Groovanauts.com - Tea Party/GOP Thread

Help our community grow: Click < here > to tell friends about our site. Click < here > for some HTML/Image links to put on your site

Pages (16): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 »

Last Thread Next Thread

Groovanauts.com > Everything Else > Politics / Economics > Tea Party/GOP Thread

Author

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

Registered: Dec 2001
Age: 65
Location: Treasury
Posts: 34270
This member is a m. To change your gender indicator, click on the Prefs button at the top of the page and edit your preferences.
Top 10 List: < click >

Tea Party/GOP Thread

this is a thread for dom, hilighting all the idiotic incroguencies about Tea Partiers and the GOP...updated often

lets start out with this nugget:

**************

Tea Party Rep: Bank Should Have Known I Wouldn't Be Able To Repay $2.2 Million Loan

Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA)
Read More
Chip Rogers, Nathan Deal, Tea Party, Tom Graves
Share

Tea Party aligned Georgia Rep. Tom Graves (R), who castigates Washington for fiscal irresponsibility, reached an out of court settlement Wednesday after he was sued for defaulting on a $2.2 million loan -- which his attorney argued is the bank's fault for lending him the money in the first place.

Graves and his business partner Chip Rogers -- who is the state Senate's Republican majority leader -- took out a $2.2 million loan from the Bartow County Bank in 2007 to buy and renovate a local motel. The project soon went belly-up.

The bank, which has since failed and had its assets taken over, sued Graves and Rogers for defaulting. The two Republicans then countersued, "accusing [the bank] of improperly declaring the loan in default after reneging on a promise to refinance it at more favorable terms," according to Jeremy Redmon and Aaron Gould Sheinin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution .

In June, Simon Bloom, the attorney for Graves and Rogers, argued in a court filing that the default was the bank's fault because it lent the pair the money knowing full well they couldn't pay. Bloom cited a deposition in which bank officials saw Graves and Rogers' financial records, and then had them sign personal guarantees so they'd "'have some skin in the game' presumably meaning a sense of personal obligation for the debts ... even though they clearly could not fulfill the obligation." Graves and Rogers said they were unaware of that particular filing.

The case was settled out of court on Wednesday, and a Graves spokesman called the case "fully resolved in an equitable and fair manner."

Graves and Rogers bought the motel through a limited-liability company, which they transferred to John Edens in 2009. They say that as a result they're not responsible for the loan repayments -- or for the $41,500 in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest owed the town and county for the motel. The AJC reports that Edens fell behind on electricity payments and had to shut the motel down. He then stripped it of anything of value.

The city says the abandoned site has become a nuisance, and estimates it would cost $100,000 of taxpayer money to tear it down.

Graves, who won a special election in 2010 to replace Rep. Nathan Deal (R), voted against the House bill to raise the debt ceiling on August 1st. TPM readers will also remember Graves' dire warnings about President Obama's mechanical "autopen" that he feared could one day be used to sign phony legislation.

vicman ~ fastest in all of mexico

NOW LISTENING TO:

Flight 643 (Oroginal Mix) - Tiesto ~~~ EPIC!!!

That Look - DeLacy (Tsettos & Santana mix) - Denny Tsettos ~~~ MASSIVE!!!

Let The Sun Shine (JP Remix) - Fifth Dimension ~~~ FIERCE!!!

Air For Life (System F redub) - Andy Moore and Above and Beyond ~~~ MAGICAL!!!

When Epicness is Missing From Your Life - EPICRX IS THERE FOR YOU. RECOMMENDED AND ENDORSED BY ANDY MOORE.

"I don't feel old. I don't feel anything till noon. That's when it's time for my nap." ~ Andy 'muthafokin' Moore

"When I need my weather, there is only one place I turn to: EPIC Weather. On the Weather Channel." ~ Andy 'muthafokin' Moore

Lets watch Dom promise joining the Armed Forces, then back out 5 minutes later.

DOM:
I would be willing to enlist, unlike you, point proven .I said it in 2001 and my stance hasn't changed, If somebody attacks American on our soil and gets on tv or net and says come get us you Yankee p*ssies. I would join the military in 2 seconds.

Al-Qaeda isnt a country moron. They are a global organizations of scumbags.

First of all bin ladon didn't take credit for attacks in 2001, he denied it until 2004. When was he elected president of Afghanistan?2000?If so hes had a great 11 run so far... Considering hes been rumored to be in Pakistan for years, he doesn't fit into either of my criteria's.

Dom's daily to do list:

1- Kiss his "wife" on his way out of his house
2- Blame everything on Obama
3- Give no credit to Obama, even when Bin Laden, al-Awlaki, and Gaddafi were taken care of
3- Dump all his work on his secretary
4- Twitter, facebook for 2 hours
5- Post on Yankee/Jets/Knicks blogs
6 - Read conservative blogs and watch Fox
7- Select items from said sources that he lift and pass on as his own
8- Get schooled on his ignorance everyday
9- Spray tan so he's ready to club 24/7/365 for the next epic party that he will attend

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-11-2011 02:17 PM vicman is offline

Click here to Send vicman a Private Message

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

Attorney for Graves, Rogers: Bank is at fault

ShareThis PrintE-mail
By Jeremy Redmon and Aaron Gould Sheinin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

CALHOUN -- While U.S. Rep. Tom Graves was calling for fiscal responsibility in Washington his attorney was arguing in a lawsuit that a North Georgia bank is at fault for issuing Graves a $2.2 million loan the bank knew he could not repay.

Jeremy Redmon, jredmon@ajc.com U.S. Rep. Tom Graves and Georgia Senate majority leader Chip Rogers are accused of defaulting on a $2.2 million loan to buy and renovate the Oglethorpe Inn in Calhoun.
Enlarge photo

Jeremy Redmon, jredmon@ajc.com Calhoun officials say the building is an eyesore and safety concern.
Enlarge photo

Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com Rep. Tom Graves (center) speaks during a town hall meeting at Dalton on August 9, 2011.
Enlarge photo

Johnny Crawford, jcrawford@ajc.com Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers walks the floor of the senate during the Georgia General Assembly on April 21, 2010.
Related

Bank lawsuit pending against lawmakers
Inn once linked to lawmakers in trouble
Bank, key figure in loan dispute had troubles, too
IRS targets lawmakers' firm
Rogers, Graves: Inn in suit had charitable use
GOP's Graves, Rogers deny bank's claims

Graves was fighting a lawsuit along with business partner Chip Rogers, the state Senate majority leader. The two Republicans, through a limited-liability company, used the loan to purchase and renovate a Calhoun motel that quickly went under.

