2006 Congression elections prediction

Take these with a grain of salt. I'm happy to predict broad trends but making specific predictions is not exactly my forte.

Nevertheless, I make the following predictions about the 2006 mid-term elections:

In the House, where all 435 representatives are up for election, I predict:

Democrats: 235
Republicans: 200
Independents: 1

Thus the Democrats will control the House.

In the Senate, 33 Senators are up for election, I predict:

Democrats: 27
Republicans: 5
Independents: 1

Which will give the following total in the Senate:

Democrats: 54
Republicans: 45
Independents: 1

So after the 2006 elections, we will see both houses of congress controlled by the Democrats, but not so much that they can prevent a filibuster (60 senators) or easily impeach (67 senators).

Based on: My gut feeling.

Censure

US Senator Russ Feingold has announced that he will introduce a resolution tomorrow to censure President Bush for authorizing an illegal warrantless domestic surveillance program. Feingold said President Bush’s actions were “right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors." ^[link]

This is an interesting development - especially since it will probably fail.

Censuring the president is a step below impeachment and will not result in the President being removed from office. Nevertheless, it is a serious charge that will essentially label the president as a lawbreaker.

But with a congress controlled by the GOP, why even attempt to introduce it?

My gut feeling is that, by the time the mid-term elections get held at the end of this year, Bush and the Republican party will be even more unpopular with American voters. The Republicans have an unpleasant choice - to either continue to support a president who is obviously out of control, or to take a moral stand against him. Both choices are bad for the Republicans.

By introducing the bill now, and having it fail because of Republican opposition, Democrats could then have a handy political tool at their disposal. Assuming that Bush's unpopularity continues to afflict mainstream America, Democrats could easily use a refusal to censure in their political advertising. "Why vote for ____?" the TV ad would go, "He/she didn't think Bush's actions were wrong. Do you really want such a person in congress?"

Again, this is the big problem for the GOP - Mud that sticks. Republican Reps and Senators have the nasty choice of either alienating their own party by supporting a censure, or alienating the mainstream by sticking up for the president.

But, as Ray Patterson says to the residents of Springfield in the Simpsons episode Trash of the Titans:

Oh...oh, gosh...you know, I'm not much on speeches, but it's so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you've made. You're screwed, thank you, bye.

From the One Salient Overlord Department

© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Luna Lovegood

Al Mohler etc. and so on &c.

Poor Al. My best friend is now terribly concerned that Conservative Jews are now accepting of homosexuals.

It's just terrible.

But wait until he finds out that the majority of these Conservative Jews aren't even Christians!

I await further terrible news about how far America has fallen from its pedestal as "most godly nation".

The qualifications neeed to be a pastor

* Sound doctrine
* The ability to teach
* A godly character

And that's all.

Anything more and you're denying Sola Scriptura.

cf. 1 Timothy 3.1-7 and Titus 1.5-9

Hymn pretty much finished

This is a hymn I wrote last year and finished tonight. It can be sung to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy":

God has brought us to this nation

George Bush goes up in my estimation

I might think Bush is the worst president ever and worthy of spending life in jail, but there was something innocently charming about him having a "net session" with some Pakistani Cricketers (including Inzamam-Ul-Haq). A whole bunch of pics can be found here, but this is my fave:

Important Christian Statistics (America)

George Barna's research organisation has discovered the following.

1. "Born Again Christians" number between 35-40% of the American Population

In Barna Research Group studies, born again Christians are not defined on the basis of characterizing themselves as "born again" but based upon their answers to two questions. The first is "have you ever made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in your life today?" If the respondent says "yes," then they are asked a follow-up question about life after death. One of the seven perspectives a respondent may choose is "when I die, I will go to Heaven because I have confessed my sins and have accepted Jesus Christ as my savior." Individuals who answer "yes" to the first question and select this statement as their belief about their own salvation are then categorized as "born again."

2. "Evangelicals" number around 7% of the American population

Barna surveys do not ask people to define themselves as “evangelical” but instead categorize people as such based on their beliefs. In this approach, evangelicals a subset of born again Christians. In addition to meeting the born again criteria (described below) evangelicals also meet seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; contending that they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; stating that Satan exists; maintaining that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not by being good or doing good deeds; asserting that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; saying that the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. In this framework, being classified as “evangelical” is not dependent upon any kind of church or denominational affiliation or involvement.

Three other things of note:

1. The national percentage of "Born Again" Christians has not changed much in 10 years.
2. The national percentage of "Evangelicals" has been steady at 7% for 10 years.
3. The amount of "No Religion" stated on the Census form (an indication of secularism) has risen dramatically from 8.4% in 1990 to 15.0% in 2000.

LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING...

Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK... But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.

- John Pace, former director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq

See more

Bush lied etc.

The Big Left Wing news is:

Video Evidence clearly shows George Bush and Michael Chertoff (head of Homeland Security) being briefed about the possible effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. This occurred one day before the hurricance hit.

And then Bush came out a few days later and said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees". As they now say by using full stops to emphasize the point: It. Was. A. Lie.

And Evangelicals were convinced this guy was "born again"? How can the sexual sin of the previous president be worse than everything this guy has done?

Come on... how much more evidence does Congress need to Impeach the guy???

If the GOP don't support Impeachment soon, they'll suffer a very painful, long term erosion in their influence.

Big crash coming. BIG crash. And the Evangelicals are going to get it BAD.