Slashdot Mirror
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.
...Specter was a Republican to begin with?
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.
Prepare for some extremely Democratic legislation. (In the party sense, not the democracy sense).
YEAH! Like universal health care, and an end to the 35% of health care expenditure that goes to parasite insurance companies! WOOT!
(Just for reference, the US is the only western country to tie health care to one's employer. It is a strange combination, that has many perverse effects such as separating the consumer from the one paying the health care bills, and turning the bill-payers into care-denial organizations. The macro effect is that we spend more of our GDP on health care than any other country in the world, yet our population dies sooner (about 3 years' shorter life span).)
Remain calm! All is well!
I find the principle of political parties disgusting and cowardly.
If you vote for the party, you deserve to get raped by your representative.
He was elected as Arlen Specter, and he's the same Arlen Specter he was last week. If you voted for him solely because of the R next to his name, you don't deserve a vote at all.
Nonsense. Party lines are more harmful than they are helpful. Also, he doesn't ONLY represent republican voters in the state, he represents ALL the voters in the state. So your notion that switching midterm is disgusting is just plain stupid, and hows your zealotry along party lines.
Personally, I'm inclinded to go with the founders, who believed parties were a bad idea. I think our history shows that to be true, and I'm in favor of doing away with political parties all together. Explain your ideas, don't just say "I'm a republican!" (or democrat).
Rather than being a change in personal convictions, Specter claims the opposite: that the Republicans have shifted away from him, i.e. more to the right. I think that sounds pretty accurate, don't you? For example, the chair of the Republican party has recently been apologized to Rush Limbaugh for stating the obvious, that Limbaugh is incendiary. While this is circumstantial, it's still pretty compelling that the Republican party has become more radical from the 1980s where it was a "big tent" kind of party.
This will be interesting though! Just for yucks, I went over to fox news to see what they had to say about it, and their first headline read "Specter abandons millions of GOP voters to join the democratic party." I think that's pretty funny since Specter himself says the GOP voters are abandoning the GOP. That is, he says 200k registered republicans switched parties in the last election in pennsylvania. (They've got something else up now about him being a party pooper.)
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
They seem like crazy nut jobs here, too. Every time I hear another insane rant about "Obama's Fascist Regime" it pushes me further and further away from the Republican party.
They are SO upset that they lost the election and they're going ape shit. Instead of trying to push their message with resonable thought, they force it on you with words of communism and "fascism."
The more they do it though, the less people they will inevitably get to vote for them. You might get some simple people to believe the nonsense but not a thinking person.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Nope. Nobody on 'my side' has ever wanted America to lose a war. Try again. Here's a hint: you may want to stop looking at politics as something with 'sides' and realize we are all in this together.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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
Sorry dude, but I've lived significant portions of my life in Canada, Britain, and Italy, both as an adult and child: *it* *just* *works* *better*
You feel sick, you go to a doctor without worrying about "prior condition" exclusions resulting in termination of insurance or non-coverage. You get hurt, you go to a hospital, without worrying about your care being delayed while they shunt you over to someplace else because you don't have the right kind of (or maybe any) insurance, or discovering that your insurance has gotchas such as only paying for 2nd+days in hospital (all the expensive stuff happens on the first day).
Not happy with the universal health insurance? You can still go to a private practitioner and pay for it yourself. But, because you are negotiating up front, the costs are much lower than the US, and come without some kind of arcane billing system designed to confuse the end user. And the care providers don't want an insane billing system and are much more likely to give you a rollup all-in-one bill amount before you start.
Remain calm! All is well!
It's a bit too simplistic to call all the people responsible for the Republicans' fiasco neo-cons.
The Republicans looked very powerful around the time of GW Bush's first election, but what they had is something we old time Democrats knew a lot about: a big tent coalition. We had the cultural elite and labor, and Reagan figured out that that was a fracture line he could split Democratic support along.
The difference is that the Republican coalition had even less coherence than the Democrats, and underwent spontaneous implosion as they tried to put together an agenda that pleased everyone in the tent: Westerners of a libertarian bent, the old economic and intellectual elite of the Republican party, the evangelicals, the flat out racists. That's why they could never control spending, they were too busy keeping everybody in the tent happy. They fooled themselves into thinking they were cleverly doing this temporarily so they could "starve the beast" until such a time the system began to fall apart. That was stupid. You can't starve the beast. If you try, then when things start to fall apart it just reaches out and eats you alive.
Still, if you want to find a scapegoat, look the the Southern social conservatives. It was their backing of the messianic mission of the neo-cons that allowed them to hijack foreign policy.