The bank sued, alleging the two defaulted on the loan. The politicians filed counterclaims against the bank, accusing it of improperly declaring the loan in default after reneging on a promise to refinance it at more favorable terms. Both parties dismissed their claims Wednesday, a day before they were scheduled to attend a hearing on the case in Calhoun. Graves said through a spokesman that the case has been "fully resolved in an equitable and fair manner." An attorney for the bank declined to comment.

Meanwhile, tens of thousand of dollars in back real estate taxes, penalties and interest are owed on the property. The man Graves and Rogers say they transferred ownership to – John Edens – has closed the motel and moved on. Calhoun officials say the gutted building is now a “nuisance” and a safety concern. They are considering tearing it down at taxpayer expense.

Graves, a tea party favorite who has been outspoken about his vote this month against raising the debt-ceiling, said he had not read his attorney’s court filings claiming the bank is at fault for loaning him money it knew he couldn't repay.

“This is a business dispute,” he told Channel 2 Action News this week.

Rogers told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he, too, was unaware of the filing, "so I contacted our attorney. He says no such claim was made pertaining to the payments on the loan. In fact, at the time the new owner [Edens] took possession in 2009, payments were current."

But, in court documents filed in June, an attorney for Graves and Rogers said the personal guarantees Bartow County Bank had them sign for the loan are invalid because the bank knew they could not cover the debt. Their attorney, Simon Bloom, quotes from a deposition in the case in which a bank executive confirms he knew the politicians’ financial records showed they didn’t have $2.2 million.

The two used the loan to purchase and renovate an older motel on Red Bud Road near Interstate 75. They planned to transform it into an extended-stay motel, where tenants could rent rooms by the week or month.

Bloom said the bank agreed to issue Graves and Rogers the loan in 2007 based on their prior experience investing in real estate. He said the bank asked them to sign personal guarantees because it made them " ‘have some skin in the game' presumably meaning a sense of personal obligation for the debts … even though they clearly could not fulfill the obligation.”

Reached Wednesday, Bloom said it is not uncommon for banks to issue loans under these circumstances. The banks, he said, expect such debtors to be able to pay the interest on these loans until they can successfully renovate and sell the properties they have purchased and then use the proceeds of those sales to pay the loans off.

Bartow County Bank failed April 15. Hamilton State Bank purchased Bartow County Bank’s assets and had taken over the lawsuit targeting Graves and Rogers.

Whether the lawsuit has political consequence has yet to be determined. Graves has embraced and been embraced by the tea party in Georgia. Leaders of that movement said they’ll wait to pass judgment on his situation.

“Many things can be alleged by attorneys on both sides of a court case,” Julianne Thompson, state coordinator of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, said.

Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University and a former GOP consultant, said charging Graves with hypocrisy could be an easy case to make.

“I can see how it can be interpreted that way,” Swint said. “But I’m sure from Tom Graves’ point of view he’s talking to his attorneys and like any good lawyer they’re going to make a case that helps the most.”

Still, Swint said, “I can also see how people would take him to task for saying on one hand government has to be responsible [for its debts] and then pulling that kind of thing.”

Mark Rountree, a Republican consultant and pollster, said Graves’ situation upsets voters.

“It makes normal people shake their head and not have faith when you have politicians whose actions don’t meet their words,” he said. Rountree worked for Lee Hawkins, Graves’ challenger in last year's GOP primary, but said this isn’t about past elections. “This problem is real,” Rountree said. “It’s not political.”

Rogers and Graves said they were no longer responsible for the loan debt because they are no longer members of the company they used to take out the loan, Tich Hospitality. They said they entered a contract in 2009 to transfer ownership of that company and the inn to Edens.

That company now owes Calhoun and Gordon County $41,500 combined in unpaid real estate taxes, penalties and interest going back to 2009 on the property, public records show. The inn lost power in February after Edens fell behind in paying about $11,000 to North Georgia EMC for his utility bills, a Calhoun official said. The loss of electricity sent local nonprofit agencies and churches scrambling to help find new homes for about 80 men, women and children who lived at the inn. Some were impoverished and disabled, officials said, and some had called the inn their home for years.

At the time, Edens said he was considering filing for bankruptcy. He filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2004 and has been the target of $200,000 in judgments and liens, including some from state and local tax collectors, public records show.

Edens has had some brushes with the law. He wore an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle last year, explaining it helped him prove he was not violating a restraining order obtained by his ex-wife. Police arrested Edens in Cartersville in June and charged him with felony theft by conversion. That case involves the use of a vehicle from Roswell and appears unrelated to the hotel. Edens did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Calhoun officials issued a demolition permit to Edens in May, hoping he would tear down the hotel. Instead, city officials said, people working for Edens stripped the property of its windows, doors and other valuable items, leaving the shell of the building and some debris behind. Calhoun officials say they are considering fencing it off and demolishing it, estimating that could cost the city more than $100,000.

“It’s a strange situation,” said Calhoun City Administrator Eddie Peterson before the Wednesday settlement. “Tom Graves and Chip have their hands full on this one.”

http://www.ajc.com/news/attorney-for-graves-rogers-1095615.html

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-11-2011 02:18 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

GOP Senate Candidate ‘Regrets’ Comparing Poor People To Scavenging Animals
Benjy Sarlin | August 10, 2011, 6:57PM

Nebraska Attorney General and GOP Senate candidate Jon Bruning caused a stir this week when he compared welfare recipients to raccoons scavenging for insects. According to an aide, he's since realized he may not have picked the best metaphor for the poor.

"It was an inartful statement and one Jon regrets making," Bruning campaign manager Trent Fellers told the Associated Press in a statement. "As Attorney General, Jon's been a strong supporter of welfare reform and giving welfare recipients a hand up and not just a hand out."

In a video released by liberal tracker American Bridge 21st Century on Tuesday, Bruning told an audience about a misguided environmental program that collected endangered beetles in buckets using rat carcasses as bait -- only to be thwarted when raccoons raided the buckets for the tasty bugs.

"The raccoons figured out the beetles are in the bucket," Bruning said. "And its like grapes in a jar. The raccoons - they're not stupid, they're gonna do the easy way if we make it easy for them. Just like welfare recipients all across America. If we don't incent them to work, they're gonna take the easy route."

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-11-2011 02:20 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

Romney touted tax increases to lobby S&P, says report
By Lucy Madison Topics Campaign 2012

Share It
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Since entering the 2012 presidential race, Republican candidate Mitt Romney has repeatedly emphasized his opposition to raising tax revenues as a way to reduce America's deficit. But according to a new Politico report, the former Massachusetts governor in 2004 cited revenue increases when lobbying ratings agency Standard & Poor's to raise his state's credit rating.

