This Sen. Must get Better!!!!

THC

The thought of Dick Cheney making a tie breaking vote in a Senate that the people voted to be Democratic...makes me sick to myself....

I wonder if Cheney remortgaged his soul w/ the devil?

Ebizzie

South Dakota Statute:

"12-11-1. Special election to fill congressional vacancy--Time of election of representative. If a vacancy occurs in the office of a senator or representative in the United States Congress it shall be the duty of the Governor within ten days of the occurrence, to issue a proclamation setting the date of and calling for a special election for the purpose of filling such vacancy. If either a primary or general election is to be held within six months, an election to fill a vacancy in the office of representative in the United States Congress shall be held in conjunction with that election, otherwise the election shall be held not less than eighty nor more than ninety days after the vacancy occurs."

ThumbingMyWay32

THC wrote:

The thought of Dick Cheney making a tie breaking vote in a Senate that the people voted to be Democratic...makes me sick to myself....

I wonder if Cheney remortgaged his soul w/ the devil?

lol I'm just glad I don't have to pay some sort of fee to read humor like this.

Here's a bag...

bryanfury

rumor has it, Cheney took him to lunch at Taco Bell.

he should have know something was up when cheney only ordered the cinnastix...

Cosmo

bryanfury wrote:

rumor has it, Cheney took him to lunch at Taco Bell.

he should have know something was up when cheney only ordered the cinnastix...

...
Or took a page out of Vladimir Putin's book and fed him Polonium-210 laced sushi.

Purple Hawk

In all seriousness, majority status in the senate is not really all that important. Powers given to leadership is weak and members are free to attach amendments. It doesn't matter one way or the other...

what's funny to me...is that all these people who claim to be so caring, and care so much about human sufferin' and people who face hard times...they don't give a shit about the fact this guy just had a freakin stroke. they are whipped up into a frenzy that the Dems may not have the majority. the drive by media is so transparent to anyone who pays attention.

Purple Hawk

icarus wrote:

1. you're delusional if you think senate majority doesnt matter. senators almost always vote by party line.

2. for every liberal hoping this guy gets better just to preserve the democratic majority, theres a conservative hoping he dies so republicans can gain the tie. so you really dont have much a point do you.

I'm delusional? well, true.

But let's disect your point. senators almost always vote the party line. does that have ANYTHING to do with what I said? or did you just pull that from a random thought in the back of your mind? Power of party leaderns is considerably weaker in the Seante compared to the House. In the house, the speaker and majority leader completely control the agenda and prevent legislation from even seeing the floor. In the Senate, the majority leader cannot block bills from coming up to a floor vote. Given the fact that the Dems control the House, there's no way a Republican Senate can set policy.

So just settle down ragin' cajun., you boy's will be fine regardless of TJ's status.

Purple Hawk

icarus wrote:

2. for every liberal hoping this guy gets better just to preserve the democratic majority, theres a conservative hoping he dies so republicans can gain the tie. so you really dont have much a point do you.

I listened to Glenn Beck, laura ingraham, rush limbaugh, and sean hanity today (I like to get all viewpoints). Not ONE of them expressed any hope of preventing dems from getting majority status. I watched all the network morning shows and they were all in a frenzy that they might lose majority status. Granted, it's because the former commentators are smart and actually know that having a split in the senate vs a 1 seat advantage is meaningless while the latter are not very smart, don't understand the reality of the world in which we live, and are obsessed with the evils of the 1968 GOP.

Uncle Leo

As a liberal...

Purple Hawk is right. The left has been 100% more shameful than the right on this. The left is all about "what's going to happen to the senate." The right really has not been

Purple Hawk

Uncle Leo wrote:

As a liberal...

Purple Hawk is right. The left has been 100% more shameful than the right on this. The left is all about "what's going to happen to the senate." The right really has not been

well, that was my jab at the media...but my main point is...i really don't even care if a republican or democrat is chosen to take his place, if there is a need. it will have ZERO impact on policy. that's what's ridiculous about this whole thing.

Uncle Leo

Purple Hawk wrote:

well, that was my jab at the media...but my main point is...i really don't even care if a republican or democrat is chosen to take his place, if there is a need. it will have ZERO impact on policy. that's what's ridiculous about this whole thing.

It could have some impact. I don't have a history of this in front of me or anything, but I suspect there have been instances where that 51st vote mattered. The Dems will not be able to do much with their majority--since Bush will finally start vetoing. But the GOP could with theirs.

