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America invade Canada?



We all know what happened the last time they tried that. Points and laughs at Frazz

Frazz, I think you need a vacation.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Exactly. Frankly time for some good old fashioned conquerin'. Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, watch your backs Jack!

Are we not going after Lichtenstein? The root of ALL evil in the world comes from Lichtenstein, or so I've heard from a friend of a friend who knows a guy that knows guy.

Good luck with that. You have to find it first

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Exactly. Frankly time for some good old fashioned conquerin'. Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, watch your backs Jack!

Are we not going after Lichtenstein? The root of ALL evil in the world comes from Lichtenstein, or so I've heard from a friend of a friend who knows a guy that knows guy.

Lichtenstein is a beautiful country. Nice Alpine scenery. I would recommend it if you're ever looking for a place to visit.

Belgium on the other hand

Beware the Belgians. They are a cunning bunch. They have NATO HQ, the European Union HQ, and they make great beer. Watch them like hawks. World domi9nation has always been their goal.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Exactly. Frankly time for some good old fashioned conquerin'. Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, watch your backs Jack!

Are we not going after Lichtenstein? The root of ALL evil in the world comes from Lichtenstein, or so I've heard from a friend of a friend who knows a guy that knows guy.

Liechtenstein won't be conquered, but it will be dealt with.

Taking questions from the audience at the conclusion of her speech, Fiorina was asked by an honest and frustrated Republican voter how she would, as president, force Republican congressional leaders to heed the will of the GOP’s base voters. “I believe ours was intended to be a citizen government; of, by, and for the people,” Fiorina replied. “I don’t know when we got used to this idea that only a professional political class can hold public office. It used to be, for most of our nation’s history, that leaders would step forward out of private life, and serve for a time, and return to private life.”

US politics have always been dominated by a political class. The very notion of a discreet group like the Founding Fathers implies as much.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

So if one of them meets a "Star Wars" fan, they'll probably try to win their vote by pretending to do a mind meld or saying how much they hate those pesky Cylons (which happen to be from "Battlestar Galactica," not "Star Trek").

Me thinks there was an unfortunate typo

Not a typo, as the last line explains. It's like those troll images of, say, a picture of Gandalf with a quote from Dumbledore attributed to Yoda. It's intended to show how clueless politicians can be when they're trying to pander to voters on subjects they don't really know.

BTW that blindfolded Colossus you worry about? It is all Britains' fault.

Guys... I've been watching youtube of Carly Fironia's interviews and stump...

Ya'll really need to take the time and listen to her.

If I have time latter, I'll try to collate them all here.

Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen.

Ouze wrote:
Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen.

On the flip side of that, for all the "Sanders simply cant win" rhetoric, I've been seeing more and more on FB and around the net of "mainline" Democrats coming out in support of him...

Then there's the whole thing of him polling better and better:

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/05/09/bernie-bounce-support-sanders-democrats-grows-10-points-iowa.html

http://www.gallup.com/poll/184346/sanders-surges-clinton-sags-favorability.aspx

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

On the flip side of that, for all the "Sanders simply cant win" rhetoric, I've been seeing more and more on FB and around the net of "mainline" Democrats coming out in support of him...

Then there's the whole thing of him polling better and better:

When polling is limited to Democrats and those who lean Democrat Clinton leads Sanders by 35 points. Even considering all adults she leads by 19 points. Sure Sanders has a more favorable spread in the latter case, but with 56% of responses being null you have to wonder how that will transfer to voting behavior.

The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?

 d-usa wrote:
The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?

I wouldn't think so at this point, because he's currently running as a Democrat, even though in his home state he represents as an Independent.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?

I wouldn't think so at this point, because he's currently running as a Democrat, even though in his home state he represents as an Independent.

Oklahoman has pretty gakky ballot access laws, so indelendents were never really able to vote for him here. Opening the primaries to us might cause some independents to pick up a democratic ticket to vote for him on a day that none of us ever go to the polls (since primaries are closed).

Maybe it's all coincidence and means nothing.
Maybe democrats are simply trying to market themselves as the more "open" party.
Maybe the Oklahoma Democratic leadership prefer Sanders and think that by letting independents vote he could pull an upset.
Maybe the Oklahoma democratic party thinks that letting independents vote for Sanders in the primary could be their gateway drug into voting democrat in the general election.

 d-usa wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?

I wouldn't think so at this point, because he's currently running as a Democrat, even though in his home state he represents as an Independent.

Oklahoman has pretty gakky ballot access laws, so indelendents were never really able to vote for him here. Opening the primaries to us might cause some independents to pick up a democratic ticket to vote for him on a day that none of us ever go to the polls (since primaries are closed).