According to the report, Romney's administration delivered a Nov. 4, 2004, presentation in which it successfully urged S&P to give Massachusetts a credit rating upgrade in light of a series of steps he had taken to improve the state's economy - including both spending cuts and new revenues. In the presentation, administration officials also touted 2002 tax increases which Romney, who at the time had been running for office, said he opposed.

Among those actions cited include legislation to close tax "loopholes" that added $269 million in "additional recurring revenue" to the state budget, as well as tax amnesty legislation that provided an additional $174 million.

On Monday, just a week after he spoke out against a deal to raise the debt limit in part because he thought it "opens the door" to tax increases, Romney touted his dealings with S&P as Massachusetts governor.

"When I was governor, S&P rewarded Massachusetts with a credit rating upgrade for our sound fiscal management and the underlying strength of our economy," Romney said in a statement. "That didn't happen by accident. The president's failure to put the nation's fiscal and economic house in order has caused a massive loss of confidence that resulted in an embarrassing downgrade."

It is unclear from the documents, obtained by Politico through a state freedom of information law, whether or not Romney was actually present at the 2004 meeting. But the putative GOP frontrunner has spoken proudly about his personal involvement with S&P during his time as governor.

"The president really ought to personally sit down and meet with S&P. I did that when I was governor," Romney said in a recent radio interview. "I met with the ratings agencies and talked about our future and tried to instill confidence in our future because, look, how they rate our debt and how they rate our future as a nation will affect the interest costs that we end up paying and will affect homeowners and borrowers all over the country," said Romney.

Romney aides maintain, however, that the then-governor achieved economic gains in his state through "prudent financial management" rather than raising taxes.

"Gov. Romney never favored, never advocated, and never signed a tax increase into law. In fact, he cut taxes 19 times. The rating agencies rewarded Massachusetts during Gov. Romney's term with a credit rating upgrade. They cited an improving state economy and prudent financial management. It's a sharp contrast to the failures of President Obama, which has resulted in millions of lost jobs, a broken budget and America's first-ever downgrade," Romney campaign aide Eric Fehrnstrom told the Wall Street Journal.

A number of Republicans have expressed openness to tax reform that would ostensibly close loopholes, but Romney argued during the debt limit debate that the nation's borrowing limit should be increased only when the government had cut and capped spending, and passed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

"The answer for the country is for the president to agree to cut fed spending, to cap fed spending and to put in place a balanced budget amendment," Romney said in July. "For me, that's the line in the sand."

*********

lolz...so is there anything that Romney hasn't flipped-flopped on?

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-11-2011 02:22 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

Michele Bachmann Repeatedly Sought Stimulus, EPA, Other Government Funds

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/michele-bachmann-stimulus_n_922851.html

With Reporting By Jason Cherkis

WASHINGTON -- Few candidates in the Republican presidential primary field have decried the federal government with as much gusto as Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). The three-term congresswoman has belittled the stimulus package, deemed the Obama administration both corrupt and "gangster," and lamented the "orgy" of spending she sees happening in Washington.

The contempt has served her well, helping her craft the type of fiscally conservative, anti-government message that has catapulted her into frontrunner status for the Iowa Caucus and, more immediately, Saturday's crucial Ames Straw Poll.

But it's simply not supported by the Minnesota Republican's actual record.

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Huffington Post with three separate federal agencies reveals that on at least 16 separate occasions, Bachmann petitioned the federal government for direct financial help or aid. A large chunk of those requests were for funds set aside through President Obama's stimulus program, which Bachmann once labeled "fantasy economics." Bachmann made two more of those requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, an institution that she has suggested she would eliminate if she were in the White House.

Taken as a whole, the letters underscore what Bachmann's critics describe as a glaring distance between her campaign oratory and her actual conduct as a lawmaker. Combined with previous revelations that Bachmann personally relied on a federally subsidized home loan while her husband's business benefited from Medicaid payments, it appears that one of the Tea Party's most cherished members has demonstrated that the government does, in fact, play a constructive role -- at least in her life and district.

"It had been a longstanding tradition in Congress to be fiscally conservative in every other district other than your own," said John Feehery, president of QGA Communications and a top adviser to former Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert. "Bachmann apparently is being a traditionalist."

A traditionalist, perhaps, but only when the cameras are off. When President Obama crafted a $787 billion stimulus package that included historic investments in state aid, infrastructure projects, health care and education reforms as well as a large swath of tax breaks, Bachmann led a chorus of conservatives in decrying the policy.

“During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy [of spending]," she said of the stimulus and auto industry bailout during a conference in Minnesota on May 4, 2009. "It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed."

Less than three weeks later, she went looking for her piece of the pie.

On May 20, 2009, Bachmann wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, asking him to look into an application for aid that the city of Big Lake, Minn., had made to "develop and finance the Big Lake Rail Park," which she described as "an ambitious commercial and industrial complex which will enhance economic development and job opportunities in this rural Minnesota community." Toward the end of the letter, she added: "We must work together to ensure job creators have access to the vital credit they need to make projects like this a success."

On May 22, 2009, she wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for support for the St. Cloud, Minn., Metropolitan Transit Commission's application for federal funds to "replace twenty-three 35-foot transit buses with compressed natural gas (CNG) powered buses."

On June 4, 2009, she wrote LaHood again seeking grant funding to extend the Northstar Corridor commuter service from Big Lake to St. Cloud.

On June 19, 2009, she made an "urgent" request to LaHood to reverse a decision by the Federal Highway Administration that undermined a project in Waite Park, Minn. The project, she noted, had already received $2.578 million in federal funding through the stimulus package and was "only awaiting the final determination" from the FHWA.

On July 2, 2009, she wrote LaHood again, pleading for money for road improvements in Waite Park. She added that she was "pleased to learn" that Minnesota's Department of Transportation was not going to "pull the nearly $2.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding set aside for the project."

On Sept. 15, 2009, Bachmann wrote six separate letters to LaHood asking for help funding six projects (the Northstar line among them) through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program. The Center for Public Integrity and MinnPost has previously reported on those letters.

On Oct. 5, 2009, she wrote Vilsack again, praising him for putting money into the nation's beleaguered pork industry and encouraging him to help "stabilize prices through direct government purchasing."

Five days later, she was chastising the concept of government spending in public, saying that the president's efforts to stem the fallout of the recession amounted to a charade. "We hear about fantasy football games. This is fantasy economics," Bachmann said.

That the Department of Transportation was the primary target of Bachmann's quest for federal funds isn't surprising. The congresswoman has a record of trying to protect infrastructure projects from her party's budget cutters, arguing that transportation projects should be exempt from the ban on earmarks that the House of Representatives instituted in November 2010. She was also far from the only conservative who attempted to get her hands on some of the $12 billion in funds that DOT received under the stimulus.

