And, thus, the WaPo informs us of the entire Democratic agenda of the last six years.
The news is that the Democrats are feeling so emboldened by their November mandate that they may embolden themselves right out of the seats they just won by 2008:
Despite the threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the president when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.
"I suppose there's always a risk of going too far," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), "but the risk of not going is far greater."
Backed by a unified party and fresh from a slew of legislative victories, Democratic leaders appear to believe there is hardly any territory they cannot stray onto, a development that has Republican political operatives gleeful and some Democrats worried. Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, warned of a "political price" at the polls: "If they let their constituents and their ideology drive them past the point where the American people are comfortable, they will find how quickly the voters will react."
Rep. Jack Kingston gives the Dems a warning on their plans to cut funding for troops and tinker with Gitmo and the Patriot Act:
"It's going to be like the government shutdowns" of 1995 and 1996, predicted Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). "The Democrats' honeymoon is fixing to end. It's going to explode like an IED."In other Gitmo news, the Supreme Court decided not to decide on whether prisoners can challenge their confinement in U.S. federal courts:
A closely divided Supreme Court said on Monday it would not decide whether Guantanamo prisoners have the right to challenge their confinement before U.S. federal judges, avoiding a test of President George W. Bush's powers in the war on terrorism.
Over the strongly worded dissent of three justices, the high court said it would not rule on the constitutionality of part of an anti-terrorism law that Bush pushed through the U.S. Congress last year that takes away the right of the prisoners to get judicial review of their detention.
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