Friday, November 24, 2006
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Schumer's Plans
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
9:06 PM
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Chuck Schumer is really the Dem's Senate Leader --he built their 51-49 majority, after all, not Harry Reid-- so Schumer's agenda deserves some close scrutiny. They key bits:
Schumer said he'd focus on:
* Building the Second Avenue subway;
* Building a railway linking lower Manhattan to JFK Airport;
* Building a new tunnel under the Hudson River to connect Midtown with New Jersey.
* Changing Medicare and Medicaid formulas;
* Doling out homeland-security funds based on threat;
* Getting more federal money for education and affordable housing, and
* Increasing tax deductions for college tuition.
Except for #4, not a bad agenda for Federalists. If New York's senior senator could figure out how to go Lieberman on the war and reasonable on judges, he'd almost be a FDR-Truman-JFK Democrat.
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I'm all for giving credit where credit is do, but there are few issues I care more about than the war on terror and judges.
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Get ready to see him too much. |
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"Get along little tax cut! It's time ta rustle me up soma dat prime pork over there in the great pig pen they call Washington! Yea Ha!" |
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I'm still amazed that people don't remember how far FDR and Truman were to the *left* of today's Democrats. Read Truman's speeches on economic issues. He sounds more like Michael Moore than Chuck Schumer.
Schumer's an example of the fact that the Democratic party moved to the right in the '90s, a reaction to the success of Reagan/Gingrich and the American people's disenchantmant with Big Government. But how you can call him an FDR-Truman Democrat is beyond me unless you're using FDR and Truman as synonyms for "Democrats I like." FDR and Truman were practically Socialists compared to most of today's Democrats.
As for "going Lieberman on the war," what does that mean exactly? Advocating staying in Iraq forever and ever and ever? Don't you think it's about time you (and Joe Lieberman and John McCain) got serious on the Iraq war, instead of saying that we should stay until we "win" (which means staying forever and ever and ever)?
But anyway, Schumer -- who voted for the war and tried to discourage Senate candidates from talking too much about their opposition to the war -- *is* closer to Lieberman than, say, Jim Webb or someone who's actually serious about the Iraq war. (I don't hate Schumer, but serious solutions for Iraq will come from people who were smart enough to oppose the war from the beginning.) |
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Where are the grown-ups in the Republican party? We hear so much about how the Democrats have slipped since the days of FDR and JFK. Domestically, the Dems are far more conservative--pro-business, pro-market--that they were in the days of Truman. Way way more.
In terms of strategic policy, we certainly don't favor ill-conceived, naive adventures like the Iraq morass. While some of us (not me) may have favored giving Bush the power to go to war, if only to use as leverage in negotiation, none of us thought the region could be transformed into the Arab version of American free enterprise. We were called "racist" for thinking that democracy would not take root and that the region would not be transformed. We were "slandering the troops" when we wondered if the Iraqis would look kindly to the occupying American forces. And let me tell you something else: FDR and JFK would never have bought into such idiocy either. That is a unique concoction brought to us by this generation of Republicans.
This generation of Republicans is a far cry from grown-ups like Ike, Nixon, and Ford. You are the grandchildren of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, but with a streak of hubris and triumphalism that reveals an utter lack of judgement. While there is much to admire in Goldwater and Reagan, there is little to admire in their philosophic offspring. Those men were tempered by countervailing powers. This generation of Republicans has been able to inflict, with very little resistence, an ill-conceived and shoddy ideology on the American body politic. It left a stinking mess and now the adults are going to have to clean it up. |
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If there's one lost soul out there that believes chucky has anyones best interests, other then his own, in mind, i have a bridge i'd like to sell them cheap! It amazes the heck out of me, do the those poor souls even follow any thing this piece of work says about his plans for the country. Of course, we'll all benefit from his hard work. I just hope he doesn't get any opportunity to inflect to much damage before we can purge him and his fellow socialists from the system. |
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Warrior, you're mad. I know talk of a new Cold War is in the news after the Sushi Spy thing, but this is absurd. There are thousands (millions actually) of European-extraction Americans with the same or more extreme views than Schumer; and millions of blacks; hispanics; etc. Equally, there are huge numbers of all ethnicities on the other side of each and every fence you mention, or at any infinite number of points on the political spectrum (even merely the political spectrum within the Left).
Oy.
(Whoops, that'll set him off...).
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the fact that you can't even raise a valid question--expecting reasoned commentary and intelligent debate--without bringing these unreasoned attacks and trashy comments speaks to the kind of fundamentalist personalities that your blog attracts. I wonder why that is. |
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It looks like some of the offensive posts have been removed. Funny that you have to censor your own fan base. |
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A fully open comments section allows for anyone of any stripe to chime in & the moderation thereof displays what is "acceptable" or "unacceptable". Would you prefer that Mr. Hewitt simply cut and paste "created" e-mails from "readers" as a means of cutting down his opponents (nah, too childish/Sullivanesque)? Would you prefer no comments section at all (nah, then you'd claim 'cowardice')?
What we're left with is the notion that anyone who types something offensive in a comments section therefore was "attracted" by the views of the site, itself. Makes one wonder where St. Andi gets some of those "vile" e-mails that he he mentions in-between all those self-congratulatory postings from Rick Ellsberg and Wilson. I mean, he sure attracts some doozies, doesn't he? Other than, of course, YOU.
Or are you yet another Greenwald sock-puppet?
Hey, Andrew, how about some more "Madonna is more righteous than Romney" postings. Some of us need a laugh on a Monday and chuckling at your current embarrassing stature is a great way to start a week. How about a new discussion: how the Pet Shop Boys personify the teachings of Jesus better than the Southern Baptist Association (they're against gay marriage, so they're obviously bigots). Oughtta be a winner!
Or, you could wait & cut and paste someone else's work.....like you normally do, since you're too intellectually lazy to do things yourself. Yeah, I know you're reading....plenty of us are hip to your schtick. Now, go paste someone's "e-mail" that mirrors your thoughts, Ellberg. It's time for more "original" work. |
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with the 2nd Ave. subway could we include the net present value of all the retirement bennies that will be promised to the transit workers that will ultimately operate said subway in the cost-benefit analysis. Just sayin'.
FDR/Truman/Eisenhower presided over a different electorate. It's almost pointless to compare. They governed in the age that came before massive government largesse, and the who-gives-a-turkey-about-the-future-I-got-mine electorate it spawned. So spare us the lectures about infantile Republicans. The entire edifice is rotting. Tear it down and we might find some statesmen again. |
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I guess Andi realize that his thinly-disguised sock-puppet ("woodstock") wasn't going to fly. See you in the DC ads, Andi (yep, you know what I mean). |
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