"Some members refuse to take stimulus and won't have anything to do with getting government transit money flowing into their states. Others will say that they are against the idea of the stimulus or federal money flowing into the economy but if the money is there, they are going to try and get that money flowing into their district," said Brian Darling, a senior fellow in government studies at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

But that doesn't necessarily absolve Bachmann from attacks from her fellow party members, Darling continued.

"Some conservatives won't like it," he said. "No two ways about it. They will look at it and not like it because they don't want members trying to funnel money back to their state."

Even more problematic, however, could be Bachmann's attempts to get money and assistance from the EPA, an agency that she once said should be "renamed the job-killing organization of America."

In February 2007, well before Obama was in office, Bachmann co-signed a letter to the EPA urging its officials to help fund technical assistance programs and rural water initiatives "in small communities across Minnesota." The authors of the letter, which included nearly the entire Minnesota congressional delegation at the time, noted that FY 2006 funding for the National Rural Water Association had been set at $11 million.

"We need to continue these efforts in 2007," they wrote.

In other communications with the EPA, Bachmann was far colder to agency policy, criticizing spring 2009 federal management standards for coal combustion byproducts and 2008 National Ambient Air Quality standards. But in other instances, Bachmann turned to the EPA for constituent-related problems. In a Feb. 2, 2010, letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, she asked the agency to support a $270,806 grant application (filed with the EPA's Clean Diesel Grant Program) that would help a St. Cloud bus company replace two older motor coach vehicles.

"Voigt's Bus Service, with Community Transportation, Incorporated, is committed to bringing long-term benefits to the environment and the economy and they wish to accomplish this through the Clean Diesel Grant Program," she wrote.

More than the specific funding requests, it is Bachmann's private acknowledgement that the EPA can facilitate positive outcomes for both the environment and the economy that stands out for conservative activists. On her campaign website, after all, Bachmann refers to the EPA as the "Job Killing Agency."

"There is a line between representing your district and then trying to lard up on all of this pork spending, pun intended," said Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government. "There are very few in Congress who have been able to stand strong and say, 'No I'm not going to do this.' And they are, in our view, the heroes … By not being part of that group [Rep. Bachmann] isn't unique, obviously. But I think that she would owe an explanation to the public as to why she did it. Why she asked for certain things, including things from EPA when she's been very vocal about the overreach of the EPA?"

Both Bachmann's presidential campaign and her congressional office did not return requests for comment for this article. In the past, the congresswoman has tried to draw a distinction between the national message she imparts and her professional responsibilities as a representative from Minnesota.

"It is my obligation as a member of Congress to ensure stimulus dollars are spent on the most worthy projects. I did just that when I supported applications for the TIGER grant program," she said last year.

While Bachmann clearly petitioned the federal government for help in multiple venues, she was incredibly unsuccessful in her efforts. Minnesota's sixth congressional district received more than $234 million in stimulus contracts, grants and loans, according to the Obama administration's Recovery.gov website. That may seem like a hefty bundle, but it ranks last among the state's eight congressional districts.

A Department of Transportation official, meanwhile, tells The Huffington Post that the federal government did not end up funding a single one of the projects for which Bachmann solicited help. The department did send funds to the Minnesota state government, which in turn backed transportation initiatives in the state. But the DOT official said that only a small sliver of that pool, if any, was likely to have ended up where Bachmann wanted.

In one instance, moreover, Bachmann wrote LaHood in support of the "Cold Spring Police Department's application for funding through the COPS hiring Recovery Program." That program, the DOT official confirmed, is operated by the Department of Justice. Bachmann was petitioning the wrong agency.

In the end, Bachmann's ineffectiveness in securing federal help for constituents doesn't mitigate the fact that she sought federal help in the first place. And for Republican primary voters, who have been fed a healthy diet of anti-government rhetoric during this election cycle, that may prove to be a blot on her record.

"This will come up in the context of the battle for the Republican nomination and it will be up to Mrs. Bachmann to explain these things adequately," said Craig Shirley, a longtime Republican operative. "The task for any good candidate is to explain why they did such and such which might not conform with party orthodoxy, and then pivot very quickly to convince enough primary voters why it is they who should be the nominee and not the other contenders."

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-11-2011 02:24 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

Mitch McConnell Called For Rich To Pay Their 'Fair Share' In 1990 Ad

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/mitch-mcconnell-tax-the-rich-medicare-cuts_n_924395.html

WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party's dogmatic opposition to raising taxes has been a consistent obstacle to patching together a broader deal to decrease the nation's growing debt. And for Democrats with good long-term memories, it's not only causing some irritation -- it's also prompting a bit of nostalgia for days past.

That's because some of the same GOP lawmakers holding the line on taxes today once presented themselves as willing compromisers on the issue in the past. The most recently unearthed example, pointed out Wednesday by ThinkProgress, comes courtesy of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who ended his 1990 reelection campaign with an ad titled "Fair Share." In it, the Kentucky Republican -- in the midst of a increasingly tight contest -- positioned himself as open-minded on the subject of tax rates.

"Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich," McConnell declares in the ad.

The Huffington Post reached out to the University of Oklahoma Political Communication Center, which houses "the largest and most comprehensive collection of political broadcast advertising in the world," for a video copy of the ad. The Center did not immediately have access to the video. McConnell's Senate office, however, did provide a full transcript of the piece, pasted below (emphasis ours):

********
I'm sure you've been watching this mess in Washington.
I'd like you to know how I feel about it.
I haven't voted for one of these lousy budget packages for years and I won't vote for this one.
It would raise taxes on the wrong people.
Unlike some folks around here I think everyone should pay their fair share. Including the rich.
We need to protect our seniors from Medicare cuts too.
I don't care if the President or Congressional leaders twist my arm. I won't support any deal that isn't a fair deal for the working families of Kentucky.
********

A November 5, 1990 Roll Call article, found via Lexis-Nexis, reveals that the producers of the ad were Greg Stevens, a longtime GOP operative, and Roger Ailes, currently the president of Fox News Channel, an outlet that has provided a fairly large megaphone for the anti-tax-increase, pro-Medicare reform crowd. For good measure, the man who managed McConnell's '90 campaign, Steven Law, is currently President and CEO of American Crossroads, a conservative group that has routinely chastised Democrats for trying to soak the rich with tax hikes.
Asked for comment, McConnell spokesman Don Stewart argued that there were no inconsistencies between the senator's position in 1990 and his stance today. The "lousy" budget package he railed against in the ad was George H.W. Bush's infamous 1990 'read my lips' budget deal that increased the top marginal tax rates from roughly 28 percent to 31 percent. McConnell "vehemently" opposed that deal, Stewart said. And in the ad, he was simply stressing that "he supports tax reform, he does not support increasing taxes."

