Back in September, I wrote in Europe doesn't matter anymore: (sorry, it's long)

The truth is, Europe no longer matters. For almost a century, American foreign policy revolved around Europe. We had a brief interlude during the 1920's and 1930's, only to be drawn unconditionally into European affairs for the rest of the 20th century. Whether it was defeating Nazi agression or containing Soviet expansion, Europe was priority number one.

For several centuries, European politics shaped the world. No longer. We got involved in affairs, even wars, in Iran and the Middle East, Central America, and even Southeast Asia. But, Europe dominated our policy, and global affairs.

Now, our priorities are elsewhere. Today, we have a very real and imminent threat, that of global jihadism. If anything Bush has done right, it is to bypass the older European model of mutual alliances. Anchoring the US ship to failing powers would be a recipe for disaster. Tying our fate to that of the Franco-German alliance argues that Europe still matters. It no longer does, not to any appreciable degree.

Just ask this simple question. On what issues today is Europe out front on, and if so, what influence do they wield? On the Iranian nuclear threat, they have exerted diplomatic pressure, only to be told by the mullahs that Iran will proceed with her nuclear program. Have they any fear of Europe? No.

Where today is Europe shaping events, rather than being shaped by them? Where today is Europe taking the lead, rather then being led? Where today does Europe have influence outside of her geographic and political borders?

Europe has quietly hidden its problems for far too long. A growing underclass of Muslims, a fractious ethnic mix in the Balkans, Eastern Germany, and Central Europe, declining populations, increasing welfare largesse, growing resentment by Poles, Czechs, et al, at Franco-German obstruction and hegemony, and Russia under new/old leadership threaten to destroy the American enforced Pax Europa. Is not the Franco-German alliance more isolated than the Anglo-British-Eastern European alliance?

The same nations that oppose us today in Iraq were wrong on the Nazis in the 30's and wrong on the Soviets in the 80's. Why then should we assume that today they're right on jihadism?

Other than the Royal Navy, what European ships patrol the world's oceans? How many divisions has Europe to spare? Europe's only strength lie in her position at the UN, a corrupt institution that supports tyrants and terrorists and passes resolutions without ability or desire to enforce them. (Case in point: Darfur.)

Europe rests easy in the false hope it can criticize, even oppose, the one nation that insures the European peace is not broken and 6 centuries of warfare resumed. Nothing exemplified European decline than more than Kosovo? While Europe debated and discussed, Serbian thugs went on killing sprees, safe in the knowledge that NATO was an empty shell. It took a US president, acting alone and without authorization from the UN, to end the slaughter.

With America focused on the war against jihadist terrorism, Europe's safety net is gone. Like a tiger with no teeth, she will be challenged, but will she have any bite? Tethering ourselves to the toothless tiger would have disastrous consequences. Unable to offer substantive military assisstance and struggling to afford massive entitlements, America would be bound to assisst Europe at the cost of pursuit of global jihadism. It would leave America bound to honor alliances that serve European interests first, at the expense of American security and safety.

Friday, Belmont Club notes:

The unspoken assumption of Friedman and Moisi was that the West was authentic only as long as it remained a development of the secular European ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries. For Friedman, Europe remained the ground of Westernism; and when America and Europe diverged, it was America that had left the 'West'. If so, the 'West' had become a museum. The NIC 2020 report stressed that globalization had so revitalized the world economy that 21st century modernity would almost certainly wear a non-European face.
...
What Moisi should have said was 'in fact, due to unstoppable trends the World may be moving away from us. We don't share the same values.' Friedman's celebration of Europe as the world's largest 'Blue State' avoids mention that it might become the world's only Blue State. Certainly in the matter of religion, the differential growth in populations between the Europe on the one hand, and the Third World and even the United States on the other, is dooming 'Western' secular atheism, and perhaps much else, to demographic extinction. Nor, with India on track to surpass the French and German economies in size by the 2020s is there any realistic hope of re-imposing 'Western' European values on the benighted Red States of the world by aid packages which will by then be regarded as chump change. It is perhaps the subconscious realization that it has awakened to a nightmare new world that drives the the Left's incredulous reaction to George Bush.

Yep, that about sums it up.

