Long Live Victory!
Hah! Take that, George Bush! And that! And that and that and that! Nyaaah nyahh nyah-nyah nyah.What does it mean? A sea change in our politics? New shoe styles for lobbyists? Investigations? Impeachments? Indictments? Oh I do so hope so!
A Sea Change
This excerpt from the UK Times is a very succinct and thrilling recounting of the crest of history that we are now riding upon.[quote="Gerard Baker“]For the first time since they were thrashed by the Republicans in 1994, Democrats secured a majority in the House of Representatives – a clear working majority at that. They gained at least 25 seats from the Republicans – possibly more by the time all the votes in close races are in - easily enough for a comfortable majority of 20 seats or more in the 435-seat House.
In the Senate, Democrats were edging slowly towards an even more dramatic victory. They needed to gain six Republican seats for a majority – a task most pundits had thought was beyond them.
But they notched up gains in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Missouri, looked likely to win in Montana with the bulk of votes counted, and were a nose in front in Virginia pending a probable recount. If the results stand, Democrats will take the Senate, 51-49.
Not since Bill Clinton won re-election as president in 1996 has the Democratic Party really had something to celebrate in a national election. Mr Bush defeated them twice – in 2000 and 2004, and their efforts to recapture congress since 1994 have fallen far short.
The scale of last night’s win shouldn’t be underestimated. Though numerically it is not as large as the Republican ”revolution" 12 years ago, when the Democrats lost 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate, but in many ways it was just as impressive and significant.
Thanks to gerrymandering, redrawing the boundaries of districts to favour incumbent members, far fewer seats in the House are genuinely competitive today than was the case 12 years ago.
In the Senate the party had to take virtually all the seats that were considered at all competitive. They knocked off more than a dozen incumbent members of the House of Representatives and as many as six in the Senate.
What’s more, not a single Democratic incumbent was defeated last night - in House, Senate or governors’ race, an unprecedented event since the advent of universal suffrage. Nancy Pelosi, the liberal Democrat from San Francisco, who will become House Speaker in January and Harry Reid, the Nevada Senator who could end up as Majority Leader in the Senate, have genuine cause to celebrate.
But the true significance of the Democratic Revolution of 2006 has yet to be fully realised. By ushering in a new political geography it could profoundly alter American politics in the run up to the crucial 2008 presidential election.
Democrats swept House and Senate seats across the US Northeast and Midwest - in New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana – making many of those states virtual no-go areas for Republicans.
They also took seats in the traditional Republican strongholds of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, meaning Democrats can now compete there on almost equal terms with their opponents.
In the process they pushed the Republican Party back into its southern redoubt, turning on its head the recent conventional wisdom about American politics, that the Republicans are a national party who can win everywhere, while the Democrats are largely a party of bicoastal elites and a few urban areas in the middle of the country.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2443342_2,00.html
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.[/quote]
Time For Republicans To Repent
George can spend two years on the cross, or get down any time he wants. Impeachment will seem like a blessing if the Democrats handle this right.
No Words Can Express The Thanks I Feel ...
... toward Mark Foley. Talk about an October Surprise! Mama Mia! Big enough to put everything else in the shade. This man is a freakin' one man wrecking crew. Tore down what Karl Rove spent years putting together in a few Blackberry missives. What you always hoped would happen, did — they self-destructed! Although we must keep giving them all possible assistance, now is a moment to celebrate in song, and what better song than “Bone The Page,” an abso-fucking-lutely hilarious Mark Foley confession set to the tune of that old rock warhorse, “Turn the Page.” Just take a listen, and you'll feel even better than you do now. For more hilarious political satires by Paul Hipp, check out his site at http://www.myspace.com/paulhipp
Onward to Impeachment
With Democrats in control of the House, the move toward impeachment should be given unceasing momentum. Notwithstanding what Nancy Pelosi has assured everyone within microphone range, the Constitution demands the impeachment of George W. Bush for the commission of crimes against the People of the United States. To help you bone up on the case for impeachment, the Center for Constitutional Rights has published “Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush.” The review on Amazon states:In the halls of Congress and on the front pages of a growing number of mainstream periodicals, impeachment is being discussed more and more widely. And many leading constitutional scholars agree: There has never been so strong a case for impeachment since Richard Nixon.
In this gripping new book, one of our nation's leading institutions of constitutional scholarship, the Center for Constitutional Rights, sets out the legal arguments for impeachment detailing four separate charges: warrantless surveillance, misleading Congress on the reasons for the Iraq war, violating laws against torture, and subverting the Constitution's separation of powers. It is, say the CCR attorneys, a case of black letter law, with abundant evidence.