"If that sounds familiar, it should," Stewart added, noting that current top income rates stands even higher: 35 percent.

And yet, the 1990 campaign ad still stands out for what it says about the political mood of the country -- specifically the mood in economically depressed areas that usually vote Republican. McConnell is known for being one of Congress' more astute political minds. The fact that he once espoused tax code fairness in the heat of a tight election shows that even people from Kentucky, at one point, applauded lawmakers for asking the wealthy to further subsidize the social safety net for the middle class and poor.

"What has been amazing, watching his career, is it doesn't bother him a bit to say whatever he needs to say to get re-elected. Mitch would just say whatever he needed to say," said Jim Cunningham, a long time Democratic operative who managed the campaign of McConnell's 1990 challenger, Harvey Sloane.

In Kentucky, "there was a time when ... you could poll people on taxes and they believed that if you needed to raise their taxes, especially to take care of education, you should do it," Cunningham said. "Over the years it seems like folks pay less and less attention. At the same time that the Republican Party in our state has helped them buy into this notion that we don't need to tax the rich because they are the ones who create the jobs."

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-11-2011 02:26 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

Rick Scott Pays $360 a Year for State Health Insurance

Florida's anti-Obamacare governor and his tea party allies in the Legislature pay less for state-funded health insurance than janitors, cops, or teachers.

—By Adam Weinstein

Thu Aug. 11, 2011 3:00 AM PDT
Last year, political neophyte Rick Scott spent $73 million of his own money to bring the tea party's anti-government, pro-privatization agenda to the Florida governor's office. Today, the former executive pays just $30 a month for health care—and lets taxpayers cover the rest.

The governor, a proud bearer of the Republican Party's deregulation standard, has spent his first half-year in office decrying government waste: He's laid off thousands of Sunshine State employees, slashed their benefits, turned down (most of) the federal government's health care dollars, and put extra financial pressure on Florida retirees and Medicaid recipients. But Scott and his dependents pay one-fifth what a janitor in the state Capitol pays for health insurance…and less than 3 percent of what a retired state trooper pays for life-saving coverage.

When asked about the double standard, a spokesman for Scott declined to comment, calling his family's cheap state coverage "private matters."

Advertise on MotherJones.com

But the matter has huge implications for citizens of the state. Scott sits atop an upside-down benefits system that heavily subsidizes health care costs for the best-off state employees while forcing loyal rank-and-file workers to spend more of their shrinking paychecks for basic coverage. According to Gary Fineout, the longtime Tallahassee reporter who broke the story:

Scott is among nearly 32,000 people in state government who pay relatively low health insurance premiums. It's a perk that is available to high-ranking state officials, including those in top management at all state agencies. Nearly all 160 state legislators are also enrolled in the program that costs just $8.34 a month for individual coverage and $30 a month for family coverage.

Florida's elected politicians, judges, attorneys, prison wardens, department heads, and political staffers are members of the "special exempt service," which allows their cozy incomes to be augmented by the extra health care subsidy. But most of Florida's 176,816 insured state employees (PDF) are members of the "career service" and pay (PDF) $50 a month to cover themselves, or $180 a month to cover their families.

That means a $32,000-a-year administrative assistant for the driver's license bureau pays $2,160 a year for herself and her dependents, or more than five times what Scott pays. (As of last month, Scott—who moved to Florida eight years ago—had a net worth of $103 million.)

State workers could have it worse, though. Retired Florida government employees—30-year veterans of the state's police force, or firefighters, for example—get no subsidy from Tallahassee to keep their coverage in the golden years. Instead, they pay $1,243.34 a month, or nearly $15,000 a year, to stay insured. That's 41 times what Scott's health insurance costs.

So who pays to give Scott and his cronies their cut-rate coverage? Taxpayers do. It's not clear how many of the state's 32,000 top-ranking VIPs cover themselves, and how many get their entire families on the state plan. Depending on that breakdown, Floridians are paying between $1.3 and $4.8 million every month to extend this perk to their political elites. That could amount to as much as $57.6 million a year—12 times what the state spent on public broadcasting before Scott decided to defund the radio and TV stations, calling them "a special interest."

News of the governor's health care perk comes just as he's attempting to improve his image and boost his national profile. Last week, Scott revived a Democratic predecessor's tradition of spending an occasional day working alongside regular Floridians; his first foray, handling the counter of a Tampa doughnut shop, brought scads of protesters but generally positive coverage. Public approval of the governor rose to an anemic 35 percent last week—still better than his low of 29 percent in May, the worst of any governor in the nation. And Scott's also taken a leading role in supporting erstwhile GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry. ("I think he's in a nice position," Scott said of the hardline Texas governor.)

If Scott hopes to climb all the way out of the political cellar, though, he's going to have to explain why he favors government health care for his kin even though he's against it for everyone else. State Sen. Nan Rich, a Democrat, told Fineout that the governor is clearly "entitled" to his insurance subsidy, as far as the law is concerned. But, she added, "I wish every Floridian had the same opportunity."

Adam Weinstein is Mother Jones' national security reporter. For more of his stories, click here or follow him on Twitter. Get Adam Weinstein's RSS feed.

************

Rick Scott and the GOP always looking out for middle class Americans!

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-12-2011 09:40 AM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

been a while since we had a GOP politician soliciting for gay sex.

*******
Anti-Gay Marriage State Rep. Accused Of Offering Young Male Money 'For A Really Good Time'
Jillian Rayfield | August 12, 2011, 11:21AM

Rep. Phillip Hinkle (R-IN)

An Indiana state Representative, who recently voted for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, has been accused of using Craigslist to offer an 18-year old male $80 for "a couple hours of your time tonight" plus a tip "for a really good time."

The Indianapolis Star obtained e-mails sent from Rep. Phillip Hinkle's (R) publicly listed personal address, responding to a Craigslist posting by Kameryn Gibson that said "I need a sugga daddy." Gibson told the Star that the post was in the "Casual Encounters" section under m4m, or men for men. He used his sister Megan's e-mail address -- and she later sent the e-mails to the Star.

"Cannot be a long time sugar daddy," says the e-mail response from what is allegedly Hinkle's address, "but can for tonight. Would you be interested in keeping me company for a while tonight?"

"I am an in shape married professional, 5'8", fit 170 lbs, and love getting and staying naked," the e-mail says.

Another e-mail says: "If u want to consider spending night u might tell ur sis so she won't worry. Would have u back before 11 tomorrow. No extra cash just free breakfast and maybe late night snack."