The MSM today is in reality not much more than a great boxer way past his prime who fights stiffs for paychecks in clubs filled with smoke and patrons too drunk to realize who he once was because he lived far too large far too long, never planning for the eventuality that one day the reflexes would slow and the punches soften. When he goes home at the end of the night, face bloody and ribs sore, he has the pictures on the wall, title belt in hand, and the dream that one day, maybe, just maybe...

7/10/2004. On the minimum wage

So, briefly, let's summarize who exactly earns minimum wage: 3 percent of the workforce who are, young, non high school grads, unmarried, part-time, in service (i.e. low skill) sector jobs, or in jobs also are supplemented with tips (which would rise them above purely minimum wage earners).

Since the young under 16 can't vote, the rest of the young rarely vote, and since this demographic would tend democratic anyways, why the ruckus over the minimum wage. And is another $.50 cents really going to hurt businesses? Landsburg surmises that most studies showing no effect on jobs have been suppressed, and that only the five showing negative results on jobs get reported. And that would be exactly the New York Times response? No, there is a real reason for the ruckus, and the democrats are being disingenuous about it, to say the least.

So, who exactly benefits from the minimum wage hike? Workers (how I hate that word, so Marxist) who EARN ABOVE THE MINIMUM WAGE. Why? Say you're a worker at a fast-food restaurant for almost 1 year. You started at the minimum wage, $5.15, and in the course of the past year, you've done well, worked hard, and earned a $1 raise. Now, after a year, you're earning $6.15. Then the federal government raises the minimum wage by $.50 to $5.65. Is it becoming clear who benefits most? Not the worker starting out, though the extra half dollar is nice. No, the real beneficiary is the worker who is at $6.15. They have to get a raise as well. And what about all the other workers who've worked their way up from minimum wage? Surely they're "entitled" to a raise as well.

Now there's also another sneaky secret to the minimum wage hike. If, as logic would dictate, all wages would increase, a secondary effect takes place. As workers earn more in dollar amounts, guess what happens to tax receipts? You guessed it.

The real evil in the minimum wage increase battle is that it isn't really aimed at workers at the bottom, but at everyone who earns hourly wages and who is above the minimum wage. And who exactly would those workers be? Union workers. And who are the biggest contributors to the democratic party? Unions. See for yourself. Of the top 20 donors, 14 are unions. I'm sure that's just coincidental though.

Robert Kuttner writes in todays Boston Globe, Minimum wage issue a winner for Democrats

The Kerry campaign, hooked to a relentless message that the candidate had to identify with "the middle class," rejected overtures from the organizers and did not get involved. If Kerry had vigorously championed this campaign, the outcome in Florida and nationally might have been different.

Well, $6.15 an hour, you are probably thinking. How many Americans are paid that little? And is it really smart to identify with the working poor at the risk of alienating the middle class?

But that's a false choice. For all the years of its ascendancy, the Democratic Party appealed to both groups. For the middle class it represented the prospect of security and opportunity. For the poor the party stood for the aspiration to become middle class.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 7 million workers would benefit from a hike in the federal minimum wage to $6.65 an hour, and 10.5 million more workers would benefit indirectly as wage scales moved up generally. (emphasis mine)

That is the real reason for the minimum wage increase. It has nothing to with the "minimum" wage, but every wage above it.

As I wrote back then:

Why be against the minimum wage increase? Besides being inflationary, which will only diminish those wage increases, it does a few other things. Since firms can only pay X amount for wages, benefits, etc., called compensation, they will have to cut somewhere, and that would most likely be benefits. Already being done. And, if they raise the minimum wage, then firms will forgo any wage increases for a longer time, the initial "raises" already legislated in. Already being done. And lastly, they will forgo hiring new workers and demand more from the current workers. Already being done.

There is one last problem with an increase in the minimum wage, and that is the labor pool. As government artificially prices people out of the market for labor, guess where businesses will turn? Well, California's minimum wage is $6.75, and guess what California's biggest labor problem is right now? You guessed it, illegal immigration. I don't blame anyone for coming here to work for $5 an hour, especially when the best they could get is $1 hour back home. And if they don't hire undocumented workers, firms will will send those jobs overseas. I think they call that outsourcing. I think Senator Kerry referred to Benedict Arnold CEO's. And now he wants to raise the minimum wage?

