Archive for Congressional 2008

Filner Flips Out

Posted by: Ion | September 21st, 2007 · 8:39 AM

Democrat Representative Bob Filner, speaking as he was trying to physically force his way into an INS detention facility in 2003:

“I am a Congressman and I can do whatever I want, I want to see my constituent and I am not moving from here until I do so,” and later telling one officer to “shut up.”
(The Hill)

Filner was trying to gain access to a “constituent,” who was apparently a Pakistani suspect being detained there for security concerns. During his assault on the compound, Filner threatened a number of officials and officers, but somehow eluded arrest for it. When INS officials told him he was not authorized to access to the holding center, Filner implied the Constitution granted him authority to do so. It doesn’t.

In August of this year, Filner physically assaulted a United Airlines employee at Dulles when he similarly tried to gain access to a restricted security area. The victim has pressed charges and Filner faces trial on October 2, 2007.

The revelation of the 2003 INS incident has forced the House Ethics Committee to open an investigation into the more recent Dulles attack. But we don’t need the Committee findings to recognize that Filner is an emotionally unstable man, who has a penchant for abusing the powers of his office. Two near-identical episodes of such abuse should be more than conclusive on that. Politics and geography aside, the GOP should target Filner for defeat in 2008, merely on grounds of the need for sane governance. We can always do without these sorts of petit Bonapartes in congress.

Meanwhile, Filner, blogging at The Hill’s Congress Blog about Mexican trucking, says: “I remain hopeful that the courts will step in on the side of safety and the American worker.” Toward that end, hopefully he’ll be convicted of assault and battery on one of those workers, in the courts come October.

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A Cold Barren Place in the Sun

Posted by: Ion | August 26th, 2007 · 3:25 AM

Here’s an interesting perspective from Leftblogger D. Stephen Heersink, on the present state of the Democratic party:

Congress, which is a Democratic MAJORITY, and from which FIVE Democratic candidates are currently seeking to become president, with two former Senators, making SEVEN, is held half below the worst and most-failed U.S. presidency of George W. Bush. 80% of Americans believe this country is on the WRONG TRACK. As bad as Bush is, Congress is WORSE.

After seven months, NOT ONE of Bush’s policies has changed, except the further encroachment of our human rights, with Democrats’ support. The Iraq Fiasco continues unabated. The country’s economy is on tilt — what’s left of it. People vote for X and get Y. They vote for Z and get Y. Why? The country votes to change political course, and their opposition aids and abets, rather than changes.

HilaryCollapse is the “front runner” among Democrats, but Romney, Guiliani, and Thompson match her public popularity. K-Street surely is giddy, but not the vast numbers of citizens. Why? Because as bad a Bush is, Democrats are proving WORSE. FIVE Democratic Senators running for president, and WHAT has any one of them done to change course? Talk is cheap. At least, unfortunately, Bush follows through.
(Gay Species)

This sort of disillusionment is representative for many on the left and with good reason. It must be enormously frustrating to see a totally ineffective, utterly compromised and widely despised congress piddle away the extraordinary and historic opportunity that the 2006 election presented to them. A bit like our experience in 1998 I suppose.

From the Republican perspective, the Democrats got the ball back in 2006 and have in effect, punted. It’s imperative for us to seize this equally astonishing and totally unexpected opportunity in 2008.

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If I may add Lee…

Posted by: Jason | June 28th, 2007 · 10:16 PM

(image: photohome)

Excellent statement on today’s immigration vote Lee, to which I support you in agreement. We don’t express enough praise for political victories such as these, as we should. Just days ago we were in fear of this amnesty bill, and now we’re celebrating the power of the American people to rise to the occasion in fights like this.

There may be a sense of malaise out there with regard to the direction we’re headed in overall, but if there is one example of why Americans should be particularly proud of their country today, it’s in stories like this.

As you so eloquently stated, the major powers above us were showing their might, from President Bush to big business interests in our own party. Yet, in the end, it was the will of the American people, through the collective response of grass roots staples like talk radio and reaching out to our individual congressmen, that won the day.

First Harriet Miers and our rejection of Bush’s attempt to trivialize decades of conservative positioning, now standing for law and order with regard to illegal immigration. Soon they will hear from all of us again as we say no to big-government RINOS attempting to hijack our party, and their efforts to change what Reagan reminded us to do.

Conservatives, along with a coalition of diversely thinking Americans alike, won a major victory for this country today.

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Benefits of the Bush Amnesty Push

Posted by: Ion | June 27th, 2007 · 6:32 PM

Sure, sure, the amnesty bill is ghastly. But it has managed to paralyze the Democratic congress, while driving their popularity through the floor (presently 14% and falling).

I’m fairly convinced this is no political stratagem on the president’s part. Bush seems passionate enough about it. But due to that passion, if the Republicans are smart enough to hold out, drag it out, the administration will probably not stop.

It goes without saying that it will be very hard (if not impossible), for the Democrats to run on this monstrosity outside of their Northeastern and Pacific strongholds.

