Nancy Pelosi, representing the "left coast" who will set the agenda

[Sid]

But if Democrats win, it [Speaker of the House] will be liberal Democratic lawmaker Nancy Pelosi, representing the "left coast" city of San Francisco, who will set the agenda.


Left-leaning Democrats would also take charge of numerous other key House posts.


The Energy and Commerce Committee would be led by John Dingell, a New Deal-style liberal Democrat who believes in strong government regulation.

The new Financial Services Committee chairman would be Barney Frank, a liberal activist on social policy issues and one of only a handful of openly gay lawmakers in Congress.

The House Government Reform Committee gavel would be wielded by Henry Waxman, a progressive gadfly who has launched investigations of Big Tobacco, the Iraq war, and Enron, among other targets.

Meanwhile the House Judiciary Committee, where Draconian proposals crafted by conservatives stalled immigration reform, would be led by John Conyers, an African-American civil rights activist who has called numerous times over the years for Bush's impeachment.

The chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which controls congressional purse strings, would be headed by Charles Rangel, an African-American and unapologetic leftie who backs progressive social policy like rent control and urban renewal projects that are abhorred by many conservatives.



Sea change is less likely in the US Senate, where Democrats would have to win six seats to reclaim control of the chamber -- a number seen as unlikely, though not impossible.


The new majority leader would be Harry Reid of Nevada, a Mormon lawyer, one-time amateur boxer, and sharp Bush critic.

The Armed Services Committee would be headed by Carl Levin of Michigan, who has criticized defense spending and has called for a phased pullback of US troops for Iraq.

The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would be run by the Senate's liberal lion Ted Kennedy, who has long called for raising the minimum wage, bolstering affirmative action, and urging more proactive federal input on social welfare issues.



Those changes, and others that would follow, could mean not only a new cast of legislative players, but an entirely revamped congressional agenda under the Democrats.



"There'll be a huge difference," said Dean said...

"We want honesty and openness back in our government," he said.




Liberals to hold top leadership posts in Democrat-run US Congress (http://sweetness-light.com/archive/look-at-who-will-run-congress-if-democrats-win)

[Sid]

The House of Representatives is full of John Dingell Democrats—exiled committee chairmen awaiting the day they can reclaim the center chair on the dais. All carry lists—if only in their heads—of issues and outrages they believe Republicans have failed to probe because such questions would be politically embarrassing to the president.

Henry Waxman of California is another Democratic old-timer whose ire never dims. A tireless investigator, he's in line to head the Government Reform Committee, and plans to take aim at Halliburton and alleged rip-offs and contract abuse in Iraq.

Then there's Charles Rangel, the New York congressman who's never met a cable show he didn't like. He is set to take over the Ways and Means Committee, and wants to take a hard look at the Bush tax cuts.

John Conyers of Michigan has waited for years to head the Judiciary Committee. He's likely to convene hearings on the Patriot Act and domestic wiretapping. In the past, he has suggested the possibility of impeachment hearings for President Bush. "When the Clinton administration was in office, there was no accusation too small for the Republicans to rush out the subpoenas," Waxman says. "When Bush became president, there wasn't a scandal big enough for them to ignore."


Pelosi's true focus for the next two years will be to position the Democrats for the 2008 presidential race.


The idea is to bring popular bills that the GOP has opposed to the floor of the House—a minimum-wage hike, prescription-drug reform—and dare Republicans to vote against them. It's part of a larger package the Dems are billing as Six for '06, their version of the Contract With America, which the GOP used to win in '94.

Demo-crats plan to enact the 9/11 Commission recommendations and screen all containers at U.S. ports, put more money into counterterror operations and increase benefits for veterans.

At home, they say they'll vote for tax deductions for college tuition and cut student-loan rates while raising taxes on big oil companies and corporations that move overseas. They say they'll also put a popular stem-cell-research bill up for a vote.



What the Dems Would Do (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15365610/site/newsweek/)

[CoreIssue]

Actually, the Rep. have allowed the destruction of home wages to the point I now favor a minimum wage hike.

99% of what the Dems want is a joke or disaster. We don't need them in office.

But the Rep. better start looking at the economy. And I don't mean Wall Street. That is not the working man's economy.

[Sid]

So, if the media campaign works and Democrats win back Congress, this November, here’s what we-the-people can expect:

A win for terrorists worldwide, as the Democrats will immediately remove US troops from Iraq
Impeachment proceedings against President Bush (Democrat Rep. John Conyers has already drawn up the documents). This, of course, will further weaken the president and the US in its war against terrorism
Attempts to remove President Bush’s tax cuts (which—by the way—were for all Americans), effectively stopping (if not destroying) the current robust economy
Pushing legislation through federal courts that will further damage Christianity and elevate Islam. Note: In multiple leftist-run government public schools, the study of the Islamic religion is now mandatory and Christianity is forbidden
More “sensitivity” training in government schools, so that our children continue to learn not to fight back against anyone—including terrorists. Instead, our kids are being taught to “embrace our enemies” and the US is the “real” enemy, anywayThe above reflects merely a few of the items we can expect if we elect Democrats back into power. Don’t believe me? Check them out. They’re already occurring.