The book also contains the relevant laws and legal precedents. It explains what the Constitution says about impeachment and gives a brief history of impeachment, its procedures, and previous articles of impeachment against presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton.
The Impeachment of George W. Bush
The Amazon description of this book suggests it would be a good one to share with friends during the holiday season:No one is better placed or qualified to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush than Elizabeth Holtzman. She is a former Congresswoman and Brooklyn District Attorney who was a vital member of the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
In The Impeachment of George W. Bush, Holtzman and her coauthor, acclaimed journalist Cynthia L. Cooper, have written a clear, lucid and damning legal brief that reveals that the 43rd President of the United States of America has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
This book focuses on four articles of impeachment: The Offense of Wiretapping Surveillance in Defiance of the Law; the Offence of Lying and Inducing America to Support a War; The Offense of Reckless Indifference to the Lives and Welfare of American Troops; The Offense of Torture in Violation of U.S. Laws and Treaties. It also provides an invaluable guide to how citizens can get involved in campaigning for impeachment, as well as an important historical analysis of impeachments past. The publication of this book is a summons to action in this process.
John Conyers Is The Point Man on Impeachment
John Conyers has produced a book entitled George W. Bush Versus the U.S. Constitution: The Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Coverups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic Spying. It is supposed to be online at http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/iraqrept.html, but all of the links to pdf or html versions of the report are dead. A review of this book in the recent issue of California Lawyer says that it is a roadmap for impeachment, and it is available for sale on Amazon for $11.
The Sub-Iraqian Homesick Blues -- It's 2Hipp!
If you remember Bob Dylan's “Don't Look Back” video, you'll pick up on the referencesin this excellent post-post-911 era video of Paul Hipp doing a street shoot with an
assistant displaying a series of flash cards that really are flashy. The words are exquisite
and perfectly adapted to Dylan's laconic style of delivery:
Paul Hipp wrote:
[President Bush] We found the weapons of mass destruction
Yeah, we found biological laboratories
The truth will come out
Ratings in the basement
Mixing up the President
People on the pavement
Wondering where their country went
War of aggression
No plan, wrong place
Based upon a flawed case
Hail Mary full of grace
Look out son
We can’t cut and run
God knows when
Until our troops are home again
Better duck from the IED
With armor that they didn’t send
The man in the four star hat
Who’d been to war
Asked for 300,000 troops
Rummy said what for?
W comes flat boot
Posing in a flight suit
Reading “My Pet Goat”
Freedoms on the march but
The phones tapped anyway
W and the N.S.A.
Gonzales says it’s okay
Welcome to the U.S.A.
Look out Y’all
They’re breaking the law
Soldiers going to jail for
Command chain failures
Private contractors
Men without masters
Order GI’s
to torture bad guys
You don’t need a law degree
To know where the blame lies
Get back Orwell
No insurance, go to hell
Big bills, No pills
Hang around the stem cell
Work force, Outsourced
Get sacked, Pay day
No way, Ken Lay
Welcome to your rainy day
Look out kid, you’re gonna get hit
By gas price, Melting Ice
Science is a dirty vice
Mandate, Plamegate,
Diebold, lies told
Recruiters by the high school
Tell kids war’s cool
Don’t follow leaders
When leaders are all cheaters
[President Bush] I believe that we’ll find the truth, and the truth is, he was developing a
program for weapons of mass destruction
Paul Hipp's website is at www.myspace.com/paulhipp
As Long As Lieberman Stays In Line, We Have A Majority
The BBC has an interactive map of the state by state voting. Their summary of the events is worth quoting in full:BBC.co.uk wrote:
National
The Democrats have taken control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, in a serious blow to Republican President George W Bush.
In the elections for state governors the Democrats also made gains, taking power in six more states, bringing their total number of governors up to 28, with the Republicans on 22.
SENATE
A late victory in Virginia has given the Democrats control of the Senate by a tiny margin. James Webb's narrow victory over Republican George Allen took his party past the winning post for control of the US's upper house.
Of the 100 seats in the Senate, 33 were up for election. The Democrats needed to gain six seats for victory.
Two independent senators make up the rest of the party's wafer-thin majority as former Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont are expected to vote with the Democrats.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
The Democrats needed to pick up 15 seats to end more than a decade of Republican dominance in the House, in the end it looks like they have gained nearly 30 with 10 seats still left to declare their winners.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/americas/06/vote_usa/html/899.stm
Unspoken in all this is Lieberman's pivotal position in Congress. If anyone thinks he has a mandate to steer the country toward the middle, it's him. If Pelosi and Reid want to run the show, they are going to have to draw Lieberman into the fold.