Sen. Dick Durbin

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A_Wanderer said:

Most people; and I would venture a lot if not most Republicans found the Schiavo meddling out of line. Trying to overrule a court decision with your political clout violates seperation of the powers.

Which begs the question of why Jeb et al. are still meddling even when most of their supporters find them out of line?
 
Because they are being utter wankers; they probably have it on "good advice" that they can get votes out of it. I think that it will backfire on them because it does make them look foolish. I just guess that we will see which way it goes, hopefully it backfires and in 2006 they get a negative response. Then it will establish the playing field for 2008. I hope that the religious groups can be marginalised as much as possible in the next few years.

The candidates that are run are only as good as those that will elect them. If America really does undergo a full "Christian Revival" then it won't be long before the Democrats get wise and start to take up these issues as well.
 
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anitram said:


Dread,

Do you think a centrist is gonna go running into the arms of a party which is still obsessed with a corpse that had a shriveled up brain and was blind for 15 years? And despite the fact the public now believes only 19% of Congress represents their values, this particular party is prattling on about whether, even though this corpse was really a corpse, perhaps it got that way because a husband watched his collapsed wife on the floor for 70 minutes 15 years ago?

Let us call a spade a spade. If we are talking extremism, then no moderate is running to Republicans.

Almost all Republicans that I know, and I was an elected member of the Republican Town committee in the town I live in, do not support Jeb Bush. Most republicans and centrist Democrats that I know are more in line with McCain than with Jeb.

When it boils right down to it, I do not see, when soldiers are serving thein Nation, the Democrats winning any support because I have not been able to find ANY counter statements to Durbins,,,,,

WHen Jeb makes an idiotic move, you can count on the fact that there will be Republicans that counter his comments. But that would be for another thread.

I am still waiting to see Dem. Party leadership take a stand on this.
 
Dreadsox said:
Almost all Republicans that I know, and I was an elected member of the Republican Town committee in the town I live in, do not support Jeb Bush. Most republicans and centrist Democrats that I know are more in line with McCain than with Jeb.

That's because you're in Massachusetts. New England Republicans are generally fairly pleasant to be around, with a handful of exceptions. Ann Coulter hated them so much, though, that she called them "elitist liberals" who didn't want to associate with blue collar workers that make up the Democratic Party...lol.

If Republicans nationwide were more like New England Republicans, I would probably be happier.

Melon
 
[In the latest poll only 40% of Repulicans thought the government was doing a good job or even any job on issues they cared about. That's 60% who think they're not performing. The issues mentioned that they disliked were the judge issue, Schaivo, ect.

If 60% of your base is unhappy, I think 2006 looks real good for the dems.

If you listen to his speech in entirety or read it closer, he's not comparing us to them but that if you just heard the facts you would think it was from some oppressive regime. Melon is exactly right.
 
I read the entire speach, and I find his comments to be innapropriate for such a high ranking official.
 
melon said:


That's because you're in Massachusetts. New England Republicans are generally fairly pleasant to be around, with a handful of exceptions. Ann Coulter hated them so much, though, that she called them "elitist liberals" who didn't want to associate with blue collar workers that make up the Democratic Party...lol.

If Republicans nationwide were more like New England Republicans, I would probably be happier.

Melon

I agree. Hell, I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary. I could not believe I was crossing over to vote Republican, but I did. It was June, I knew who the nominees were, and I wanted to make a statement because I thought the Republican was going to get elected. Hey, Dread, can we borrow some of your Republicans?:wink:
 
I abhor both, but it would be a cold day in hell before I would vote for a party which believes that politics should be the Church's business.

I've seen so much of this attitude here - but isn't politics everyone's business?
 
MadelynIris said:
I've seen so much of this attitude here - but isn't politics everyone's business?

If the Church wants to be a political organization, let's revoke all the tax exempt laws and make the clergy pay taxes like everyone else. Maybe they wouldn't be so smug, if they had to live like everyone else.

Melon
 
Dreadsox said:
I read the entire speach, and I find his comments to be innapropriate for such a high ranking official.


We got two more Senators giving aid to the enemy.

Two prominent US senators have delivered stinging rebukes to President George Bush over his handling of Iraq.


posted in aljazeera







Senators challenge Bush Iraq optimism



Sunday 19 June 2005 7:50 PM GMT

McCain says US involvement in Iraq will be 'long' and 'hard'

Two prominent US Republican senators have delivered stinging rebukes to President George Bush over his handling of Iraq.

Bush needs to tell Americans that the nation faces "a long, hard slog" in Iraq, Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

On the same day, Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said the White House is "disconnected from reality" in its optimism over the war.

McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: "Too often we've been told and the American people have been told that we're at a turning point.

