Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordon (D) To Retire
Realclearpolitics.com ^ | 12/14/2009 | Kyle Trygstad

Posted on 12/14/2009 8:53:59 AM PST by Outside da Box

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-60 last
To: fieldmarshaldj; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; GOPsterinMA; Clintonfatigued; LS

Definlety the House is the better chamber to win. It’s true all a “Republican” Senate with 51 including The Maine twins, Kirk, Simmons and Castle (Aka just 46 good, decent, and RINO but non-Diablo Republicans) will do is create the illusion of total Republican control of Congress (cause if Republicans have a big enough year to win the Senate then the house being GOP is a mortal lock).

Anyone have a counterpoint? I can’t think of a very good one.

Obama could triangulate (don’t think he will, he’s a true radical) and win like Clinton did running against a GOP house or he may be unable to blame a GOP House for everything and use it to win reelection just as the GOP last year was unable to put the blame on the rat congress.

A GOP house could really embarrass cabinet members in committee hearings.


41 posted on 12/15/2009 5:32:42 PM PST by Impy (RED=COMMUNIST, NOT REPUBLICAN | NO "INDIVIDUAL MANDATE"!!!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: Impy; fieldmarshaldj; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; GOPsterinMA; Clintonfatigued; LS

You got it. Win the house with a Dem unworkable Senate and the House investigates Obama. That way he still looks responsible.


42 posted on 12/15/2009 5:57:23 PM PST by sickoflibs ( "It's not the taxes, the redistribution is the government spending you demand stupid")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: Impy; fieldmarshaldj; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; GOPsterinMA; Clintonfatigued; LS
Impy, RE: The Senate.

IMO, the most important attraction about controlling the Senate is the filling of judge ships. With Stevens being ~90 y/o and Ginsberg being ill, that's two SCOTUS openings right there along with the scores of appointments needed at all the other federal levels.

As far as getting the The Maine twins, Kirk, Simmons and Castle “on the team”, I will give credit to Obama for his way of dealing with the pols in his party - Mafia style, “do as I say or up your ass sideways” works. These RINO’s need to be told the same thing. I would also start laying the groundwork now to flip Nelson-NE and Lieberman to caucus with the GOP. Let them know that if/when the GOP retakes the Senate the retaliation against the Rats will be Stalin/Hitler/Khan/Barbarian in nature.

The best outcome of course would be to have both chambers AND DO SOMEWTHING WITH IT! Learn from the mistakes of the past, GOP.

43 posted on 12/15/2009 5:59:11 PM PST by GOPsterinMA ("Henceforth, you shall be known as...'Nobel Obama'".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: GOPsterinMA

Stopping Zero judicial appointments is a fruitless exercise. When my own asshat RINO Senator Lamar! (who is shockingly a member of leadership) has no hesistation to support unqualified buffoons like Sotomayor for SCOTUS, you can forget about the Senate R’s stopping ANY appointment to the bench. They almost never did under Bubba. Let’s face it, only rodents will vote to stop appointments — against qualified jurists nominated by GOP Presidents.


44 posted on 12/15/2009 6:05:32 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: fieldmarshaldj

Right FM- and that’s why the creeps need to be told what to do or else, Chicago style.


45 posted on 12/15/2009 6:09:25 PM PST by GOPsterinMA ("Henceforth, you shall be known as...'Nobel Obama'".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: GOPsterinMA

The RINO’s need to be told as such to the degree that their constituancies allow. At the very least, their dissents should be low-key, except during election year. I’m tolerant of RINO’s, up to a point.


46 posted on 12/15/2009 6:09:32 PM PST by Clintonfatigued (Liberal sacred cows make great hamburger)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

I can live with that. Let certain members vote “against” certain bills, like “National Ice Cream Flavor” - fine.

But when it comes to defense, judicial appointments, the big stuff that matters - no dissent allowed. Time for a Borg-like mentality.


