The Republican Thread

[lostfan]

Which should tell you something.

About socialism? lol

[southsider2k5]

Yeah and their economy isn't doing so great either which is one of the reasons so many people were thinking he would lose.

 

I actually wonder what the real numbers looked like if they weren't so obvious in how they rigged them. He isn't as unpopular in the rest of Iran as it seems from here.

 

Inflation was the big domestic issue... imagine that. Most figures seem to come out at 55-45.

[lostfan]

The main takeaway from the election fiasco was that the Ayatollah's hold on power wasn't airtight and showed serious cracks for the first time. It's not clear how it will play out from here. It wasn't clear in 1979 when the Shah left for a few months either.

[juddling]

Ford just announced $490 million going into Chinese auto plant......nice to see our bailout money going to good use over seas.......

 

link

 

 

[lostfan]

Ford declined federal money IIRC. They didn't need it and didn't want to have the government telling them what they could or couldn't do.

[kapkomet]

Ford declined federal money IIRC. They didn't need it and didn't want to have the government telling them what they could or couldn't do.

That's correct.

 

A true story: had to do a strategic plan for a company in MBA (one of many presentations of course) - we did presentation on Ford, and no joke, a year before they did it, we pretty much NAILED what they would do, all the way down to the brands that they sold off. I must say that was one of the best parts of the program because looking back, we made the same decisions that the executives made.

[NorthSideSox72]

That's correct.

 

A true story: had to do a strategic plan for a company in MBA (one of many presentations of course) - we did presentation on Ford, and no joke, a year before they did it, we pretty much NAILED what they would do, all the way down to the brands that they sold off. I must say that was one of the best parts of the program because looking back, we made the same decisions that the executives made.

Yeah, I can't really blame Ford here anyway. GM and Chrysler got some serious competitive advantages via bankruptcy and the bailouts, while Ford managed to avoid that and are penalized essentially. Not a surprise they need to find an edge somewhere else.

 

[southsider2k5]

Yeah, I can't really blame Ford here anyway. GM and Chrysler got some serious competitive advantages via bankruptcy and the bailouts, while Ford managed to avoid that and are penalized essentially. Not a surprise they need to find an edge somewhere else.

 

Well they don't have to pay back on any loans, and they don't have the genuises in the federal government telling them what their game plan is. I'd call that two pretty big advantages.

[Cknolls]

Mighty Mouse is headed to Copenhagen after all.

 

 

[Cknolls]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1254093939..._LEFTTopStories

 

 

It seems this guy should recuse himself from "investigating" Countrywide.

 

 

 

[Balta1701]

Yeah, I can't really blame Ford here anyway. GM and Chrysler got some serious competitive advantages via bankruptcy and the bailouts, while Ford managed to avoid that and are penalized essentially. Not a surprise they need to find an edge somewhere else.

On the other hand...Ford (and others, including Toyota) who weren't bailed out lobbied the government hard for the bailouts of GM and Chrysler...because they use the same monopolized parts suppliers and the lsoss of those 2 would have hammered Ford as well.

[NorthSideSox72]

Mighty Mouse is headed to Copenhagen after all.

Discussed in the Olympics thread (in the Sports Pub).

 

Mighty Mouse? Kinda lame, I'd think his opponents could come up with better nicknames than that.

 

[kapkomet]

Discussed in the Olympics thread (in the Sports Pub).

 

Mighty Mouse? Kinda lame, I'd think his opponents could come up with better nicknames than that.

It's lame, but it's funny.

[NorthSideSox72]

It's lame, but it's funny.

lame isn't funny. Hell, I could come up with something that was at least a little funny. Call him teleprompt-Obama, or Barackstar, or something at least mildly connected to him. Mighty Mouse? I could have called W, Elmer Fudd too, but seriously, that's just lame.

 

[lostfan]

Well he does have some big f***ing ears.

[NorthSideSox72]

Well he does have some big f***ing ears.

This is true. I kind of chuckled at the "car with the doors open" jokes when they came out - that was kinda funny.

