Politics

Is there some one here, that would like to defend President Obama's planned Asian tour, in particular the first three days in India. The purpose, as I understand it is to encourage one way 'Free Trade" or exports from the US into India. Several big name CEO's are planning on being there, including the CEO's of Boeing and GE, which to my knowledge already do a great bit of business with India. I'm not sure the purpose of taking Mrs. Obama, other than her planned trip to Mumbai's red light district and I' really not sure their two daughters should be going at all...The Taj Mahal, has already been hit once by terrorist and Mumbai is the most densely populated city in the WOR…

Gallup today released it's final pre-election poll. The headline tomorrow will be the continued enthusiasm gap and the overall lead favoring the GOP. But I found something much more interesting in this story from Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44468.html In other words, it's really just business as usual for Republicans and Democrats. GOP voters are a little more mobile at the moment, but not that much. The tale of the tape here is the vast increase in independent voters, and their inclination to vote against incumbents. This should be heartening for Democratic supporters, because it means that they're not really favoring Republ…

It wasn't quite the drubbing that some predicted, but it went way past the 1994 "revolution" and actually approached the 1922 record. In addition to taking control of the House, Republicans also picked up 6 seats in the Senate, bringing that body to something a 53-47 balance (several seats have yet to be decided, but it appears unlikely that the GOP will gain control of the Senate). Many prominent Democrats, such as Russ Feingold were turned out of office, Nancy Pelosi lost the speakership of the House, and even Barack Obama's senate seat went to Republicans. Democrats were not without their victories, however, with Harry Reid keeping his seat and Jerry Brown retu…

Politico has an interesting post-mortem on Nancy Pelosi's time in office. The main thrust of the piece is that while she's a heroine to liberals, she pushed too hard for a liberal agenda, not listening to the mainstream of the American public, which brought her right into the sights of both conservatives and independents seeking change. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44598_Page4.html What do you all think?

Today when I went to vote I was accosted several times by people wanting me to vote for their candidate, since I was in line I listened politely as the line moved but one guy asked me if I knew who i was going to vote for in the several non partisan local appeals court judge races. I told him (truthfully) that I wasn't planning on voting for any of them since i didn't know them and there had been very little information about them available. he covertly offered me a list of the correct choices for these judgeships. I asked him, what he meant by correct. He again pressed the list in my hand and said very quietly so no one would over hear, " i have a list of the candidates …

The poll question is intended to get a broad view of "lean", so please pick a category closest to your view, even if it is not entirely accurate. Note: This thread is about US politics. Sorry for not saying that up front (thanks John Cuthber).

I'm confused by the news stories out of France -- I don't understand why such a broad spectrum of people, including young people, are so concerned about the raising of the retirement age from 60-62(early)/65-67(full). Is this really just a general resistance to any pullback from an entitlement culture, or is it, for example, more of a broad attack on a distant ruling elite that's out of touch on many issues? I thought perhaps our international membership might be able to shed some light on this. Here's a story at the beeb for background: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11570828

This is a tough question to be specific about, and I'm sure I'm going to see a flood of nitpicking responses about how the Republicans never really had a supermajority and the Democrats did, but primarily I'm referring to the recent years of almost total Republican control of the country (2000-2006) vs the recent Democratic supermajority (2008-2010). The timeframes are larger so yes it's harder to judge, but I hope you have the ability to look past that and make a pragmatic decision. Who accomplished more, the Republicans in 2000-2006, or the Democrats in 2008-2010? Who affected better changes to this country? Who was generally moving things in the right direction? Sp…

Last week Sarah Palin confirmed her interest in the 2012 GOP nomination, and probably did more to sway independents to move back to the Democratic party in that statement than anything Democrats have done in the last 18 months. This article at Politico has some interesting angles on how various interests in the Republican party want to stop her. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44449.html I've said it before and I'll say it again: Right now Sarah Palin is the one thing that would stop me from voting Republican in 2012 and bring me back into the Obama camp. I am always open-minded right up to election day, but I'm pretty steamed at Democrats righ…

what could he have done differently

Interesting argument for defunding NPR in today's Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303738504575568222953428174.html In a nutshell, what he's saying is that NPR's existence as a government-sponsored "highbrow" news organization inhibits the potential for competition from other ventures into "highbrow" journalism. In other words, if someone wants to start a news organization that leverages a very high standard for journalism, they would have a hard time doing that because of the perception that that role is already taken up by NPR. IMO there's a good argument to be made that it's the government's protection that allows NP…

I'm sorry, I just found this funny. Especially the "absolutely no link” part. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/1028/Osama-bin-Laden-threatens-French-troops-France-announces-pullout-from-Afghanistan

The Democrats are trying to fix problems the Republicans have largely caused, problems like the economic slump resulting from the financial crisis and the enormous budget deficit which is largely the result of Bush administration policies such as tax cuts coupled with massive military spending on two wars, one of which was completely unnecessary. The Democrats have received nothing but barbs and extreme vitriol from both Republicans and Republican mouthpieces like Fox. The problems have gotten marginally better but are nowhere near solved. We have Republicans running on the platform that the Democrats have not yet fixed the problems the Republicans caused. The Republi…

Huh, well you don't see that every day. I wonder if this is his way of getting back at the Democrats for putting him under investigation?