47 posted on 12/15/2009 6:13:01 PM PST by GOPsterinMA ("Henceforth, you shall be known as...'Nobel Obama'".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: GOPsterinMA

As I’ve continuously reminded many RINO apologists on this forum who maintain they can somehow be “positively” used, I say they use us, not the other way around. Play hardball with these pukes, they throw a temper tantrum, call us mean-spirited and switch parties (and/or endorse rodents to succeed them).


48 posted on 12/15/2009 6:33:44 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: fieldmarshaldj

AMEN! Play hardball at them - the either go along or whither.


49 posted on 12/15/2009 6:43:27 PM PST by GOPsterinMA ("Henceforth, you shall be known as...'Nobel Obama'".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: GOPsterinMA; Impy; fieldmarshaldj; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; Clintonfatigued; LS
RE :”The best outcome of course would be to have both chambers AND DO SOMEWTHING WITH IT! Learn from the mistakes of the past, GOP.

You mean like tax increases and amnesty?

The 1993 Republicans had a 'conservative/reform' vision. The 2009 Republicans have 'grab power for themselves' vision. Not ready to lead yet.

50 posted on 12/15/2009 6:44:25 PM PST by sickoflibs ( "It's not the taxes, the redistribution is the government spending you demand stupid")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: fieldmarshaldj

Yeah, you know the Bible says a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, and for the life of me I cannot explain Grover Cleveland, the “goodest fruit” of any of the parties. When a man vetoes a $10,000 seed corn bill because “I cannot find it in the Constitution where Congress has that authority,” you KNOW he has nothing to do with the Dems. BTW, he lost next time around to Bryan, the first true liberal pacifist.


51 posted on 12/16/2009 3:08:18 AM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: Impy; fieldmarshaldj; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; GOPsterinMA; Clintonfatigued
The problem with hearings that everyone keeps talking about is we have been there, done that. Yeah, we got Clinton impeached . . . and so what? It didn't for a minute hurt his popularity, didn't get our agenda advanced one iota. Perhaps you could argue it halted his agenda, whatever that was.

The problem with hearings---as we saw with the Waco hearings---is that you have to be willing to go where the evidence leads and to actually GET people who are destroying the country. Until or unless we put up someone like Holder and cite him for contempt of Congress or some other violation, what else can a Congress do? Nothing, that I'm aware of---but it's really early, and maybe I'm not thinking clearly.

52 posted on 12/16/2009 3:11:33 AM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: LS

One minor nit, I don’t think you mean to say he ran in ‘96. He pretty much saw the writing on the wall. Had he tried, the radicals and various other powerful enemies within the party were going to see him taken out. He opted not to support the Populist/Silverite/Democrat ticket with Bryan (although not going as far as giving outright support to McKinley/Hobart, he went instead with the Gold Democrats led by the politically schizophrenic ex-Governor of Illinois, John McAuley Palmer).

Speaking of Bryan, who although was aligned with the horrid Altgeld (who couldn’t run for President since he was foreign born), managed to merge that sort of religious/moral traditionalism with outright economic moonbattery. I wonder how particularly comfortable he would be in the Democrat party today as a strident Christian fundamentalist (he, of course, died in my state following the Scopes Trial), since most leftist Dems have followed the Marxist agenda of attempting to purge that sort of “Christian Morality” from the party. Some disagreement on that around here, but personally, I think he’d have been disgusted with today’s Democrats (conversely, the Marxist Altgeld would’ve been elated — Zero would’ve made him a Cabinet Secretary).


53 posted on 12/16/2009 4:03:28 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: LS; Impy; fieldmarshaldj; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; Clintonfatigued

LS - you are 1,000,000% right! It’s all just an act of political theater unless the vermin are actually severely punished.


54 posted on 12/16/2009 5:37:00 AM PST by GOPsterinMA ("Henceforth, you shall be known as...'Nobel Obama'".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: LS; Impy; fieldmarshaldj; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; GOPsterinMA; Clintonfatigued
RE :”The problem with hearings that everyone keeps talking about is we have been there, done that. Yeah, we got Clinton impeached . . . and so what? It didn't for a minute hurt his popularity, didn't get our agenda advanced one iota. Perhaps you could argue it halted his agenda, whatever that was.

