The Republican Thread

[EvilMonkey]

I didn't mean unemployment rate......

 

btw- I dont like you because you make me mad with bad posts. Seriously, never reply to me ever again. Asking politely.

And your posts and replies are pulitzer prize material, for sure. I could do without your attitude as well.

[DukeNukeEm]

Excuse me? Do you know who you're talking to?

[EvilMonkey]

Excuse me? Do you know who you're talking to?

At the risk of bannishment, I don't give a f*** who you are. To me, you an arrogant pissant who's every reply signals disdain for the person on the opposite side, whoever it may be. I am suprised you can stand with an ego the size of yours. So put me on ignore or shut up.

[Balta1701]

So, in my admin role, not in my partisan liberal role, I'm going to say "please everyone chill out" and "if one person in particular is having a problem with the GOP only thread then perhaps they should stay out of the GOP only thread or make heavy use of the ignore button." In fact I'd probably strongly encourage both sides of this particular discussion to make use of the ignore button, as they should probably consider this a warning.

[BigSqwert]

So, in my admin role, not in my partisan liberal role, I'm going to say "please everyone chill out" and "if one person in particular is having a problem with the GOP only thread then perhaps they should stay out of the GOP only thread or make heavy use of the ignore button." In fact I'd probably strongly encourage both sides of this particular discussion to make use of the ignore button, as they should probably consider this a warning.

Detective Scrots to the rescue.

[southsider2k5]

So, in my admin role, not in my partisan liberal role, I'm going to say "please everyone chill out" and "if one person in particular is having a problem with the GOP only thread then perhaps they should stay out of the GOP only thread or make heavy use of the ignore button." In fact I'd probably strongly encourage both sides of this particular discussion to make use of the ignore button, as they should probably consider this a warning.

 

Thanks for the post... I deleted mine that wasn't nearly as nice. Very Good job B.

[mr_genius]

btw- I dont like you because you make me mad with bad posts. Seriously, never reply to me ever again. Asking politely.

 

This post disappoints me, DukeNukeEm. Just when you were getting your elitist posting style down (and I mean that as a compliment) you take 3 steps backward with "Your posts make me mad".

 

For shame.

[EvilMonkey]

Michael Steele now heads the GOP party, and we get this 'hit piece' from WaPo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews

 

The U.S. attorney's office inadvertently sent the confidential document, a defense sentencing memorandum filed under seal, to The Washington Post after the newspaper requested the prosecution's sentencing memorandum.

How come it seems like when a dirty leak harms Democrats, the media focuses on the dirtiness of the leak and barely even mentions the damaging information the leak disclosed. But when a dirty leak harms Republicans, they focus on the substance of the leaked information and don't question at all the propriety of the leak. Will someone in the U.S. attorney's office lose thie rjob over this? Will there be an investigation as to who leaked this sealed file, and why? If it turns out that they had or have prominent ties to the Democratic party or even the Obama campaign, will it even be noted?

 

 

 

 

[EvilMonkey]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard...being-patriotic

 

The deal, announced on the Senate floor, was a result of two days of tense negotiations and political theater. Mr. Obama dispatched his chief of staff to Capitol Hill to help conclude the talks and reassure senators in his own party, and he called three key Republicans to applaud them for their patriotism. [...]

So now authorizing the spending of gazillions of dollars is also patriotic.

[Texsox]

You want to cut some government waste? Here is a target rich environment - the Postal Service.

 

The mail has basically no competition, and should be run at cost. Plain and simple. And yet, this agency actually spends all kinds of money on advertising. Seriously - they spend 9 figures a year on advertising. That is 100% waste, right there.

 

And this year, the USPS may need to cut back service because they are so deep in the hole. The provision of necessary government services should charge what they cost - not more, not less. Its really damn simple. If they can't make their expectations, then raise the prices. If fewer people use it... GOOD. That is less money going to a government agency, and probably some of it goes to other areas of the private sector.

 

Really, no competition? UPS, Fed Ex, Airborne, email, fax, etc. There is no competition for the .42 letter, no one wants that business. But the other stuff is bank and allows the USPS to keep delivering letters for that price.