Maybe it's all coincidence and means nothing.
Maybe democrats are simply trying to market themselves as the more "open" party.
Maybe the Oklahoma Democratic leadership prefer Sanders and think that by letting independents vote he could pull an upset.
Maybe the Oklahoma democratic party thinks that letting independents vote for Sanders in the primary could be their gateway drug into voting democrat in the general election.

Ahh, I read that backwards, and I get what you're saying... they're opening it to OK residents who have registered (I), not trying to put an "independent" on the ballot

Ouze wrote:
Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen.

Seriously... I like her waaaaaaaaay better than Trumpaloosa.

BeAfraid wrote:
Also, in the 1970s, the US Evangelicals decided that the GOP would be the vehicle by which they would implement their preferred policies (as a direct result of the Southern Strategy).

Meh, 70s, 80s... if you go back to root causes you can claim it started in the 60s. It all depends what event you use as the symbol for the start of what was a multi-decade trend.

But I also happened to be a rather huge supporter, and student of the sciences, thinking that the evidence would eventually support our position.... When that turned out to not be the case, I rebelled for a period, but wound up eventually accepting facts, because I noticed how utterly stupid others were becoming in trying to dismiss anything at all that contradicted their ideology (I had other conservatives telling me that "Facts do not matter. If your values are strong and consistent, then they will always triumph in the end."). Essentially they were telling me the same Post-Modern garbage I heard from Democrats in the 1970s (although in a different form).

Yeah, while I only saw that during Bush's term, that kind of 'we choose our own reality' bs was what made me hate so much of the left wing a decade earlier. It's amazing that after the right (correctly) condemned that kind of thinking in the left, here they were adopting it to bolster their own terrible policies.

But, yes, you are correct, it technically began before that.

The best kind of correct!

And, if one wants to get down to it, even Nixon's decision to use the Southern Strategy can be traced back to the Republican opposition to FDR's "New Deal" and to Social Security; opposition which originated with the New England GOP Aristocrats who wished to form a "ruling elite" in the USA.

That's a really good point. Cheers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
A problem I tend to see with a lot of politicians (on both sides) is the overuse of "bogeymen". They use a bogeyman of some sort to scare and distract the voters away from having to actually think about what their politicians are, or should be, doing. In the last election, the ACA was the bogeyman. Right now, Trump is setting up Mexican illegals as a bogeyman, while others are using the Iran deal. Other elections saw terrorists, the environment, etc. as bogeymen. All politicians use them to some extent in one way or another, but perhaps the GOP has relied on it too strongly in recent years so that they don't have much else in their playbook?

It's sad that, these days, it's easier for the parties to scare people into voting for them through playing on their fears and creative interpretations of facts, rather than using rational thought and clear and simple facts.

I think it's fair to say both parties are struggling to find a message that appeals outside of small core of voters. So instead they both rely on drumming up support by making people scared or angry at the other side.

It's a method that will win elections in the short term, but when it's all either side has it makes it very hard to build functional government.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dogma wrote:
US politics have always been dominated by a political class. The very notion of a discreet group like the Founding Fathers implies as much.

Yep.

And the basic reality is that if you want government to start acting like you want it to, the first step is to stop being stupid people who want stupid things. I'm not saying that smart people would be happy with all, or even most of what government does, but the reality is that most people who complain loudest about elected officials not doing what the people want are fething idiots who want government to do very silly things.

As long as the electorate remains very stupid, you're going to get a political elite who do what is necessary while occasionally pandering to the people with bad policy.

 whembly wrote:
Guys... I've been watching youtube of Carly Fironia's interviews and stump...

Ya'll really need to take the time and listen to her.

If I have time latter, I'll try to collate them all here.

I eat a bowl of beans and break wind in her direction. I'd vote for Hillary before I'd vote for her. She wasted thousands of jobs here. Compaq was a good company and she killed it. She can choke on hairy bull balls and fething die.

Tell us what you really think, Frazz.
Besides I'll be more inclined to hear what she has to say when in a debate with the other candidates (preferably from both sides), and can't just rely on prepared responses.

Anyway, this happened.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/29/politics/rick-perry-donald-trump-pull-up-contest/index.html
Perry has challenged Trump to a pull up contest. On one hand, it's funny, on the other, is this really what we want our politics to sink to?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Tell us what you really think, Frazz.
Besides I'll be more inclined to hear what she has to say when in a debate with the other candidates (preferably from both sides), and can't just rely on prepared responses.

Anyway, this happened.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/29/politics/rick-perry-donald-trump-pull-up-contest/index.html
Perry has challenged Trump to a pull up contest. On one hand, it's funny, on the other, is this really what we want our politics to sink to?

