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U.S. Politics III


Ser Scot A Ellison

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Here's the Youtube that proves my subtitle to be true:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hMJVXt09E"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hMJVXt09E[/url]

Yes, every month we don't pass a stimulus package 500 million Americans (of the 300 million people living in the U.S.) will lose their jobs. It's a slip of the tounge, but a funny one.

Bush isn't in the public eye anymore I guess someone had to take his place as offical "gaffe maker".
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[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1673660' date='Feb 4 2009, 11.39']Bush isn't in the public eye anymore I guess someone had to take his place as offical "gaffe maker".[/quote]

Nancy Pelosi is going to have to work [i]alot [/i]harder if she wants to supplant GWB in terms of screw-ups.
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Re: Coleman vs. Franken. Geez, what a nightmare.

[quote]UPDATE: The Court has also ruled, apparently, that the 4,800 absentee ballots Coleman wants to have counted will be held to a much higher burden of proof. Essentially, those ballots will be presumed to be guilty until proven innocent, and will have to be advocated for one at a time by the Coleman campaign, rather than being opened summarily and counted in bulk. This will make Coleman's rate of success very, very, very low, as opposed to merely very, very low. As Talking Points Memo notes, however, this process could take a very long time to complete and could continue to the delay the seating of a Senator Franken -- which may be Coleman's principal objective in the first place.[/quote][url="http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/"]http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/[/url]
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[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1673660' date='Feb 4 2009, 11.39']Bush isn't in the public eye anymore I guess someone had to take his place as offical "gaffe maker".[/quote]

I think Tracker may be right, might have to have multiples to keep the numbers up. To that end, let me repost McCain's:

[quote]McCain’s aggressive, often biting, opposition has been striking: he repeatedly mocked the bill’s authors for including $150 million for “honey bee insurance” when even the Republican leadership admits there is no such provision.[/quote]
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Pelosi always got outdone with W in the White House (she had some hilarious quotes before now like equating a Supreme Court decision with the Word of God).

Anyway in case you missed it in the old thread...

[quote]"If you are a lobbyist entering my administration, you will not be able to work on matters you lobbied on, or in the agencies you lobbied during the previous two years.*" - President Obama[/quote]

*[url="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4450516/Same-old-fudges-and-loopholes-in-Obamas-new-era-of-ethics.html"]Offer not good for Department of Defense or Raytheon. Other exceptions may apply.[/url]
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[quote name='Annelise' post='1673676' date='Feb 4 2009, 10.50']Re: Coleman vs. Franken. Geez, what a nightmare.[/quote]

Yeah, it is a nightmare. I try to put it out of my mind, since my state has become a laughingstock in terms of politics. The initially thought this would all be settled by mid-December. Now I am hearing March or later. Yay.
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[quote name='Ser Aardvark' post='1673714' date='Feb 4 2009, 12.18']Anyway in case you missed it in the old thread...

*[url="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4450516/Same-old-fudges-and-loopholes-in-Obamas-new-era-of-ethics.html"]Offer not good for Department of Defense or Raytheon. Other exceptions may apply.[/url][/quote]

We also covered this on the other thread. Obama passed an executive order limiting lobbyist participation in his administration. Nothing he has done violates that executive order.
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[quote name='Annelise' post='1673676' date='Feb 4 2009, 10.50']Re: Coleman vs. Franken. Geez, what a nightmare.[/quote]

As much as I don't like having only one senator, I do think the canvassing board and secretary Mark Ritchie did an excellent job with the recount. Rumors of ballots in car trunks and such were just made up. While I wish Coleman could have just taken the results, it's legal for him to do this so I'm fine with it.
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[quote name='Kay Fury' post='1673804' date='Feb 4 2009, 12.10']As much as I don't like having only one senator, I do think the canvassing board and secretary Mark Ritchie did an excellent job with the recount. Rumors of ballots in car trunks and such were just made up. While I wish Coleman could have just taken the results, it's legal for him to do this so I'm fine with it.[/quote]

I didn't realize there were other people from MN on this board! I remember one from a few years back, but my memory is so poor...

ANYWAY. This is perfectly legal. And Franken would have done the same thing. A lot of people complain that one side or the other is fixing the election, or just obstructing the process. But both sides watched the recount, the canvassing board was bi-partisan and now both sides are availing themselves of the legal process.

I wish it were otherwise, simply because I want another senator. Seating a senator should not take 4-6+ months.
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[quote name='Raidne' post='1673781' date='Feb 4 2009, 12.59']We also covered this on the other thread. Obama passed an executive order limiting lobbyist participation in his administration. Nothing he has done violates that executive order.[/quote]
I'm sure legally its all well and good since he is the executive he can make waivers for his own EOs but come on. If he hadn't said what he said and made a big hooplah about not taking in "revolving door" lobbyists it would be one thing. But this is pretty blatant contradiction and for the #2 spot in the biggest executive department in the government.
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[quote name='Ser Aardvark' post='1673826' date='Feb 4 2009, 13.23']I'm sure legally its all well and good since he is the executive he can make waivers for his own EOs but come on. If he hadn't said what he said and made a big hooplah about not taking in "revolving door" lobbyists it would be one thing. But this is pretty blatant contradiction and for the #2 spot in the biggest executive department in the government.[/quote]

Ah, I didn't see that they gave him a waiver. I thought he just wasn't a registered lobbyist and agreed to screening so he fell within the rules in the order.

