with rather than a candidate we agree with voted into office via dishonest means. I think there are some legitimate concerns over the accuracy and accountability of the voting machines, and I think your quote from Nancy Pelosi is evidence of nothing more than her trying to voice that concern.
Nevertheless, I could be wrong, and you could be right, and I respect your opinion and your right to disagree with me. Have you heard that from any Republican in office lately? It is too bad that, in modern day America, one cannot make a point without demonizing any opposing view.
Did it ever bother anyone else that Bush had someone working in so important a job for him that had the word “Rum” in his name?
I would say there needs to be something done about all the voting irregularities, but I don’t know what, so I’m just going to leave it alone.
Craig J. Ries said”
“You know, I don’t care much for the pharmacutical companies, but they dump A LOT of money into research.”
Sir, have you ever actually DONE research for pharmacutical companies? I have. The type of studies they do serve only their further financial gain: they basically look for new uses for their drugs. We don’t need anti-anxiety medication: scientific studies have shown that therapy is just as effective (more effective, considering that some anxiety-based disorders can actually be cured with therapy). Yet, we have many drugs for handling anxiety.
Of course, things may be different when speaking about non-psychotropic medication: I can only speak about what I know.
“Sure enough Dems win, the people have spoken, GOP wins they stole it, typical.” (originally posted by Eric at the start of this entry, and commented on by several people since)
When the ACLU defends anti-war protesters or others on the left, it gets labelled as a left-wing organization. Conveniently forgotten or overlooked is that the ACLU defends anyone — on the left or on the right — whose rights they feel are being violated. The ACLU may be supported more by people on the left than by people on the right, but it is not a group which is only concerned with attacks on the left.
A similar misperception seems to exist about those who are concerned that electronic voting has too great a potential for fraud. The concern is not that elections could be stolen from Democrats; the concern is that elections could be stolen, period.
Here is some of the text from an e-message sent out yesterday by Common Cause:
“Last night, my family, colleagues, and I gathered to watch the results of the midterm election.
“But it was difficult to keep our attention on the returns, with calls about polling place disasters pouring into our hotline and reports of voting machine problems hitting the airwaves.
“2006 is the third election in a row shadowed by questions about the integrity of voting machines. WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.
“The nation’s attention is focused on this issue, and now is the time to restore credibility to our broken election system. The Senate needs to “Get It Straight by 2008″ and make sure all voting machines have a paper trail that voters can trust.”
Note that Common Cause is not saying anything remotely like what Eric claimed. That’s why it’s good to base one’s judgment of people on what they actually say, not what they are caricatured as saying.
Please do not take offense, but I am not sure if this line of thinking is helpful. Specifically, to argue against a position you disagree with, you find one isolated instance where you can make a point, and then attribute characteristics of the isolated instance to the whole group. This is the bread of butter of Bill O’Reilly.
How does saying “Typical? Not really.” jibe with “attribute characteristics of the isolated instance to the whole group.” Am I being too subtle?
I share your hope that genuine election fraud controls will be implemented. The Democrats have at least 2 years to make it happen. If they do it will be a considerable feather in their caps. If not…we will have this conversation again.
they basically look for new uses for their drugs
Well, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
However, I don’t see how you can take my comment and assume it only applies to one area of drug research.
Yet, we have many drugs for handling anxiety.
And we also have many drugs to help treat cancer and a variety of other diseases, with new ones being added every year.
So, please don’t dismiss the work of all these companies. It’s a double-edged sword with them, but I’d like to think the long-term benefits outweigh our opinions of them. 🙂
Bush took it a step further on August 9, 2001. He announced that federal funding would now be restricted (the 22 lines thing I mentioned above).
And this is the problem, in addition to the fact that there are approximately six still useful/viable lines from the supposed 60 that Bush authorized. And although the hESC’s are immortalized, after 8 years, problems are cropping up – problems that mean effective research can’t be done. So the number of viable lines, only a fraction of what Bush said to begin with, is dwidling daily.
But yeah, the problem? That no one has touched on? Is the ban on research with federally funded money on lines created after Aug 09, 2001. This does not merely mean that researches can’t receive a grant from NIH to to hESC research, it means that if researchers at a research university, like say, Stanford, want to research hESC, they have to do the research in a building that was not built with federal money. Using supplies not purchased with federal money. Or staff who’re not paid with federal money. Even if the building/buying/hiring happened years before ever considering hESC.
What it means to have federal funding is so exceedingly broad, many universities build completely new, detached research centers from private funds, restocking them with duplicates of all the technology they already own, just to not run afoul the law. Which is great for a place like Stanford, which is given huge grants to do this, and funded by CIRM. It’s not so great for a lot of other places, and beyond putting our knowledge of the potentialities of hESC behind, it creates the infamous brain drain, as researchers either move to research-friendly states like California (and now Missouri), or research-friendly countries, like England.
“another attempt at banning gay marriage was voted down”
Yes David of the 29 states that have had a vote to ban gay marriage, 28 have passed.
Nice spin.
Posted by Alex A Sanchez
We don’t need anti-anxiety medication: scientific studies have shown that therapy is just as effective (more effective, considering that some anxiety-based disorders can actually be cured with therapy). Yet, we have many drugs for handling anxiety.
I’ve never seen a “scientific study” that said that therapy alone was even as effective as anti-depressant treatment alone that wasn’t funded or conducted by someone who had already basically announced that that was true before they did began stuidies…
Uh huh. And studies have shown that we don’t really need glasses – wee just need to do eye exercises to cure myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism tha we suffer from because we’re lazy people.
And we don’t really need arthroscopic surgery or artificial hip or knee joints, we just need therapy to help us master the imaginary pain.
Sir, if someday you are diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder, i hope you will demonstrate exactly how therapy can ovrcome a chemical imbalance in the brain.
(Aside from teaching you how to fake normality well enough to fool everyone aroud you, no matter how much you are actually suffering, as i did for too many years…)
“To honor the will of the people and do everything he can over the next two years to work with the new political landscape and try to give the people what they want and need.”
Why make assume that the will of the people is Leftist simply because Congress was given to Democrats, the Part of the Left? One healthy assumption is an angry banishment of the Lefty hypocrite Republicans who claim to be Conservatives but didn’t act enough like them.
Four out of five right-wing proposals won in my state, and the Republicans pretending to be Conservative… but showed their cowardly Commie colors when they condemned a ban on racial preference… lost to people who don’t hide their promises to raise minimum wage and other left-wing oaths.
Of course I’m the guy who never gave up the belief that Bush’s approval rating would have been higher if he wasn’t so left-wing in his actions.
Mike Weber:
With all due respect, you misunderstood my argument. I am NOT arguing against the use of psychotropic medication (or any type of medication), nor am I denying its need in many cases. What I am against is the championing of companies that make such huge profits off of other’s needs. Much of what they do is unethical.
I like Craig J. Ries’s optimistic thinking about the double-edged sword: hopefully they will do more good than bad, in the end.