Now that the cat's out of the bag, all I can say is, hah, I told you so.

Via Instapundit, Greg Djerejian says:

In this vein too, Bush must more effectively communicate to the world audience the nature of his global war on terror. Between a widely (though, it should be noted, not quite as widely as sometimes suggested) supported Afghanistan campaign and the so controversial war in Iraq--America's war on terror lost much support in the court of international opinion. I'm not talking here of the cheap Euro-Gaullist broadsides about Iraq simply consituting a bid for hegemony in the Middle East, or for access to cheap oil (that worked out well, eh?), or simply a dynastic clean up of Poppy's unfinished business. But the reality is, of course, that there exists much misapprehension and confusion about why, for Bush, the war in Iraq has been conflated with the war on terror. Bush must now, as his second term begins, communicate better what he means when he says Iraq is now the "central front" in the war on terror.

On, 12/28, I wrote in THey didn't predict the politics

It should be clear that a great many people do not have even the slightest understanding of the situation in Iraq. This deficit falls squarely on the shoulders of one man: President Bush. It was his responsibility to inform the public, to talk to us, to do what FDR did two generations earlier. He had to know he wasn't going to get anything but a hostile press. 60 years ago, we had Ernie Pyle, Robert Sherrod, and many others. Today, we get planted questions and Chris Matthews' "the insurgents...just disagree with us. They are, in fact, fighting for their country."

Apparently the president gets it too:

And there's no question we've got to continue to do a better job of explaining what America is all about; that in our country you're free to worship as you see fit, that we honor the Muslim faith, and that if you choose not to -- we don't want territory, we want there to be freedom. And I've talked to Condi [Rice, the nominee for secretary of state] about this, and she agrees that we need to work on a public diplomacy effort that explains our motives and explains our intentions.

It is incumbent upon the president to communicate to us and to the world. Reticence is seen as apprehension, an attempt to deceive or withhold information. It lends credence to the consipracy theorists and nutcases.

Professor Hanson wrote in the Soul of Battle: "It is democracies, which in the right circumstances, can be imbued with the soul of battle, and thus turn the horror of killing to a higher purpose of saving lives and freeing the enslaved." But it requires leadership willing to level with the people and have enough respect to trust them. Bush hasn't done that well enough. This has allowed all the naysayers, from both the war's supporters and its opponents, and opening to cloud the objectives, score political points, and play both sides of the fence.

For the supporters, like Thomas Friedman "The Bush team is certainly not fostering all this when it mismanages a war it launched to liberate the people of Iraq. Its performance has been pathetic, and I understand anyone on the right or the left who wants to wash his hands of the whole thing." and Andrew Sullivan, The case against Bush and Rumsfeld is so far about the terrible consequences of dumb decisions - and the need to take responsibility for them." freedom to take cheap shots at the president while supporting the overall goal of democratization of the Arab world.

Let me close with this, I wrote in October:

War is hell. It is a series of mistakes that finally lead to victory. Our troops used to call the M3 Sherman tank a "Ronson", because like the lighters, it always lit the first time. Our troops froze in the Ardennes due to lack of planning and poor distribution of supplies. The Navy suffered horrific losses off Okinawa as the unforseen assault of kamikaze penetrated ill-suited defenses.

And yet today, our mistakes pale in comparison to the successes. The enemy is reduced to terrorizing innocent women and children, beheading non-combatants and issuing threats. He is confined to a well defined area, the recipient of ever more combined arms assaults. His safe houses are bombed at night, his homes raided by day. His desperate attempts at starting ethnic and religious civil war rejected by both sides. Now, he only survives because the locals are unsure who'll win in november and they don't want to risk their lives on a political weather vane.

What is the enemy we face in Iraq? Is he a well-financed, trained, and supported soldier? Or is he a man without a country, a dead man walking, hoping to delay the inevitable? Would that he was truly an insurgent, he'd have support from the masses and not need to impose a reign of terror on the residents of Ramadi and Fallujah.