Purple Hawk

Uncle Leo wrote:

It could have some impact. I don't have a history of this in front of me or anything, but I suspect there have been instances where that 51st vote mattered. The Dems will not be able to do much with their majority--since Bush will finally start vetoing. But the GOP could with theirs.

Once in a great while it matters, but it wont if the Democrats already control the House. The Senate and House have to agree on legislation in committee for it to pass...and while most senators vote with the party, you still have moderates: Baucus, Landrieau, Conarad, Carper, Nelson, Snowe, Collins, Spector...they aren't guaranteed to vote with their party. And you have the incoming class, you have Tester and some other moderate Dems....

The main point is..is that control of the House is much more important than control of the Senate in terms of policy.

Uncle Leo

Purple Hawk wrote:

Once in a great while it matters, but it wont if the Democrats already control the House. The Senate and House have to agree on legislation in committee for it to pass...and while most senators vote with the party, you still have moderates: Baucus, Landrieau, Conarad, Carper, Nelson, Snowe, Collins, Spector...they aren't guaranteed to vote with their party. And you have the incoming class, you have Tester and some other moderate Dems....

The main point is..is that control of the House is much more important than control of the Senate in terms of policy.

Most of what you said is on.

Allow me to separate us. You said "ZERO impact." I say "MINIMAL impact."

(and yes, I see the irony that two people that pointed out that this is about one guy's health and not about the balance of power have been disecting the balance of power. )

Purple Hawk

Uncle Leo wrote:

Most of what you said is on.

Allow me to separate us. You said "ZERO impact." I say "MINIMAL impact."

(and yes, I see the irony that two people that pointed out that this is about one guy's health and not about the balance of power have been disecting the balance of power. )

Yeah....but agreement is never fun to talk about But yeah, best wishes to the guy. I heard his radio interview when he had his stroke, pretty disturbing. I think he'll recover based on some of the stuff I've heard.

Uncle Leo

Purple Hawk wrote:

Yeah....but agreement is never fun to talk about But yeah, best wishes to the guy. I heard his radio interview when he had his stroke, pretty disturbing. I think he'll recover based on some of the stuff I've heard.

BULLSHIT. Agreement IS fun to talk about!

Purple Hawk

Uncle Leo wrote:

BULLSHIT. Agreement IS fun to talk about!

That is SOOOO true. Man, what a great point.

I have been racking (sp? is it wracking? i'm a crappy speller, anyways) on how to say that. but you did it! Impressive! I mean, I agree with you, and that's pretty whack. Who'd of thunk it?

Damn, you're right, agreement CAN be fun to talk about!

BTW - I'm not sure I'm making sense to myself right now.

chikevin

everyone is missing the big picture.

if the dems had ANY idea of what they stood for or had any plan outside of, 'we aren't the repubs,' this one vote wouldn't matter.

just like when GWB was elected to a second term, the nation gets exactly what they want b/c they don't have a true alternative choice and aren't smart enough to know better.

RainDog

Purple Hawk wrote:

I listened to Glenn Beck, laura ingraham, rush limbaugh, and sean hanity today (I like to get all viewpoints). Not ONE of them expressed any hope of preventing dems from getting majority status. I watched all the network morning shows and they were all in a frenzy that they might lose majority status. Granted, it's because the former commentators are smart and actually know that having a split in the senate vs a 1 seat advantage is meaningless while the latter are not very smart, don't understand the reality of the world in which we live, and are obsessed with the evils of the 1968 GOP.

I noticed the "drive by media" comment in your other post. Man, you really are a Freeper.;)

But anyhoo, there's another way of looking at this. If Beck, Laura Ingraham, or Rush "looka me, I'm got da Parkysoms" Limbaugh said one thing expressing delight that the Republicans might hold on to the Senate, they'd be chastised as soulless monsters. However, the same doesn't apply to Democratic supporters - and it's not because of a double standard, as this would be reversed had a Republican Senator in a one seat Republican majority fallen ill. See, for the Democrats there is (was, after looking at Ebizzie's post) a real chance that something they worked so hard on will be negatively affected by this man's illness. While there's concern for Johnson - particularly from those who actually know him - there's also concern for what Johnson himself helped create.

Look at it this way. A husband and wife live next door to you, and the man dies. It would be seen as grotesque if you immediately started speculating on the future of their house - especially if the wife has known for a while that you've had your eye on it. However, it would seem prudent and expected for the wife to speculate on it - to grieve for her husband, but also wonder "now what?"