Someone should tell Trump its a trap. When Trump is halfway up, Perry will sucker punch him right in the baby maker.
Its how we won the Battle of San Jacinto. Houston rouchambou'd Santa Anna. When the rest of the Mexican army was distracted letting out a sympathy "ow" the Texians attacked.
Hey don't laugh, why do you think FDR picked Texans to run the Pacific War (Nimitz) and Europe (Eisenhower). We cheat.


What can I say? We fight dirty. Its how our moms taught us.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Guys... I've been watching youtube of Carly Fironia's interviews and stump...

Ya'll really need to take the time and listen to her.

If I have time latter, I'll try to collate them all here.

I eat a bowl of beans and break wind in her direction. I'd vote for Hillary before I'd vote for her. She wasted thousands of jobs here. Compaq was a good company and she killed it. She can choke on hairy bull balls and fething die.

Um...

Many in the industry are now saying that merger helped 'save' HP by setting the company on a long term success path. HP was on the ropes at the time and was dangerously losing market shares (dot-com bust). HP (Carly), wanted to stay in the computer business (very tough market), and saw a way to increase market shares with the Compaq merger. (besides, Compaq's computers/servers sucked hairy assed balls at that time... to use your parlance) She's credited for HP's dominance in the printing business in not only in the US, but she was the first to crack open foreign markets for the printing business (HP is huge in central/south america).

All mergers are messy. There's no way around that. Eventually, overlapped dept, entities, employees will have to be downsized to fit the new company. And yes, that makes any CEO 'the bad guy' when something of this magnitude happens.

She was skewered by the press for laying off, because at the time, HP just didn’t do those things…I'd imagine Walter Hewlett wanted his company to be like this 'do no evil' company that Google aspires to be. HP took a massive PR hit for this... which ultimately precipitated the ugly boardroom fight that fired Carly.

Keep in mind that the TECH BUBBLE burst already... The tech industries all across the board were taking enormous beatings. You'd want your CEO to anticipate these things and have robust long term plans to help the company.

Here is the irony…she has more foreign policy experience than any other candidate, except Hillary.

She is the only one with true executive business experience for a large enterprise. (excepting Trump)

She has met with more world leaders than any one else, except Hillary.

And she is the only one that has actually downsized, fired people. (except maybe Trump?)

We need to drop the pretense that only a career politician can run the government… we don't need a career politician/bureaucrat or even a community organizer as a president... look how well they have done the past 50 years. What we need is someone to be a leader who has and can, make the hard choices for what is believed to be the right choice. @dogma/sebster: I get what you're saying... but, there is a distinct difference between a career politician (like those of the old days), to how pervasive the political class is now, which is primarily spurnned on by the lobbying class.

I can understand folks not wanting a 'CEO' to be a President, as there are differences between running a business vs running an executive branch. I can understand that you may not want Carly in particular over the Compaq merger. That was as messy as it can get in the tech merger field.

Here's the few things I *like* about Carly. There's one thing that you can't say about her... and that, she's had a successful robust career. You can't take that away from her. Also, she'll be the first to acknowledge that she had helping hands along the way. She articulated that much better than Obama's "you didn't build that" snafu.

The thing I'm most intrigued by her, is that in her successful ventures as VP at AT&T, CEO of Lucent Tech and, yes, HP... is that she surrounds herself with very capable, successful people. As for building a hypothetical 'Fiorina Administration', I suspect she'll be more interested in not only, can you do your job, but can you do it well. As opposed to using cabinet/executive positions as job placements for your flunkies or political payoffs.

But... alas... doesn't matter, HRC is gonna win. But, man... it'd be a glorious campaign season (HRC vs Fiorina) as HRC won't be able to use the anti-women tactics.

*shrugs*

She's road pizza. She's hated here. You can't fire tens of thousands of pizza and hit the eject on a golden parachute and think people won't remember.

Only a few people care and thats because she's attacking Hillary.

I'd vote for an Obama 3rd term before I'd vote for that creature.

 Frazzled wrote:
She's road pizza. She's hated here. You can't fire tens of thousands of pizza and hit the eject on a golden parachute and think people won't remember.

Only a few people care and thats because she's attacking Hillary.

I'd vote for an Obama 3rd term before I'd vote for that creature.

Fair enough dude.

Never in recent memory have I agreed with Frazzled so strongly.

Ouze wrote:
Never in recent memory have I agreed with Frazzled so strongly.

If you call 911, there's still time for the rabies shots to work. But hurry man, you only have a few hours!

 whembly wrote:

Here is the irony…she has more foreign policy experience than any other candidate, except Hillary.