Make no mistake about the enemy we face in Iraq. He is armed, deadly, and willing to die. He is dangerous in a most non-Western way, someone for whom death is a reward. But we should make no pretenses about him. He would not be operating a falafel stand if the infidel was gone, he would just the same be training and preparing for his rendezvous with 72 virgins. That he dies in Fallujah assures that he will die in Fallujah, in vain, accomplishing nothing more than providing invaluable experience for US forces.

In war, the side that learns best wins. After a century, Rome finally learned how to defeat Carthage and finihsed her off in 3 years. It took Britain 5 centuries of failed continental aspirations to resign herself to vistory at sea. It has taken us all of three years to learn how to fight the terrorist on his soil, on our terms.

We cannot know, nor even pretend to know, what the outcome of Iraq will be. While the armchair historians and psuedo intellectualls pontificate about Bush errors, deficiencies, and hubris, we have only to look back to the last great undertaking of a previous generation. Who would have, could have, predicted that the carnage on Okinawa was the last. Who would have, could have predicted, that as we still struggled in the Philippines in the summer of 1945, prepared for Operation Coronet, and comtemplated a million casualties, that in a few short weeks, they'd be dancing in streets throughout America.

We assumed were as far from victory in 1945 as we were in 1942, a victory hastened only by dramatic series of unforseen events.

And then, worst of all, after the greatest struggle in history, we were immediately faced with an equally dire struggle, against an equally evil empire, the direct result of poor planning, failed dimplomacy, and bad decisions at Pottsdam. We didn't know hw that struggle would end either. Yet, when the Berlin Wall came down, all the critics said it was simply inevitable.

And so in ten years, if cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, is the cradle of a new age of demcocracy, or the pit of Islamic jihadism, we can credit or fault Bush. Doing so now is simply sophistry.

Bush needs to communcate this better. Hopefully he will.

What an embarassment the last couple of weeks have been for us Californians. First, Senator Babs Boxer decides she's going to upend the consitution and contest the electoral results. Now, Babs goes verbally sparring with Condi Rice, someone who has more intelligence in her little finger than Babs has on her best days.

Let's take a look first at Condi Rice. From her White House Bio:

Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame in 1995, the National Defense University in 2002, the Mississippi College School of Law in 2003, the University of Louisville and Michigan State University in 2004. She resides in Washington, D.C.

In addition, she's also been:

Stanford provost, Political Science Professor, Director of Soviet and Eastern European Affairs, as well as just completing her stint as National Security Advisor. She has many publshed books and scholarly articles and is fluent in Russian.

And now for Senator Boxer, from her website:

A forceful advocate for families, children, consumers, the environment, and her State of California, Barbara Boxer became a United States Senator in January 1993 after 10 years of service in the House of Representatives. She was elected to a second six-year term in 1998.

In addition, she's been actively fighting for "a woman's right to choose", the crime bill, after school programs, yada, yada, yada.

According to the Project Vote Smart website, she has a BA in Economics from Brooklyn College. Her professional experience has been: Congressional Aide 1974-1976; Journalist and Associate Editor, Pacific Sun Newspaper, 1972-1974; Stockbroker/Economic Researcher, Wall Street Securities Firm, 1962-1965.

Well, I certainly feel better having her grilling Condi, given her extensive foreign policy expierence and scholarly research. Let's look at some of her "highlights".

Babs:

"I personally believe that your loyalty to the mission you were given to sell this policy overwhelmed your respect for the truth."

Now, I'm sure Mrs. Boxer's loyatly to President Clinton helped her overlook the fact that as an advocate for women's rights, she was defending a man accused multiple times of sexual harassment, abuse, even rape. Of course, it couldn't be that Ms. Rice actually understands that a war on terror with Saddam in power is simply untenable. But then again, what were Ms. Rice's qualifications?

Condi:

"But, Senator Boxer, we went to war, not because of aluminum tubes. We went to war because this was the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a man against whom we had gone to war before, who threatened his neighbors, who threatened our interests, who was one of the world's most brutal dictators and it was high time to get rid of him. And I'm glad that we're rid of him,"

Hmmm, you think Babs is glad he's gone?

