What was the point of winning a congressional majority?

[asthmaticeog]

Gonna be wondering hard on that for a long while. :banghead:

[acmavm]

1. Apparently there was no point. Unless you like endless hearings that

always come to nothing and dead-on support of the neocon agenda.

[JVS]

2. Nice new avatar!

[Maven]

3. Nothing.

I guess things really do have to get even WORSE before they start to get better.

I guess what we truly need is a complete overhaul of our political system, because it bears no connection to the people of this country any longer.

[JVS]

4. To get the nice offices, DUHHHHH!

[Canuckistanian]

5. What, indeed

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
--Edmund Burke

[in_cog_ni_to]

6. HEY! They threw us our bone...minimum wage increase! What more could we possibly ask for?

:sarcasm:

The answer to your question is....there was no point to winning. NOTHING has changed and NOTHING will ever change.

[Horse with no Name]

28. And that gives all the apologists a strawman to throw back at

the ones who aren't enamored by the progress of Congress...so then when we say it isn't enough, they can call us elitists.

[michaz]

30. With the price of everything going up...that amount is almost useless!

The poor will still stay poor.

[SharonAnn]

7. Hello! We need a bigger majority in the House and especially in the Senat

[asthmaticeog]

8. Hello! We didn't need SHIT to defeat this stupid spy bill...

...except for some goddamn discipline in the House. 41 dem yeas plus 9 dems not voting? Gotta be fucking KIDDING ME! Fucking Blue Dog shitbags...

[JVS]

9. Hello! Parties that cannot effectively manage small minorities don't deserve bigger ones.

They need to show some competence

[in_cog_ni_to]

10. Hello! We have MORE THAN ENOUGH of a Majority to pass that bill!

It was a SIMPLE MAJORITY vote!! It had NOTHING to do with not a big enough Majority! The Blue Dog Dems and the No votes SCREWED us.:grr:

[VP505]

11. We need bigger

majorities to over come veto's, we need Dem's with BALLS to stand up for the Constitution and STOP this shitting on it at every turn by blocking unacceptable legislation. The Dem's have all the same parliamentary tools the RePukes use to effectively block whatever they want at will, they just don't have the BALLS to do it.

[Pastiche423]

12. It does make one wonder

if those blue dog dems are really dems.

[knight_of_the_star]

22. Exactly!

31 out of 44 of those bastards voted for the bill, makes you really wonder whose side they're really on.

[Poll_Blind]

33. Well, the two founding members (Tauzin & Hayes) both switched to Republican.

I think the Wiki article does a pretty decent job.

Also from "Differences between the Blue Dogs and the Democratic Leadership Council" section:

The differences between the Blue Dogs, and the other prominent coalition of moderate Democrats, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), are sometimes subtle.

Worth the read. It's good for a laugh and a cry.

PB

[ninkasi]

13. Ok, this is what confuses me

Before the last election, when we the minority party, we were told that we couldn't do anything because we were a minority. Now that we are the majority party, we are told how the minority party can screw things up. Why didn't we screw things up back then? It is more and more seeming that our leaders are going to give in, regardless. Can somebody explain our Democratic leaders to me?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. My guess:

many of the Dems are bought, blackmailed, threatened, or genuinely eager to be part of the Washington establishment.

That's the only excuse that makes sense for their 25-year run of shooting themselves in their collective feet.

They need to remind themselves that the ONE TIME that all Dems stood together--to protest attempts to privatize Social Security--the Republicanites backed down.

I didn't vote for Amy Klobuchar in the caucuses here in Minnesota, and it looks as if I was right.

[TankLV]

27. Notice that one too, huh?

NOBODY can explain that one, either...

[CreekDog]

15. Children's healthcare, higher minimum wage, investigations of the admin

stronger ethics rules, more funding for the poor and social programs, etc.

You can be frustrated all you want, but it is innacurate to say that nothing was gained from the majority.

[sandnsea]

19. Pell grant increase, higher CAFE standards

restructured student loans, vets assistance, small business tax cuts, lots has been accomplished. It's just these security issues that still have the Dems in a pickle.

[Selatius]

21. How did that Pell Grant bill go anyway? Is Bush going to send it to the bottom of the ocean?

I wouldn't be surprised if he did. The bankers on Wall Street should be pissed that Pell Grants are cutting into their market share for interest-bearing student loans.

[sandnsea]

23. In reconciliation? I think??

Who knows what he'll do. Not sure it'll be worth the fight. It's not really all that great a bill, although raising Pell will help until the colleges raise tuition to meet the Pell. Then it's back to square one.

[salin]

36. House just passed an energy bill that reverses some of the damage

done by the republican energy law... and invests a lot in alternative fuel development.

[spotbird]

40. Veto, veto. and more veto

The only good the Democrats could have done is stop more harm, but they wouldn't do it.

[Faux pas]

16. We needed more useless a-holes that get free health care and

pensions for life on our dime. It sure wasn't to make things better. We were duped and I'm PISSED.

The End

[BlooInBloo]

17. A slim congressional majority is just the start.... not the summum bonnum....

... I hate the spineless fucks as much as anybody, but a slim majority is nothing more than that: slim. Make the majority wider, and the jackasses won't be able to enact stupid shit any more. At least not *that* stupid.

Christ - giving the executive MORE power. What are the stupid fucks thinking?