 

And the USPS relies on volume. Why are their no competitors? Because shipping an envelope from Hopeville, Maine to Beartown, Oregon is damn expensive without a whole plane load of stuff moving from hub to hub.

 

And the stuff flat out arrives. Not so in many other countries.

[Cknolls]

I didn't mean unemployment rate......

 

btw- I dont like you because you make me mad with bad posts. Seriously, never reply to me ever again. Asking politely.

 

 

LMAO!!! Are you serious? Relax a little bit. It is a forum for exchanging ideas. Take it for what it is and nothing more.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

I didn't mean unemployment rate......

 

btw- I dont like you because you make me mad with bad posts. Seriously, never reply to me ever again. Asking politely.

 

 

There are several people here on both sides who frequently upset people on the "other" side with their posts. If everyone asked others to not "never reply to me ever again" b/c it upset them, this forum wouldnt exist.

 

And, this is the republican thread, if something or someone bothers you in here then get out of it. There is a reason there are separate Dem and GOP threads here.

Edited February 9, 2009 by ChiSox_Sonix

[Balta1701]

Again I'll ask, folks, let's please drop this and move on. If I have to I'll go on some sort of anti-tax-cut rant to forcibly change the subject.

[Texsox]

I haven't read this thread in a week or so, have I missed anything? <_>

[Balta1701]

I haven't read this thread in a week or so, have I missed anything? <_>

Tax cuts are a very ineffective method of economic stimulus compared to government spending.

[Texsox]

Tax cuts are a very ineffective method of economic stimulus compared to government spending.

 

As long as everyone is happy

[Balta1701]

If this doesn't change the topic nothing will.

 

Obama bumps head

[southsider2k5]

If this doesn't change the topic nothing will.

 

Obama bumps head

 

 

Maybe he won't be against artificial ceilings now!

[Texsox]

Didn't quite see a bump. I was hoping for a good ol fashioned President Ford bump

 

[southsider2k5]

http://online.barrons.com/article_email/SB...NzkwNjc1Wj.html

 

EDITORIAL COMMENTARY

The Culprit Is All of Us

By SCOTT S. POWELL

The government's meddling got us into this mess.

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CONTRARY TO A VIEW POPULARIZED DURING THE 2008 presidential election season, the current economic crisis was not the result of deregulation.

 

The Bush administration made many mistakes, but deregulation was not one of them.

 

Not only was there no major deregulation passed during the past eight years, but the Bush administration and a Republican Congress approved the most sweeping financial-market regulation in decades.

 

The bipartisan Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted in 2002 to prevent corporate fraud and restore investor confidence after the collapse of Enron and WorldCom. It failed to prevent the accounting fraud and influence-peddling scandals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And even after those scandals were widely understood, regulators sent Fannie and Freddie back into the market to continue buying subprime loans, lending and borrowing with implied taxpayer backing.

 

Across the government, the Bush administration supported new regulations that added almost 1,000 pages a year to the Federal Register, nearly a record. If this is insufficient regulation, it's hard to imagine a scope that would be effective.

 

We are in this mess largely because critical thought and moral judgment have been subordinated to the politicization of our economy, resulting in regulatory gaps and excessive controls of the wrong kind.

 

Government regulations should be limited to those that increase and protect transparency and competition, protect public and private property, promote individual responsibility and enforce equal opportunity under the law. Even if the right laws and regulations could be found, they would prove insufficient to protect freedom and prosperity.

 

The Foundation of Economics

 

In his farewell address, George Washington said that religion and morality are essential to sustain democracy in America. He might well have added that virtue is just as indispensable to its economy. When the captains of banking and finance and their congressional overseers fail in moral judgment, the results are disastrous for everyone. As we are now witnessing in the real-estate, stock- and bond-market dislocations, once trust is lost, markets freeze and long-standing relationships break down, resulting in illiquidity, irrational pricing and severe losses.