 

[kapkomet]

lame isn't funny. Hell, I could come up with something that was at least a little funny. Call him teleprompt-Obama, or Barackstar, or something at least mildly connected to him. Mighty Mouse? I could have called W, Elmer Fudd too, but seriously, that's just lame.

HEEEEEEEEERE I AM TO SAAAAAAAAVE THE DAY!!!!!!!!!

 

C'mon. It's a chortle, at least.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

lame isn't funny. Hell, I could come up with something that was at least a little funny. Call him teleprompt-Obama, or Barackstar, or something at least mildly connected to him. Mighty Mouse? I could have called W, Elmer Fudd too, but seriously, that's just lame.

 

No lamer than Dubya's "village idiot" moniker

[NorthSideSox72]

No lamer than Dubya's "village idiot" moniker

That was lame too.

 

I just figure, we're all smart here, we can do better. Yes we can.

 

[Cknolls]

lame isn't funny. Hell, I could come up with something that was at least a little funny. Call him teleprompt-Obama, or Barackstar, or something at least mildly connected to him. Mighty Mouse? I could have called W, Elmer Fudd too, but seriously, that's just lame.

 

 

"Here I come to save the day" theme music fits him to a tee.

[southsider2k5]

Here is a good article that actually goes back and talks about the previous eight years from the left wing, you know the place that is leading the howls against anyone who has anything bad to say about Obama. I also like the fact that they call for it to end.

 

http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/...of-the-uncouth/

 

American Stasis

 

The historian Thucydides warned about the escalating violent language and behavior that we are witnessing. More on that later.

 

For now, tes, I thought Rep. Joe Wilson was a boor to scream out at the President during a Joint Session. If everyone were to do that, we’d descend into some sort of Third World Parliament in short order, or end up caning each other, as on the eve of the Civil War. He apologized to the President, and should have.

 

Tit-for-Tat?

 

But sadly, I put no credence in liberal outrage. Dozens of Democrats booed Bush during his State of the Union address in 2005; an unhinged Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) called him a liar from the House floor. The currently outraged, like Maureen Down and E.J. Dionne, said little about the 2005 interruption of the President of the United States with catcalls. Congressional efforts at censure failed. Stark, for all I know, remains not an albatross, but an icon of the Left.

 

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

 

President Obama called for more civility on 60 Minutes the other night. A noble effort, all would agree. But he has himself been serially accusing his opponents of disinformation and lying about his health care plan—even as his own accounts of how many are currently uninsured, the status of illegal aliens under his plan, or the nature of his end of life counseling programs seem to change weekly.

 

The President in his calls for moderation, of course, said nothing about Van Jones’s profanity and racism—or his czar’s charging Bush with planning the deaths of 3,000, charging whites with being mass killers in the schools, and polluters, and on and on.

 

Wasn’t There Someone Once Upon a Time Called Van Jones?

 

Any President devoted to the notion of restoring civility would have never nominated such a boor. Imagine instead a contrite Obama saying: “We have got to do better in the way we talk to each other. My own White House green jobs advisor should never have said the things he did, and that’s why he had to go.” Instead, Jones got out of town, screaming about smears at midnight. Obama voted present as the Left charged racism at Jones’s departure—although the President warned school children not to post things on the Internet, the implication being you too can be a poor Jones done in by Google.

 

The Wages of the Sixties

 

The truth is that a new generation of boors has come of age without sober wise people to teach them how to act. A Rep. Stark or Rep. Wilson, whether left or right, were Sixties people, a generation known for its hip crassness and uncouthness. The baby boomers themselves abdicated the role of elder statesmen, and instead need in their dotage to be taught before they can teach anyone. The proper censors are in the graveyards, a better mannered generation used to hardship and war, whose legacy of standards we have squandered.

