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mself084

Democrats Take The House

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Completely surprised to see there wasn't a thread on this when I logged in today! Jeez.

 

Anyways, what do you think about the Dems taking the House of Representatives, and pushing the Republicans to the brink in the Senate? Not sure what this means for Bush's war in Iraq?

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I was going to start one but thought nobody would be interested.

 

But what do I think about the Dem's taking back the house and possibly the senate? Well i am still skeptical about them taking back the Senate because the jury's still out and apparently some of the runners are planning on taking legal action to contest the results of some of their districts.

What this means for the Iraq war? Good question. The excecutive branch, i.e. Bush/Cheny et al, have been able to degrade the constitution so well with signing statements, executive authority etc etc that it might mean absolutely nothing for Iraq. Plans could continue as Bush wants them too. For me, all i can see happening out of this, is that if the Dem's loose the Sentate, that nothing much will really change, and that if they win both, some issues might be debated, and some concessions made to some of Bush's plans.

The problem is that I dont really believe that the Dem's are all that different to the republicans. By that i mean they have very superficial differences in that they tend to be pro-abortion, stem cell research etc. But when it comes to effective social change like social security, health care, i find them lacking.

This situation can only be good if the Dem's are really hard on the administration.

Will they be? Who knows..

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Edit:

One thing i am looking forward to. Is that since Dem's have the house, they can start commissions, esp into the war, 9/11, because there are really important questions to be asked about many issues. Hopefully the repub lawyers don't stop them! lol

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Me either, im wondering if its "good for the party" type of change, maybe he was asked to leave because he's not popular with the troops or the American people. It's an interesting political tactic id say. Not to mention that there have been moves by many lawyers to try him and several others in Bush's cabinet with war crimes i.e. the torture uses. I guess we'll all see how this plays out, the former CIA director, Robert Gates is to replace him, but this is doubtless bad news, i cant see any CIA director being put into a defense position good news lol

 

EDIT: Also Rummy and Bush disagree a lot on tactics with Iraq, so who knows.

Edited by supercanuk
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Holy shit, Rumsfeld resigns !

i kinda sad that rummy resigned, because, i loved how he handled the press back in the day, how he put them in there place, other then that, he was too hawkish for my liking.

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Holy shit, Rumsfeld resigns !

i kinda sad that rummy resigned, because, i loved how he handled the press back in the day, how he put them in there place, other then that, he was too hawkish for my liking.

LOL and what would you say is the press's "place" lol. Id say he avoided and kept secret everything that was happening and i dont think the press went after these guys enough! lol

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I'm glad the Democrats took the house... now I just hope they do something.

Agreed.

 

With the independents, the Senate is split right in 2. Does anyone know what this will mean for its functionality? What happens if they end up voting in draws?

The vice president casts the tie-breaking vote.

 

As of right now, 6:30pm Wensday night, the senate has not been called either way dude.

 

Hmmz...damn you Kos!

 

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006//pages/re...s/MT/index.html

 

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages...ults/states/VA/

 

According to CNN (which I stayed up until 2 AM watching, cuz I'm cool like that), the state of Virginia will pay for a recount if requested if the margin between candidates is less than 1%. Right now the margin between Allen and Webb is ~ 0.3%. I doubt Allen would challenge the results, though, since it's pretty hard to make up a 7000 vote deficit in a recount, and there's always the possibility of Webb getting more votes (as was the case with the Virginia Attorney General race last year, where the original vote margin was 327, but after a recount was 370 in favour of the original winner - the Republican, who was an advisor to the Allen campaign). But yeah, I guess I was a little hasty. A boy can dream, can't he?

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Of course! lol

 

The independents, i dont know about, im pretty sure they can vote however they like, i dont think their subject to any party dicipline or w/e.. not totally sure, which means they could make or break important votes, which no doubt they love the idea of.

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The only independent in the Senate is Joe Lieberman, who ran despite losing the Democratic primary (sour grapes, anyone?). He has a fairly liberal voting record, so I'd expect him to side with the Dems more often than the GOP on most issues.

 

I don't think party dicipline in the States is as rigourous as it is in Canada, although most Members will toe the party line. In some of the votes I've read about, there's a list of Reps. or Senators who voted for or against a bill or law, and they tend to be bipartisan to a degree.

 

However, try reading about Tom Delay and how the GOP leadership in the House extended what was supposed to be a 15 minute voting period for medicare plan by a couple hours while they hunted down Republicans who had abstained (this included going into the coatroom to smoke out abstainers, as well as threatening the political futures of other party members and their family members who had political ambitions). Rolling Stone had a great cover story on this recently.

 

PS: I know this isn't a 100% confirmation, but...

 

The new AP count showed Webb with 1,172,538 votes and Allen with 1,165,302, a difference of 7,236. Virginia has had two statewide vote recounts in modern history, but both resulted in vote changes of no more than a few hundred votes.

 

An adviser to Allen, speaking on condition of anonymity because his boss had not formally decided to end the campaign, said the senator wanted to wait until most of canvassing was completed before announcing his decision, possibly as early as Thursday evening.

 

The adviser said that Allen was disinclined to request a recount if the final vote spread was similar to that of election night.

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