John Shadegg!

[RakuraiTenjin]

He needs to take the House Majority Seat! He's awesome, great views, and he's representing from the great Arizona.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060114/ap_on_go_co/house_gop_leadership_shadegg

He worked for Barry Goldwater as a child, who worked closely with and wrote a book about my great great uncle Henry Fountain Ashurst

 

[dream431ca]

In Canada, there is this one liberal MP who is running, who has the most best way to run this country..but he's only a MP (someone who just represents one small part of a particular province who sits in the house of commons).

As you probably know, in Canada, Quebec wants to seperate and blah blah blah. This guy has the ultimate solution to solving that problem.

Anyway on your topic: Hope he gets in for ya, cause at least one of our countries needs a better politican in power

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

In Canada, there is this one liberal MP who is running, who has the most best way to run this country..but he's only a MP (someone who just represents one small part of a particular province who sits in the house of commons).

As you probably know, in Canada, Quebec wants to seperate and blah blah blah. This guy has the ultimate solution to solving that problem.

Anyway on your topic: Hope he gets in for ya, cause at least one of our countries needs a better politican in power

Well, at the very least we're getting somebody better than DeLay in there. Republican or not his ethics were bullshit with the lobbyist scandal. Shadegg has the fiscal policy that we've been lacking in that position where we need it for a long time.

 

[dream431ca]

Well, at the very least we're getting somebody better than DeLay in there. Republican or not his ethics were bullshit with the lobbyist scandal. Shadegg has the fiscal policy that we've been lacking in that position where we need it for a long time.

Just a General question..I don't know this about the USA. I know you have a republican in power right now, and what would happen if you had a democratic government?? Would your goverment run differently than a republic government, like would the senate be a bit different and other stuff like that? I'm not that familiar as to what the differences are between a republic and democratic goverment in the USA.

On topic: Well, I'm glad that somewhere in north america, there seems to be a good politician on the rise. By the way, what was the lobbyist scandal?

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Just a General question..I don't know this about the USA. I know you have a republican in power right now, and what would happen if you had a democratic government?? Would your goverment run differently than a republic government, like would the senate be a bit different and other stuff like that?

On topic: Well, I'm glad that somewhere in north america, there seems to be a good politician on the rise. By the way, what was the lobbyist scandal?

Well basically, the way laws work here (and laws include measures authorizing actions such as going to war, alotting money for a building project, etc, not just 'laws' that citizens have to obey for example.) is they are introduced as bills into the House of Representatives, the lower tier of Congress, which has ~400 members elected from every little part of the US by local voters.

If they pass there, they go to the Senate, which has 100 members - 2 from every state.

If they pass the Senate, they are sent to President Bush, who then either signs it into law or vetoes it. If he vetoes it, it gets sent back to Congress to be voted on again. If they pass it with 2/3 vote, his veto is overridden and it is signed into law. If it does not make it past the supermajority 2/3, the veto stands and the law is shot down.

Basically, with a Democratic congress, a lot of Republican measures wouldn't get through (IE: More conservative judge nominations for appelate courts, the sunsetting of the assault weapon ban, etc) and a lot of democratic things would get shot down through vetoes.

But this has happened in the past (usually the other way around, Republican Congress and Democrat president) and they tend to work together. Although we're polarized, politicians still work together and most people are friends with plenty of people on both sides, haha. It's not like nothing can get done, it's just that the more polarizing issues stay at a standstill until they become absolutely necessary to address or one side gains a majority in both positions.

A democratic house, republican senate, etc can make things even more complicated.


The House Majority Leader basically speaks for the House and has a lot of influence among his party and base itself, so Shadegg coming into power, although a lot of liberals don't like his views, he believes in what he's doing and it isn't a situation like DeLay.

The situation with DeLay - he "decided last week to step down permanently as majority leader. DeLay was indicted last fall on charges of laundering campaign money."

from Wiki-

In 2005, DeLay was indicted in Austin, Texas on criminal charges of conspiracy to violate election laws in 2002 by a Travis County, Texas grand jury after having waived his rights under the statutes of limitations. In accordance with Republican Caucus rules, DeLay temporarily resigned from his position as House Majority Leader, and later, after pressure from fellow Republicans, announced that he would not seek to return to the position.

DeLay publicly denied the charges, saying that they are motivated by the partisan actions of Democrat Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.[1] After DeLay moved to dismiss all charges, trial judge Pat Priest dismissed one count of the indictment, alleging conspiracy to violate election law; however, Judge Priest denied DeLay's motion to dismiss the charges alleging money laundering and conspiracy to engage in money laundering, and the prosecution is proceeding on those charges.