 

Boors Everywhere

 

The result? Turn to tennis and we see this week a pathetic Serena Williams in a profanity-ridden rant, because she is being beaten badly on the court and apparently cannot handle the self-induced humiliation, and so goes ballistic over an apparently bad call. I am sure she would have preferred, as in the past, the racist- to the profanity-card, had not the targeted umpire herself been a person of color. Of course, John McEnroe, Ilie Natase and Jimmy Connors set the present low standards in tennis. Ms. Williams is only following in their ends-justify-the-means footsteps. In about a week, her father will weigh in with his customary slurs on spec. Who knows, maybe even McEnroe will claim, “Even I would never do that!”

 

Steal the Show

 

Then a buffoonish rapper Kanye hijacks a music awards show, to scream out that he prefers the loser to the poor embarrassed winner, standing mute before him with the trophy. But how can the audience that honors the violence and degradation of hip-hop / rap, then be outraged that they get a live version of such crude behavior before them of what they buy on CDs? Had Kanye only put in a plug for green jobs, he might have escaped without the boos. So we need a Juvenal (‘Who will police the police”) to note the irony of a crass music industry being out-crassed on its formal night out.

 

Not So Long Ago

 

The Left is now furious that, as the new establishment, the rules of discourse are not more polite. But from 2002-8, they (Who are “they”? Try everyone from Al Gore to John Glen to Robert Byrd to Sen. Durbin), employed every Nazi/brown shirt slur they could conjure up. NPR’s folksy old Garrison Keiler was indistinguishable from mean-spirited Michael Moore in that regard.

 

The New York Times gave a discount for a disgusting “General Betray Us” ad. The Democratic Party head Howard Dean flatly said he “hated” Republicans. Hilary Clinton all but called Gen. Petraeus a liar in a congressional hearing. The New Republic ran an essay on hating George Bush (not opposing, not disliking, but “hating” the President). Alfred Knopf published a novel about killing Bush. A Guardian op-ed dreamed of Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth coming back to kill Bush. And on and on.

 

So What?

 

No one objected. A Dan Rather said nothing—but tried to pass off forged documents to alter the election. A Bill Moyers piled on. There was no voice of “Now, wait a minute, this is going too far.” Did the Left assume that they were going to be perpetually bomb-tossers, forever on the outside of Karl Rove’s ballyhooed three-decades of Republican supremacy to come?

 

What Comes Around, Goes…

 

And then something strange and quite unexpected happened. The Democrats nominated a charismatic African-American, won the presidency, after obtaining large majorities in Congress, and suddenly became the Establishment, demanding respect for the Commander in Chief in direct proportion to their efforts to deny respect to his predecessor. Then just as suddenly two tropes appeared after January 20th of this year:

 

One—cannot we all get along? We deplore this resort to barbarism and crudity.

 

Two—if you dare sound off like we just did, then you are now a racist.

 

Not So Fast

 

The problem is that the public is not really stupid and has a long memory. It hates hypocrisy as much as it does crudity. Part of Obama’s decline is precisely because of this sudden disingenuousness in which one rises to the top on hardball, Chicago politics and playing identity politics (remember Rev. Wright, Ayers, “typical white people”, clingers, etc.), and then of course wants an end to the crudity (like hoping the music stops only when you have grabbed that last chair).

 

Or so Obama said that he wanted a sort of end to the acrimony. But once he was elected, we got Eric Holder slurring the nation, the President slurring the police, the environmental jobs czar slurring almost everyone, and a host of satellites like Charles Rangel and Diane Watson leveling charges of racism.

 

So where do go from here?

 

The standards of civilly, torn down during the 1960s, were obliterated completely after 9/11 (hours after, actually, when Michael Moore (Jimmy Carter’s hero) wished a red-state had been hit instead). We have no more “Wise Men” in Washington and New York, but rather graying children of the Sixties, aging badly. A large segment of the left—from Code Pink and Moveon.org to Acorn and the unions—believe that they really can smear and defame and then retreat to mythical standards of decency when they are now on the receiving end. Does anyone believe that the amateur hit journalists who caught Acorn red-handed used tactics any different from Mike Wallace and the 60 Minutes team?

 

Back to Corfu

 

The historian Thucydides has a wonderful chapter in his third book on the stasis at Corcyra on all this. In short, he says when rules, decorum, respect, and commonly accepted behaviors are jettisoned for short-term advantage, then the thin veneer of civilization, in other words the law, is scratched away and we peer at our natural Rousseauian selves below. And quite a scary sight that is, natural man without civilization.

 

Even more brilliant is the historian’s irony. When those on the outs, who excel through seeking the ends by any means, soon find themselves as the establishment, they want no more like themselves. (I don’t think First Lady Michelle now wishes anyone to charge her nation with being a mean country, or would want any guest to her White House to tell her that he is not proud of suddenly liberal America; cf. Obama’s sudden distrust of the community-organizing Tea Partiers and Town Hallers who are out-organizing Acorn).

 

But too late. Once the walls are stormed, and ramparts of decency in rubble, it is very hard to rebuild the stones to fend off the barbarians, given the power of natural coarseness, and the problem of legitimacy and irony (Why should we believe that you are shocked at Joe Wilson now, when you booed George Bush not long ago?)

 

Enough?

 

The solution, of course, is for the majority to simply say enough is enough, and declare a personal code of decency: “I will not stoop to smear and slur, won’t interrupt a speaker, won’t call anyone a Nazi, won’t do to others what they’ve done to me.” Only that sort of code will end the craziness.

 

In the short-term it is a losing political formula for conservatives, but in the long term it is the only way to restore sanity and a winning strategy. The New York Times is moribund for reasons other than the Internet. Most (I have not bought a copy in 5 years) won’t read it because of the vitriol of a Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich, and the crass editorials disguised as news accounts on the front page. Obama’s ratings have dived because of the Gates mess, Van Jones, and the Chicago political style. Even Oprah is having problems, once America’s sweetheart went out in a fury on the campaign trail, and used her stature to play on identity politics.

 

No one needs to become Pollyanna or shocked at occasional tough hits (I’ve been booed and shouted down at a few public lectures by mostly middle-class students parading as “the people” on the barricades), but instead simply refrain from calling your enemy a Nazi or screaming at an official in the middle of a speech, or, like Maureen Dowd, dreaming of kicking Dick Cheney at a reception. The point is not to ostracize or point fingers at others in moralistic fashion, but just simply say, “That’s not my way.”

 

Otherwise?

 

Otherwise, we won’t have a tennis match, an awards ceremony, a Presidential speech, a congressional debate—much of anything without some hysterical rant from the unhinged.

[southsider2k5]

An Obama official essentially bribing someone not to run for office...

 

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13429758

 

D.C. job alleged as attempt to deter Romanoff

By Michael Riley

The Denver Post

Posted: 09/27/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

 

WASHINGTON — Not long after news leaked last month that Andrew Romanoff was determined to make a Democratic primary run against Sen. Michael Bennet, Romanoff received an unexpected communication from one of the most powerful men in Washington.

 

Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions, according to several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post.

 

Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency, sources said.

 

Then, the day after Romanoff formally announced his Senate bid, Obama endorsed Bennet.

 

It is the kind of hardball tactics that have come to mark the White House's willingness to shape key races across the country, in this case trying to remove a threat to a vulnerable senator by presenting his opponent a choice of silver or lead.

 

Along with other prominent examples — including an effort to stop New York Gov. David Paterson from seeking re-election — the administration's tactics in the Colorado Senate primary show that Obama is willing to act as pointedly as his Oval Office predecessor, whose political chief, Karl Rove, was famous for the assertive application of White House power to extend the reach of his party.

 

Job "never offered"

 

The White House said that no job was ever offered to Romanoff and that it would be wrong to suggest administration officials tried to buy him out of the contest.

 

"Mr. Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration," said White House spokesman Adam Abrams.