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The Afghanistan Withdrawal Movement Emerges

Posted by: Ion | June 26th, 2007 · 12:22 AM

(photo: DOD)

Whether you noticed it or not, the withdrawal-from-Afghanistan cause has already passed into public discussion among some influential Democrats. Democrats who are beginning to express identical reservations now commonly expressed about Iraq, with the mission Afghanistan. Several have already begun calling for outright withdrawal from an “endless” and “unwinnable” conflict. Sound familiar?

Don’t be misled by the stern resolve of men like Representative Murtha, who frequently tells us that the real war is in Afghanistan and the Democrats intend to fight it. Democrats like Murtha once spoke quite forcefully in defense of the war in Iraq too. But they’ll buckle as quickly as they did on that war, when the antiwar grassroots turns its attention to the next cause. After all, the antiwar movement will find it difficult to merely disband, when there’s another target remaining for their attention.

Kucinich, always ahead of his fellow Democrats on these loopy causes, already has the plan scheduled:

“There is a sequence of events … get out of Iraq and then we must focus on getting out of Afghanistan.”
(The Hill)

He’s not alone either:

“We are finished there, militarily speaking,” said Abercrombie, the chairman of the Air and Land Armed Services subcommittee.

“There is no useful purpose for our troops there,” Abercrombie stated in a recent interview. “The military should withdraw now,” he said, though he stressed that the U.S. could keep “isolated pockets” of special operators.

[…]

“We are not securing America by being there,” she pressed. “The longer we are there, the more plots start growing in our country.”

Watson, who supported the war in Afghanistan, said that the military ought “to start leaving Afghanistan” and that the U.S. should allow Afghan officials to “formulate and run their own government.”
(The Hill)

2008 becomes more important by the minute.

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The Inevitable Candidate

Posted by: Ion | May 11th, 2007 · 2:54 PM

As surprising as uncovering prostitution in Las Vegas:

Renowned antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan is considering a run for US Congress in 2008, Atlanta Progressive News has learned in the process of interviewing Sheehan about her upcoming rally in Washington, DC, this Mothers’ Day weekend.
(Weasel Zippers)

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Bucking Democracy

Posted by: Ion | May 7th, 2007 · 4:45 AM

David Broder puts the point on it:

Wars do end when the American people say they must. Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 with a promise to end the Korean War. Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 with a promise to end the Vietnam War. And if George Bush doesn’t do it, a Democrat will win in 2008 with a promise to end the war in Iraq.
(Washington Post)

Broder suggest it’s difficult to imagine the Republicans going into an election in 2008 with 150,000 troops in Iraq. It’s actually all to easy for me. The GOP has already deployed the arguments it needs to defend and excuse it.

He’s quite right however, that if they do, they will be totally decimated in in the general. Republicans (barely) won one election on Iraq, took a damaging warning shot on the next and the third will be the killing blow that relegates them to extreme minority party status. By the close of 2007, the GOP will need to begin asking themselves if one more year in Iraq is worth total political domination by the Democrats.

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The Third Iraq Election

Posted by: Ion | April 11th, 2007 · 11:43 AM

Last week, after looking at the Rasmussen poll, I noted that the Republicans still had the advantage of an instinctively conservative electorate on their side heading into 2008. But that’s not a structural advantage that came about by accident and it’s certainly not immutable. Therefore, it’s time for the more pessimistic evaluation that I put off then.

Shortly after the 2006 congressional election, most of us realized it could have been far worse. The Democratic victory margin was a painful rebuke and a warning by voters, but it certainly wasn’t a realigning one. It was doubly clear however, that if we had to wage another election on Iraq, the Republican party would likely be decimated.

In many ways 2006 was a reluctant Democratic win. The public was overwhelmingly opposed to Bush’s Iraq policy by at least two-thirds. Yet they didn’t vote 66% for the Democrats. What the people were thus saying was “we still prefer you, but we’re really unhappy about some vital things.” Had it not been reluctant, the Democrats would have easily dominated across the board. The peril now, is that after receiving this telegram from the public, the Republicans said “we don’t care, Iraq is too important.” They reelected their unpopular leaders in the House and Senate and dug in their heels for trench warfare. That they’ve done so for entirely justifiable purposes, doesn’t change the political dynamic at hand.

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The Bush Veto Record (or lack there of)

Posted by: Jason | April 5th, 2007 · 4:41 PM

Interesting, as the Bush veto threat is talked about over the next few weeks, regarding this Democratic Iraq spending bill monstrosity, it’s interesting to note the Bush veto record.

Sure, we all know it off hand, one veto. Sad as it may be, compare it to other presidents:

Nixon: 26
Ford: 48
Carter: 13 (that’s Jimmy Carter)
Reagan: 39
G.H.W. Bush: 29
Clinton: 36
G.W. Bush: 1

Folks, that’s a sad… sad record. Think Republicans need to get back to being the party of spending restraint?

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Where Is the O