44th President and 111th Congress (US Gov't 2009-2011)

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Mystique

O.o?!?!
Woah woah, huh?
First black man to lead the republicans in America?
(I'm I reading this wrong?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7862158.stm
more story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7862239.stm

For one, if I heard his name, I'd never have questioned his ethnicity as that of a minority
Two:

Is he head of just campaigns or other politicians or can he try for mayor/governor/president etc?
(So many states and levels of positions and power, it's confusing)

Can anyone give me a quick 101 on who he is, what power he's just gained by winning and what he'll be doing/representing for the red team, or if his win makes any difference at all.

More importantly, he's considered a moderate in the GOP. The chairman directs allocation of funds toward local elections for one but in general sets the tenor for the party.

That's a good first sign that the wingnuts may be on their way back to the dark rocks they crawled out of... but I suspect there's going to have to be a metaphorical bloodbath to really extricate the sort of people we've seen over the last ten years (DeLay, Frist, Rove, Myers, et al). Boehner (House Minority Leader) has certainly got to go but it'd be better if his own district voted him out in 2010.

[Whiteshirt]

Originally Posted by Mystique

O.o?!?!
Woah woah, huh?
First black man to lead the republicans in America?
(I'm I reading this wrong?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7862158.stm
more story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7862239.stm

For one, if I heard his name, I'd never have questioned his ethnicity as that of a minority
Two:

Is he head of just campaigns or other politicians or can he try for mayor/governor/president etc?
(So many states and levels of positions and power, it's confusing)

Can anyone give me a quick 101 on who he is, what power he's just gained by winning and what he'll be doing/representing for the red team, or if his win makes any difference at all.

It was hilarious keeping track of it. Him and Katon Dawson were pretty much neck and neck most of the time; Steele probably won because everyone pretty much knew in this day and age an openly racist person is terrible PR; not only is he a member of a whites-only country club, he joined the GOP because of desegregation. Dawson still could have won despite this.

Its all good that he's a moderate, but the guy probably couldn't organise a successful school fair bake sale if his life depended on it. Of course who knows; we all generally thought Howard Dean was going to be pretty ineffective and look what happened.

[james0246]

I have to say, I find it humorous that the brother-in-law (and long time supporter) of Mike Tyson is now the current head of the RNC…there is just something about the situation that tickles my funny bone.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Vexx

More importantly, he's considered a moderate in the GOP. The chairman directs allocation of funds toward local elections for one but in general sets the tenor for the party.

That's a good first sign that the wingnuts may be on their way back to the dark rocks they crawled out of... but I suspect there's going to have to be a metaphorical bloodbath to really extricate the sort of people we've seen over the last ten years (DeLay, Frist, Rove, Myers, et al). Boehner (House Minority Leader) has certainly got to go but it'd be better if his own district voted him out in 2010.

They've still gotta take care of Brownback.

And in some ways I actually miss DeLay just for the daily controversies surrounding him that would end up on the Daily Show. In fact his Wikipedia article is almost made up entirely of the controversy subheading. It could be it's own seperate subset of articles (and in fact is) the guy was so comically corrupt. Everything that was sleazy and underhanded in the session periods between 2003-2005 you could be sure DeLay had a hand in.

[Whiteshirt]

Fresh off his stint as a war correspondent in Gaza, Joe the Plumber is now doing political strategy with Republicans.

When GOP congressional aides gather Tuesday morning for a meeting of the Conservative Working Group, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher – more commonly known as Joe the Plumber — will be their featured guest. This group is an organization of conservative Capitol Hill staffers who meet regularly to chart GOP strategy for the week.

Wurzelbacher, who became a household name during the presidential election, will be focusing his talk on the proposed stimulus package. He's apparently not a fan of the economic rescue package, according to members of the group.

If nothing else, GOP aides are using the appearance to get staffers to attend the 9 a.m meeting.

“In case you weren’t planning to attend CWG tomorrow morning, you might want to reconsider because Joe the Plumber will be joining us!” Kimberly Wallner, an aide to South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, wrote in a message to her e-mail list this afternoon.

