A Very Good Start for the 110th Congress, but Bush Remains as the Obstacle to Progress

The Work has just Began

Although how the women dress in the Congress got more paragraphs of coverage in the New York Times than the legislation passed, the 110th Congress had an impressive start. In its first 100 hours, the Senate passed tough ethics rules while the House rolled back $14 billion of [gasp] subsidies & tax breaks to the oil industry, increased the minimum wage, cut the interest on student loans, voted to implement recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, required the government to negotiate better prices for the Medicare beneficiaries, to finance stem cell research and try to overturn Bush's veto on ..science. Of course, the current occupant of our other House on Pennsylvania Avenue still has a lot of power and a veto on Congressional legislation, but this time it will be different. Congress has the power to investigate and exercise its important function under the checks & balances system in our constitution--something that the previous do-nothing Congress didn't want to do under the Republicans.

Hillary just announced that she's, too, forming an exploratory committee--yes, she's running! No surprises here. Governor Richardson of New Mexico is throwing his hat in as well. Of the big-name (national recognition) politicians that haven't declared, only Al Gore remains. He can wait a bit longer, but not too long--not because he'll have to raise money faster and establish a ground campaign, but because he has to get good people on his team before they commit to another candidate. Well, come to think of it, maybe it's much better for him to wait and get fresh people with fresh ideas instead of the established conventional "wisdom" and the people that have an excellent record of losing important races. This is a big topic of discussion within the progressive blogosphere these days. The Dems keep relying on the DC insiders (ie, Bob Shrum) and keep using the same old recipe of failure. OK, the party won control of Congress in the last election, but I maintain that much of it was the result of the utter incompetence and corruption of the Republicans.

It's January 20th as I'm writing this post. Do you know what date this is? Think two years ahead! That's right, a new president will be taking over at noon, and Dubya will go down in history possibly as the worst president ever! Let's try to limit the damage this man can inflict on our nation between now and then.

PS> I have to acknowledge the president's urging for medical privacy. Bush is right to propose legislation to prohibit insurance companies, employers, and others from obtaining patient's records of genetic tests and medical treatment. Now, when it comes to other matters of privacy, BushCo respects none.... All in the interest of national security, of course. Did you notice that Attornery General (the one supposedly defending our rights) Gonzales told the Senate that the Constitution doesn't explicitly provide Habeas Corpus (due process) to all?!!! [read and weep here]

PS2> If you want to get an idea how the insiders work and the damage they have inflicted on the Democratic party, it's worth reading an earlier essay I posted back in February of 2005, when Howard Dean became the chairman of the party. I urged Dean to "Fire the Losers, Get Rid of the Parasites."