As stated in the other thread, I'll eat my words then. That's bullshit. Why have an executive order if you can just issue waivers? The language of the order is fine in itself to allow reasonable exceptions (i.e. people who weren't officially lobbyists but engaged in lobbying activities, people who can be screened).

Maybe it's really hard to find someone who hasn't ever been a lobbyist in Defense. ;)
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[quote name='Raidne' post='1673842' date='Feb 4 2009, 13.30']Why have an executive order if you can just issue waivers?[/quote]

PR purposes. It's proof that he's living up to his promises of change. Even if it's just business as usual.
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[quote name='mcbigski' post='1673912' date='Feb 4 2009, 14.11']PR purposes. It's proof that he's living up to his promises of change. Even if it's just business as usual.[/quote]
So one exception is business as usual? In the last administration the fucking [i]VP[/i] was in the bag, not to mention dozens of others.
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[quote name='Kay Fury' post='1673804' date='Feb 4 2009, 13.10']While I wish Coleman could have just taken the results, it's legal for him to do this so I'm fine with it.[/quote]

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if he's being encouraged and supported by Republican leadership at this point, to keep Franken out of play for the stimulus package.

In any case, arguing each individual ballot in court sounds perfectly awful. Ugh.
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For the record, none of the previous Undersecretaries under Bush when he left could, technically, be disqualified by the new EO though at least two (Deputy SoD Gordon R. England and Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter) had very strong ties to specific defense contractors before being nominated but neither were outright lobbyists. The rest came from either government service or think tanks.

It should be noted that England went out of his way to fuck over General Dynamics by championing the F-35 over the F-22, even though he was a former Executive VP there. Did he do it to overcompensate his impartiality, because it was a good decision, some private fallout with his former GD buddies, or a combination of the above? Who knows. The point is, Lynn may go out of his way not to help Raytheon since doing so would make his boss look even worse. But, even if he does, his nomination itself will always look bad.
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Remember the drugs and sex for land lease scandal at the Interior Department? It now seems that more Bush-era policies are reversed as the new U.S. Interior Department canceled leases held by energy companies for oil and natural gas drilling on federal lands in Utah:

[url="http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN0430309820090204"]http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN0430309820090204[/url]
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[quote name='Lightning Lord' post='1673812' date='Feb 4 2009, 12.15']I didn't realize there were other people from MN on this board! I remember one from a few years back, but my memory is so poor...

ANYWAY. This is perfectly legal. And Franken would have done the same thing. A lot of people complain that one side or the other is fixing the election, or just obstructing the process. But both sides watched the recount, the canvassing board was bi-partisan and now both sides are availing themselves of the legal process.

I wish it were otherwise, simply because I want another senator. Seating a senator should not take 4-6+ months.[/quote]
Considering how other recounts have gone in the past, this thing has been quite tame and sane in my opinion. I too want my representative there, but so far I haven't seen any shenanigans that made me flinch yet.

And there are quite a few of us from MN lurking around here.
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[quote name='Lightning Lord' post='1673812' date='Feb 4 2009, 12.15']I didn't realize there were other people from MN on this board! I remember one from a few years back, but my memory is so poor...

ANYWAY. This is perfectly legal. And Franken would have done the same thing. A lot of people complain that one side or the other is fixing the election, or just obstructing the process. But both sides watched the recount, the canvassing board was bi-partisan and now both sides are availing themselves of the legal process.

I wish it were otherwise, simply because I want another senator. Seating a senator should not take 4-6+ months.[/quote]

Oh yeah, I agree there and that Franken was planning the same before it went in his favor. I have been listening to the hearings though, and it's really annoying the shifts the Coleman camp has made in what they want counted. During the recount they were all about supressing absentee ballots, now they want to count all the ones the recount rejected but want to disqualify the ones where the original was damaged or lost, despite there being another copy.

There are a lot of boarders in the froen North. We have Lady Blackfish, Dracarys, RaceBannon and others whose names escape me right now.
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[quote]Fresh off his stint as a war correspondent in Gaza, Joe the Plumber is now doing political strategy with Republicans.

When GOP congressional aides gather Tuesday morning for a meeting of the Conservative Working Group, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher – more commonly known as Joe the Plumber — will be their featured guest. This group is an organization of conservative Capitol Hill staffers who meet regularly to chart GOP strategy for the week.[/quote]
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