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"Cult" is perhaps a bit extreme of a word, don't you think? Unless you also want to refer to members of the far left in Congress as "cult members" as well.

 

 

There are a few loons on the Left but they did not sign these cult like pledges.

 

And of course I am not alone in saying that the Republicans show cult like tendencies.

 

 

 

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

 

"But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

 

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy."

 

 

 

 

Perhaps some of the sane Republicans...and there are lots...need to kick these extremists out of the party.

 

This wont happen though because they (the sane Republicans) are afraid of Limbaugh ...and afraid of being "primaried " by the Koch war chest and the tea party's paid activists.

 

 

 

More here

 

http://www.phillyburbs.com/blogs/politically_astute/the-gop-a-political-cult/article_3dd02122-ea05-11e0-88fb-001a4bcf6878.html

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-grand-old-cult/2011/07/02/gHQAOnlByH_story.html

 

"Someone ought to study the Republican Party. I am not referring to yet another political scientist but to a mental health professional, preferably a specialist in the power of fixations, obsessions and the like. The GOP needs an intervention. It has become a cult."

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And for crap's sake, people. There's NO need to -1 every single post Aces makes, regardless of its content. I'm fighting an uphill battle right now as it is to keep the Off Topic Discussion section open AT ALL. This kind of childish behavior isn't helping my case any.

 

 

That's funny!

 

I kinda like the knee jerk reactions.....shows the mentality of some posters....childish.

 

Maybe you should give them a -10 button...it would make some very happy.

 

Or it could go up to -11 (like Spinal Tap)

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That's funny!

 

I kinda like the knee jerk reactions.....shows the mentality of some posters....childish.

 

Sort of similar to your knee jerk reaction of labeling things "right wing"? It doesn't advance the conversation at all. It just makes people defensive.

 

Or it could go up to -11 (like Spinal Tap)

 

:hysterical:

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Aces in for three links, and four lines of text. the thing speaks for itself.

 

Aces, please compare and contrast these two statements:

 

“The pledge specifically says you can eliminate tax deductions if you bring rates down at same time,” he said. “The people who say that the pledge would get in the way of tax reform, well their point is they want a tax increase.”

 

"It has made any agreement on closing some of the ridiculous tax loopholes impossible."

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More on Tax pledges...from a Republican.

 

 

"Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf ® slams Grover Norquist for 'paralyzing Congress' with his no-tax pledge"

 

 

 

More here

 

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/04/335648/wolf-slams-norquist-tax-pledge/

 

 

 

 

 

This tax pledge stuff has brought down America's debt rating and harmed America's image as THE economic power of the world.

 

The signs that some Republicans may be getting past the pledge phase are encouraging.

 

If the adults take over the GOP again we will all have a better future.

Edited by Aces
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So you are right back to link bombing. That didn't take long.

 

 

Why is this poster allowed to attack other posters?

 

Why is this poster allowed to dictate what I may or not post?

Edited by Aces
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Aces, I did not attack you. Your actions speak for themselves. I have no ability to dictate what you can or cannot post. The moderators do have that ability. It seems that they were unambiguous in asking everyone to refrain from from link bombing.

 

Giving you the margin of doubt, let's pretend that you have no other agenda, but to express your own personal opinions.

 

Discussion boards are intended to provide a place for individuals to share their personal opinions and beliefs. This is place for those without a blog or other venue to say their piece. Links are used as citations: they serve to back the veracity of data offered in the debate. For example, if you claim that the real unemployment rate is many times the published number, you will need to provide a citation to back it up, if you wish your claim to have serious consideration. Here is the important part: the link supports your position, it is not a substitute for having an opinion of your own.

 

If every one did what you do, this board would fail immediately. You would post your link, and someone else would post theirs. No one would read any of it but the spiders at Google would faithfully record that this site links to a multitude of others, all unrelated to the core content of the site. This is not a good thing for the owners of this site.

 

Maybe you should consider starting your own website, something like republicansareboogerheads.com. There are lots of sites like that, that just post links to the words of other people. You could build a group of like minded individuals. You might find greater satisfaction than a site like this.

Edited by xr7g428
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Aces, I did not attack you. Your actions speak for themselves. I have no ability to dictate what you can or cannot post. The moderators do have that ability. It seems that they were unambiguous in asking everyone to refrain from from link bombing.

 

Giving you the margin of doubt, let's pretend that you have no other agenda, but to express your own personal opinions.

 

Discussion boards are intended to provide for individuals to share their personal opinions and beliefs. This is place for those without a blog or other venue to say their piece. Links are used as citations: they serve to back the veracity of data offered in the debate. For example, if you claim that the real unemployment rate is many times the published number, you will need to provide a citation to back it up, if you wish your claim to have serious consideration. Here is the important part: the link supports your position, it is not a substitute for having an opinion of your own.

 

If every one did what you do, this board would fail immediately. You would post your link, and someone else would post theirs. No one would read any of it but the spiders at Google would faithfully record that this site links to a multitude of others, all unrelated to the core content of the site. This is not a good thing for the owners of this site.