Yep, I followed the Clinton presidency closely. Looking back the smartest thing to do was have congress condemn Clinton and then leave it to the justice department to finish after his term. Dump the Grand Jury transcripts online and move on.

As dumb as Pelosi seems she fought off demands for Conyers and others to move to impeach Bush. That gave her a second victory 2008.

We have plenty on Obama on policy, we have elections. Investigations are good just to get some bad looking things to the press, as dems do now and republicans did in the 1990s.(Stupid democrats investigate things that are popular, like fighting terrorists.)

55 posted on 12/16/2009 8:29:49 AM PST by sickoflibs ( "It's not the taxes, the redistribution is the government spending you demand stupid")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: LS; fieldmarshaldj; rabscuttle385; BillyBoy

I’m not sure how I would have voted in the 1880’s but Cleveland was the last democrat President that was a good one. During and right after his era is when the national democrats became a committed leftwing party. It’s also the around that time when the UK Liberal Party (who at that point I may have supported) turned to what Europeans call “social liberalism” aka socialism.


56 posted on 12/16/2009 11:25:02 PM PST by Impy (RED=COMMUNIST, NOT REPUBLICAN | NO "INDIVIDUAL MANDATE"!!!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: fieldmarshaldj
Doh, yes, he did not want to run in 1896---and it wasn't just political. He had severe mouth cancer, and had an operation on a yacht that was hidden from the public. Apparently, his prosthetic device was so realistic that few even noticed he was missing a cheek and part of his mouth. So that was, I'm sure, a major factor.

But he was a "dead man walking" because of the massive Populist takeover of the Dems---similar to the looney Left takeover of the Dems today.

"Moonbattery" what a great term. What I did like about WJB is that he was given a horrible rap in the Scopes trial. Burt Folsom has done an extensive study of the trial and the journalists' coverage, and found that except for a few major urban reporters, including Mencken, everyone thought BRYAN won those exchanges with Darrow.

57 posted on 12/17/2009 2:40:45 AM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: LS

I found it astonishing they would perform such a serious oral surgery while sailing (!) If I were Cleveland, I’d have tried to locate an isolated island or spot in the vicinity and have them do it on dry ground, not bouncing around in Long Island Sound.

I may have misspoke earlier in saying Gov. Altgeld and then-ex-Congressman W.J. Bryan were “good buds”, that although they were a part of the same anti-Bourbon faction, apparently they were not too keen on one another and avoided the other conspicuously. Altgeld was up for reelection in ‘96 and had reason to worry, he ended up losing a second term as McKinley romped to victory. Altgeld was also affiliated with another attorney who would come to oppose Bryan, that being Chicago’s Clarence Darrow.

I never personally cared for Bryan’s portrayal in “Inherit The Wind”, I thought it was borderline slanderous. Although I myself actually happen to subscribe to both creationism and evolution, Bryan’s apparent lament of what it would mean with the seeming war on religion (or to the point, Christianity) and its removal from schools would lead to a collapse in our public/cultural morality, and on that point, he nailed it. We’re certainly no longer the culture we were when SCOTUS outlawed prayer in schools. Bryan certainly put his heart and soul into that trial, perhaps he knew the end was near. I’m not much of a fan of Darrow, however, to say the least. As I said above, too much of our moral chaos and decline of the past near-5 decades had its roots well before that, it didn’t just happen spontaneously.

P.S. I pinged you to a heated argument on the Charles Sumner/Preston Brooks incident in another thread, you may (or may not) find my point of view on it interesting (not to mention my scathing indictment of Civil War and post-Civil War Northern morality on the issue of Black Civil Rights).


58 posted on 12/17/2009 4:19:51 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: fieldmarshaldj
Yes. I sent you a long response.

BTW, if you're not familiar with Burt Folsom's many articles on Bryan/Darrow, you should check out his stuff.

59 posted on 12/17/2009 5:05:54 AM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: LS

Any links online for those ?


60 posted on 12/17/2009 7:58:01 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-60 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson