***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[createdestroy]

I never heard of this so I Googled it.
16th cousins, 3 times removed. Your paranoia knows no limits

This is typical. Dude says "I didn't know that."

Looks it up, finds out it's true and comes back to say how paranoid I am.

It really depends on which article you read whether or not they are 5th, 9th, 11th, 13th or even 16th cousins. 2 or 3 times removed, it's all there. It's true though, huh?

Fox loves you.

 

[pig love]

I looked it up because I didn't know it before I wanted to make sure you weren't talking out your ***.
And how is being distant cousins a conflict of interest?
It is a irrelevant fact that you're blowing up to be important. I DOESN'T MEAN/PROVE ****. That's why I called you paranoid

Why didn't you just say: Dang Pig, I didn't know about that and keep it moving?

If you don't see the conflict of interest having two men in the same family on the ballot then

 

[RustyShackleford]

Why didn't you just say: Dang Pig, I didn't know about that and keep it moving?
If you don't see the conflict of interest having two men in the same family on the ballot then

Because I know you track record. The conspiracy theories, calling people that don't agree with your point of view "sleep"

And they are not in the same family, they are distant relatives.

Plus even if they where brothers, that fact alone wouldn't make it a conflict of interest.

 

[wr]

People with titles of nobility aren't supposed to be in our gov't like that. It's mainly why America was founded in the first place. So i guess sending their distant cousins in is the next best thing.

 

[createdestroy]

People with titles of nobility aren't supposed to be in our gov't like that. It's mainly why America was founded in the first place. So i guess sending their distant cousins in is the next best thing.

What the hell are you talking about?

 

[Comparison Ford]

People with titles of nobility aren't supposed to be in our gov't like that. It's mainly why America was founded in the first place. So i guess sending their distant cousins in is the next best thing.

Video won't embed properly, but ermmmm.....

 

[essential1]

We're all related.. Just depends how far you're willing to go to research it.

 

[david bowman]

Republicans were super pissed and reportedly laughing at obama's proposal

They keep talking about not rasining tax rates on the 2%

Democrats historically cave. So I dunno what to expect.

 

[crcballer55]

Republicans were super pissed and reportedly laughing at obama's proposal

They keep talking about not rasining tax rates on the 2%

Democrats historically cave. So I dunno what to expect.

You sure about that? During the last "Fiscal Cliff" Reagan agreed to $1 in tax hikes now for $2 in program cuts later. The tax hikes came and the cuts never came. Hence one of the reasons why we started building bigger budget deficits during the 80's.

 

[crcballer55]

[h1]Obama Consults with MSNBC Hosts Sharpton, Maddow on Tax Rates[/h1]
4:27 PM, Dec 4, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER

President Barack Obama met with several MSNBC hosts this afternoon at the White House to discuss tax rates, according to Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery. The reporter wondered if an "MSNBC love fest" was going on at the White House.

Here's Bendery's reporting, in a series of tweets:

Just passed Al Sharpton walking into the WH.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Also, Al Sharpton is so unbelievably tiny now. I actually gasped when I saw him pass by just now. Hope he's ok.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Rachel Maddow is now in the West Wing. How do I know this? I just walked in with her.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Never met Maddow until now. We kind of look alike, esp today. My intro: "Are you my long lost sister?" Her: "Glad we both got the memo."

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Maddow, heading into West Wing, said she was here for a "hippie cabal." Asked if I was coming. NO, DAMN IT, I WASN'T INVITED.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

So... in the last hour, I watched Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton and Lawrence O'Donnell all walk into the West Wing. MSNBC love fest?

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

WH spox: “This afternoon at the White House, the President met with influential progressives...."

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

WH spox says Obama mtg with Maddow, other progressives to discuss importance of extending the Bush middle-class tax cut.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

 

[Nike Jordan]

John Kerry hits John McCain with the ether.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-december-5-2012/a-beacon-of-hope

 

[essential1]

Good.. I'm glad Obama's growing a pair this time around.

 

[pig love]

Good.. I'm glad Obama's growing a pair this time around.

Do you think his pair will swell with a larger kill list?

 

[pig love]

Because I know you track record. The conspiracy theories, calling people that don't agree with your point of view "sleep"
And they are not in the same family, they are distant relatives.
Plus even if they where brothers, that fact alone wouldn't make it a conflict of interest.

You are out of your mind.


You have to be 14 years old

 

[createdestroy]

Good.. I'm glad Obama's growing a pair this time around.

Do you think his pair will swell with a larger kill list?