"What the American people should have been told and should be told ... [is that] it's long; it's hard; it's tough. It's going to be at least a couple more years."

Falling support

Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee was quoted by US News and World Report as saying the administration's Iraq policy is failing.

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq"

Senator Chuck Hagel
The two Senators' remarks came as the Bush administration makes a push to counter growing US public impatience with the Iraq war, and to resist demands by some lawmakers to set a date for the withdrawal of US forces.

US public polls show the Iraq war is losing support and hurting Bush's popularity.

While US Vice-President Dick Cheney has asserted that anti-US violence is in its "last throes," a bombing in Baghdad on Sunday that killed at least 23 people underscored the unabated bloodshed.

Baghdad bombing

Iraq's al-Qaida group claimed responsibility for the bombing and said US forces are doomed to failure.

Although there are some hopeful signs in Iraq, Cheney's characterisation is inaccurate, McCain said.

More than 1722 US soldiers have
been killed in Iraq
"I don't think Americans believe that we should cut and run out of Iraq by any stretch of the imagination," he said. "But I think they also would like to be told, in reality, what's going on."

Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on "This Week" on ABC: "It's important the administration quit trying to pretend everything is going very well here. It's not."

CIA Director Porter Goss, however, said Cheney's assessment is not too far off-mark.

"I think they're not quite in the last throes, but I think they are very close to it," Goss told Time magazine. The emergence of an Iraqi government shows the fighters are "unwanted", he said.

'Making progress'

But Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Goss' statement does not comport with what he heard on a recent visit to Iraq.

"I wish Porter Goss would speak to his intelligence people on the ground," Biden said on CBS's "Face the Nation". "They didn't suggest at all it was near its last throes. Matter of fact it's getting worse, not better," Biden said.

Attacks such as the restaurant
bombing reflect a security crisis

Bush said Iraq presented a "vital test" for American security. "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight," he said on Saturday in his weekly radio address.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said any withdrawal of US troops will depend on Iraq's ability to handle its own security, and said events are moving in the right direction.

"The security forces of Iraq are getting better. We're making progress, making steady progress. They're not yet ready but they are taking over every day more and more of what the coalition has done. And that will mean that there is less need for coalition forces," she told "Fox News Sunday".

Reuters
By

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C25B0941-C2C6-4CEF-A727-49F1E454E6D3.htm
 
deep said:



We got two more Senators giving aid to the enemy.

Two prominent US senators have delivered stinging rebukes to President George Bush over his handling of Iraq.


posted in aljazeera





Deep, love how out of this entire thread you choose to put my comments into that light. Interesting that you also chose to put words into my mouth. Not surprising in the least.

By the way....

Did McCain and Hagel refer to the soldiers behaviorof in the same light as the Senator from Illinois?

Just skimmed the post....have not seen anything to indicate that they were trying to aid the enemy.....

Clearly by your post you must agree with the Democratic Senator from Illinois that our soldiers are the moral equivalent of Nazis...ect...by your blatent mischaracterization of my posts in here, not very deep at all....rather typically shallow and unkind.
 
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I saw a bit of this on the news, saw Durbin give his speech, then the Republican guy rebuke him. Durbin's comments weren't smart, not for any high ground reason, but simply because they made it waaaay too easy for the Republican guy to do exactly what he did - completely ignore the point (the FBI report).
 
I agree....it completely makes it difficult to have a conversation about it.

Sad...and true.
 
That I agree with.

But I still think his speech had many good points.
The soldiers follow orders. It's the leadership from the top down at fault. It clearly wasn't there or was complicit.
 
When the problems that occured in Iraq and Afghanistan were uncovered....and it was within the same unit....I agree....

Where I disagree is that it came from anyplace higher than within that Unit.
 
What about the evidence coming out of Gitmo? At the end of the month many more photos from several facilities are going to hit the media, most much worse that those shown. I don't think they are confined to the same unit. Even the Mogabi's(?) report stated systematic not isolated.
 
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Dreadsox said:
I agree....it completely makes it difficult to have a conversation about it.

Sad...and true.

I don't know whether he didn't realise that what he said would cause a stir, or - even dumber - thought he needed to say it to cause a stir, but it's just a really, really awfully stupid tactic. Annoyingly so, and it's a common mistake made by Democrats and others in opposition. There he goes and reads from an FBI report loaded with evidence of awful treatment at Gitmo, and makes some really great points along the way. That's enough. End there. Force the fuckers to answer to that. There's enough sensationalism there alone. But he makes that bad link, which despite his probable meaning and intentions, is all it takes for that Replublican stiff, Captain Dickhead the Senator for Buttfuck, Idaho or wherever, to get up and drawl like an old school American patriot and act like this Democrat just wiped his arse with an American flag. What are the headlines the next day? The FBI Report or the US Military/Nazi link? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. And they do it all the time. It should be so, so easy, but they make it so much harder on themselves. I watched the Durbins speech and as soon as he said 'Nazi/Gulag' I wanted to leap into my tv and slap him round. Then the Republican gets up and I want to leap into my tv and punch him out. It's all so frustrating. It's the dumb debating the devil.
 