Republicans in Florida must be pretty mad about Charlie Crist, our current governor who is now running as an independent for US Senate against Republican nominee Marco Rubio and Democratic nominee Kendrick Meek. Apparently a state senate commission on elections has decided that it is time for the state to consider making it more difficult for people to do what Charlie Crist is doing. My question is: Why? What is so bad about allowing people to run for office as an independent? It turns out that my district's state senator sits on this commission, so I let her have an earful this morning in email (for whatever THAT's worth, sigh). Their reasoning (see article be…

San Francisco is considering a proposition that will authorize legal and illegal residents (all non-citizens) who have children in a district public school to vote in district school board elections. The city voted down a similar measure in 2004. "Pro" Argument "Con" Argument Interestingly, the "con" argument above comes from the San Francisco Chronicle, frequently cited by CTR/FNC as extremely liberal. Their argument is interesting: Why not House member? Senator? President? The same logic applies -- the people elected to those offices have direct impact on the lives and futures of these residents, so shouldn't they have the right to vote? I agree,…

Interesting story at Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44216.html According to the story, citing the Center for Responsive Politics, which runs OpenSecrets.org, apparently the Democrats are actually outspending Republicans this cycle by a long shot. This runs contrary to a story in last week's news cycle about spending by third parties on Republican candidates, which was running 2:1 over similar spending on Democratic candidates. The numbers cited (160mil versus 80) are a big drop in a very large bucket. But what's really interesting to me is that the article draws a comparison (on page 3) with the situation in 2006, when the ratio w…

I came across this site http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop where I found the world population to be approximately 6,276,000,000. I then checked http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/tx_geography.htm and found the area of Texas as 268,601 square miles. One square mile is 640 acres and hence the area of Texas is 268,601x640=171,904,640 acres. Thus if you fit the entire population of the world into Texas each person would have 171,904,640/6,276,000,000 = 0.027 acres. 0.027 arces is the same as 1176.12 square feet. A quick search on a web site that lists homes for sale and I see that the average 3 bedroom home, so I take it that this would be for 3 to…

Is it just me or did these folks hit a home run with this idea? It seems like such a simple message, the idea that while your life may suck right now, it will some day get better. So simple, and yet, it seems to really touch on something powerful. IMO it even transcends the gay message and speaks to kids suffering from all forms of bullying. Some background here and the official web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Gets_Better_Project http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com/?loc=interstitialskip President Obama recorded a message for the project which was posted today, putting it back in the spotlight. I don't think these folks can get enough attention -- …

National Public Radio fired 10-year commentator Juan Williams yesterday over remarks he made as a guest on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News Channel earlier in the week. Here's what Williams said: Williams says he was fired remotely, without even a face-to-face meeting. This comes following controversy over Bill O'Reilly's appearance on The View, which is what was being discussed when the comments were made. O'Reilly said on that program that "Muslims attacked us on 9/11", a factually accurate statement that he later clarified to mean "not all Muslims", but which prompted a walkout by Whoppi Goldberg and Joy Behar. Following his firing, Williams added t…

So the Juan Williams firing got me wondering. Seeing how we all agree that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, fun loving, middle of the road, get along types, why is it so hard to find that Osama bin Laden guy or his best buddy Ayman al-Zawahri. I mean both those guys have to be an embarrassment to all but a tiny minority of Muslims. Right? They have to be somewhere, and at the somewhere they must be surrounded by Muslims. I have also heard plenty of Muslims claim that Al Qaeda acts completely contrary to the teachings of Islam. So how is it that cartoonist Molly Norris had to enter an FBI witness protection type program for suggesting a draw Mohammed day, b…

Since I am more "right leaning" than left, perhaps someone can tell me why? I am church mouse poor, but proud as a "Nabob". Can anyone tell me why? Is there any truth to the below, or have I missed something? http://apathetic-usa.com/

Sometimes, what people want might be unreasonable. Is it still a good idea to try to reach a compromise with them, or would it be better to totally ignore them?

To Be Good, Sometimes Leaders Need to Be a Little Bad; Study Examines 'Dark Side' Personality Traits and Leadership The study was for military officers, so it might not apply elsewhere. Yet it seems that it does; for example people characterize Bush as arrogant and inflexible, and Obama as too hesitant, yet they got to be president. Also, some of these traits are better for different situations, for example you wouldn't want a leader to be hesitant in a combat situation. What about for our politicians though? I think we might need a slightly arrogant politician to get very difficult things done, and politicians usually have plenty of time to be hesitant whi…

I think it's interesting that it seems to be the prevailing "conventional wisdom" that the right uses fear more than the left. I've never seen anyone quantify this in any sort of objective way, and yet it's what people seem to think. (Or am I wrong?) Here are a couple of interesting examples from the current news that seem to me to show the left using fear: 1) White House attacks anonymous funding sources for Republican candidates in the 2012 mid-term election. (example) 2) Potential reduction in the number of women representatives in Congress. (example) Anonymous donations to orgs supporting GOP candidates is reportedly way out of proportion with Dems …