Babs:

"If you were rolling out a new product like a can opener, who would care what we said. But this product is a war and people are dead and dying ... You have not laid out an exit strategy, you have not set up a timetable and you don't seem to be willing to a) admit a mistake or give any indication of what you're going to do to forcefully involve others,"

Well, let's examine this one: an exit strategy, I believe that's called "cut and run". People are dead and dying, and it is a tragedy, but we're fighting and killing terrorists in Iraq, not in America. Lest we forget that Ramseh Yousef, the 1993 bomber of the WTC, was both al Qaida and Iraqi Intelligence Service.

It's so nice to hear democrats wanting admission of mistakes. Maybe they can start with some of their social programs. Is removing Saddam really a mistake? Maybe Babs should clarify that one.

From the story:
Boxer also suggested that Rice was insensitive to the widespread death and destruction caused by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 156,000 people because Rice called it a "wonderful opportunity" for the United States to reach out to countries in the Muslim world and build goodwill.

Why is it that for a liberal, the worst thing anyone can do is be insensitive?

Babs:

"If you're going to become the voice of diplomacy, this is just a helpful point when Senator Voinovich mentioned the issue of tsunami relief you said, your first words were, 'the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us.' Now, the tsunami was one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime, one of the worst, and it's going to have a 10-year impact on rebuilding that area,"

You'd think Dr. Rice wouldn't have a clue, given the way Boxer is speaking to her. But then again, isn't that how all democrats talk to black people.

In contrast, here's what Dr. Rice had to say in her opening statement:

"We must use American diplomacy to help create a balance of power in the world that favors freedom."
...
"One of history's clearest lessons is that America is safer, and the world is more secure, whenever and wherever freedom prevails. It is neither an accident nor a coincidence that the greatest threats of the last century emerged from totalitarian movements. Fascism and Communism differed in many ways, but they shared an implacable hatred of freedom, a fanatical assurance that their way was the only way, and a supreme confidence that history was on their side.
...
"The challenges we face today are no less daunting. America and the free world are once again engaged in a long-term struggle against an ideology of tyranny and terror, and against hatred and hopelessness. And we must confront these challenges with the same vision, courage and boldness of thought demonstrated by our post-World War Two leaders.
...
"Our third great task is to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world. I spoke earlier of the grave setbacks to democracy in the first half of the 20th century. The second half of the century saw an advance of democracy that was far more dramatic. In the last quarter of that century, the number of democracies in the world tripled. And in the last six months of this new century alone, we have witnessed the peaceful, democratic transfer of power in Malaysia, a majority Muslim nation, and in Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population. We have seen men and women wait in line for hours to vote in Afghanistan's first ever free and fair presidential election.

"We and I know you, Mr. Chairman, were heartened by the refusal of the people of Ukraine to accept a flawed election, and their insistence that their democratic will be honored. We have watched as the people of the Palestinian Territories turned out to vote in an orderly and fair election. And soon the people of Iraq will exercise their right to choose their leaders, and set the course of their nation's future. No less than were the last decades of the 20th century, the first decades of this new century can be an era of liberty. And we in America must do everything we can to make it so.
...
As long as the broader Middle East remains a region of tyranny and despair and anger, it will produce extremists and movements that threaten the safety of Americans and our friends.
...
I was the Soviet specialist in the White House at the end of the Cold War. I was lucky to be there, and I knew it. I got to participate in the liberation of Eastern Europe. I got to participate in the unification of Germany and to see the Soviet Union collapse. It was a heady time for us all. But, when I look back, I know that we were merely harvesting the good decisions that had been made in 1947, in 1948, and in 1949, when Truman and Acheson and Vandenberg and Kennan and so many wise and farsighted statesmen in the executive and legislative branches recognized that we were not in a limited engagement with Communism, we were in the defining struggle of our times.

Condi Rice is a total invalidation of everything Boxer believes. She believes in the victimization of women and minorities, and any women, minority, or both, who'd affiliate with her oppressors needs to put in her place. Boxer's childish rants are mere tantrums when compared to Condi's understanding of history, America's role in the world, and the threats we face.

Fortunately, Senator Finestein has a different take on Condi: "poise and the leadership". Well, one out of two isn't too bad.

Luckily for Babs, she was just re-elected to another six year term. Unfortunately for Babs, four years from now Condi may be looking to join to Senate, from California. Do the math. Save the videos. So far, Babs has run against stiffs. I don't think she'll be so lucky in four years.

The word reform means to reshape.

