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Senator Arlen Specter Becomes a Democrat
Akido37 was one of many readers letting us know that US Sen. Arlen Specter has changed parties to become a Democrat. This gives the Democrats 59 seats in the Senate, and 60 if and when Al Franken gets seated from Minnesota. However, Specter said in his announcement that he will not be an automatic 60th vote for breaking Republican filibusters. While the senator's move seems to have surprised many Republicans, it is understandable to moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who said, "You haven't certainly heard warm encouraging words of how they [Republicans] view moderates. Either you are with us or against us." Specter noted that in his home state of Pennsylvania, 200,000 formerly Republican voters switched party allegiance last year.
...nothing of value was lost or gained.
Gee - big surprise. This news comes just a weekend after news that his primary challenger, Pat Toomey, is showing a commanding lead in the polls.
I can see the fnords!
Specter left the Democratic Party in '81 because he lacked seniority for cool appointments. The Republicans were (and have been) desperate enough for a Pennsylvania senate seat that he could write his own checks in the GOP. Now, he's looking at being part of a permanent minority, and the majority party is probably going to give him nicer committee chairs than he could get with the GOP.
It's not a principled stand; it's politics.
Eh. Specter is an old school reagan-ish republican. He's pro-choice, pro-environment, and pro-immigration. He's crossed party lines repeatedly over the last few years: he was 1 of three senate republicans to vote for the big stimulus package.
The stimulus vote pissed off the republican leadership, with Steele going so far as to threaten not to contribute to his campaign fund. He's had republican challengers in the primaries for the last 2(?) primaries.
I think they did a good job of making him feel unwanted, and frankly, they can suck it up.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
1. his presence will serve as a brake on more progressive legislation.
2. being a Democrat will prevent the Dems from offering up a more progressive candidate to oppose him had he stayed Republican.
3. He'll likely vote as a "liberal" Republican, ie: with the interests of capital in economics, in the interests of no one in particular (i.e. who ever pays his bills) in social issues.
Good:
1. He'll likely vote with the Dems about 60% of the time.
2. This will force the Republican party (now the property of ignorance and corruption) to be more considerate and thoughtful of their positions.
3. This could lead to someone like Snowe defecting as well, which would really bury the Republican part, possibly for good, as it could split between the Bible Thumping retard faction and the neocon fascist faction, which would work to the benefit of the Democrats.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Actually, that was a right-wing projection. Democrats never wanted us to lose the war, they wanted the U.S. to stop pursuing the policies that were failing. Republicans, in their typically hyperaggressive way, screamed themselves red in the face that this was wanting America to lose. Put another way, Rush Limbaugh explicitly has said he wants President Obama to fail. Not his policies. Not his programs. His entire presidency. No Democrat of any significance actually made any statement calling for the war to be lost.
Long? What do you mean the signature at the bottom of every comment I post on Slashdot is too lo
The Republican front-runner is Pat Toomey, lately the president of the right-wing anti-tax extremist group, the Club for Growth. He's further right than Rick Santorum was. In trial polling thus far, Specter easily destroys Toomey among the general electorate; it's only with the Republican primary he had no chance. As far as the Democratic primary goes, he will have opposition (at least one minor declared candidate says he will not withdraw), but Governor Ed Rendell has said he will work to support Specter in the primary - as have other prominent Democrats including President Obama. This may well come down to his vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, though. If he votes for cloture, then the PA labor unions will probably let him vote as he likes on the actual bill. If he votes against cloture, though, the politically-powerful PA labor unions will be mobilized strongly against him, and he may have trouble getting through the primary then.
Long? What do you mean the signature at the bottom of every comment I post on Slashdot is too lo
FAIL.
The right-wing extremism report was initiated by George W. Bush's White House, as a counterpoint to the left-wing extremism report issued earlier this year. The right-wing extremism report further did not identify conservatives as extremists; it identified two major groups within right-wing extremists, those being hate extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and single-issue extremist groups like abortion-clinic bombers. Agreeing with any of the issues does not mean that they called you an extremist, only that extremists have been known to share that issue.