 

Yet several top Colorado Democrats described Messina's outreach to Romanoff to The Post, including the discussion of specific jobs in the administration. They asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

 

Romanoff declined to discuss any such communication and said the only job he's focused on is "representing the people of Colorado in the United States Senate."

 

Presidents often press

 

It is not unusual for a sitting president, the effective leader of his party, to work to exert influence on local races that affect the balance of power, a tradition that goes back to Franklin Roosevelt and even earlier.

 

And some Democrats said the aggressive intervention into local races by the White House political team, including both Messina and his boss, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, settles their fear that a president who campaigned on "hope" would not make the kind of aggressive decisions necessary to help the party preserve big majorities in Congress.

 

State Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, said the White House has "every right" to get involved in the race.

 

"People locally are taking a position. Why wouldn't Barack Obama, who by the way is more affected by the outcome, have a right to be involved?" said Romer, who is supporting Bennet. "It's absolutely consistent with what other presidents have done in both parties."

 

Still, the tactics have surprised others in the party, sparking growing concern especially as efforts that should have been kept private spill into public view.

 

In New York, Obama reportedly asked the unpopular Paterson to step out of the race for governor, prompting uproar and days of unflattering headlines when it was leaked to the press.

 

In Virginia, Obama called former Gov. Douglas Wilder and asked him to publicly endorse the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds to counter damage Wilder had done by speaking well of Deeds' opponent, a conversation that eventually ended up in the pages of The Washington Post.

 

Backlash potential seen

 

"It may make the situation worse for Bennet for them to play the game this way," said state Rep. Kathleen Curry, a Gunnison lawmaker who is supporting Romanoff.

 

"People in Colorado have an adverse reaction to the external forces coming down and telling them how to think," she said.

 

The timing of Messina's latest intervention sparked particular concern — because of the appearance that the administration was trying to buy off a nettlesome opponent, to some; to others, because the timing made the effort appear so ham-handed.

 

A popular state House speaker, Romanoff has had a long interest in issues of global poverty and had talked to the administration about a possible job in early spring. White House officials said those discussions stopped when Romanoff began suggesting he might run for higher office in Colorado.

 

Bennet's allies have suggested that Romanoff followed an erratic, even grasping path to the primary after his bid to be appointed to the seat by Gov. Bill Ritter in January failed — looking for a job in the administration, traveling to the Middle East and Africa, and applying to become head of the Colorado Children's Campaign, a children's advocacy organization.

 

Early this year, Romanoff "was recommended to the White House from Democrats in Colorado for a position in the administration," White House spokesman Abrams said. "At that time there were some initial conversations, but no job was ever offered."

 

But Democrats in Colorado say it was doubtful an administration job would have tempted Romanoff once news of his intention to run for Senate leaked in late August.

 

A former chief of staff for Montana Sen. Max Baucus and a top official in Obama's campaign, Messina is considered the White House's top political problem solver.

 

He recently worked the halls of the Massachusetts statehouse as lawmakers considered whether to pass legislation allowing the quick appointment of an interim replacement to Sen. Edward Kennedy — the Democrats' critical 60th vote.

 

Emanuel sets tenor

 

But the aggressive tenor of the administration's approach in local races is usually attributed to his boss, White House Chief of Staff Emanuel. The famously profane Emanuel helped orchestrate the Democratic takeover in the House in 2006 by recruiting candidates and clearing the field of primary opponents, tactics now being applied from the offices of the West Wing.

 

"Is it a breach of the political etiquette? Is it an abuse of the presidency? No. This is the way White Houses work," said William Galston, a former adviser in the Clinton White House. "Every president has to try to figure out the extent to which his actions as head of the party may stand in tension to other aspects of his job.

 

"Obviously, if a president wants to lower the tone of partisan debate — if he has announced that as a major objective — then putting the pedal to the metal in his role as head of party may weaken the credibility of that claim," Galston said.

[Cknolls]

This is awesome! God Bless! Hopefully you get many more....

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...-with-AK47.html

 

 

[Controlled Chaos]

Received these 2 emails from a friend. Thought I'd pass em on.