Last month, Wurzelbacher did a brief stint as a war reporter for the conservative web site pjtv.com.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/200...V0aGVwbHVtYmU-

How is this man still relevant? First he thinks he's good enough to go to Israel to report of the situation, then tells the world that he thinks the media should be abolished from reporting on wars because they beat down on (America's) troops and we should go back to the old school WWII cinema-style reporting, and now he's helping the GOP directly and treated as some VIP.

At this rate, he'll be running for president.

[Cut-Tongue]

Originally Posted by Whiteshirt

How is this man still relevant? First he thinks he's good enough to go to Israel to report of the situation, then tells the world that he thinks the media should be abolished from reporting on wars because they beat down on (America's) troops and we should go back to the old school WWII cinema-style reporting, and now he's helping the GOP directly and treated as some VIP.

At this rate, he'll be running for president.

He thinks hes good enough because PR people keep telling him so, and those PR people (who probably hate him) keep telling him so because mouthbreathers like him. Mouthbreathers like him because hes what I call an alpha mouthbreather.

[Vexx]

Its also a sign that at least PART of the GOP is going to so far right and out that they might as well be on the moon. The House Republicans still haven't gotten the memo they're not credible anymore with the same noises from the last eight years either. I'd write them off completely if it weren't that a fair fraction of my relatives are firmly in what I'd call the "12%ers" (they wanted Cheney to run for President) so I get periodic insight into just how delusional such people are.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Its also a sign that at least PART of the GOP is going to so far right and out that they might as well be on the moon. The House Republicans still haven't gotten the memo they're not credible anymore with the same noises from the last eight years either. I'd write them off completely if it weren't that a fair fraction of my relatives are firmly in what I'd call the "12%ers" (they wanted Cheney to run for President) so I get periodic insight into just how delusional such people are.

let me guess they want tom delay as vp.

the donkeys would like run against that ticket.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Its also a sign that at least PART of the GOP is going to so far right and out that they might as well be on the moon. The House Republicans still haven't gotten the memo they're not credible anymore with the same noises from the last eight years either. I'd write them off completely if it weren't that a fair fraction of my relatives are firmly in what I'd call the "12%ers" (they wanted Cheney to run for President) so I get periodic insight into just how delusional such people are.

Sadly enough, Steele has already said that the "message" (i.e. anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-Big Government, Pro-Big Business, etc) is correct, the only problem is the "messenger" (i.e. old white men trying to get non-white votes), and a recent poll shows that a large minority (30%) thinks the GOP is too moderate, and that the majority of Republicans think that the party should be more like Gov. Palin. So, it's not just the House, the entire GOP is still stuck in the olden days...

In other news, Sen. Judd Gregg (a true fiscal conservative, unlike the many posers in the House that have popped up in the past week) has accepted the post of Commerce Secretary. There is something about having a former lottery winner as Commerce Secretary that brings a nice big smile to my face .

[yezhanquan]

@james0246: That poll shows some scary stuff. I'm sure "irrelevance" is too mild a word when used here.

[Xellos-_^]

Daschle puls out

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...th-nominee/?hp


YES WE CAN, well maybe not

Rant:
i just sent in half my property tax today they really need to tax the renters too to pay for the schools and parks and crap. They use the all those wonderful service too, so why just property owners pay for those

funny thing is i never felt strongly about property rights issue till i became a property owner

VIVA LA PROPERTY OWNER RIGHTS!!!!!

[Claies]

Originally Posted by james0246

Sadly enough, Steele has already said that the "message" (i.e. anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-Big Government, Pro-Big Business, etc) is correct, the only problem is the "messenger" (i.e. old white men trying to get non-white votes), and a recent poll shows that a large minority (30%) thinks the GOP is too moderate, and that the majority of Republicans think that the party should be more like Gov. Palin. So, it's not just the House, the entire GOP is still stuck in the olden days...

In other news, Sen. Judd Gregg (a true fiscal conservative, unlike the many posers in the House that have popped up in the past week) has accepted the post of Commerce Secretary. There is something about having a former lottery winner as Commerce Secretary that brings a nice big smile to my face .

Palin? Seriously? Do they really take pride in having figureheads that literally don't know anything but yelling about Jesus and American Nationalism?

