Does the Democratic Party exist any longer?

[boston bean]

Dems spark alarm with call for national ID card

A plan by Senate Democratic leaders to reform the nation’s immigration laws ran into strong opposition from civil liberties defenders before lawmakers even unveiled it Thursday.

Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/95235-democrats-spark-alarm-with-call-for-national-id-card

Obama takes immigration reform off agenda

Immigration reform has become the first of President Barack Obama's major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment. Sounding the death knell was Obama himself.

The president noted that lawmakers may lack the "appetite" to take on immigration while many of them are up for re-election and while another big legislative issue — climate change — is already on their plate.

"I don't want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn't solve the problem," Obama told reporters Wednesday night aboard Air Force One.

Immigration reform was an issue Obama promised Latino groups that he would take up in his first year in office. But several hard realities — a tanked economy, a crowded agenda, election-year politics and lack of political will — led to so much foot-dragging in Congress that, ultimately, Obama decided to set the issue aside.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100429/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_immigration_politics

[freddie mertz]

1. Not much left of it.

At least, not the one I used to vote for.

We have some good senators, congresspersons, and activists.

The upper level... the executive branch, continues to disappoint.

[boston bean]

3. problem is there is hardly any "left" in it. nt

[NJmaverick]

2. Yes Boston Bean there is a Democratic Party

BOSTON BEAN, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Boston Bean, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, BOSTON BEAN, there is a Democratic Party. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Democratic Party. It would be as dreary as if there were no BOSTON BEANS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Democratic Party! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Democratic Party, but even if they did not see Democratic Party coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Democratic Party, but that is no sign that there is no Democratic Party. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, BOSTON BEAN, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Democratic Party! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Boston Bean, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

[boston bean]

4. you wrote all that for me 5 minutes?

[NJmaverick]

5. Guess my post went right over your head

when you have time Google "Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus"

[boston bean]

7. most of your posts make zero sense to me.

[NJmaverick]

12. I can see that,can't say that I am not surprised

[racaulk]

9. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-H

It doesn't take that long.

[boston bean]

10. cool!

[NJmaverick]

11. Very good!

[Dr. Strange]

15. Does DU allow the use of Ctrl-X?

:hide:

[FSogol]

19. Best post of the month, NJmaverick. n/t

[stray cat]

6. We tried that with 8 years of Bush - I'll take the democrats warts and all

[John Q. Citizen]

8. We have seen the enemy, and they are us.

[NJmaverick]

13. You're right, but sadly not in the way you think you are

[John Q. Citizen]

18. "Go ahead, be like anyone you want to; But one things for certain...

I'LL NEVER BE LIKE YOU!"

"Come on and be like me;
You better be like me,
You ought to be like me
Why don't you be like me?

It's Ok, be like anyone you want to be.
but one thing is certain;

I'LL NEVER BE LIKE YOU!" -R Brezney Tao Chemical Come On and Be Like Me (1978?)

[WI_DEM]

14. If you read half the posts on DU, NO, but in the real world we Dems are proud of what our president

and this congress has done in a short time.

[boston bean]

17. you are pro national id card, with biometrics??

[NJmaverick]

20. How is showing a national ID card to an employer any different than having to

show them your SS card, like we have to do now?

[boston bean]

21. My SS card doesn't have my fingerprints or DNA on it. nt

[Blue-Jay]

23. Yes it does.

Provided that you've handled it once or twice.

[boston bean]

26. Really it's my finger prints and dna is in some database so employers can

check to see if I'm legal??

[NJmaverick]

25. Actually if you handled it, it does. Still what does that matter?

before I launch into outrage, I need a significant reason to do so.

[TreasonousBastard]

29. In spite of my other post in this thread...

I gotta say that our Democratic Congress and President have tried to undo much of the worst of the past eight years and show that the grownups are in charge.

Unfortunately, due largely to the other side trying to sink Obama regardless of how much damage it may do to the country, all efforts have pretty much stalled into a shouting match. Certain realities and Hobson's choices in the actual practice of governing after campaigning have also made things a bit trickier than we might have at first thought.

(But, no matter what they do, it will never be good enough for our own fringe purists.)

[TreasonousBastard]

16. Yes it does, and I'm tired of all these jeremiads from people with no sense of history...

I grew up with two Democratic parties-- southern segregationists and northern machines, neither of which had any particular moral compass to lead them, except money, power, and fighting a war that was over a hundred years ago.

So, a few national politicans have emerged through all of that to become liberal heroes, far more from the modern Democratic party than the Republicans, but parties themselves are still soulless things with the sole pupose of getting someone elected.

Getting elected-- that's the key. Staying elected follows right behind, and maintaining power through the ballot rather than the gun, but maintaining power is the goal. What do they do with that power? Basically whatever gets them elected.

Congress is essentially useless in this new world we're in. Back when there were fewer states and congresscritters, and they had far less legislating to do, it worked fairly well. Now, however, lawmaking is so complex and overwhelming that I can't see how anyone could imagine a mob of 535 lawyers who hate each other could possibly come up with anything worthwhile.

I could go on, but I have to get to work. I'll just say I'm a Democrat because much of the time they seem to try a little harder to do the right thing than those other guys. But they are still a bunch of overwehelmingly corrupt, stupid, incompetant, and useless self-important windbags.

(Properly aimed cynicism is advisable when discussing politics.)

[BeFree]

24. Excellent

And I mean it excels in truth about modern politics.

Keeping power is their reason to 'serve'. So it reasons that is why they allow the voting machine computers to remain. They may have to do a little rigging to remain in power. Gotta keep those options open.

So, as to the OP, there is, in that little black box, an option to not have the democratic votes count as democratic votes.

And democrats, that is, true democrats, will not allow a national ID. Now, whether they get counted correctly in the next election remains to be seen.

[Jade Fox]

27. Thank you

[cali]

22. yes.

duh.

[merkins]

28. Welcome to the Third Way!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_%28centrism%29">Proudly serving you since January 20, 1993!

[WilliamPitt]

30. (big fat hairy series asparagus facepalm)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. Perhaps you want the Natural Law Party.

Or maybe the Raelians. Are they still around?

[spanone]

32. civil liberties are soooo pre 9/11

[Echo In Light]

34. Funny how many actually believe that...damn near giddy over it, by the looks of it

[madokie]

33. Not as it once was no

Head and shoulders above that other one though :-)

add: I'll not abandon it though, only try to work harder strengthening it

[Odin2005]

35. No, The US is a Single Party Corporatist state.