On January 7, 2006, under pressure from other Republican House members [2], Delay announced that he would not seek to return as Majority Leader. According to DeLay, this was not an admission of guilt. DeLay plans to run for reelection to his Congressional seat this year.[3][4]


The entire scandal story relating to Delay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_De...sconduct_in_Texas_fundraising_and_indictments


That's just the laundering charges though. Here's the Lobbyist scandal
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7575874

 

[dream431ca]

Well basically, the way laws work here (and laws include measures authorizing actions such as going to war, alotting money for a building project, etc, not just 'laws' that citizens have to obey for example.) is they are introduced as bills into the House of Representatives, the lower tier of Congress, which has ~400 members elected from every little part of the US by local voters.

If they pass there, they go to the Senate, which has 100 members - 2 from every state.

If they pass the Senate, they are sent to President Bush, who then either signs it into law or vetoes it. If he vetoes it, it gets sent back to Congress to be voted on again. If they pass it with 2/3 vote, his veto is overridden and it is signed into law. If it does not make it past the supermajority 2/3, the veto stands and the law is shot down.

Basically, with a Democratic congress, a lot of Republican measures wouldn't get through (IE: More conservative judge nominations for appelate courts, the sunsetting of the assault weapon ban, etc) and a lot of democratic things would get shot down through vetoes.

But this has happened in the past (usually the other way around, Republican Congress and Democrat president) and they tend to work together. Although we're polarized, politicians still work together and most people are friends with plenty of people on both sides, haha. It's not like nothing can get done, it's just that the more polarizing issues stay at a standstill until they become absolutely necessary to address or one side gains a majority in both positions.

A democratic house, republican senate, etc can make things even more complicated.


The House Majority Leader basically speaks for the House and has a lot of influence among his party and base itself, so Shadegg coming into power, although a lot of liberals don't like his views, he believes in what he's doing and it isn't a situation like DeLay.

The situation with DeLay - he "decided last week to step down permanently as majority leader. DeLay was indicted last fall on charges of laundering campaign money."

from Wiki-

In 2005, DeLay was indicted in Austin, Texas on criminal charges of conspiracy to violate election laws in 2002 by a Travis County, Texas grand jury after having waived his rights under the statutes of limitations. In accordance with Republican Caucus rules, DeLay temporarily resigned from his position as House Majority Leader, and later, after pressure from fellow Republicans, announced that he would not seek to return to the position.

DeLay publicly denied the charges, saying that they are motivated by the partisan actions of Democrat Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.[1] After DeLay moved to dismiss all charges, trial judge Pat Priest dismissed one count of the indictment, alleging conspiracy to violate election law; however, Judge Priest denied DeLay's motion to dismiss the charges alleging money laundering and conspiracy to engage in money laundering, and the prosecution is proceeding on those charges.

On January 7, 2006, under pressure from other Republican House members [2], Delay announced that he would not seek to return as Majority Leader. According to DeLay, this was not an admission of guilt. DeLay plans to run for reelection to his Congressional seat this year.[3][4]


The entire scandal story relating to Delay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_De...sconduct_in_Texas_fundraising_and_indictments

Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate that. So republicans and democrats usually get along...in Canada, that is an entirely different story. (If you get CBC in the states, watch it on 1PM eastern time). What the parties do at that time is something called question period. For one hour, the parties yell and scream and act like 6 year olds. Basically the opposition asks questions to leading party. (And for about 7 to 8 months now, they have been asking questions dealing with the sponsership scandal, and Canadians are pretty pissed of with the opposition, the conservatives). Each party does not really get along, but they tolerate each other in a civil manner...but during an election campaing such as now, they are out for blood, and it gets pretty messy up here in Canada.

I didn't mean to get off topic so much, you were kind enough to write about your politics in the USA, so I'm writing about mine.

On Topic: Hmmm... I see. Laundering money...what an idiot. In Canada were still going on about the sponsership scandal...god that is a horrible subject.
I'm glad that Delay got kicked out.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate that. So republicans and democrats usually get along...in Canada, that is an entirely different story. (If you get CBC in the states, watch it on 1PM eastern time). What the parties do at that time is something called question period. For one hour, the parties yell and scream and act like 6 year olds. Basically the opposition asks questions to leading party. (And for about 7 to 8 months now, they have been asking questions dealing with the sponsership scandal, and Canadians are pretty pissed of with the opposition, the conservatives). Each party does not really get along, but they tolerate each other in a civil manner...but during an election campaing such as now, they are out for blood, and it gets pretty messy up here in Canada.

