Democratic Majority?

Your thoughts about this?

I for one am pretty happy about it. Im excited to see how they stick to their claims of wanting to form energy independence. And also a change of course in Iraq. And man, hopefully they do SOMETHING about this whole Military Commisions Act, that thing is just so fucked up.

What are your thoughts??

 

I can dig it.

What is really cool, was Rumsfeld's resignation... haha. Now Bush is fucked, no more warmongering!

This makes me uber happy.

 

I saw howard dean on last night(leader of the democratic party) and he said they are'nt impeaching bush and two of the most imporatant things they're focusing on is raising minamum wage and get health insurence for people 25 and over.

 

Obviously they won't impeach him. They don't have the required 2/3rds majority in the Senate to actually remove him, so what would be the point of impeaching him.

 

I love how people think raising the minimum wage is a good thing.

 

Are you against it?
Do you even have a job?

I think it's a great thing. $5.15/hr is NOT enough to live today. Prices keep rising while minimum wage sits. It's ridiculous.

 

Just because they are the majority now, doesn't mean holding their end of the deal will be completely possible. Being the majority doesn't mean it's enough to get everything done that was promised. The president is over the war, anyway, and the congress probably won't be able to change his mind about anything. But, Dubya is willing to listen to the suggestions made.

 

Yeah I dont think the majority means that everything they want will happen and pass, but Im happy to see that atleast now everything Bush wants, he wont practically automatically get. Because with the GOP majority, thats pretty much how it was.

I just hope the Dems stick to their promises about energy independence and deal well with Iraq. They better fucking stick to their promises.

 

as if they cant replace him with someone just like him...

 

It's an artificial increase in the cost of doing business.

Nothing special.

The price goes up and eats up any gains we had from an increase, as well as more lay-offs, less benefits and fewer full time positions. The people at the top control the price and they make sure they get their cut first no matter what. There is no trickle down anymore. As it has been figured.....minimum wage still isn't a wage many people can survive on with prices the way they are now. Whether you are renting or owning, driving your own car or taking a bus. The essentials alone are taking too much of the wages to get by and still be able to save or meet the expense of an illness or injury. It is survival wage. If anything....it should be the pay elected officials are paid and then they might get a different view of the world. They are looking from the top- down. Maybe they should get a gander from the bottom-up.

Minimum wage does not apply to a great majority of jobs. Many people wrongly assume it does. It does not apply to waitresses and pizza delivery jobs and some agriculture and even some businesses that do piece work. It's supposed to average minimum wage but it in reality it doesn't. Big business has discovered ways to even get around that. Like a waitress. They are sometimes paid a small wage and then the tips are supposed to make it up to the average of minimum wage. For some...it's just tips only. It is not based on the actual tips received but what you are supposed to get. Unfortunatly people aren't forced to tip and many don't tip what the "proper" percent is supposed to be. Then they started making it where the bus-boy and sometimes even the bartender get to take a share of the supposed tip while receiving less than minimum wage. So the waitress pays them up and gets whats left. But taxed on it whether it's actually received or not. Depending on where you live, the type of restaurant and clientel....you are surviving or can do pretty well. People assume the delivery fee for pizza delivery is going to the driver and they don't tip. Wrong. Depends on the company. Some pocket that and the driver is working for tips only, no gas reimbursement and usually has to do the dishes for free.

They need to start looking at the top as well ,before anything will be close to fair and a liveable wage. As long as there's no accountability to the top dog, they will find a way around minimum wage if it was 100 an hour. Sounds good, but not if it gets you nowhere.

 

I'm willing to, at the least, give Bob Gates a chance, being a citizen of this country who has met the Secretary of Defense...

I can definately tell you that, though I was twelve or thirteen when I met him, despite Rummy being an alright guy in person, Gates seems more experienced at his job.

 

Personally I am thrilled about the majority..politicaly I am less than excited. As many of you may know our executive has the power of a veto. If the democratic majority were to pass a bill that Bush (who does not have to worry about another election therefore has no reason not to) does not support he will just veto it and send it back to congress. "So what?" you ask, "Well just pass it again. Right?" Wrong! To pass a bill again in Congress it would either

1. Require the bill to be trashed, re-introduced, go through the whole legislative process again, and then vetoed again (endless cycle)

OR

2. We get the same bill re-passed with a 2/3 majority of votes in congress this time. Meaning we need support of republicans also. (never will happen)

ALSO

There are plenty of conservative democrates who, if our proposed legislation gets too liberal (which it will with Nancy as speaker...also don't get me wrong liberal is good..just not in this sense), will swing towards the republicans making it impossible to fully flex our majoity muscles.

BUT

Hopefully in the next elections we can get a democratic president, keep the house and the senant, then it'll be clear sky's for the democratic party. Half the fights over, but the others yet to come. Keep on truckin'. It aint over yet folks.

Peace, love, and health,

Al

 

it's good to see that more young people are registering and voting. i think the young people opposing the war is what brought the democrats back with the majority.

 

Yeah, young people should get involved with democracy.

 

Haha, look at my South Park references.

You're pretty much either voting for a Giant Douche or a Turd Sandwich when it comes to politics.

I wish we could overthrow the two-party system.

In my personal opinion, Democrats have more answers than Republicans seeing as I consider myself more liberal but neither truly work for me. It is sad. Giant Douche or Turd Sandwich?

 

I don't think it's happening anytime soon.

The problem is then once that occurs is when you get your Suhartos, Castros, and shit like that. I believe it's moreso the Electoral College we need to fix.

 

Heh, of course it isn't happening anytime soon.

I agree that we do need to fix the Electoral College.

Hell, there's a lot of things that need fixing :\.

 

And prices will rise more when the minimum wage does.

In North Carolina, we've already passed a law to raise it from $5.15 to $6. It doesn't do a damn thing for small business...especially locally-owned restaurants. They end up shutting down because they can't pay employees, or the cost of supplies (that has risen due to the minimum wage increase) is too much. Here at the beach, people have to make enough money in the summer months to last them all year, and it puts so many under when they have to pay incompetent workers another buck an hour when they have little to no revenue coming in off-season.

And that's when huge franchises come in and you can't find a place that knows how to cook good food, and prices are jacked up even more.

 

Yeah, up here it's the same way too. I've worked doing landscaping and commercial fishing/seafood distribution in the spring/summer and you have to do so many landscaping jobs to still recieve owed money in Winter to last you through, and sometimes they won't pay so you have to take action and contact them several times... or in one case, I paid a lawyer to send a letter to a couple of folks who decided to move to Florida without paying me for a contract job.

On top of doing that, that means you often do the work in advance and work your ass off for nothing during the Summer, while I have to hold another job so I can have money during the Summer. It wasn't unusual for me to have summer school in the morning, work from 11am-7pm, and do landscaping until it got dark while putting up with raging-bitch wives of military officers who live on waterfront property and freak out if you step on their mulch.

 

Dude i cant believe i missed the votes, i was in canada man, now i dont have tv dont even know whats going on.. heheh, i didnt know rumsfeld resigned, thats cool man :H Democratic majority not bad also...