She has virtually no foreign policy experience. She was part of the CIA's External Advisory Board for two years, and calling that "foreign policy experience" is generous. Indeed, Michael Hayden (the guy that tapped her) has stated that her primary role was to provide council on how the CIA should interact with the American public given the transparency of the modern world. This puts her on roughly equal footing with John Kasich (Goldwater-Nichols), and Lindsey Graham (long military career), but well behind Jim Gilmore (worked in military intelligence).

 whembly wrote:

She is the only one with true executive business experience for a large enterprise. (excepting Trump)

Fiorina herself has stated that running a corporation is not like running a country.

 whembly wrote:

I get what you're saying... but, there is a distinct difference between a career politician (like those of the old days), to how pervasive the political class is now, which is primarily spurred on by the lobbying class.

There really isn't. Lobbying is not a new thing, nor is the existence of a lobbyist class. Indeed, it has existed for just about as long as the US political class has. And you're fooling yourself if you really believe the US political class was not just as pervasive in the past as it is now. Indeed, it can be argued that it is actually much less pervasive now thanks to overall reduction in campaign costs, and increased ease with which information can be accessed.

 whembly wrote:

But, man... it'd be a glorious campaign season (HRC vs Fiorina) as HRC won't be able to use the anti-women tactics.
*shrugs*

I can't think of any time Clinton's campaign has really pushed an anti-woman angle. I can think of lots of times Republican media sources have tried to accuse her of it, much as many of the same sources tried to claim that people only voted for Obama because he's black, but its never been a fixture of her campaign.

Okay then... Fiornia is quite hated. Let's be honest... she's no where near close enough to anyone's ticket.

Switching gears then...

What do you guys think of this?
http://us11.campaign-archive1.com/?u=528c35497656587fb9948d178&id=8bc3c95090

The Fixer #3

The newsletter for the "How Do We Fix It?" podcast

You can listen to our latest podcast on how to stop the revolving door that leads to corruption and waste. here.
Hello Fellow Fixers!

On our latest episode of How Do We Fix It? we look into the cozy relationship between top government officials and the industries they're supposed to regulate.

This has a profound impact on corporate subsidies, tax breaks, and other ways that special interests benefit from their ties to Congress and the Administration.

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Craig Holman wrote:

The revolving door phenomenon is particularly acute in the financial services sector. Statistics published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show a dramatic rise in the movement of financial executives into positions as financial regulators, and regulators into private sector financial firms, growing threefold over the last decade. Accordingly, the tenure of financial regulators has dropped, with 88 percent of regulators in 1988 spending three or more years on the job, down to 64 percent today.

This begs the question: who's in charge of our nation's financial health?

"Slowing the Wall Street-Washington Revolving Door"

Our guest is a certified blogging star. Glenn Reynolds' day job is Professor of Law at The University of Tennessee. But he's best known for www.instapundit.com, the influential and widely-read conservative and libertarian political blog.

I agree with Glenn when he says the revolving door "is a corrupting influence on both government and industry." There's plenty of reason for anger on the left and right when top government officials resign to take very lucrative jobs at firms and lobbying groups that benefit from their insider knowledge.

In our podcast, Glenn calls for a surtax on top or regular earnings of at least 50% on pay hikes received by former senior government officials when they go back to the private sector.

"There are all kinds of laws to limit influence peddling and they've all been failures," Reynolds told us. Powerful interests are willing to pay large amounts of money to former cabinet members and top officials for what they know. "It seems only fair for the government to share in those profits."

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren calls ties between big banks and regulators a "Wall Street Shuffle". She backs a new bill that would ban bonuses for private-sector executives who enter government service.

"Big business orthodoxy against rules and regulations can seep into the bones, including the bones of new policymakers who are charged with protecting consumers and strengthening markets," wrote Warren in an article for Politico. "Industry groupthink and overconfidence can prevent clear and evenhanded analysis of problems."

Warren, a crusader against what she calls "recklessness and excessive greed," says the revolving door contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008.
Recently, political journalist Matt Taibbi called ex-Attorney General Eric Holder a Wall Street "double agent" for going back to his lucrative partnership at a powerful law firm known for defending financial firms. While in office, Holder's Justice Department was repeatedly criticized for failing to send a single senior banking boss to jail for their role in the mortgage mess.
Double-standard or not, there's plenty of room for debate and criticism about the behavior of D.C. "fat cats".

If you want to read more about Glenn Reynolds' view of the world, I recommend his book: An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths. He argues that tech has given people more freedom of action to challenge big establishment organizations.

It ain't beach reading, but it is a provocative view of the world!

What do ya'll think of a surtax on top or regular earnings of at least 50% on pay hike over a period of time?

Put all Lobbyists against the wall.
That will send just the right message.

And the pool just got more crowded:

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/29/james-gilmore-ex-virginia-governor-files-papers-to-run-for-president/?_r=0