Feel free to offer some solutions

Seems to me we were already doing that, when we differentiated between premeditated murder and "crimes of passion." I don't see where identifying the killing of someone just because they belong to a different ethnic or religious group as a different subset of crime is inconsistent with our country's laws.
And it's appalling that the establishment of such a distinction would bother anyone. You know, the people who have hijacked the word "conservative" don't seem to have any problem with separating terrorists from other mass-murderers. You're more than a little inconsistent here, Yawn.
(Yes, I know, people. Tell you something you don't know).

 

Maybe not you, but I have encountered many people in my life who believe that if you're not Christian, you can't have those values.

There's nothing wrong with the values themselves. But to say Christianity (or religion in general) has some sort of exclusivity to morality is a narrow-minded view, in my opinion. Morality is morality, whether religion is involved or not.

And where politics are involved, I feel religion should not be.

There is nothing good that can come out of religion-based politics. People aren't rational about either.

 

If this new Congress spends two years debating theology, then all is lost.

 

Actually, I look forward to two years of complete and utter gridlock. The less government does, the better.

Here's to hoping W has sharpened his veto pen.

 

Who is separating terrorist from other mass-murderers? Certainly not I.

Death penalty for both.

 

Could we all agree to stop replying to Yawn? Seriously, the guy's nothing but an annoying little gnat. His comments are ignorant, his insults barely reach first-grade level and his only goal on every thread is start a pissing match.

Lord knows I've done my fair share to encourage the dipshit, but I'll stop if everyone else will. This was a damn good thread until he came along and sucked everyone into dumbass argument after dumbass argument. I'm not blaming anyone. I know it's tough when you see someone spouting off such unbelievable bullshit to not respond back. But let's try.

His schtick requires responses. He's simply not bright enough to come up with enough words on his own to continue posting without replies.

 

Actually getting rid of Rumsfeld was a good first step.
Bush surprised the crap out of today at the noon presser. He was sharp, speaking off the cuff, he actually seemed willing to listen. The Baker-Something Something report should be key. Don't be surprised if what they say should happen, actually happens.
Kinda makes me wonder if the Republican strategy of sticking to their guns for the mid-terms wasn't a horrible idea. If the country's mood going in was to throw the bums out, if Bush had been proactive and tossed Rumsfeld early, things might be much, much different today. Or if the Baker report had come in October and it said start troop withdrawls now. And then it happened.
It will be interesting to see how it goes. If Pelosi's 100-hour strategy goes through. Big ideas, thrown fast and hard. Does the White House go into seige mentality, or does Bush go legacy shopping? Or maybe that's the Republican strategy. Show that one-party rule doesn't and wouldn't work. Keep the Dems in Congress, and a Republican in the White House.

 

you and your type of fucking christians are a laugh a minute.

 

OK, I'll bite. Recognize the minimum wage will go up, despite everything Econ 101 tells you that it should not without a corresponding loss in productivity, cuts in hours, etc., and put it at a level where you won't have to raise it again for another decade. If stem cell research must be done, find a way where you're not being "morally bankrupt" doing it. Blood from umbilical cords? Might be a start.

Higher taxes. Here, Dems, have the gun, shoot yourself in the head with that one. Why must a tax hike be the answer to every question? Remember 1993? The year a tax hike was passed that somehow lumped the middle class in with it. A tax hike will drag the economy and produce less spending for most households. Before the economy began charging forward in the mid 1990s, remember it almost fell back into recession in 1994 thanks to the tax increase. It was Greenspan's brilliant Fed moves that engineered a soft landing.

If you want to keep the majority, old answers to problems isn't the solution. And if you're looking for common ground with the GOP on some issues, you might find that some pretty good legislators were thrown out on Tuesday because they committed the crime of having the R next to their name. (I'd like to see some of these ousted reps run again in 2008. I wonder how many would get their jobs back.)

That's all.

 

First, stem cells. Saying that you're "morally bankrupt" by using embryonic cells instead of umbilical cells is like calling your mechanic a crook because he's using the part that works instead of the cheaper part that doesn't. If umbilical cells work just as well as embryonic cells, they'll be used. You can count on that. Why people have it in their heads that these scientists just want to fight over this shit is beyond me. They don't. What they want is their names next to the breakthroughs. If they thought for a second that UC cells were as good as ES cells, they'd be tripping over themselves to use them. Problem is, they're not.

Bullshit on the tax stuff. Hey, I don't particularly like paying more in taxes. Nobody does. But at the same time, I don't like a deficit that's too large to be typed out. The Fed had little to do with the progress in the 90s. Oh, it helped, don't get me wrong. But the 93 plan, which, in case you didn't know, was an extension of the Bush I plan, got shit rolling. And any plan put forth by the Dems would, at worst, roll back the Bush cuts. I don't see any of us middle-class folk going hungry over about $1k a year. The only ones who'll be bitching are the one-percenters. Suck it up. You've had a helluva nice six years.

If those Republicans who got moved out were so damn great, maybe once they could've stood up to the idiot in the White House and proved it. But they didn't. And that, more than anything else, led to the massive change-of-address forms they're collecting today. Also, not one meaningful bi-partisan project in six years suggests quite a level of arrogance and pettiness. So, none of them get to bitch about being left out of anything. The Dems are going to work with them. They have to with the White House still in Rep. control.

 

The yahoos attempting to sabotage the stem-cell debate are pathetic. You can do it right . . .
or you can sabotage it. The GOP, in their shortsighted, pandering ways, would love to do the
latter, because they're looking to preserve their precious asses ,and largely unwilling to acknowledge the inherent potential in legitimate scientific advances.

 

Yes, the verdict of history is in.
The 1993 Clinton economic package killed the economy. That's why we had the Depression of '98 and Bill Gates wound up selling apples in Pioneer Square.