Second Term Honeymoon Over Already?
I previously noted that Bush might have difficulty moving the country too far to the right. We already have the first sign of this:
Likely new Senate judiciary chairman warns Bush against nominating anti-abortion judges
Likely new Senate judiciary chairman warns Bush against nominating anti-abortion judges
The Republican expected to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush on Wednesday against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation.
Sen. Arlen Specter, fresh from winning a fifth term in Pennsylvania, also said the current Supreme Court now lacks legal "giants" on the bench.
"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely," Specter said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
"The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster," Specter added, referring to Senate Democrats' success over the past four years in blocking the confirmation of many of Bush's conservative judicial picks. "... And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."
With at least three Supreme Court justices rumored to be eyeing retirement, including ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Specter, 74, would have broad authority to reshape the nation's highest court. He would have wide latitude to schedule hearings, call for votes and make the process as easy or as hard as he wants.
posted by Ron Chusid at 5:47 PM
14 Comments:
Any one know the latest news on the following story?
West Virginia elector says he might not vote for President Bush
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/state/westvirginia/2004-10-21-elector_x.htm
Amy here. Hi Ron and Florida Dem.
I am devastated, too. I can't believe what happened in Florida. I'm in shock, but I agree that it was the hook of gay marriage that brought people in. And of course abortion - the whole "fundy" package did it. It's frightening.
I think Bush will do pretty much whatever he wants in this administration. The judge thing is tricky, but my observation is that Republicans seem to be willing to allow him any deviation from party tradition as long as it wins votes.
Any thoughts on who will resign, who will come on board?
amynvanwa
PS Floridadem, lots of blog folks are over on the irc chat. My interface for that is the pits, so I didn't stay too long.
One theory I heard is that the Republicans are taking the religious right for a ride. As they also have to keep the "country club Republicans" happy, the belief is that they have no intention of really reversing Row v. Wade, etc. They just keep them voting for them out of the promise that it will be done. Of course we cannot count on this.
The chat is at http://winbeta.org/irc/kerry.html
Pamela emailed earlier telling me that Dick was on it. I tried but could not connect at the time. It sounds like the future of the blog and official forum is up in the air
's a shame they couldn't keep the blog open today. The election results were bad enough. It only made things worse to lose the blog cold turkey. With the blog down I feel like a Borg disconnected from the collective being accustomed to turning into the comments of fellow bloggers several times a day. It is strange not to have the comments coming thru. It's also strange to come across something of interest but to not mention it on the blog.
The need to put out ideas has been a major topic in many articles and media discussions of what went wrong. Believing in an idea (even if being misled) allowed many voters to ignore Bush's poor record and obvkous failings during the debate. It even leads them to vote counter to their own economic interests.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Message to Ron Chusid -
You are an incredible loser! I remember checking the official Kerry site a year ago and you had DOZENS AND DOZENS of rants that went on forever. Get a life! - Kerry lost, he's a loser and you're a loser for wasting at least a year of your life on the campaign of someone who is such an obvious phony! Someone who stood for nothing and had no strong convictions about anything other than he's wanted to be President since he was a teenager. Kerry's Senate record was 180 degrees different than many of the positions he took during the campaign. Yet, people like you were willing to look past that and accept that he would lie and say whatever needed to be said to get himself elected - well enough people saw through that to cost him the Presidency! Gee Ron, maybe Kerry will invite you out with him on his next goose hunting trip! - Phony! Just because people live in more rural areas, may or may not have gone to college, and like to hunt doesn't mean they're stupid! Kerry is as far from a "regular" guy as someone can be. He has no record in the Senate of supporting our military or giving our military the tools it needs to be strong so we can defeat those who want to kill us.
As far as you go, you have so much time to spend on this that I've just got to know: Do you have a job? It would make sense if you didn't becuase Kerry's socialist beliefs would appeal to you - taking money from those of us who actually made the tough sacrifices to make sure that we have a good career and the means to support our families and re-distribute it to lazy layabouts who don't have what it takes to really make it in the dreaded private sector.
I'm ecstatic that President Bush won re-election but I just had to check back and witness the groaning and whining that I knew you losers were going through!
I see another fool who buys the GOP line, referring to Kerry as a socialist and is utterly ignorant of Kerry's record, listening to the falsifications of the Bush campaign rather than having the brains or ability to check out the facts.
I support Kerry not because of any support of socialism but to preserve the free market system which people like Bush are destroying while falsely claiming to be capitalists. If you must know, I have been able to work to promote the campaign due to a combination of factors. This includes upgrading my business's computer system which handles some of what I did before, installing high speed wireless networks at both my office and home so I can be on line easily, and my wife being willing to assume some of the routine business tasks I previously handled to free up more time. When time is used efficiently, it is possible to check a blog frequently. (Cut and paste also helped a lot as the same issues do come up a lot.)
I don't see the time as wasted at all, even if we lost this time. Seeing ignorant people such as yourself helps remind me of the value of what we are doing, as we build up new mechanisms to open people's eyes as to what is going on in this country. While you might remain deluded by the propaganda, I have confidence that there are others will will ultimately be convinced. Reality-based politics lost to politics based upon lies this time, but won't do so forever.
I see another fool who buys the GOP line, referring to Kerry as a socialist and is utterly ignorant of Kerry's record, listening to the falsifications of the Bush campaign rather than having the brains or ability to check out the facts.