The Star reports:

The young man told The Star that they met, but that he tried to leave after the man told him he was a state lawmaker. He said the lawmaker at first told him he could not leave, grabbed him in the rear, exposed himself to the young man and then later gave him an iPad, BlackBerry cellphone and $100 cash to keep quiet.
Gibson had his sister pick him up, who says that she then received a number of calls, and one was from a woman who claimed she is Hinkle's wife. "I was like, 'Your husband is gay,'" Megan Gibson said. "And then she was like, 'You have the wrong person.'" When Gibson reportedly read back the e-mail address used for the Craigslist ad, the woman asked her not to call the police.

Talking Points Memo on Facebook
Megan Gibson told the Star that later that evening she went back to the JW Marriott to show Hinkle's daughter the e-mails. She soon after received another phone call from the woman claiming to be Hinkle's wife, who offered her $10,000 not to tell anyone. Still another call came from Hinkle himself later, and she told him what she had told his family members. "You just ruined me," she says Hinkle responded.

Hinkle did not deny the e-mails in response to the Star's request for comment, but said: "I am aware of a shakedown taking place." He did not elaborate on what "shakedown" meant, nor did his attorney.

Read the full report here.

Hinkle recently voted for an amendment (.pdf) to the state's constitution that would define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Late Update: Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) weighed in on the allegations on Friday, telling reporters that he is "sad about it."

"It's not for me to say [whether Hinkle should resign]," Daniels said. "It's for him and his constituents. It's just a personal family tragedy."

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-14-2011 12:05 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

translucent
Webmaster
Lord of Laziness

Registered: May 2001
Location: Over there
Posts: 35720
This member is single. To change your relationship status, click on the Prefs button at the top of the page and edit your preferences. This member is a m. To change your gender indicator, click on the Prefs button at the top of the page and edit your preferences.
Top 10 List: < click >

Caught Bachmann on "Meet the Press" today. Gotta admit, she came off surprisingly well. Unlike Palin, she actually managed not to sound like the idiot that she actually is, artfully dodging some tough questions. Despite David Gregory pushing her, she managed to keep her composure and stay on message for most of the interview. It's actually not all that surprising that she swept the straw poll, even considering that she's originally from Iowa. This exactly the kind of shit that keeps me up at night. Since half of our country is comprised of a bunch of ignorant hicks with undue influence over the rest of us, people like that tend to elect those they deem to be most like themselves. I think she actually has a legitimate chance at the White House, as small as it may be.

"Tresor never sleeps"

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-14-2011 05:35 PM translucent is offline

Click here to Send translucent a Private Message

add to multiple quote reply:

translucent
Webmaster
Lord of Laziness

"Tresor never sleeps"

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-14-2011 11:51 PM translucent is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

and somehow it's Obama who is "out of touch" with middle-class Patriotic Americans?

******
Romney plans to quadruple size of Calif. home
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Philip Rucker, Updated: Sunday, August 21, 10:07 AM

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is planning to nearly quadruple the size of his $12-million California beachfront manse.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and nominal frontrunner for the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination, is planning to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot home facing the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, Calif., and replace it with an 11,062-square-foot home, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Union-Tribune reported late Saturday that Romney has filed an application with the city for a coastal development permit, but that no date has been set to consider the project.

A Romney campaign official confirmed the report, saying the Romneys want to “enlarge their two-bedroom home because with five married sons and 16 grandchildren it is inadequate for their needs. Construction will not begin until the permits have been obtained and the campaign is finished.”

In 2008, then-Republican presidential nominee John McCain was criticized and mocked when he said he was unsure how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, owned. The answer was eight.

Since then, perhaps sensing that this could be a liability for him, too, Romney began consolidating his real estate portfolio. Romney and his wife, Ann, sold for $3.5 million the 6,500-square-foot colonial in Belmont, Mass., where they raised their five sons. They also sold a 9,500-square-foot home at the Deer Valley ski resort near Park City, Utah, for close to its $5.25 million asking price, according to a 2010 Associated Press report.

The couple still maintains a vacation home along Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, as well as townhouse outside of Boston that they consider their primary residence.

Romney, who made part of his fortune as co-founder of Bain Capital, a private equity firm, and his wife have personal financial assets worth as much as $264 million, according to disclosure documents filed with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month.

Romney’s campaign said that “a more accurate range” of his estimated wealth is between $190 million and $250 million.

The Romneys have spent considerable time at their home in La Jolla, a wealthy beach enclave in San Diego. Two of their sons, Matt and Craig, as well as several grandchildren live in the area. And Ann Romney, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has access to horse-riding in California. She believes riding and the warmer weather have a therapeutic effect.

The Romney’s purchased the single-story residence at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac three years ago, according to the Union-Tribune. The Spanish-style home, facing a white sand beach, has three bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms and was constructed in 1936. The newspaper reported that the home was once owned by former San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor and her late husband, Bob Peterson, founder of Jack-in-the-Box, a fast-food chain.

At a book signing in California last year, Romney told reporters he bought the home because “I wanted to be where I could hear the waves. As a boy, we spent summers on Lake Huron and I could hear the crashing waves at night. It was one of my favorite things in the world. Being near the water and the waves was something I very badly wanted to experience again.”

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

08-21-2011 04:36 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

bxbomb
VIC....WHERES THE LINK ?!?!?

Registered: Aug 2006
Location: 631
Posts: 3958

Top 10 List: < click >

hmmm .....
Maxine Waters comments, Andre Carsons Comments
Al Sharpton getting the gig on MSNBC
Richard Wolfe saying the President not getting his way on when his speech is delivered is because hes black ?!?!?

methinks the lib playbook of crying racism at EVERYTHING got dusted off a little early this election cycle

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-01-2011 05:17 PM bxbomb is offline

Click here to Send bxbomb a Private Message

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

VIEW FROM DC from WORLD
Former Republican senator criticises party
10:52 AM Chuck Hagel, former senator from Nebraska, says his fellow Republicans acted irresponsibly in the debt ceiling debate and says that President Barack Obama should let Europe lead the reconstruction of post-Gaddafi Libya. Mr Hagel also tells the FT's Stephanie Kirchgaessner that the Republican party will have to rebuild if they do not win in 2012. (5m 40sec)

http://video.ft.com/v/1138459180001/Former-Republican-senator-criticises-party

I know dom won't click on the link to see the video tho.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-02-2011 10:15 AM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

domjuan
“Yes, we can!” has devolved into “Hey, we might.”

Registered: Jun 2006
Age: 35
Location: Gotham
Posts: 11808
This member is a m. To change your gender indicator, click on the Prefs button at the top of the page and edit your preferences.
Top 10 List: < click >

Those crazy racist tea partiers want lower taxes and a balanced budget. What is wrong with those klan members?

