Current or modern politics in the United States

[scoundrel]

Let us not forget our sense of fair play. It is a misfortune to be born son or daughter of a politician. Tagg Romney is fair game if he has taken up politics. I suppose Bristol Palin is fair game because she has cashed in on her 15 minutes of vicarious fame from when Mum was running for Vice President. But in general terms, when celebrities (let alone lizards and politicians) saddle their offspring with silly names, the ridicule should be directed at the parent.

Paula Yates dumped names on her poor kids like Fifi Trixibelle, Heavenly Hirani and Peaches. The Beckhams named their son "Brooklyn" apparently on the basis that he was conceived there, too much information IMHO; I waited eagerly for the arrival of Scunthorpe Beckham and Tranmere Beckham, or even South Central Los Angeles Beckham, but alas this was not to be.

Kids can't help it if their parents are two bricks short of a full hod.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by MisterMacky

You really believe what you have just written?

People who have studied politics a lot more than I have have come to that conclusion.

[2cheap]

Originally Posted by qwerty007

Seems it runs in the party:


Track (b. 1989)
Bristol (b. 1990)
Willow (b. 1994)
Piper (b. 2001)
Trig (b. 2008)


Named after a raceway, a cream sherry, a tree, a small aircraft manufacturer and a branch of mathematics.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin

Personally, I think Barack is an awesomely stupid name and that there are plenty Democrats out there with silly names.
But you wouldn't be looking for them, would you.

[Puhbear69]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

In general our politics conform to the two-party model. We have a significant third party, the Lib-Dems; they are the fraction in the "two and a bit". The Lib-Dems are routinely characterised as a "wasted vote" in national politics because the last time they mustered a majority in a general election was in 1910. The history of the Liberals (as they used to be called) is complicated. They used to be the natural party of opposition and the reformers when in power: their greatest leaders were William Gladstone, then Herbert Asquith, then finally David Lloyd-George. Their bedrock support came from the 1870 Reform Act, which gave the vote to all men over 21; they were an interesting alliance of urban working class men, usually factory workers, and their bosses, the mill owners. Even way back then, industrial relations were difficult and strikes were not unusual; yet man and maister had a lot of mutual respect and agreed about a lot of stuff, including the need for local government, schools and infrastructure, and that being governed by landed gentry suited neither of them. The Liberal Party was a middle class party with a lot of shared interests with the respectable working poor.

Eventually the Liberals lost their working class support when the Labour Party became a national force. The Liberals were wiped out in the 1924 general election, with only middle class professionals and industrialists supporting them. By the 1970s they were the party of academia and the liberal intelligentsia, the rural working class (who distrusted the urban workers, not without just cause) and the Celtic fringe; in 1957 they were down to five MPs and it was said they could hold meetings in the back of a taxi.

They regained some status and influence after first allying themselves and then merging with the anti-socialist Labour dissident faction, the Social Democrat Party in the 1980s. Their re-emergence reflects a lot of British alienation from the extremist positions of Labour under Michael Foot and the Tories under Margaret Thatcher. Since then, Labour and the Tories have adopted more centre-leaning positions, but the Liberal Democrat attract support from voters who have no confidence in either of them not to revert to type when they have control of the steering wheel. This support is likely to be severely dented next time due to unpopular decisions they have supported when sharing power; when you accept responsibility for making decisions, you are pretty nearly bound to get some of them wrong.

If the Republican split, it will make it more complex for a President of any party to get legislation enacted in Congress; but it might make it more feasible. The ability to work with Congress will be more important than ever, but there will be opportunities for a Democrat president to play off one Republican faction against another. A Republican president, if elected, would need to gain support from Democrats in the house, almost certainly needing to create an alliance of fiscal conservative Republicans (or whatever they decide to call themselves) and mainstream Democrats against socially conservative Republicans to pass budgets and pass social reforms, for example the statutory enforcement of the First Amendment by forbidding the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in schools, and probably to frustrate attempts to enact anti-abortion legislation and interfere with the personal freedom of American women. I think that if the Republicans ever were to split, they would never reunite. One faction would become dominant and regain the second/first party position. The other faction would fade away gradually like the Whigs, but like the Whigs, their philosophical ideas would continue to influence the debate generations later.

Some times "Liberal-Parties" can be deception package for the meaning of the word "liberal". Not all what is labeled as liberal, liberal is inside. So it is in Germany, where Liberals ended up as 'neo-liberals' at least. No doubt, they had great liberals (by the literally meaning) in the past. Now those are a very little minority in their party.

The English "New Labor" and the German "Social Democrats" took meanwhile a similar progress, as I can see, there are only slightly differences between those parties in the two countries.

As for the US, I must learn that there is not a shortage of different parties, of different political trends. Honestly, I've been surprised.
In the same way, I think too the most Americans do not know.
It is the funding of the parties, which are making different trends near to impossible. The funding of parties is based on donating this parties ... and now you know what I'm going to say ???

[scoundrel]

I quite like the Greek Orthodox rule, in which a child bears the name of a saint in that faith. I wouldn't follow it, not being Greek Orthodox by faith myself, but I like the way it prevents idiot parents calling their kids names I wouldn't give to my pet cat.

Barack is not a silly name if you are of Kenyan ancestry. I think it would be silly if I myself had a son and called him Barack; it wasn't much used as a name in Yorkshire. In one of the Herriot books, the author expressed dry humour but also compassion for the Skelton brothers, Marmaduke, Sebastian and Alonzo, saddled with pretentious names due to the snobbery of their would-be social climber mother.

If we really want to mock Democrats for their names, I would start with Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson (her real names were Claudia Alta) and Little Beagle Johnson, their pet dog.

[dethtongue]

Originally Posted by 2cheap

Personally, I think Barack is an awesomely stupid name and that there are plenty Democrats out there with silly names.
But you wouldn't be looking for them, would you.

Nope. Making fun of Republicans is too much fun. Between the aggressive ignorance and their earnest sanctimonious bathos they might as well have a "kick me" sign taped to their rears.

Barack IS a weird name....if your a white middle-class American, but for all we know its culturally a normal name in Kenya like Tom or Bob. Names like Tripp or Trigg or Bristol are weird names even IF you are American.

Liberals...helping conservatives leave the cave since 50,000 BC.

Peace out

[9876543210]

Looks like the Republican civil war is beginning to heat up a bit. Turdblossum (Karl Rove) has decided its up to him to try and get rid of all these extreme right wingers running for the Senate. Looks like two are in his immediate sights.

The first is Steve King, a Tea Partier from Iowa who's about as extreme as you can get. Tom Harkin is retiring so King thinks its his turn:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2631940.html

A few quotes:

"As you may have heard, establishment conservative kingpin Karl Rove has launched his latest effort in electoral king-making: the Conservative Victory Project. But this is no mere project for conservative victories. As The New York Times described it, Rove's intentions are "to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles."

"Representative Steve King, a six-term Iowa Republican, could be among the earliest targets of the Conservative Victory Project. He said he had not decided whether he would run for the Senate, but the leaders of the project in Washington are not waiting to try to steer him away from the race.

The group’s plans, which were outlined for the first time last week in an interview with Mr. Law, call for hard-edge campaign tactics, including television advertising, against candidates whom party leaders see as unelectable and a drag on the efforts to win the Senate. Mr. Law cited Iowa as an example and said Republicans could no longer be squeamish about intervening in primary fights.

“We’re concerned about Steve King’s Todd Akin problem,” Mr. Law said. “This is an example of candidate discipline and how it would play in a general election. All of the things he’s said are going to be hung around his neck.”

And then there's Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia who is so far out there he almost makes King seem sane (almost). He's now been targeted by Rove:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Deco...ectable-target

Believe it or not this clown is on the House Science Cmte. From the article:

"He is exactly the kind of candidate that, in theory, Rove's group would want to weed out. Ultra-conservative on both social and fiscal matters, Congressman Broun has amassed a reputation for making inflammatory and controversial statements during his time in Congress. A doctor, he gained national attention last fall when he said at a sportsman's banquet that "all that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big-bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell." At the same event, he also said he believed Earth was less than 9,000 years old and was created in six days."

How in the world did people in the US get so stupid they would nominate either of these guys for anything other than dog catcher?

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by 9876543210

How in the world did people in the US get so stupid they would nominate either of these guys for anything other than dog catcher?

I'm a bit insulted that you think any of us would nominate either one for dog catcher!!

[MisterMacky]

Originally Posted by qwerty007

So - we are finally starting to see, and put a face to, what has been going on in American politics.

People who have never been elected to office, but with the financial backing of the wealthy, are trying to dictate who should be offered up as leaders for their citizens to elect.

It was no secret that after the last election in Nov 2012, many financial backers were livid with Rove, who was unable to purchase an election win for them, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars to do so. Reports have said that his Super PAC group spent upwards of $390 million to support GOP candidates, but got little in return.

Now he has turned his hand to working as a King Maker, lining up his chosen few to face the Dems.

What is truly sickening is just how overt all of this is. There was a day when all of this would be done in smoke filled back rooms. Now - it's all out there in the open, like a pimple on a nose, for all to see, and everyone thinks it's...normal?

Yes, this is normal and there is really nothing wrong with it.
I would make as much money off the Republicans as I could just as Karl Rove is doing.

[9876543210]

qwerty007,

Originally Posted by qwerty007

So - we are finally starting to see, and put a face to, what has been going on in American politics.

People who have never been elected to office, but with the financial backing of the wealthy, are trying to dictate who should be offered up as leaders for their citizens to elect.

I think that became clear during the last election. Remember how Sheldon Adelson (the billionaire from Las Vegas in the gambling industry) kept Newt Gingrich in the race way longer than he should have? And then there was the guy (forget his name) who kept Santorum in the race almost all by himself? I remember seeing someone say, after the election, that what any politician now needs is a billionaire. As long as they have at least one they can stay in a race for almost as long as they want. Just imagine if one of these guys were to get elected?

For instance; imagine if some billionaire had just pumped multi-millions of dollars into your campaign and you won. What exactly do you owe that person? Take Sheldon Adelson. He pumped millions into the Gingrich and Romney campaigns while being under investigation for some deals in China. There are allegations that Adelson is actually under the thumb of the Chinese. So now you have a President that owes the Chinese?

The Supreme Court says it couldn't happen but, if the allegations prove true, we could have had a President (Romney) who owed the Chinese whatever they wanted. Wonder what that might be?