 

Maybe you should consider starting your own website, something like republicansareboogerheads.com. There are lots of sites like that, that just post links to the words of other people. You could build a group of like minded individuals. You might find greater satisfaction than a site like this.

 

 

All I see is that you don't want to see an alternative point of view as yours is the "right" one.

 

You want to stifle debate by keeping a closed mind.

 

You don't believe that you might learn from facts presented.

 

You don't wish to discuss ...only attack my posts.

 

 

 

I stand by what I posted as being on topic, and rebutting another s opinion.

 

That is debate.

 

 

All of your posts are whines about my having posted, or attack on my integrity ,or YOUR definition of what should be posted.

 

Perhaps it is you that needs to become a moderator on your own website or forum since you seem to like to order people around and push others thoughts to one side by using "the rules" (as made by you).

 

 

Your continual whining to the moderator about me leaves you in a poor position to be continually attacking me.

 

 

Why do you post when you have nothing to add to the topic?

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A repost ...on topic...away from the deflecting personal attacks.

 

More on Tax pledges...from a Republican.

 

 

"Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf ® slams Grover Norquist for 'paralyzing Congress' with his no-tax pledge"

 

 

 

More here

 

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/04/335648/wolf-slams-norquist-tax-pledge/

 

 

 

 

 

This tax pledge stuff has brought down America's debt rating and harmed America's image as THE economic power of the world.

 

The signs that some Republicans may be getting past the pledge phase are encouraging.

 

If the adults take over the GOP again we will all have a better future.

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It seems that the leading Republican hopeful...Romney... wants to bring back all of the G.W. Bush foreign policy advisers that lied, and urged the president to lie to the American people in his State of the Union address, leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

 

These neo-cons from the New American Century group were the leading force in duping America into this war.

 

I wonder if they will pay for the next war they cause with tax cuts like the last two?

 

 

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-taps-foreign-policy-national-security-advisers/2011/10/06/gIQAnDHzPL_story.html

 

 

I guess Mitt hopes that the American people will vote for him to bring back the foreign policy successes of the George W. Bush administration.

 

Maybe he can get Dick Chaney as Secretary of State?

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  • 3 weeks later...

And for crap's sake, people. There's NO need to -1 every single post Aces makes, regardless of its content. I'm fighting an uphill battle right now as it is to keep the Off Topic Discussion section open AT ALL. This kind of childish behavior isn't helping my case any.

 

I know it's a tuff job to monitor all the children that come over here from the employee section but ultimately Nick, you have to ask yourself this...Who really is to blame for moving all these useless topics from the "Ford Employee section" to begin with?

 

That's a good question to ask I think.

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  • 3 months later...

Back from sabattical - too busy with work for the last couple of months. Saw an article in the Economist discussing Dodd - Franks.

 

Too Big Not to Fail

 

Some of my favorite parts:

SECTIONS 404 and 406 of the Dodd-Frank law of July 2010 add up to just a couple of pages. On October 31st last year two of the agencies overseeing America’s financial system turned those few pages into a form to be filled out by hedge funds and some other firms; that form ran to 192 pages. The cost of filling it out, according to an informal survey of hedge-fund managers, will be $100,000-150,000 for each firm the first time it does it. After having done it once, those costs might drop to $40,000 in every later year.

 

The law that set up America’s banking system in 1864 ran to 29 pages; the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 went to 32 pages; the Banking Act that transformed American finance after the Wall Street Crash, commonly known as the Glass-Steagall act, spread out to 37 pages. Dodd-Frank is 848 pages long.

 

Take the transformation of 11 pages of Dodd-Frank into the so-called “Volcker rule”, which is intended to reduce banks’ ability to take excessive risks by restricting proprietary trading and investments in hedge funds and private equity (Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, has argued that such activity contributed to the crisis). In November four of the five federal agencies charged with enacting this rule jointly put forward a 298-page proposal which is, in the words of a banker publicly supportive of Dodd-Frank, “unintelligible any way you read it”. It includes 383 explicit questions for firms which, if read closely, break down into 1,420 subquestions, according to Davis Polk, a law firm. The interactive Volcker “rule map” Davis Polk has produced for its clients has 355 distinct steps.

 

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s boss, reckons the direct costs to his bank, America’s largest, will be $400m-600m annually. “Additional regulations resulting from the Dodd-Frank act may materially adversely affect BB&T’s business, financial condition or results of operations,” said one regional bank in its recent annual filing to the SEC. Other institutions are said to be in the process of drafting similar statements, or, at the least, planning to acknowledge the costs in the conference calls that surround quarterly earnings.

 

From the article, it sounds like the cost of banking is going to rise and the only people who are going to be better off are the lawyers and consultants who will charge through the nose for the next 5-10 years as we figure out what was actually passed and how to comply.

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LOL. Keeping banks honest is like drug testing the Olympics. Always one step behind and adding new regs every year.

 

Nice to have you back man!

 

Thanks ljcdad. Hopefully I can find some more time to contribute on a more regular basis.

 

My biggest frustration with the banking regulations is that I'm not sure anyone know what the actual goal is. Who is it that decided what banks are supposed to do and how they are going to do it? I picture Congress trying to design, manufacture, and sell a car - comdey of errors.

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