Money Driven, Anal Lover, Yankee Fan, Cowboy up & I Ride w/ the Heat!! I'm a relentless & persistent animal my desire is to be the worlds greatest. - me

“Liberalism is a mental disorder" ~MIKE SAVAGE

“I'd like to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee.”
Joe DiMaggio

Them that governs least, governs best- Thomas Jefferson

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
- Thomas Jefferson

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way. - General George Patton Jr

I love my wife & my life.

"I am an Animal Rescuer. My work is never done, my home is never quiet, my wallet is always empty...but my heart is always full." Annette King-Tucker

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But the U.S. ARMED FORCES don't have that problem."

Vic's daily to do list:

1- Hug a tree
2- 550 useless posts
3- Check in with Domjuan's secretary to see what hes up to for the day.
4- Tweet Obama 150 times
5- Master-bate to pics of Cindy Sheehan
6 - Spread innovative thinking that failed 25 years ago in Europe.
7- Burn an American flag
8- Spew out racist remarks to anybody that isn't a tree-huger like himself.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-02-2011 10:45 AM domjuan is offline

Click here to Send domjuan a Private Message

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

constitutional defiance

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-06-2011 02:18 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

domjuan
“Yes, we can!” has devolved into “Hey, we might.”

Here he comes to save the day!!1

Mitt Romney Plans To Create 11 Million Jobs If Elected

The former Massachusetts governor’s program would aim to create 11 million jobs, bring an annual economic growth of 4 percent, reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and make $20 billion in federal budget cuts. He also proposed implementing free trade agreements, boosting domestic oil and gas production, and eliminating taxes on capital gains for individuals who earn less than $200,000.

"The right course for America is to believe in growth," Romney told CNN.com. "Growing our economy is the way to get people to work and to balance our budget."

A 160-page book titled, “Believe in America: Mitt Romney’s plan for jobs and economic growth,” was distributed before his speech, the Boston Globe reported. Romney stood under a banner that read, “Day one, job one” at a truck dealership and delivered his major policy address.
Columbia Business School Dean R. Glenn Hubbard wrote the forward for “Believe in America” and said that a growth agenda for the nation requires five parts:

“an emphasis on productivity growth, with policies to support saving and investment, innovation and research, trade, education, and training; a budget framework that does not threaten our fiscal health; tax policy that enhances economic growth; regulation that balances growth with concerns about safety and soundness; and a healthy financial system that meets the needs of savers and borrowers.”

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Obama’s re-election campaign, blasted Romney’s proposal, comparing many of its key points to the policies in practice at the time of the 2008 economic crisis.

“Governor Romney repackaged the same old policies that helped create the economic crisis: boosting oil company profits and allowing Wall Street to write its own rules, more tax breaks for large corporations and more tax cuts for the wealthiest while working Americans are forced to carry a greater burden,” he said in a statement.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to unveil his job creation plans Thursday night to a joint session of Congress.

---

Reach Assistant News Editor Agnus-Dei Farrant here. Follow Agnus-Dei Farrant on Twitter.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-07-2011 10:40 AM domjuan is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

too bad Romney didn't state that God commanded him to put out his 59 strategies to turn around the economy. Perry will come out with a 1/2 page pamphlet and state God commanded him to do so and he'll be 30% points ahead of Romney by mid-September.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-07-2011 10:48 AM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

bxbomb
VIC....WHERES THE LINK ?!?!?

Registered: Aug 2006
Location: 631
Posts: 3958

Top 10 List: < click >

greatest game eva
click on meet the zombies before playing ...lolzer

TEAPARTY ZOMBIES MUST DIE

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-07-2011 11:52 AM bxbomb is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

domjuan
“Yes, we can!” has devolved into “Hey, we might.”

Michele Bachmann owned the deficit and health care issue during the debate. Smart broad , former irs tax attorney.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-08-2011 09:55 AM domjuan is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

domjuan
“Yes, we can!” has devolved into “Hey, we might.”

Long island unemployment rate last august 7.1%, 6.7 % this august. Gop congress in these parts.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

09-29-2011 03:13 PM domjuan is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

And these are the folks behind the Tea Party? Selling shit to Iran? Real patriotic in sending shit to a despotic regime. Nice.

*************
New expose on Koch brothers
By: MJ Lee
October 3, 2011 09:39 AM EDT

Koch Industries paid bribes in a half-dozen countries to secure lucrative contracts and sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran by making an end-run around the U.S. trade ban, according to a new exposé.

Headlining the cover of Bloomberg Markets magazine’s November issue, the lengthy investigative report, titled “The Secret Sins of Koch Industries,” asserts that Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who are major backers of the tea party movement, are running a company embroiled in several scandals.

According to Bloomberg’s early glance at the still-unpublished article, Koch Industries sent a newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager to investigate one of its subsidiaries in southern France in May 2008. Within days, Ludmila Egorova-Farines discovered multiple cases of bribery and notified her American supervisors.

By September, the Koch Industries’ internal team confirmed evidence of reportedly improper payments in six countries dating to 2002 that had been authorized by the company’s affiliate in France. “Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” the company wrote in December 2008 in a letter detailing its findings.

Following these revelations, Egorova-Farines, accused of being incompetent, was fired in June 2009, Bloomberg reports. She later sued for wrongful termination.

Melissa Cohlmia, the company’s director of corporate communications, said in a statement that the company fired employees and sales agents who were involved in the illicit payments. “Given the regulatory complexity of our business, we will, like any business, have issues that arise. When we fall short of our goals, we take steps to correct and address the issues in order to ensure compliance,” she wrote.

Koch Industries has also sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, Bloomberg found. According to internal company documents, the company thwarted a U.S. trade ban that barred American companies from selling materials to Iran by making the sales through foreign subsidiaries. The products sold helped build a methanol facility in Iran.

But Cohlmia said that during the time period covered in the magazine’s piece, “U.S. law allowed foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational companies to engage in trade involving countries subject to U.S. trade sanctions, including Iran, under certain conditions.” Cohlmia added that all of the company’s units have stopped trading with Iran.

Koch Industries’ general counsel Mark Holden cited what he called the magazine’s “substandard reporting” and said the report contains “major inaccuracies.”

“They relied heavily on unreliable sources despite our warnings and the documented evidence we gave them that these sources were misrepresenting the facts. In addition, the article grossly distorts the publicly available French court’s rulings. The result misrepresents and maligns an entrepreneurial company that has a strong environmental and safety record, and which has prohibited all trading with Iran, a policy that is stricter than U.S. law,” Holden wrote in a statement on the company’s website.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

10-03-2011 03:48 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

vicman
Commie Tax Hiker

What does G.O.P. stand for?
By: MJ Lee
October 3, 2011 02:27 PM EDT

Barely half of Republicans know what “GOP” stands for, according to a new poll.