Nixon invited the old enemies of the Republicans economic elites into th party, the old Dixiecrats. They became powerful, like the far out religious parties in Israel, because they were the key to power. They're the ones that run the Republican party; not the people who elected Eisenhower. It's too bad, because the old economic and intellectual elite of the Republican party weren't such a bad bunch, if you kept an eye on them. The country needs people like that, even if you didn't want them to have unchallenged control over policy.
But those old time Republicans don't have any place to go now. The Republican party has been redefined out from under them. It's now the party of anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, and racism, all things that were anathema to those old time conservatives.
Maybe it's time for a Grand New Party.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I want the Democrats to have to own what happens the next few years. After all the years of hearing them harp on Bush deficits I want them to have undeniable majority so they are undeniably responsible for the economy busting budgets they are signing off on.
Lord preserve us from such conservative wishing.
There was a time when conservatives saw this country as something more than a wall for spraying political graffiti onto, or fuel for their rally's bonfire They used to care for traditions, principles, and institutions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As said by the estimable Jon Stewart, "I think they're confusing tyranny with losing." It makes them look unhinged.
Long? What do you mean the signature at the bottom of every comment I post on Slashdot is too lo
Being a libertarian, I don't really have a dog in this fight, I think that most politicians are crooks. But do you have any idea how irrational & childish you sound?
There is a huge difference between wanting your country out of a war & wanting your country to *lose* a war.
There is a war going on for your mind.
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
The correct term is universal health bureaucracy, there is no care involved.
Says the guy who obviously hasn't yet had to face a serious health problem without coverage or with inadequate health insurance. I know, you shouldn't be made to suffer just because of the poor choices made by others to have genetic disorders, evil employers or the lack of foresight to grow older.
If you think having government administered health coverage vs. private coverage will result in more bureaucracy, then you just haven't had to deal with your health insurance provider yet.
I am not a crackpot.
There are hundreds of regimes around the world doing worse. Some of them we even put in power. We do nothing there, why is Iraq different? THAT is the question. Why are we meddling there, and not in any place with real problems, like Somalia?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That's why we have the party system, so we have an extra layer of protection
Nonsense. The party system we have was not designed. There is nothing in the constitution about political parties, and in fact George Washington argued strongly against political parties in his farewell address. Our party system evolved for one reason and one reason only, because it is easier to get elected if you're in a party than not.
We don't place unlimited trust in the guy, we only vote for him as long as he maintains integrity to the party under which he ran
Political parties don't fix this issue, they just shift it. Instead of placing trust in the guy you vote for, you place trust in the party you vote for. I don't see how one is better than the other. Well, I do, considering that a person can have a conscience and a political party cannot, I'd rather trust the person. (Of course, since it's politics, I don't really trust anyone.)
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
While I agree with you in principle, I think your numbers might be a bit off. The ones I find indicate the U.S. is paying between 20% and 50% more than the next highest country (per capita). U.S. citizens pay about twice as much for health care as the average of all the other industrialized countries. However, it places second to last in terms of effectiveness among the industrialized nations, only beating New Zealand. World-wide the U.S. ranks 37th world-wide according to the WHO, and the only North American or European country it seems to beat in terms of health care results is Mexico.
So yeah, the U.S. system is a raw deal for U.S. citizens.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
There are hundreds of regimes around the world doing worse. Some of them we even put in power.
You'd think we would have learned by now not to keep putting new regimes in power, just to have them become our Mortal Enemies (TM) 10 years later.
The correct term is universal health bureaucracy, there is no care involved.
Yeah, why would anyone want Universal Health Bureaucracy when our current system of Private Health Bureaucracy works so well
I was traveling in Europe to visit some family in Spain. While doing something stupid I broke my leg. They took me to a hospital, and as uninsured as I was the whole business cost about $70.00 (I can't remember the amount in Euro). If that had happened in the U.S. I would still be working off the debt in the acid mines and the life of my first born child would be forfeit. Call me a socialist if you want, I'll take the health care.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
okay, if we're going to play the "your side" game, you have to look at the other side as well.
The side you refer to 'thinking the Founding Fathers' were on to something also believes in the erosion of civil liberties, consolidation of executive power, silencing those who dissent, torture, revoking habeous corpus, forced religion, racial profiling and exclusion, warmongering, etc...
Read some of President Washington's work and tell me how ANYTHING from the last 8 years even remotely comes close to the Framer's vision!?!?
Face it, both sides are out of touch with the Founding Fathers. Both "sides" are corrupted abominations that offer little in the way of serious social stability with in the original frame work of our Constitution.
The Democrats have long understood and I think important elements of the Conservative movement (not the Republicans as of yet) now realize that we are fast approaching a 'there can be only one' point in history, where one side must finally confront and defeat the other.
Mean while I think the general population of the US is finally coming to the inevitable "there can not be only two" point in history.