How could he not have known.....

it was within a week of the controversy with Amnesty.
 
Because a good many of us believe it is true. Not the soldiers actions, but this admins policies :shrug:

He is the whip - his job is to whip up the base not be congenial.
 
If that is the base....and that is the method of whipping it up....The democratic party is in big trouble....
 
Scarletwine said:
Because a good many of us believe it is true. Not the soldiers actions, but this admins policies :shrug:

He is the whip - his job is to whip up the base not be congenial.

But the report alone should be enough to whip up the base. The report alone was what that smug piece of shit Republican should have been answering to. The Democrat, no matter how you or I or Dreadsox or anyone personaly feel about those comments, was plain stupid for making them because it played into the Republicans hands completely. It's like he had a grenade and lobbed it at them, but left the pin in. The Republican guy just pulled the pin out and threw it back and it blew up in his face. Dumb.
 
I agree to a point. But it wouldn't even get any attention negative or positive otherwise. Such is the Corporatation (fascism) of our media.
I think eventually with enough airplay of sensationlistic statements the public will begin to believe them. Look at the celebrity crap, sensaltional trials, ect. In the meantime they may look stupid.
 
Scarletwine said:
Because a good many of us believe it is true. Not the soldiers actions, but this admins policies :shrug:

He is the whip - his job is to whip up the base not be congenial.
So I see the "moveon.org", "common dreams" and "Daily Kos" crowd think that they are now the base of the Democrats. If this is the case then that party is so screwed.
 
Earnie Shavers said:


The Democrat, no matter how you or I or Dreadsox or anyone personaly feel about those comments, was plain stupid for making them because it played into the Republicans hands completely.

I honestly no longer believe it's an accident.
 
Sen. Durbin Apologizes for Gitmo Remarks

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer 51 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Under fire from Republicans and some fellow Democrats, Sen. Dick Durbin apologized Tuesday for comparing American interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to Nazis and other historically infamous figures.


"Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line," the Illinois Democrat said. "To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."

His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks.

"They're the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them," he said.

The apology came a week after Durbin, the Senate minority whip, quoted from an
FBI agent's report describing detainees at the Naval base in a U.S.-controlled portion of Cuba as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.
 
McCain called for him to get on the floor of the Senate and apologize on Sunday.

I am not sure that constitutes coming to his defense.
 
McCain in his own words

[Q]MR. RUSSERT: Your Democratic colleague Dick Durbin of Illinois set off a firestorm when he compared the actions of Americans at Guantanamo to Nazis, Soviet Gulags and Pol Pot. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that Senator Durbin should be censured by the Senate for those comments.

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I think that Senator Durbin owes not only the Senate an apology—I don't know if censure would be in order--but an apology because it does a great disservice to men and women who suffered in the gulag and in Pol Pot's killing fields. Dick Durbin should be required to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" and I think that he would--may have a better understanding that there's no comparison whatsoever. And it does a great disservice to the majority of men and women who are serving in Guantanamo who are doing the job that they're told to do and they're doing it in a humane fashion. To tar the American servicemen and women with a brush that applies to the gulag or the killing fields is a great disservice to the men and women in the military who are serving honorably down there.

MR. RUSSERT: Should he formally apologize?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I don't know what a formal--but he should certainly apologize.

MR. RUSSERT: Will the Senate take any action against him?

SEN. McCAIN: I predict to you that by the time this program is shown next Sunday that Mr. Durbin will have apologized.
[/Q]
 
SEN. McCAIN: Well, I think that Senator Durbin owes not only the Senate an apology—I don't know if censure would be in order--but an apology because it does a great disservice to men and women who suffered in the gulag and in Pol Pot's killing fields. Dick Durbin should be required to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" and I think that he would--may have a better understanding that there's no comparison whatsoever. And it does a great disservice to the majority of men and women who are serving in Guantanamo who are doing the job that they're told to do and they're doing it in a humane fashion. To tar the American servicemen and women with a brush that applies to the gulag or the killing fields is a great disservice to the men and women in the military who are serving honorably down there

Durbin's apology was scripted and it hedged a bit. A teeny bit condscending.
It was as sincere as he could be but I think he did do irrepairable damage to our troops.

He will never fully recover from this, the majority of the country won't forget his original statements and also the majority of the country/military will never take him seriously again.

db9
 
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