And they wonder why technocracies in Asia and Europe are beating them to a pulp.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Daschle puls out
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...th-nominee/?hp
YES WE CAN, well maybe not

Daschle should have cleaned this up last summer.... man that was stupid of him. One thing to remember is that almost no tax return in the US is correct -- the tax code has gotten that byzantine; so unless the "error" is egregious the IRS ignores it as long as they're getting a "reasonable amount" of money.

IMO, no great loss if he couldnt keep something simple like that under control. He's a very nice guy but we need people who are on their toes.

Rant:
i just sent in half my property tax today they really need to tax the renters too to pay for the schools and parks and crap. They use the all those wonderful service too, so why just property owners pay for those

funny thing is i never felt strongly about property rights issue till i became a property owner

Actually renters DO pay property taxes --- its just buried in their base monthly rent and they don't get to report it as tax already paid to the feds. You don't think the apartment owner actually pays that tax out of their own savings, do you?

[Whiteshirt]

Originally Posted by Claies

Palin? Seriously? Do they really take pride in having figureheads that literally don't know anything but yelling about Jesus and American Nationalism?

Well 46% or so of people voted for them. Of course most of them got carried away by the "Yes We Can/Change you can believe in" crap Obama pushed around this time round.

And should Obama fail to provide awesome change like a lot of people are foolishly expecting, I suppose they'll think "Welp, Obama didn't change the economy in 4 years let's go back to the Republicans"

[Vexx]

Depends on who the Republicans run .... if they run Palin again - she's got so much baggage they are toast outside of the 28%ers. All the Democrats have to do is not screw up as badly as the Republicans did.

All this early vetting and extraction of "people with problems" will help set the tone.

[Xellos-_^]

if the elephants want to have any chance they need to run a fiscal conservative whose first answer to any economy question ISN'T cut taxes.

All that aside even if obama disappoint his supporter as long as thier is some even recovery and not any big scandal he should be able to win re-election.

[Vexx]

Interestingly, I completely agree with Xellos (for a change ). The Republicans HAVE to return to their original mission of 'fiscal responsibility' - which includes spending the RIGHT amount on infrastructure and services while hawkishly watching for waste. That can include tax increases on specific targeted sectors.

For example, a LOT of current corporate entity mental illness derives from when the government reduced capital gains taxes and the tax protocol on stock sales. Investors used to rewarded in the tax structure if they held stocks for a reasonable length of time (which encouraged stability, prudent investing, and reduced playing the stocks like it was a gambling casino). Removing that (I believe) led directly to the gross stupidity we see today (like companies being punished for being stable, reliable or being punished for making a bigger profit but not one that meets some jackass analyst's projection).

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Interestingly, I completely agree with Xellos (for a change ). The Republicans HAVE to return to their original mission of 'fiscal responsibility' - which includes spending the RIGHT amount on infrastructure and services while hawkishly watching for waste. That can include tax increases on specific targeted sectors.

For example, a LOT of current corporate entity mental illness derives from when the government reduced capital gains taxes and the tax protocol on stock sales. Investors used to rewarded in the tax structure if they held stocks for a reasonable length of time (which encouraged stability, prudent investing, and reduced playing the stocks like it was a gambling casino). Removing that (I believe) led directly to the gross stupidity we see today (like companies being punished for being stable, reliable or being punished for making a bigger profit but not one that meets some jackass analyst's projection).

Thank You ELDER Vexx,

i think

[Vexx]

heh, we often fall on opposite sides in discussion outside of anime/manga. politics, meh. And its almost impossible to argue with you with all those boobs everywhere

If I were smarter, I'd stay out of General Chat altogether. I try to come here for what I consider FUN in life (games, anime, manga).

[Demongod86]

Originally Posted by Whiteshirt

And should Obama fail to provide awesome change like a lot of people are foolishly expecting, I suppose they'll think "Welp, Obama didn't change the economy in 4 years let's go back to the Republicans"

Yeah. I mean really...what the hell...he promises hope and change and after two weeks in office, we're not all millionaires and still have the same problems!

WHERE'S THE MESSIAH WE VOTED FOR?!