Are you angry at the existence of the kill list? Or the fact that it has always existed and the government is open enough to let you know about it now?

 

[rashi]

IRS finalizes new tax for medical devices in healthcare law

WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 5:18pm EST
(Reuters) - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday released final rules for a new tax on medical devices, products ranging from surgical sutures to knee replacement implants, that starts next year as part of President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law.

The 2.3-percent tax must be paid, effective after December 31, by device-makers on their gross sales. The tax is expected to raise $29 billion in government revenues through 2022.

Companies including Boston Scientific Corp, 3M Co and Kimberly-Clark Corp have been lobbying the U.S. Congress for a repeal of the tax.

A repeal bill passed the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in June, but it has not been voted on by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Many medical devices that are sold over-the-counter - such eyeglasses, contact lenses and hearing aids - are exempt from the tax, as are prosthetics, the IRS said.

The tax applies mostly to devices used and implanted by medical professionals, including items as complex as pacemakers or as simple as tongue depressors.

Products sold for humanitarian reasons, such as experimental cancer treatment devices, are not exempt from the tax.

Some medical device companies are hoping to delay the tax's start date as part of a resolution of the "fiscal cliff" deadline at the end of the year involving many tax and spending measures, said Steve Ferguson, chairman of Cook Group Inc.

"We would like to be part of the punt," Ferguson said, referring to an extension of current tax policy into 2013.

In one potentially problematic aspect of the tax, companies selling dual-use products to medical and non-medical customers must pay the tax on those products, potentially putting them at a competitive disadvantage, said Lew Fernandez, a director at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and a former IRS official.

For example, it remains "an open question" when latex gloves come under the tax, he said.

(Reporting by Patrick Temple-West; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Tim Dobbyn)

Great, now I have to explain to patients why their is an extra $12,000 added on to their already $40,000+ procedure.

All jokes aside, this is insane. Now, I have to figure out how much I have to increase visit costs. Gloves, betadine, syringes, ect. simple stuff I use on a daily bases just got more expensive.

 

[utvol23]

Great, now I have to explain to patients why their is an extra $12,000 added on to their already $40,000+ procedure.
All jokes aside, this is insane. Now, I have to figure out how much I have to increase visit costs. Gloves, betadine, syringes, ect. simple stuff I use on a daily bases just got more expensive.

Yep this plan is going to save alot of money for the healthcare industry.


The job market for alot of specialties is extremely tight and a major factor is the institution of Obamacare.

 

[nazdrowie]

had no idea where to put this but thought this was interesting especially considering how much opposition Summers was getting from Senators... guess they got their wish...i really dont know much about the situation aside from what ive read but the next Fed Chair appointment just now got that much more interesting... 

WASHINGTON— Lawrence Summers  pulled out of the contest to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve after weeks of public excoriation, forcing President Barack Obama  to move further down the list of contenders to head the central bank. 

One leading candidate is Janet Yellen, the Fed's current vice chairwoman, who has garnered substantial support among Democrats in Congress and among economists. But the public lobbying on her behalf appears to have annoyed the president, say administration insiders, and may lead him to look elsewhere.

Mr. Obama has said he interviewed Donald Kohn, a former Fed vice chairman who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Administration insiders say Timothy Geithner, the former Treasury secretary, also is a possibility, though he has said he doesn't want the job. Dark-horse candidates include Stanley Fischer, an American citizen who recently stepped down as governor of the Bank of Israel, and Roger Ferguson, another former Fed vice chairman and now chief executive of TIAA-CREF, the nonprofit pension company.

Mr. Summers, a former Treasury secretary who has been one of the president's top advisers, withdrew in a phone call with Mr. Obama Sunday morning. In a subsequent letter to Mr. Obama, he wrote: "I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation's ongoing economic recovery."

Mr. Obama said in a statement Sunday that he accepted Mr. Summers's decision and described him as "a critical member of my team as we faced down the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it was in no small part because of his expertise, wisdom, and leadership that we wrestled the economy back to growth."

J. Bradford DeLong, a Summers backer at the University of California, Berkeley, said the decision to pull his name is "not something Larry would have done were he really the guy his adversaries claim he is."

U.S. stock futures surged late Sunday after Mr. Summers withdrew his name, soothing investors who had expected him to quickly wind down the Fed's easy-money policies.

Mr. Summers, who was director of Mr. Obama's National Economic Council early in his presidency, was widely believed to be the president's first choice. But opposition from liberals and women's groups—and, importantly, from some Senate Banking Committee Democrats—had been mounting.

For them, Mr. Summers became a symbol—a caricature, his admirers say—of all the failures of financial deregulation that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

"He was very clearly the president's choice," a former top administration official said. "After all the problems they had with the base, a big confirmation battle looked like a bridge too far."

Mr. Obama kicked off speculation about the Fed job in an interview with Charlie Rose in June in which he said Mr. Bernanke "had stayed a lot longer than he wanted or he was supposed to." Mr. Bernanke's second four-year term as Fed chairman expires Jan. 31.

The very public disclosure of Mr. Bernanke's plans led to an unusually public debate over potential successors. In particular, critics seized on Mr. Summers's reputation for abrasiveness, his closeness to Wall Street and accusations that he was hostile to women. The last was damaging given that one of his rivals was Ms. Yellen, who would, if nominated and confirmed, be the Fed's first chairwoman.

"It's shocking in the sense that Summers was so widely considered to be a front-runner," said Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, "I'm sure they were very carefully counting votes—including Republican votes—and just believed that they couldn't get Larry out of committee."

At least three Democrats on the committee had said they would vote against Mr. Summers, most recently centrist Democrat Jon Tester of Montana.

In late July, about one-third of the 54 Senate Democrats signed a letter to Mr. Obama urging him to pick Ms. Yellen; it didn't mention Mr. Summers, but it was viewed as a warning to the White House.

Mr. Obama angrily defended Mr. Summers at a closed-door meeting with lawmakers, but he did little to thaw views among many liberal and centrist lawmakers that Mr. Summers was too combative and too close to Wall Street.

Ms. Yellen has in the past few months avoided substantive public comments on the economy or monetary policy. During the Fed's annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August, she told several people she didn't expect to get the job.

Mr. Summers's decision comes at a moment of vulnerability for Mr. Obama. He was close to losing a vote in Congress to authorize military strikes against Syria until Russia offered a last-minute diplomatic solution.

The move also coincides with the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing financial crisis. Mr. Obama has a series of economic events planned this week, including a Monday Rose Garden speech, an address Wednesday to the Business Roundtable and a meeting Thursday with his export council. On Friday, he will travel to a Ford Motor  Co. F -0.23%  assembly plant in Kansas City, Mo., to highlight the success of the government auto bailout.

Now, the week may be overshadowed by fallout of Mr. Summers's withdrawal. But Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, said he saw a silver lining. The withdrawal, he said, "significantly clarifies the president's choices and enhances his ability to reach consensus in Congress."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323981304579077442028100408.html

 

[nazdrowie]

well damb...Eric Cantor Falls to Shock Defeat in Primary

June 10, 2014

In one of the biggest political upsets in recent memory, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary election on Tuesday to a political unknown who focused his campaign on Cantor's support for a path to citizenship for the children of immigrants.

Randolph-Macon College economics professor Dave Brat won the Republican primary in Virginia's 7th Congressional District. Brat had 56 percent of the vote to Cantor's 44 percent when the Associated Press called the race just after 8 p.m. 

Cantor's defeat will send shockwaves throughout Washington. The House majority leader was one of the best-known Republican figures in the country, reputed for his strategic acumen and political ambition. He wielded an immense amount of clout within the Capitol and was widely expected to one day seek to become the speaker of the House.

His primary was never expected to be seriously competitive, and his loss is catching everyone—from veterans of Virginia politics to longtime analysts in Washington—by surprise.

"Obviously, we came up short," Cantor said in a speech Tuesday night.

Cantor's loss was shocking, but there were several signs of rising voter discontent among conservatives in his district. Brat attacked him for supporting "amnesty" as part of his support for comprehensive immigration reform, which forced Cantor to reiterate that he opposed legislation that provided for "blanket amnesty."

The issue of immigration policy drew heightened attention on Fox News and conservative talk radio in the past week after news reports documented a surge of undocumented children arriving at the United States border, overrunning processing centers and the Border Patrol.

In an interview just last Friday, Cantor suggested he could work with President Obama to allow a path to citizenship for some children of illegal immigrants already in the country. In the campaign's final days, Brat criticized Cantor for siding with Obama on the contentious issue.

A secondary factor in Cantor's demise was his disconnect from many Republican constituents in the district. The state's redistricting in 2010 made his suburban Richmond district more conservative, adding new areas that he didn't previously represent. As majority leader, Cantor spent less time wooing voters at town halls in Chesterfield County and more time deal-making with Republican leadership in Washington.

He didn't take the challenge from Brat seriously enough until it was too late. Between April 1 and May 21, he spent nearly $1 million trying to fend off Brat, but his campaign was still dismissive of the challenge even as recently as Monday when reporters questioned why it was spending so much money.

"We lived the exact same thing two years ago," said Ray Allen, Cantor's campaign manager, in an interview with the National Journal  before Tuesday's primary. "From 2000 to 2012, we've run TV ads, done direct mail, yard signs."

Cantor won his primary with 79 percent of the vote last year, though he only won less than 60 percent of the vote in the last two general elections—in a Republican-friendly district.

Cantor's loss is also a major defeat for the faint hopes of passing immigration reform in the House. Brat's focus on Cantor's immigration record forced him to be defensive. Cantor sent mail ads touting his opposition to "amnesty for illegal immigrants" even while advocating for an exception for those brought to the country as children—a caveat Brat criticized.

Cantor also ran negative TV ads calling Brat a "liberal college professor" and criticizing him for serving on an advisory board for Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine when Kaine was governor.

There isn't much historical precedent for a majority leader losing a primary. In 1994, Tom Foley became the first House speaker in more than a century to be defeated for reelection when he lost a general election during that year's Republican wave. His predecessor was Speaker Galusha Grow, a Republican who lost his seat during the Civil War. In the upper chamber, one-time Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle is the only party leader in recent history to lose an election, in 2004.

Both Brat and Democratic candidate Jack Trammell are professors at the same small school, Randolph-Macon College in Ashland. The school has fewer than 100 full-time faculty and a student population of just over 1,200.

Virginia law prohibits Cantor from running as an independent, but he can run as a write-in candidate, a strategy that worked for Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2010 after she lost the Alaska Republican primary.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/eric-cantor-falls-to-shock-defeat-in-primary-20140610

 

[rillo561]

So one crazy beats out another

 

[rell826]

Supported the DREAM act and his constituents got him out of here. Progressive Dems better take note.

 

[Nike Jordan]

Supported the DREAM act and his constituents got him out of here. Republicans better take note.

Fixed. Cantor lost in a deep red district.

 

[essential1]

Supported the DREAM act and his constituents got him out of here. Progressive Dems better take note.

why would Democrats take any notes from Cantor losing.

Pretty much all we get out of it is Republican Party is even more bat **** crazy than previously thought

 

[crcballer55]

 

Supported the DREAM act and his constituents got him out of here. Progressive Dems better take note.

why would Democrats take any notes from Cantor losing.

Pretty much all we get out of it is Republican Party is even more bat **** crazy than previously thought

Glad to see him go. The guy flip flops more than John Kerry. Let's keep getting the old guard out of there and go for Boehner and Reed next.

 

[nazdrowie]

WASHINGTON — Top officials in the Koch brothers' political organization Monday released a staggering $889 million budget to fund the activities of the billionaires' sprawling network ahead of the 2016 presidential contest.

The budget, which pays for everything from advertising and data-gathering technology to grass-roots activism, was released to donors attending the annual winter meeting of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, according to an attendee.

Freedom Partners sits at the center of the vast operation, and in 2012 alone, spent nearly $240 million as it funded nearly three dozen organizations, ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to smaller Tea Party groups.

The fundraising target is the latest indication that the industrialists at the center of the network, Charles and David Koch, intend to continue building an operation that could exceed the national political parties in size and scope to help advance their libertarian principles. The spending, unrivaled for an outside organization, represents more than double the nearly $400 million the Republican National Committee (RNC) raised and spent during the 2012 presidential election cycle.

During remarks Saturday, Charles Koch said the organization would not back down from its ambitions.

"Americans have taken an important step in slowing down the march toward collectivism," Koch said, according to excerpts released over the weekend. "But as many of you know, we don't rest on our laurels. We are already back at work and hard at it."

Koch said the group's efforts have been "largely defensive to slow down a government that continues to swell and become more intrusive."

During last year's midterm elections, Koch-affiliated groups spent millions in advertising to successfully toss out Democrats from the Senate and put the chamber in Republican control. In all, the Koch network is believed to have spent $290 million to help shape 2014 election results.

"We have never seen this before," Sheila Krumholz, who runs the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, said of the Kochs' planned spending, "There is no network akin to this one in terms of its complexity, scope and resources."

Some Democrats, who have long cast the Koch brothers as the villains of American politics, said they were astonished by the sum.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...9-million-budget-for-next-two-years/22363809/

thats a lotta money