OK, the Dems have the House and the Senate.
Republican George Allen of Virginia will concede the election for his U.S. Senate seat to Democratic challenger Jim Webb on Thursday, sources close to the senator said Thursday.
A victory for Webb will give the Democrats control of the Senate, as well as the House of Representatives.
Allen scheduled a news conference for 3 p.m. ET. Webb has scheduled an appearance with reporters at 4:15 p.m.
Even before any formal concession had been made, Republicans were resigned to facing a Democratic majority next year, one GOP member said Thursday.
“I think if you ask any Republican in Congress right now, they’re working under the assumption that they’ll be in the minority in both the House and the Senate,” New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu told CNN.
In the last unsettled race of the 33 Senate contests on Tuesday’s ballots, Allen trailed Webb, a former Navy secretary, by 8,805 votes, the Virginia Board of Elections announced Thursday afternoon.
The gap grew from the roughly 7,200 votes Wednesday after 55 of Virginia’s 134 electoral districts completed their canvasses of the results.
A Webb win would put the new Senate lineup at 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and two independents — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who have said they would caucus with the Democrats.
continued
This is not the time to be meeting w/interior decorators in lieu of moves to different offices.
While planning ahead to work with Democrats when they take over in January, Bush was scrambling to get the lame-duck session of Congress, which starts next week and will still be controlled by Republicans, to approve several items.
At the top of the list is to try to get Gates confirmed quickly, as well as legislation to permit wiretapping of terrorism suspects, a civilian nuclear deal with India, and Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organization.
Confirmation hearings on Gates’ nomination for defense secretary were tentatively set for the week of December 4.
What do rubber-stampers have to lose?
“Hey, Nancy, let’s do lunch!”
When asked how he would work with Ms Pelosi _ who had previously called him ”incompetent”, ”a liar”, ”the emperor with no clothes” and ”dangerous” _ Mr Bush shrugged the criticism off.
”People say unfortunate things at times,” he said, with an indifference befitting a man who has bigger things to worry about.
Pelosi’s response?
“I look forward to working in a confidence-building way with the president recognising that we have our differences and we will debate them, and that is what our founders intended, but we will do so in a way that gets results for the American people,” she said.
She pledged to represent everyone in the House. “I understand my responsibility: of speaker of the House, of all of the House, not just the Democrats.”
And she didn’t say a word about the responsibility of representing constituents.
Also, it appears history will again repeat itself.
The U.S. Congress wasn’t the only place the Bush Administration suffered electoral embarrassment this week. In Nicaragua, cold-war bogeyman Daniel Ortega — whose Marxist Sandinista government had been an obsession of the Reagan Administration — was elected president again on Sunday despite frantic U.S. lobbying for his defeat. By most accounts, the yanqui politicking — which included a threat to cut off U.S. aid to impoverished Nicaragua if Ortega won — backfired miserably, actually helping boost the Sandinista leader to his first-round victory. That such U.S. pressure tends to work in favor of its opponents is a lesson Washington seems woefully unable to learn in a post-Cold War Latin America whose electorates have unexpectedly turned leftward in recent years.
And,
President Bush has reached back to a veteran of his father’s administration to fill a top national security post and help him out of a bind. In this case, he enlisted Robert Gates, who served both as CIA director and deputy national security adviser in the first Bush presidency, to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary.
Bush also is looking to another Bush family loyalist, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, to help him find an exit strategy from Iraq. Baker co-chairs a bipartisan commission on Iraq that is to release its recommendations soon.
Bush has his Vietnam + O-I-L + corporate profits- people’s concerns/needs/rights=????????????????????????
Feel free to guess as to the end of this equation, yours is as good as mine!
Curious as to what others think–like I said, your guess is as good as mine.
So he decided to be the War Czar instead of the Spy Czar. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.
I guess running a Research 1 institution is harder than he thought considering he said he promised to stay President of Texas A&M through the summer of 2007.
Hmm..
Gates confirmed? It could happen quickly; it doesn’t have to. I think some strong questions need to be asked here, just on principle, to clarify what HE sees his role and responsiblity as, and to re-establish the oversight responsibility of the Senate. Otherwise, he’s probably as good a nominee as we’re likely to see, but no confirmation should ever be rushed through without time for proper hearings.
Legislation to permit wiretapping? This is intended, like the Military Commissions (and torture) Act, to cover the Administration’s vulnerable ass now that the Supreme Court has said the wiretapping at will they were doing (without warrants or oversight) is ILLEGAL. NO WAY should this be permitted to pass. The Dems can prevent it if they try. Will they? This should be a big issue, let’s not let him sneak it through on a lame duck session. If they want to listen to “terrorists” let them get a warrant — that should be a no-brainer. There is no need for special legislation here — they just need to FOLLOW THE RULES as they stand right now.
Civilian nuclear deal with India… in violation of the international anti-proliferation treaties, which India has not signed. This should be a resounding NO. We should be pressuring them to join the club and sign the treaty, THEN we can discuss deals like this.
Vietnam in the WTO? I know of no reason why not… not something I know anything about. This isn’t entirely up to the US anyway, is it? (of course, I’m suspicious of anything he wants badly enough to try to get it through in the next month or so on principle….)
That one bugs the hell out of me, actually. Then I looked it up and found that Vietnam is actually in the WTO effective a couple days ago, but the US has not changed the trading status (that is required under the WTO), so Vietnam can discriminate against US companies by charging higher tarriffs.
Long story short, my guess is more outsourcing and/or “dumping”.
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