I support Kerry not because of any support of socialism but to preserve the free market system which people like Bush are destroying while falsely claiming to be capitalists. If you must know, I have been able to work to promote the campaign due to a combination of factors. This includes upgrading my business's computer system which handles some of what I did before, installing high speed wireless networks at both my office and home so I can be on line easily, and my wife being willing to assume some of the routine business tasks I previously handled to free up more time. When time is used efficiently, it is possible to check a blog frequently. (Cut and paste also helped a lot as the same issues do come up a lot.)
I don't see the time as wasted at all, even if we lost this time. Seeing ignorant people such as yourself helps remind me of the value of what we are doing, as we build up new mechanisms to open people's eyes as to what is going on in this country. While you might remain deluded by the propaganda, I have confidence that there are others will will ultimately be convinced. Reality-based politics lost to politics based upon lies this time, but won't do so forever.
I see another fool who buys the GOP line, referring to Kerry as a socialist and is utterly ignorant of Kerry's record, listening to the falsifications of the Bush campaign rather than having the brains or ability to check out the facts.
I support Kerry not because of any support of socialism but to preserve the free market system which people like Bush are destroying while falsely claiming to be capitalists. If you must know, I have been able to work to promote the campaign due to a combination of factors. This includes upgrading my business's computer system which handles some of what I did before, installing high speed wireless networks at both my office and home so I can be on line easily, and my wife being willing to assume some of the routine business tasks I previously handled to free up more time. When time is used efficiently, it is possible to check a blog frequently. (Cut and paste also helped a lot as the same issues do come up a lot.)
I don't see the time as wasted at all, even if we lost this time. Seeing ignorant people such as yourself helps remind me of the value of what we are doing, as we build up new mechanisms to open people's eyes as to what is going on in this country. While you might remain deluded by the propaganda, I have confidence that there are others will will ultimately be convinced. Reality-based politics lost to politics based upon lies this time, but won't do so forever.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ron
I've never gone to a Bush or GOP website (or Bush blogging site where a bunch of like minded people feed each other "facts" all day long - sound like a group of losers you might know?). I read everything I can get my hands on from all possible sources (including Senate voting records), so far from spewing propaganda, my opinions are based in fact. That being said, give me just ONE fact (for guidance - a fact can't be just a feeling you have or something someone told you) that shows John Kerry is a strong supporter of capitalism.
I'll give you several that prove Kerry is not a supporter of capitalism and, in fact, promotes socialism. Kerry has voted 97 times to raises taxes - FACT. Kerry favors rolling back tax cuts (that's called a tax increase in most places) on the "wealthy" -FACT. So Kerry advocates taxing people in an ever escalating manner the more successful they become. Kerry had a litany of proposed programs he would fund after he rolled back the "wealthy's" taxes (by the way that Kerry would limit the tax increase to people earning over $200,000 is a joke). So, by his own admission he is taking money from taxpayers(the workers in this country) and re-distributing (re-distribution of wealth is the cornerstone of socialism)it to others. This creates a disincentive to work, succeed, and get ahead for those who are not the recipients of Kerry's handouts. Kerry is on record as being against the reduced capital gains rate - FACT. Lower capital gains rates spur investment - that is a time proven FACT! No one wants to invest in businesses, stocks, etc. if they are going to be taxed to death on whatever they make. Reduced capital gains rate promote capitalism. You people like to treat businesses and successful people as the enemy and can never seem to figure out that without them the economy wouldn't grow and jobs would not be created.
I could go on but I won't. I'm really interested to see if you can come up with anything to back up your assertion that Kerry promotes capitalism. This should be interesting because everyone knows that FACTS are a liberals worst enemy!
Have you been reading about capitalism or really practicing it? There's a lot to life you wont' learn reading the conservative presss--and your distorted views of the facts reveal that your sources are limited to the right.
I recommend reading a variety of sources.l I've studied the economic princiles of von Midses, Milton Friedman, Hayek, as well as from liberal sources. More importantly, I'm a practicing capitalist, making well over $200,000 a year in profits, and pay a fair amount of capital gains taxes. Sure I'd love to have the lower taxes, all things being equal, but they aren't equal. I was better off with the higher rate during the Clinton years when investiment income was tremendousloy higher than it is now. The capital gains rate has no effect on my business spending or other business plans. While I'm sure there are instances where it has impact, these claims are just justifications for people to pay less in taxes. On the other hand, tax breaks to the middle class does increase spending and has a much more meaningful impact on the economy. Small businessmen also make more money when the middle class people in our communities have more money in their pockets to spend.
If we were really talking being taxed to death I'd agree with you, but that is not what we had under Clinton or what Kerry planed to restore. Bush claimed that Kerry's tax increases would reduce hiring by small businesses, but most small businessmen would pay less, not more, taxes, under Kerry's plan. Most of Bush's tax cuts go to the ultra wealthy, and business spending would not be significantly affected by resuming the tax rates of the Clinton years.
Tax cuts are fine if we can afford them, but we cannot afford them when we also have a President who is recklessly increasing spending while cutting taxes. For years the right complained about the deficits until they took power. Now deficits don't matter. It is the right which changes the facts as convenient.
If you want to discuss Kerry's record, you'll have to discuss Kerry's real record, not the made up record spread by the Bush campaign. False claims such as that he voted to increase taxes 97 times were inventions of the Bush campaign, as multiple objective sources such as fact check.org pointed out during the campaign.
The Bush economic policies are designed to transfer wealth from the middle and upper middle classes to the ultra-wealthy, and to favor big business over small business. They feed gullible people lines like you recited to get you to think you benefit from their plans, when we'd all be better off with the pro-small business policies Kerry supports.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Post a Comment
<< Home