Just 51 percent of party members in a Vanity Fair/CBS News Poll on Monday correctly said the acronym stood for “Grand Old Party.”

Overall, 45 percent of Americans gave the right answer and only 38 percent of Democrats were on the mark.

Among all voters, the next most popular answer was “Government of the People,” which 35 percent of those surveyed picked. Seven percent said GOP stood for “Grumpy Old People,” three percent said it was “God’s Own Party,” while nine percent said they didn’t know what GOP meant.

The poll also asked whether people trust journalists or politicians more – 76 percent of those surveyed said they trust journalists more, while just six percent said politicians were more trustworthy.

And in a question about which characteristic if most important for a president to have, 40 percent said “intelligence” was most significant, followed by 35 percent of people who chose “character.” Just two percent picked “ruthlessness.”

This poll was conducted via telephone interview among a sample of 1,165 adults.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

10-03-2011 03:50 PM vicman is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

bxbomb
VIC....WHERES THE LINK ?!?!?

Registered: Aug 2006
Location: 631
Posts: 3958

Top 10 List: < click >

bring back the Whigs...people will be thinkin its the party of K.Federline

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

10-03-2011 04:09 PM bxbomb is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

translucent
Webmaster
Lord of Laziness

Originally posted by bxbomb
bring back the Whigs...people will be thinkin its the party of K.Federline

Lmao!

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

10-03-2011 05:36 PM translucent is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

domjuan
“Yes, we can!” has devolved into “Hey, we might.”

Tea Party Lessons for the Left
The Daily BeastBy Michael Tomasky | The Daily Beast – 11 hrs ago

For two-and-a-half long—and believe me, they’ve been loooong—years now, people on the left have been wondering: How on earth is it that we were hit with the greatest financial crisis since the Depression, very obviously caused by deregulation and adherence to other conservative nostra, and yet the only protest movement to arise from these ashes is one ... of the right? It has been, to put it mildly, exasperating. But now comes Occupy Wall Street. Is the cosmic score about to be evened? Maybe. But paradoxically, only if this new left protest movement embraces some crucial lessons from the Tea Party movement—and if it outgrows certain impulses from 1968 that continue to loom large in the left’s imagination.

I want to stipulate up front that I am firmly on OWS’s side. I don’t really know who its leaders are, and I don’t especially care. I don’t know its exact goals—a subject on which the movement has been roundly, and in my view pointlessly, criticized. But it is desperately needed. It needs to succeed. And I fear it won’t. To succeed, it would have to model itself on 1963, not 1968. And I’m not confident that any left-wing protest movement today can understand that.

What do I mean? In 1963, we had the March on Washington. No one threw anything. There were no drum circles. The protesters of 1963 said to America, “We are like you; in fact, we are you.” There’s very little arguing that it worked. The protesters of 1968 said to America, “We are not like you; in fact, we hate you.” In France, the soixante-huitards were able, to some extent, to remake French society. In America, the protesters of ’68 accomplished little except to make Hubert Humphrey, one of the most decent human beings and progressive-minded mainstream politicians America had produced in 50 years, into some kind of reactionary, and help give us Nixon.

What changed, between 1963 and 1968? This: In 1963, protest was undertaken for the purpose of winning. By 1968, protest became a carnival of self-expression. Winning was the stated goal, but deep down, emotionally, it wasn’t really the goal: sticking it to the man was. Imagine that the SCLC-led protesters of 1963 had indulged in self-expression, and ask yourself whether they would have succeeded. I think I need say no more on that.

And this is where today’s protesters need to steal a page from the Tea Party activists. I beg, plead, implore, importune: Get some spokespeople out there for the cause who are just regular Americans. Don’t send Van Jones out there to be the public face of this movement. I happen to have a high opinion of Van Jones personally. He’s dedicated his life to justice in a higher-stakes way than I have. But any movement that is led by someone who was forced to resign from the White House and who signed a 9/11 truther petition will be dismissed by the mainstream media as left-wing and elitist in three seconds. You may like that or not like that, but it’s true.

The genius of the Tea Party movement lies entirely in the fact that its public faces were, by and large, regular Americans. How many stories did we all read about the homemaker from Wilkes-Barre and the IT guy from Dubuque who’d never been involved in politics in their lives and never thought they would be until the Tea Party came along? These people resonate with other Americans: “She’s my neighbor; he’s just like me.” That gave the Tea Party movement incredible force and made the media take it seriously, and making the media take you seriously is, alas, at least half the battle in our age.

The OWS movement is part of the way there. The “We Are the 99 Percent” trope is powerful. It is true. But the movement has to prove that it really is the 99 percent. It has to win middle America, and the way to win middle America is to be middle America. For all the Seattle-ish longhairs down in Zucotti Park—whom the mainstream media and the right wing will undoubtedly highlight—there are, to be sure, homemakers in Wilkes-Barre and IT guys in Dubuque who sympathize. Find them. Put them out there. Get them on cable.

And finally, don’t fight the man. Maybe in 1968 in Grant Park, the cops were pigs. Today, the cops aren’t pigs. They aren’t the man. They’re working stiffs, and they’re part of the 99 percent. They have underwater mortgages in Ronkonkoma and Orangeburg. Don’t make them arrest you. Make them part of the 99 percent. And don’t mess with traffic. That just pisses people off.

An execrable legacy of ’68 is the temptation to treat politics as a realm of self-expression. But it isn’t. Politics is where you go to get things done, to change things. Changing things means persuading those people sitting at home watching on TV. The bulk of those people have been persuaded that they don’t like government. But they also know that the system is rigged against them. Get them on your side. Be them. They’ll be with you, if you only invite them along.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

10-05-2011 10:24 AM domjuan is offline

add to multiple quote reply:

Show Printable Version |

Email this Page |

Subscribe to this Thread

Forum Rules:

You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON

[new topics]

< Contact Us - Groovanauts - Refer Friends >

Groovanauts.com is an online community of electronic music enthusiasts, DJ's, producers, promoters, club owners and party animals. If you find yourself addicted to this website, step away from your keyboard, walk out the door and go dance somewhere. We had nothing to do with your internet addiction and you are the only one liable for your own lack of a social life. Our public message board and content is protected by the First Amendment of the United States of America. People can say whatever they want without getting censored. Groovanauts.com's owners and its operators take absolutely no responsibility for the actions, claims or statements made by any of our members. Our members and moderators are neither employees of Groovanauts.com nor its legal representatives.