As for the tastelessness of the media. Well, this is a story, loss of the Senate was a possibility, people are asking themselves "what now" and, hey, it's the media.

floyd1975

RainDog wrote:

I noticed the "drive by media" comment in your other post. Man, you really are a Freeper.;)

But anyhoo, there's another way of looking at this. If Beck, Laura Ingraham, or Rush "looka me, I'm got da Parkysoms" Limbaugh said one thing expressing delight that the Republicans might hold on to the Senate, they'd be chastised as soulless monsters. However, the same doesn't apply to Democratic supporters - and it's not because of a double standard, as this would be reversed had a Republican Senator in a one seat Republican majority fallen ill. See, for the Democrats there is (was, after looking at Ebizzie's post) a real chance that something they worked so hard on will be negatively affected by this man's illness. While there's concern for Johnson - particularly from those who actually know him - there's also concern for what Johnson himself helped create.

Look at it this way. A husband and wife live next door to you, and the man dies. It would be seen as grotesque if you immediately started speculating on the future of their house - especially if the wife has known for a while that you've had your eye on it. However, it would seem prudent and expected for the wife to speculate on it - to grieve for her husband, but also wonder "now what?"

As for the tastelessness of the media. Well, this is a story, loss of the Senate was a possibility, people are asking themselves "what now" and, hey, it's the media.

Then you look at the first post from this thread and see that the concern is not really there for Senator Johnson as a person but only as a political thread. There is some genuine concern for the man but it seems more prevalent on the left (as it has for most stories like this for the last couple of years) to forget about the human aspect of this matter and focus solely on the political aspect.

RainDog

zstillings wrote:

Then you look at the first post from this thread and see that the concern is not really there for Senator Johnson as a person but only as a political thread. There is some genuine concern for the man but it seems more prevalent on the left (as it has for most stories like this for the last couple of years) to forget about the human aspect of this matter and focus solely on the political aspect.

That's a post on a message board, though. I've found some equally political ones on conservative sites like the aforementioned Free Republic. Disturbing ones, too, like "I pray he renounces the Democrats before he dies so he doesn't go to Hell" or some-such.

Message boards are a bit different than, well, real things.

floyd1975

RainDog wrote:

That's a post on a message board, though. I've found some equally political ones on conservative sites like the aforementioned Free Republic. Disturbing ones, too, like "I pray he renounces the Democrats before he dies so he doesn't go to Hell" or some-such.

Message boards are a bit different than, well, real things.

I know what you're saying and don't doubt that there is a good deal of genuine concern in the real world (like you said, message boards don't count and I would add media to that as well) but the recent history of the Democrats has not been truly stellar on this issue in the public eye and I am not seeing a huge amount of difference in this case.

RainDog

zstillings wrote:

I know what you're saying and don't doubt that there is a good deal of genuine concern in the real world (like you said, message boards don't count and I would add media to that as well) but the recent history of the Democrats has not been truly stellar on this issue in the public eye and I am not seeing a huge amount of difference in this case.

I assume you're talking about the Wellstone and King funerals. I'll grant you that for many they seemed tasteless, but not to everyone, and certainly not enough to keep them out of office.

Let the Republicans sit in the minority for a while and you, too, may be surprised at what they'll use for a platform. And hell, we've had over five years of 9-11 being used to justify anything and everything on the right. Sure, it's a bit less personal than a funeral; but death in any form has been and always will be used as a springboard for political ideology.

floyd1975

RainDog wrote:

I assume you're talking about the Wellstone and King funerals. I'll grant you that for many they seemed tasteless, but not to everyone, and certainly not enough to keep them out of office.

Let the Republicans sit in the minority for a while and you, too, may be surprised at what they'll use for a platform. And hell, we've had over five years of 9-11 being used to justify anything and everything on the right. Sure, it's a bit less personal than a funeral; but death in any form has been and always will be used as a springboard for political ideology.

And I will find that just as tasteless as when the caring folk did it.

Purple Hawk

RainDog wrote:

I noticed the "drive by media" comment in your other post. Man, you really are a Freeper.;)

To tell you the truth, I noticed that term being floated about when the Bushleaguer in Denver incicent came about...I have no idea what freeper means...if it means whacko fringe right wing lunatic, then slap me with the term freeper...

I do think the term drive by media is quite clever, that's the only reason I quote it...even liberals who are upset with the corporate aspect of the media could concur...they drop bombs (observations) and engage in pack journalism...then when one idea is out there, they move on.

Trust me, I disagree with Limbaugh on a lot, but his term "drive by media" is the best description I've heard to date of what goes on.