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Strategies & Market Trends : The Amateur Traders Corner -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Hua who wrote (4233)	12/14/2000 12:34:18 AM
From: Druss	Respond to of 19633

Tom--If that is all he does it is really an insult. A powerless figure head position is all it is. There is a lot of strength in this nation and I assume we can weather this. We have weathered worse. I like to go fishing when the world seems a bit of a pain. Been a long time since I wanted to wet a line so badly. On the market side of things I am looking at TALK as a turn around play. Stock price is hammered but they continue to expand into new areas. All the Best Druss

To: Tom Hua who wrote (4233)	12/14/2000 12:43:53 AM
From: zx	Respond to of 19633

Copied-- Alienation and the public's "show me" attitude may compel both President Bush and Congress to pass significant chunks of a legislative program so they can avoid voter backlash in 2002. There will be gridlock in Congress but it will be reduced on several key issues that already passed Congress with bipartisan support, only to be vetoed by Bill Clinton. Pursuing them successfully over the first 100 days would make both Mr. Bush and Democrats who represent moderate states and districts look good: • Death tax repeal. This bill passed the House in June by 279-136, with 65 Democrats (almost one in three) voting in favor. Only 39 senators opposed it. • Marriage penalty tax. A total of 49 House Democrats supported ending this tax this year and a repeal easily passed the Senate with 61 votes. (Repeal of the 3% excise tax on telecommunicatons also passed both houses with almost no opposition.) • Partial-birth abortion. A ban on this procedure passed in April, with almost 40% of House Democrats and one-third of Senate Democrats voting in favor. In addition, President Bush could make an early push for fast-track authority to negotiate trade treaties. Mr. Clinton failed to win that battle but his lobbying was halfhearted and perhaps even insincere. Democrats would be wise to use their new strength in the Senate sparingly. They may be able to force through a prescription-drug benefit that's to their liking, and Republicans may not have the stomach to fight a filibuster on marginal tax-rate cuts. But Democrats must avoid a "gridlock at any cost" image that could easily be equated with Al Gore's "win at any cost" mentality. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has already demonstrated his recognition that Democrats will have to pick their fights. Last month I reported that Mr. Daschle had placed a hold on a bill overturning a 1999 Clinton administration order removing polling places from military bases and Army Reserve offices. But after Gore operatives moved last month to disqualify overseas military ballots in Florida, defending the Clinton policy on polling places became risky. This week Mr. Daschle's office denied he had ever placed a hold on the bill, and it now seems headed for passage. The Daschle retreat is a signal that neither party can afford to be seen as obstructionist. It would be in the interest of both sides to harness the public's understandable anger at this year's chaotic voting situation. Political scientists have been warning for years that America has the sloppiest election procedures in the industrialized world, and now people are finally listening. One helpful step would be to pass a bill that has been co-sponsored by Sens. Bob Torricelli (D., N.J.) and Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.). It would fold some of the functions of the Federal Election Commission into a new entity called the Election Administration Commission. The new commission's only function would be to study and make recommendations on election administration and supply small matching grants to local governments that want to adopt its reforms. Passage of the Torricelli-McConnell proposal could administer some needed balm to an issue that has inflamed Americans of all backgrounds. There's a chance that because so many people are expecting a Hobbesian state of nature to consume Washington for the next two years, it might not happen. Not everyone has the stamina for constant confrontation, especially voters. A lot of sound legislation has been bottled up during the Clinton years, and if Mr. Bush sticks to a few priorities, there is no reason he can't get most of his wishes fulfilled by next Christmas. One Democratic congressman is relieved by the election outcome: "The campaign showed that a President Gore would have been insufferable to deal with, and his postelection legal tong war would have once again tied the party's fate to a questionable president." So both parties got Christmas presents this year, just not the ones they expected.