Bush's social security reform initiative goes much deeper than the technical financial details. Both Bush and the democrats understand this.

Andrew Sullivan writes in the Sunday Times, Bush can still pull off a Reagan triumph:

If Bush manages to nudge these hopeful developments (Afghanistan, Iraq, palestine) to a more peaceful and democratic solution, then he will have pulled off a feat almost rivalling Reagan’s.

Domestically Bush has a chance to cut spending and unravel the behemoth of the social security system — again a huge shift in the political tectonic plates. Maybe a moderate successor will emerge who can contain the excesses of the religious right while not losing his party’s base.

Bush's real legacy domestically, will be if he can reform, or reshape, the fundamental relationship between the government and the people. Since the New Deal, Americans have increasingly looked to the federal government, and government at all levels, to solve problems. This has been the lifeblood of the democratic party for generations. We have become increasingly dependent on the benevolence, and largesse, of government.

It is what makes tax reform so difficult. Real tax reform would start with elimination of the myriad of deductions and loopholes, including the beloved mortgage interest deduction and child tax credits. Yet, any politician that suggests such, would be committing political suicide. So, tax reform dies the death of a million small cuts. No one group wields a large enough sword to cut a lethal wound, yet the multitude of small knives takes its toll. By extending the tax code into every aspect of our lives, the government insures a dependency on deductions. It isn't the numbers, it's the relationship that needs reform.

So too with social security. Combined with medicare, the pair basically amount to a de facto ceding of autonomy to the government at age 65. Having crossed that Rubicon, age becomes arbitrary. The relationship is cemented.

Paul O'Neill address social security reform in the New York Times, Who wants to be a millionaire.

The problem with the current arrangement is that our contributions are a tax, not savings. So we should begin by agreeing that we are going to require all Americans to save, individually, to provide for their financial security in old age. After all, if we don't save on our own for our retirement needs, who will do it for us? Our neighbors? Our children? In a civilized society we have a responsibility to take care of our own needs so as not to be a burden on others.

Yet we can also recognize that some people may work hard during their lifetimes, and save 12.4 percent of their income annually, and still not produce enough for a $1 million annuity when they retire. The federal government could then make annual, supplemental deposits to their accounts from its general revenues to make up the difference. Those of us who are more fortunate can help those who are not. (It is useful to remind ourselves that the federal government is "we the people" - and the federal government doesn't have any money unless it takes it from "us the people.")

Let me define what I mean by financial security. Financial security begins with ownership of real assets; so the money saved each year in this plan would be the property of the person who saved it. I would use the existing Social Security collection process because it is already in place, everyone understands it and its costs are relatively low.

He disagrees with the president on details, which is fair. And though he doesn't acknowledge it, he agrees on the fundamental issue: ownership. The problem as he sees it is this:

As I write this I can imagine the chorus of pundits saying, "This isn't politically possible." Why not? Because it is too complicated for people to understand? Or because the only way to approach change in our society is through small incremental steps, like the president's tepid notion of a limited, voluntary diversion of Social Security taxes into small private accounts?

For a guy who spent time in Washington, you'd think he'd have a slightly better grasp of the problem. It isn't that we can't understand the problem, or possible solutions. Ironically, most people under 35 recognize they won't receive social security and favor some level of private accounts, yet a majority of them voted for the guy who favored doing nothing regarding social security. No, Mr. O'Neil should know exactly what the problem is.

The problem is that democrats live off of the dependency of Americans. One can call it welfare, but democrats view government in a very paternalistic manner. They view citizens as children who need to be taken care of. This is why, for example, during California's budgetary crisis, hordes of people will descend upon Sacramento foretelling doom if their program is cut. One has to wonder how people survived before the program was enacted.

The real meaning of reform, be it social security or the tax code, is reforming the relationship between government and the people. Democrats understand this as well as anyone. Should this relationship change, should it revert back say, to a pre-New Deal or even a pre-Great Society view, the democratic party is in deep trouble. Thus, they will fight with every ounce of their fiber anything that would change this relationship.

Expect the democrats to pull out all the stops. Expect the fight to be bloody and unlike any political fight we've seen. The democrats are fighting for their very lives, and though it is hardly a noble one, it is a desperate one.