 

In Dec. 2000 Clinton signed the bill that led to the financial collapse; not Bush

 

Bill Clinton signed the legislation that led to the Enron debacle and creation of 'credit default swaps' that led to the financial collapse of wall street. The bill was passed on the last vote of the last day of the 106th congress.

Credit default swaps were sold as insurance against the default of 'mortgage back securities'. The wall street lawyers who wrote the bill didn't call them 'credit default insurance' to avoid insurance regulation laws. They also wrote the bill so there would be no federal oversight by the commodity futures trading commission or the securities and exchange commission. Finally to remove any interference by the states they included a section that prevented the states from enforcing existing gambling and bucket shop laws.

Republicans are duplicitous too, rep. Ewing (R-Il), Sen. Lugar (R-In) and Sen. Gramm (R-Tx) sponsored bills that led to this legislation. Gramm insisted on no oversight by the securities and exchange commission. These guys, including Clinton need to be held accountbale.

 

Who caused oil to go to $140 and gasoline to $4 last year?

 

Yesterday, I sent an e-mail about the legislation that Bill Clinton signed just before leaving office in Dec. 2000. The bill was h.r. 5660 'the commodity futures modernization act'. It not only deregulated the financial markets and led to the 'financial collapse', but, it deregulated oil futures trading, so that, anyone could speculate on oil with no limit on the number of contracts.

Before Clinton signed this bill into law, oil futures trading was limited to businesses (airlines, trucking companies, railroads, oil companies, etc.) That needed to hedge the price of oil to lock in their fuel costs for a year or so into the future.

This unfettered speculation is what led to the $4.00 gasoline last year and started the collapse of car sales and eventually the car industry in America. This video explains a lot and again it was Bill Clinton's signature that allowed this to happen and he walks around blameless as the left keeps saying geo. Bush deregulated wall street and caused the 'financial collapse'.

 

[southsider2k5]

Received these 2 emails from a friend. Thought I'd pass em on.

 

In Dec. 2000 Clinton signed the bill that led to the financial collapse; not Bush

 

Bill Clinton signed the legislation that led to the Enron debacle and creation of 'credit default swaps' that led to the financial collapse of wall street. The bill was passed on the last vote of the last day of the 106th congress.

Credit default swaps were sold as insurance against the default of 'mortgage back securities'. The wall street lawyers who wrote the bill didn't call them 'credit default insurance' to avoid insurance regulation laws. They also wrote the bill so there would be no federal oversight by the commodity futures trading commission or the securities and exchange commission. Finally to remove any interference by the states they included a section that prevented the states from enforcing existing gambling and bucket shop laws.

Republicans are duplicitous too, rep. Ewing (R-Il), Sen. Lugar (R-In) and Sen. Gramm (R-Tx) sponsored bills that led to this legislation. Gramm insisted on no oversight by the securities and exchange commission. These guys, including Clinton need to be held accountbale.

 

Who caused oil to go to $140 and gasoline to $4 last year?

 

Yesterday, I sent an e-mail about the legislation that Bill Clinton signed just before leaving office in Dec. 2000. The bill was h.r. 5660 'the commodity futures modernization act'. It not only deregulated the financial markets and led to the 'financial collapse', but, it deregulated oil futures trading, so that, anyone could speculate on oil with no limit on the number of contracts.

Before Clinton signed this bill into law, oil futures trading was limited to businesses (airlines, trucking companies, railroads, oil companies, etc.) That needed to hedge the price of oil to lock in their fuel costs for a year or so into the future.

This unfettered speculation is what led to the $4.00 gasoline last year and started the collapse of car sales and eventually the car industry in America. This video explains a lot and again it was Bill Clinton's signature that allowed this to happen and he walks around blameless as the left keeps saying geo. Bush deregulated wall street and caused the 'financial collapse'.

 

 

The last one is garbage. Record demand is what led to record prices. Blaming the futures industry for record prices is like blaming a piece of paper for what gets printed on it.