There are way more issues than there are sides. Some of those issues the Democrats are more liberal, some of them Republicans are more liberal, hell some of them the Libertarians are more liberal on. Stop thinking of politics as a black and white game, all that type of thinking is doing is shrinking and isolating the once proud Republican movement. Learn to deal with nuance. Work to reform the party based on intellectual debate rather than 5 second sound bites of FUD and maybe we can see a healthy return of the Republican party.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
"socialism" doesn't mean what the bulk of americans (ie "you") think it means. Most of Europe, Canada and South America are "socialist". We say "socialism" and you hear "communist dictatorship" which is something completely, completely different.
Sort of like how "liberal" is slanderous to you guys... so weird.
Stop thinking in black & white, flush the cold-war era propaganda from your mind, and you'll find there are some excellent lessons to be learned from a system not driven wholy by greed.
Jeremy
Not in so many words, no. Many Democrats have, however, called for us to pull out of Iraq under conditions that are equivalent (in my, and many other people's opinion) to admitting that we've lost.
How is coming to the realization that we lost the same thing as wanting to lose? Did Japan's surrender that ended WWII before his entire country was destroyed mean that Emperor Hirohito wanted to lose? Did the fact that that James Madison signed a peace treaty with the British that under conditions that are equivalent to admitting that we've lost mean that he wanted America to lose the War of 1812?
I wish as much as the most hardcore right winger that we were accepted with open arms in Iraq and that Iraqi citizens were willing to work with us to rebuild their country, but that isn't what happened. No one wanted to (or wants to today, for that matter) lose the war. What the Democrats wanted to do was stop sending our boys off to die overseas just to prove that invading Iraq was a good idea in the first place.
Erosion of civil liberties? You mean the Patriot Act that Obama DIDN'T renounce once he was the one in the hot seat and would be responsible if something went FOOM!, is that what you are on about? The Patriot Act that DIDN'T actually do most of the things the crazies say it does?
I have not said a word in defense of the Democrats or Obama. They are as complicit as the Republicans, IMO.
The only solution is to push hard for a return to normal as soon as the Islamic threat is beat back.
Islamic threat!?!? We are not at war with the Muslim religion, we are at war with extremists who use religion as a tool. The number of violent Muslims is insignificant compared to the number of socially respectable and respectful Muslims in the world. Claiming that the entire Islamic nation is terrorist is nothing short of bigoted drivel.
As someone who leans Libertarian I find it distasteful but can't see a way around the problem.
Here's a thought, how about not getting into unncesary foreign wars?!?!
Are you insane or do you just believe if you repeat a lie enough it will become the Truth? Name one dissident who has been silenced.
Joseph C. Wilson would be the obvious choice, since his story actually did make it public. There were many more smaller stories that did not gather the same level of press over the last 8 years, and with all likelihood many more that had been successfully supressed such that you nor I would never hear of them.
many AMERICAN CITIZENS did BushHitler put in to gulags?
I have never compared Bush to Hitler. Although oddly enough I have heard a few right wing talk show hosts make that comparison to Obama. And the answer is at least one, John Walker Lindh. On the other hand, he did make some huge investments in new prison and internment camps our west, there deffinately appeared to be a concern expressed by the Federal government that a significant number of people would need to be locked up in very short order.
Try it in a real dictatorship and you can earn some actual Karma.
When did I say anything about a dictatorship? I said Fascist. Two entirely different arangements. While they can overlap significantly, the two are not mutually inclusive. Not only that, but where they hell does this arguement come from? I'm specifically stating that I think President Bush did more to move the country in the direction of Fascism than any other President that I am aware of. I dislike the idea of Fascism AND dictatorship, so I will do all that is in my power to prevent the slide of the government in that direction. What Chaves and Castrol due is immaterial to my concern of the US government. Just because social norms in their country are even more unacceptable to me doesn't mean I should compromise my views of social norms here in the US.
And I really don't think you even know what a phrase like habeous corpus even means if you think we have been violating it.
Habeous Corpus is a legal action through which a person can seek relief from the unlawful detention of him or herself.
How is that not an exacting contradiction to what we are doing through GITMO detentions and black site holdings? Hell, some of the GITMO prisoners have been legally cleared of wrong doing, yet we are STILL detaining them. Even US citizens like José Padilla have been denieghed the right to Habeous Corpus.
I don't know what rock yuo have been living under, but come on out in to the light.
I won't concede that waterboarding is torture
So then you would be in favor of the US making reperations to the families of the Japanesse whom we executed after WWII for using waterboarding as a form of torture on US troops? You are also stating that it is there for acceptable to have any person any where, be it a member of our military, a citizen
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs