Democratic agenda Options

[pebkac]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1981688,00.html

The proposed legislation from the Democrats includes:

· Ethics reform, with a ban on gifts from lobbyists to congressmen and other controls;

· A rise in the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour;

· An end to the Bush administration's restrictions on stem cell research;

· Implementation of the recommendations of the commission on the 9/11 terror attacks;

· A plan for the federal government to negotiate cheaper prices for prescription drugs;

· And the halving of interest rates on student loans.

I suppose the minimum wage thing is debatable, but I like most of the stuff on the agenda (although I really don't know much about the 9/11 committee's recommendations. I do like the last one the best though.

Another interesting part...

In a much-anticipated speech, Mr Bush is expected to reveal his new strategy on the war as early as next week, amid widespread speculation that he intends to bolster the US presence in Iraq in the short term by an additional 30,000 troops.

That troop "surge" and a White House request for an additional $100bn (£51bn) to pay for the war this year are expected to encounter strong opposition from a previously supportive Congress.

This should turn out to be interesting. Wonder what the Dems are going to do if Bush does decide to try a surge.

[Dogmeat]

The Democratic Agenda:

*Shut off as much oil and gas exploration in the continental US as possible, driving prices through the roof all the while pandering more votes from idiot fuckheads in california and the east coast claiming you're saving the environment whilst pumping trillions more dollars into terrorist states economies because you know damned good and well nobody in this country is gonna stop driving their SUV's ..... and then of course blame the whole fucking thing on the previous Republican congress and "big oil".

*Claim you're the 'Party of the People' while your bigtime hollywood donors in the RIAA and MPAA file lawsuits and use blatant terror tactics to illegally prosecute and punish people for downloading songs

*Pull the same thing Lynden B. Johnson did in the Vietnam war and don't fight it to win it. Johnson haulted the bombing of North Vietnam and we were kicking the shit out of them, the current crop of Democrats will reduce troop levels making them even more insuficient instead of actually saying "fuck being politically correct" in the eyes of the muslim world and WINNING the fucking war already like Bush would like to do.

*Act like you all aren't as corrupt of sleaze bags as the Republican majority you just replaced.

[Aaron]

*Pull the same thing Lynden B. Johnson did in the Vietnam war and don't fight it to win it. Johnson haulted the bombing of North Vietnam and we were kicking the shit out of them, the current crop of Democrats will reduce troop levels making them even more insuficient instead of actually saying "fuck being politically correct" in the eyes of the muslim world and WINNING the fucking war already like Bush would like to do.

I'm not disagreeing with the principle of this piece - that the United States did not fight the Vietnam Conflict as if they wanted to win it - but I do feel the need to correct a couple of things.

A) The United States assumed full responsibility for supporting the South Vietnamese Army under Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican.

Lyndon Johnson stopped the bombing of North Vietnam twenty days after Eugene McCarthy, a Democratic challenger, won 42% in the Democratic New Hampshire Primary. Johnson announced that he would not seek or accept a second term and would devote his remaining months as President in a search for peace in Vietnam.

C) Richard Nixon resumed bombing North Vietnam in 1972, late into his first term as President; had he wanted to, or if it would have made a difference, he could have resumed bombing of North Vietnam immediately after taking office in 1969.

D) The United States was HARDLY "kicking the shit" out of the North Vietnamese in 1968. While America was victorious in pretty much every large-scale conventional battle during the Vietnam Conflict, the Vietnamese were very successful with guerrilla raids and clashes between individual units.