I didn't mean to get off topic so much, you were kind enough to write about your politics in the USA, so I'm writing about mine.

On Topic: Hmmm... I see. Laundering money...what an idiot. In Canada were still going on about the sponsership scandal...god that is a horrible subject.
I'm glad that Delay got kicked out.

Well I don't mean to say they get along all the time. Election time is out for blood here too, and on many issues it's cutthroat. These are the things that make the news and get discussed a lot on these types of forums so it always seems cutthroat. All you get in the news these days are

The war
Evolution
Stem cells
Judge Nominees

And it makes our country look like it's on the verge of a civil war. But the fact is there's hundreds of issues that people agree/disagree upon on totally different lines than just republican/democrat. Same for the government dealing with those too.

The thing is though, there's the run of the mill everyday bill that either makes it or doesn't, without much fighting, or people working together for a compromise. It's horrible a lot of the time, but not always as it might seem.

There are fairly strict rules for behavior by the ethics committee and such. Even when Senators are like BEST buddies they'll still refer to each other as "As the Gentleman from Montana kindly pointed out, this issue needs to be put to rest before next Tuesday, I propose to the House leader..." blah blah and so on.

What is going on with the Sponsorship Scandal. I know it's going on and such, but I really don't know like what it is. Makes me sound dumb but yeah, all I know is mismanaged money has enraged most Canadians.

 

[dream431ca]

Well I don't mean to say they get along all the time. Election time is out for blood here too, and on many issues it's cutthroat. These are the things that make the news and get discussed a lot on these types of forums so it always seems cutthroat. All you get in the news these days are

The war
Evolution
Stem cells
Judge Nominees

And it makes our country look like it's on the verge of a civil war. But the fact is there's hundreds of issues that people agree/disagree upon on totally different lines than just republican/democrat. Same for the government dealing with those too.

The thing is though, there's the run of the mill everyday bill that either makes it or doesn't, without much fighting, or people working together for a compromise. It's horrible a lot of the time, but not always as it might seem.

There are fairly strict rules for behavior by the ethics committee and such. Even when Senators are like BEST buddies they'll still refer to each other as "As the Gentleman from Montana kindly pointed out, this issue needs to be put to rest before next Tuesday, I propose to the House leader..." blah blah and so on.

What is going on with the Sponsorship Scandal. I know it's going on and such, but I really don't know like what it is. Makes me sound dumb but yeah, all I know is mismanaged money has enraged most Canadians.

You don't sound dumb because you don't know what the sponsership scandal is. I don't know how most of the things work in the USA, so were fairly equal when it comes to knowledge about our neighbouring country.

The sponsership scandal was extremely stupid...they never really mismanaged money.

I'll explain the sponership scandal:

Around 1996 or 1997 just after the Referendum in Quebec (Quebec tried to seperate from Canada, but Quebec voted not to), the goverment had to try and figure out a way to cool the tensions with quebec. So the governent created what was called the sponsership program which was originally in place to raise Canadian patriotic sentiments in Quebec to avoid another referendum.

It was going well for a while until the goverment started to use the money for other means like buying publicity space and to showcase Canada's flag in Quebec (In Quebec they think of themselves as seperate from Canada so you hardly see any Canadian flags in Quebec). Then in 2001, an investigation found out that 250 Million dollars were invested into Liberal Advertising firms in Quebec which was a bit shocking. They were using the money to bribe certain companies to support the liberal party in quebec.

Then the liberals were accused of Money laundering and embezzlement (which means to fraudlent property from a property owner). Further investigations also reveled that the liberals gave money to huge corporations that supported the liberal party. Basically they gave money to their "Friends".

When the opposition found out, all hell broke lose and the scandal started. After our last prime minister (Jean Chretien) was replaced by Paul Martin (another liberal), Paul Martin immediatly cancelled the sponsership program.

Then the Prime Minister started what was called the Gomery commission (A judge named Gomery was to look into what happened and who was to blame for the whole thing). After 2 years, Gomery found that it was the former Prime Minister (Jean Chretien) who was to blame for the whole thing. But that doesn't make sense as back then Paul Martin was the Finance Minister for Canada.

So that's that. But it's a long way from being over, there is still over 100 Million dollars unaccounted for and the opposition will be at this to no end.