As has long been the case, we can choose survival as a country and a people or we can choose actions that will bring us ever closer to becoming part of an Islamic caliphate. Until the all-leftist-all-of-the-time Democrats figure out how to finally and inexorably take it away from us, we still have the vote. Please use this privilege well in November.



CNN Leads Left in Rooting for Terrorists (http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=19627)

[CoreIssue]

Those are excellent reason to not elect Dems.

[Sid]

Those are excellent reason to not elect Dems.


Here's some more:





Democrats are trying to frame the midterm elections as a referendum on an unpopular war and an unpopular president. Republicans say this election is really a choice between a mainstream GOP and congressional Democrats who are well to the left of the American electorate.

House Democrats have voted, often by overwhelming margins, against nearly all the pillars of the Bush administration's counterterrorism policy and programs. A majority of House Democrats voted repeatedly against the Patriot Act, against authorizing military tribunals for captured terrorists, against modernizing electronic surveillance legislation to permit monitoring of terrorists by the National Security Agency and against creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

Twice in the 1990s and twice more since the terrorist attacks in 2001, half or more of House Democrats voted to cut finding for U.S. intelligence agencies. This year, 93 House Democrats voted against the 2007 Defense Authorization bill, which included appropriations for the major U.S. intelligence agencies.

Most of Nancy Pelosi's Democrats are too liberal for the country. Worse yet, they would be decidedly weak in protecting national security in a time of war. That ought to be a determining factor for voters about to make some fateful choices.




Pelosi's party too liberal for America (http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061029/news_mz1e29caldwe.html)

[Sid]

Yet as Democratic leaders, including would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, gear up for an increasingly plausible scenario, they face competing demands likely to temper their liberal ambitions.

The new Democratic majority, should it occur, will consist of a fresh crop of moderate and conservative members whose elections will have been won in part by distancing themselves from the party's progressive wing.

Pelosi's challenge is to navigate a course that will satisfy the liberals who form the party's base and conservatives whose success is critical to the party retaining its power. It is a juggling act that has already tested Pelosi's skills as House minority leader since her election to that post by the caucus after the November 2002 campaign, but one that will grow much more difficult and consequential if Democrats are in the majority.

The 66-year-old Pelosi's personal ideology and most of her San Francisco constituents are more closely aligned with the liberals, yet the pragmatism that has thus far marked her role as a party leader has steered her to promote a more centrist course.

"If we win ... we will have to govern from the middle," Pelosi said. "Our guiding principles will be to foster integrity, civility and fiscal responsibility."

More of the Democratic agenda is contained in a glossy 25-page book put out by Pelosi (www.housedemocrats.gov (http://www.housedemocrats.gov/)) and includes specific proposals such as doubling the size of the military's special forces, requiring automakers to build more cars that can use ethanol, expanding the research and development tax credit, and matching up to $1,000 in contributions made by middle-income workers into retirement plans, to vague policy objectives such as a pledge to "eliminate Osama bin Laden."



Dems face a tug-of-war in own tent (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/29/MNGUJM26MQ1.DTL)

[Sid]

Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN), chairman of the the conservative House caucus, the Republican Study Committee, today defined the Democratic agenda for Congress as the "three Rs." "Democrats keep saying that Republicans are leading our country in the wrong direction," said Pence.

"But if you listen carefully, the Democratic agenda can be boiled down to three Rs:

raise taxes,
retreat from Iraq,
and redefine marriage.
Raise, retreat, and redefine.


This agenda doesn't reflect the priorities or values that the majority of Americans expect from the 'People's House'."


The Real Democratic Agenda for Congress (http://www.conservative.org/pressroom/2006/061026pence.asp)

[CoreIssue]

Pelosi govern from the middle? :eek:

Her constituients are already complaining she is too conservative! :swoon:

[Sid]

Pelosi govern from the middle? :eek:

Her constituients are already complaining she is too conservative! :swoon:


Core:


We all know how politicans lie, expecially liberals.

[CoreIssue]

Core:


We all know how politicans lie, expecially liberals.
For sure.

If they call her to conservative now. What would she be if she got more power and unleashed her true self?

[Sid]

What would she [Nancy Pelosi] be if she got more power and unleashed her true self?



Core:


Have you noticed that Nancy Pelosi has been a political no-show for some time now? AM talk radio jockeys are about to issue an Amber Alert.

Probably the Democrats realize that anything she would contribute now would just turn out to be negative for them.




Democrats are trying to frame the midterm elections as a referendum on an unpopular war and an unpopular president. Republicans say this election is really a choice between a mainstream GOP and congressional Democrats who are well to the left of the American electorate.

Do the Republicans have a case? Based on the abundantly documented public record, they do. This is especially true on the House side where political gerrymandering has favored election of the most liberal Democrats. Nancy Pelosi's party should be having a very tough time, indeed, selling itself as a mainstream alternative to congressional Republicans.

. . . the Republicans' critique of the Democratic Congress in prospect has a powerful array of facts on its side. Most of Nancy Pelosi's Democrats are too liberal for the country. Worse yet, they would be decidedly weak in protecting national security in a time of war. That ought to be a determining factor for voters about to make some fateful choices.


GOP: Pelosi's Party Too Liberal for America (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17765)

[CoreIssue]

Pelosi is definitely not a plus for the Dems wanting to win over moderates and conservatives.