[MasterDarkNinja]

18. Hello?!? Do you think a repug controlled congress would satisify us more?

To say that were no better off now then we were before with the repugs in control is downright wrong.

Do you think the repugs would be investigating things and exposing Bush's lies?

Do you think the repugs would have passed some of our victories we've had the last 6 months, like an increase to the minimum wage?

Do you think the repugs would have been trying to put timelines in the troop funding bills and other stuff to help end the war?

Do you think the repugs wouldn't have pulled some more politicial stunts like gay marriage banning amendments, or flag burning banning amendments?

Do you think the repugs wouldn't have passed more things that we'd absolutely loathe far more then things we're currently complaining about the dems doing, like more tax cuts for the rich and cuts in programs that benefit the poor?

I'd gladly take a dem controlled congress over a repuke controlled congress any day. The dems may 'cave' on some things for now because they don't have the votes to pass their versions of it (with the threat of Bush's veto), but that's far better then all the additional damage the repukes would have caused if left in control.

[Pushed To The Left]

26. A Republican Congress would be much worse, but I'm still very disappointed in some Democrats n/t

[Heidi]

20. They don't need our permission when they can so easily obtain our forgiveness. (nt)

[hfojvt]

24. well it allows some of us

to blame the Democrats for everything instead of blaming Republicans.

Come to think of it though, this has long been a pattern here. Many blamed the Iraq war on the Democrats from the start. After all, some of them, like Clinton, Kerry, Edwards, etc. voted for the IWR.

It's the Nader message all over again - 'Democrats suck', 'Democrats suck', 'Democrats suck'

lather, rinse, repeat.

Every day there's a new reason to repeat that message. Take this latest vote, please.

Apparently 57 Democrats voted for it. Out of what, 260 democrats in Congress? See? Democrats suck. 22% of them voted for this piece of sh*t so the whole party sucks. Because Nancy and Harry don't have the cojones to force the entire caucus to vote in lock-step. Because there is not a dime's worth of difference between

A - Democratic Party - a party which has 22% of its elected representatives vote for a piece of crap legislation

and

B - Republican Party - with a President who promoted that same piece of sh*t legislation and 97% (this is a WAG) of whose elected Representatives voted for it.

Nope, no difference there at all, is there?

Democrats suck.
Democrats suck.
Democrats suck.

Whoops, I was gonna complain about the BFEE and the Republican party, but I see I am all out of time. Just one final word from our sponsor, the RNC.

Democrats suck.

Whoops, I am sorry that was a message from the progressive base. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

How's that for a Naderism? There's not a dime's worth of difference between a Nader voter and a Republican voter, or between a Freeper and a post victory DUer - they both hate the Democratic party. We found something that DU and FR can agree upon.

Democrats suck.

If that's not DU's message, how about so many of us quit saying it over and over and over again.

We have met the Republican Noise Machine, and it is us.

[Mythsaje]

32. Well, THOSE Democrats suck...

We elected them to do something positive, not provide cover for this fucked up administration. I have to wonder how you can NOT be pissed off about it.

[rockymountaindem]

34. Well said n/t

[KharmaTrain]

25. A Majority In The House Does Not Mean Control

The big thing Democrats won last year was the ability to set the agendas in the House & Senate. There was a small working majority in the House...but its better than what it was. In the Senate there is no real working majority. With its antiquated rules, McConnell has instituted a deliberate stalling game that has worked very nicely to turn Democrats on one another while the Repugnicans continue to obstruct.

Bottom line is that the real power lies within the Executive...especially this one that has grabbed so much power and treats the Constitution like toilet paper. Without 67 votes in the Senate, nothing moves and boooshie and his goons know this and thus the filibusters. IMHO, it's time to shut this government down...if the Democrats can't force this regime to be accountable, then let's just shut this entire popstand down through next years elections and let the chips fall where they may.

Yep...let's defund EVERYTHING...not pass anything or even bring it up for votes...that's about the only real weapon that can be employed. This may be the only thing that can be done.

If someone has a better alternative, I'm all ears.

[dkofos]

38. I'd rather see nothing funded, and nothing get done as apposed to

what is going on now.
The dem leadership look like fools now.

[salin]

39. I loved the threat to defund the office of the VP

wish they would act on it.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

29. to facilitate more complaining, it seems.

[Junkdrawer]

31. It "proved" the rigged voting machines were "honest"....

Oh, and it "proves" that support for the Oil Wars is bipartisan.

[eggman67]

35. It proved that Civics needs to be put back in school curriculums n/t

[mmonk]

37. Any point has been made mute.

The bush administration enjoys support among too many democrats in the House to help. If they were opposed to the adminstration in a meaningful way, dems could stop the flow of funds for their policies and enter articles of impeachment. Yes, we don't have a real working majority in the Senate, we do in the House but that body is a failure.

[SarahB]

41. If our leaders keep standing for nothing,

how do we expect people to support us? Especially when all the money and media is on their side? I'm not talking about the hardcore 1/3 of people who are solid Democrats, but the middle of the road types. We're not going to gain support by being wishy-washy, no gonads, fucking Republican-lite yet again. I'm tired of the leaders who are supposed to represent my Democratic ideals cave and cave and cave over and over again. Third party doesn't seem to do anything, but make it worse for us. It feels like we're fucking damned to a miserable, corrupt fucking cesspool no matter what. :(