Some squirrels are male and some squirrels are female. You are in all likelihood either male or female. This does not, however, mean that you are necessarily a squirrel. It's the same argument, except with 'squirrel' in place of 'extremist,' 'male' in place of 'hate groups,' and 'female' in place of 'single-issue groups.'
Long? What do you mean the signature at the bottom of every comment I post on Slashdot is too lo
I'm glad you are amused. I'd be happier, though, if you understood.
I'm pointing out to the poster that he probably in fact cares whether the country succeeds or not.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There was no "ability" to filibuster. Even at 41 Republicans, the Democrats could always count on Snowe or Collins or McCain or Specter or one of a few others. You can't filibuster with 38 votes.
The Stimulus vote is the proof that the Republicans didn't have 41 votes to filibuster anything. You can't filibuster with less than 41 votes.
There was exactly 1 test vote on cloture this session. Specter voted with the Democrats. Now he's becoming a Democrat to ... vote with the Democrats. What changed?
James Carville said he wanted Bush to fail, but that was in general, to be fair, as the comment was made before the war.
In 2006 a national poll said 51% of Democrats wanted President Bush to fail... Again, "fail" in general, not specifically about the war.
Harry Reid announced the war was already lost and that we HAD failed, about a year ago.
I remember a good example of a DU poster, on the day that the capture of Saddam was announced, responding to the news with the comment "I'm in tears over here... How can we win if stuff like this keeps happening?"
Honestly I don't think any prominent Democrat would be STUPID enough to make such a PUBLIC statement, though it was their desire. There's probably plenty of examples of the random lunatic fringe Democrat members of the House buried in some news archives somewhere, but I really don't feel like digging them out just for you to say "Well, they're not a major figure any way!"
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
He said "Right wing republicans" not "Conservative Republicans"! Believe it or not, there is a significant difference. As to examples of Right wing republicans would want a dictatorship in the US, run by religious law:
1. Pat Robertson
2. James Dobson
3. Newt Gingrich
4. Rush Limbaugh
5. All the Bushes
6. Jimmy Swaggart
And so on...
One thing your obviously feeble mind doesn't grasp is this: If you wanted to believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, that evolution was a load of bullocks, and so on, liberal minded people in general would not have a problem with this. Live and let live. The problem is you stupid fucknuts trying to force *everyone else* to either believe or at least publicly profess (on pain of imprisonment or death) your particular view of things.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Everyone uses Lieberman as the go-to for that.
In PA, running as Independent after losing the primary in your party isn't legal, AFAIK.
Also he'd be losing all the funding from the DNC, and PA is pretty damn blue these days.
Lieberman is an exception, not a rule.
I agree with your premise, but the banking deregulation that (at least partially) led to the current situation was done under Clinton.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Unfortunately for you, the Supreme Court and the stewards of the Geneva Conventions disagree with you there. At a minimum, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions provide a baseline of protections the United States must afford to every detainee.
Specter left the Democratic Party in '81 because he lacked seniority for cool appointments. The Republicans were (and have been) desperate enough for a Pennsylvania senate seat that he could write his own checks in the GOP.
That's interesting, according Wikipedia he's been a registered Republican since 1966. He wasn't even elected to the Senate until 1980. So I call gross fabrication (i.e. bullshit). FYI: If you're going to make shit up, don't make it so goddamn trivial to check.
He's not getting any.
Oh you're right to say that it's because he was going to lose in the GOP primary, but that's not very insightful, since Specter said that very thing in his press conference today. The real issue is whether he's right when he said that the GOP left him, rather than he left the GOP. I suspect he's right. Barry Goldwater famously went from crazy rightwinger to moderate without changing a position.
Suppose I agree (I don't) that New Deal was what got America out of Great Depression (it wasn't; it was the whole shake-up with WWII).
Now explain why government spending on military ventures (WWII) CAN fix the economy, yet government spending on anything else (roads, new technology (Internet anyone?), electrical grid, R&D, universities (GI Bill anyone?), city infrastructure, etc. etc.) CAN'T fix the economy.