 

Today's problems have their roots in programs and financial instruments that shifted the locus of moral responsibility away from private individuals and institutions to wider circles that were understood to end with a government guarantee. Heads of the top banks and financial institutions could approve substandard home-mortgage underwriting -- prone to increased default -- because those loans could be securitized by Wall Street and sold off to investors or to government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), with no likely recourse to the financial institution of origin.

 

Our present crisis began in the 1970s, during the Carter administration, with passage of the Community Reinvestment Act to stem bank redlining and liberalize lending in order to extend home ownership in lower-income communities. Then in the 1990s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development took a fateful step by getting the GSEs to accept subprime mortgages. With Fannie and Freddie easing credit requirements on loans they would purchase from lenders, banks could greatly increase lending to borrowers unqualified for conventional loans. In the name of extending affordable housing, this broadened the acceptability of risky loans throughout the financial system.

 

No Surprise

 

The risk lurking in the GSE portfolios was acknowledged in the Bush administration's first fiscal-year budget, released in April 2001. It stated that Fannie and Freddie were "a potential problem" because "financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in the financial markets, affecting federally insured entities and economic activity." Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan issued repeated warnings that the GSEs "placed the total financial system of the future at substantial risk." Such warnings went unheeded even after accounting scandals rocked Fannie and Freddie.

 

The collapse and government seizure of Fannie and Freddie in September 2008 ended the experiment in partial socialization of the U.S. housing sector. Before we try complete concentration of federal financial power, we should understand that power and political corruption abrogated moral judgment on every level.

 

The poor and middle class were encouraged to live beyond their means and buy houses they couldn't afford; speculators were lured into excessive risk-taking; banks were rewarded for lowering their loan standards; and Wall Street found new windfall profits from securitizing and reselling bad loans in bulk. With the support of regulators, credit-rating agencies provided cover for the whole charade.

 

Spreading Failure

 

There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the political aisle. But the lesson should be clear that socializing failed businesses -- whether in housing, health care or in Detroit -- is not a long-term solution. Expanding government's intrusion into the private sector doesn't come without great risk. The renewing and self-correcting nature of the private sector is largely lost in the public sector, where accountability is impaired by obfuscation of responsibility, and where special interests benefit even when the public good is ill-served.

 

George Washington also warned against excessive partisanship, which distracts public councils and enfeebles public administration. Rather than blaming the party in power or the party formerly in power, the nation should stop living in denial of the mistakes of both parties.

 

Spreading failure across the entire economy risks turning a recession into a depression. Regulatory reform now must foster responsible behavior and financial accountability. Far better for our citizenry and businesses to have a strength and resourcefulness that comes from creativity, honesty and self-reliance than to have a growing dependence on a profligate government.

[Balta1701]

I'm a fan of the fact that the only piece of data that editorial uses to build it's case is the # of pages the Bush Administration added to the federal register. Not what they said, not what their effect was, not what was being done outside of those pages. Yup, total # of pages. Wonder what they might have said...

 

All work and no play makes for a dull stock market

All work and no play makes for a dull stock market

All wrok and no play makes for a dull stock market

All Work and no Play makes for a dull stock market

 

[BearSox]

Anyone feel like we're doomed?

 

I wish I could find the clip of the Simpsons when Homer is telling the story of Maggie's birth, and they get to the part where Homer's in bed talking the Marge, and says "We're doomed! Doomed, I tells ya!" and then he lets out a scream with his head getting big like a balloon and popping.

[kapkomet]

Anyone feel like we're doomed?

 

I wish I could find the clip of the Simpsons when Homer is telling the story of Maggie's birth, and they get to the part where Homer's in bed talking the Marge, and says "We're doomed! Doomed, I tells ya!" and then he lets out a scream with his head getting big like a balloon and popping.

Nah. Obama has it all figured out and he's going to save us.

 

[BigSqwert]

Nah. Obama has it all figured out and he's going to save us.

Says Mr Know-it-all. Aren't you the same person that was telling us that there was no way he would even get elected?

[kapkomet]

Says Mr Know-it-all. Aren't you the same person that was telling us that there was no way he would even get elected?

Hey, you're one of the ones that says he will fix everything. We've been over this before, many times.