Well, I guess Palin finally decided what the VP does.

[JudyJudyJudy]

Some of you may remember that back in July, Palin had no idea what the VP does:

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Well, now she has figured it out, and it's even scarier:

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[FrznPolarAngel]

Well, there you go.

[MrsKitty]

Well clearly I was wrong about what the VP did. I sure should go back to school now dontcha know.

[JudyJudyJudy]

You betcha!

[HammBugga]

Oh yeah I saw that the other day. She wants to be in charge of the Senate apparently. What.A.Dumbass.

[Lumi]

I don't think i've disliked someone so much that wasn't a fictional person.

[Bellaelle]

VP is President of the Senate.

The Constitution does not state that the VP has no role or authority as President of the Senate other than breaking a tie.

It states that the only vote a VP has is to break a tie, but otherwise is President of the Senate with the details of the role being unspecified. The early VPs (Adams, Jefferson, Burr) presided over the Senate on a regular basis and made decisions about procedure.

So she was not far off.

Better than Biden who thinks JOBS is spelled with 3 letters. lmao

[still_me]

he Vice President of the United States[1] is the first person in the presidential line of succession, becoming the new President of the United States upon the death, resignation, or removal of the president, should he or she accept the position. Every presidential term ends on January 20 of the year immediately after a presidential election. As designated by the Constitution of the United States, the vice president also serves as the President of the Senate, and may break tie votes in that chamber.[2] He or she may be assigned additional duties by the president but, as the Constitution assigns no executive powers to the vice president, in performing such duties he or she acts only as an agent of the president.

I'm not being snide Bella. I just found this and thought it was interesting. I can't watch those videos, so what is Palin saying?

ETA:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President_of_the_United_States I know, I know, wikipedia isn't the top choice. :D It was the first one that popped up though that was a little more straight to the point.

[GirlsMama]

VP is President of the Senate.

The Constitution does not state that the VP has no role or authority as President of the Senate other than breaking a tie.

It states that the only vote a VP has is to break a tie, but otherwise is President of the Senate with the details of the role being unspecified. The early VPs (Adams, Jefferson, Burr) presided over the Senate on a regular basis and made decisions about procedure.

So she was not far off.

Better than Biden who thinks JOBS is spelled with 3 letters. lmao

Bold mine. What are you talking about?

[JudyJudyJudy]

"Presiding over the Senate" doesn't mean that the VP is "in charge of the Senate." Adams, Jefferson, and Burr certainly didn't "really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes." That's not the job of the VP.

Yeah, I thought Biden's slip-up was funny, too, but I understood how he did it since he was attempting to quote Obama. However, his slipping up on the number of letters in a word isn't dangerous for the country like it is not to understand the duties of a high-ranking position that a person seeks. It is critical that a vice-president understand his/her role in the government and not try to overstep that role. You'd think that since she didn't know what the VP did three months ago, someone would have made sure that she understood by now.

[Tweet]

Wow. It just gets better.

[JudyJudyJudy]

Bold mine. What are you talking about?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq-eeWow_WU

[Bellaelle]

I think she understands quite well. Cheney has proven the VP can do more than what most assume they can do.

[JudyJudyJudy]

I think she understands quite well.
I fully suspect that if she becomes VP, the Senators will quickly let her know that she is not "in charge" and won't be "getting right in there with them to make some good policy changes."

Cheney has proven the VP can do more than what most assume they can do.
Ding, ding, ding. That is the scary shit that many of us don't want to see happen again. He is a dangerous man.

[Tweet]

Did someone explain who Hamas is to her yet? I sure hope so!

[Tweet]

I fully suspect that if she becomes VP, the Senators will quickly let her know that she is not "in charge" and won't be "getting right in there with them to make some good policy changes."


Ding, ding, ding. That is the scary shit that many of us don't want to see happen again. He is a dangerous man.

And stupid and powerful is even MORE dangerous. Ok, not stupid. I mean so incredibly unaware of many things.

eta I agree that this is what is so frightening.

[Bellaelle]

She is not stupid. I think you all forget she has 2 years experience in an Executive position.
She managed a family business and runs her household. Stupid is not a term I would use for Palin.

[JudyJudyJudy]

I've heard before that they had a family business, but I've never heard what kind. Do you know what type of business she ran?

[Bellaelle]

I am pretty sure it was a commercial fishing business.

[JudyJudyJudy]

Did she actually run that business, though?

[Bellaelle]

From what I have heard, she managed. Most wives will help run their dh's business. Most of my gf's who are married to doctor's manage their practice etc.

[Tweet]

She is not stupid. I think you all forget she has 2 years experience in an Executive position.
She managed a family business and runs her household. Stupid is not a term I would use for Palin.

I corrected myself. However, she is clearly unaware of things that I just don't see a VP not knowing. It's been pretty surprising to me, actually.

[JudyJudyJudy]

From what I have heard, she managed. Most wives will help run their dh's business. Most of my gf's who are married to doctor's manage their practice etc.
Right, but for most of them, that's their job. Based on what I read, she was working another job at the time. Perhaps she did the paperwork, though. That's the main thing I do with dh's business, but I can call myself business manager when it works for me. :p

This is what I found when I researched this. It doesn't sound like a lot of executive experience. I went to school with very average people who have more business experience than this:

http://www.inc.com/articles/2008/10/palin.html

Sarah the CEO?

On the campaign trail, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is quick to tout her "executive experience" -- including what she says is her background as a small-business owner. But an investigation finds a relatively thin entrepreneurial resume that includes a now-defunct carwash and her husband's modest fishing business.

by Angus Loten

While both presidential candidates and their running mates have lauded small business as the backbone of the U.S. economy, pledging tax breaks and other enticing benefits for owners, while doing their best to win the vote of a certain plumber from Ohio, only one has touted first-hand, small-business experience -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

On Friday, during her first on-camera press conference, the Republican vice presidential candidate fielded a question about her qualifications by listing her executive experience "as coming from a mayor and manager, small-business owner and a governor, and a regulator of oil and gas."

It's become something of a familiar refrain for Palin on the stump. During her debate with Sen. Joe Biden earlier this month, she listed her experience "as a mayor and business owner" among the skills and resources she brings to the Republican ticket, before a television audience of 70 million.

While her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, is now well-known, Palin's credentials as a small-business owner are less clear. Judging by recent tax data and a public financial disclosure form required of all federal candidates, her experience appears to be limited to a supporting role with a handful of modest ventures, including Toad's Fisheries, her husband's commercial fishing operation, and a now-defunct carwash, among others.

The McCain campaign did not respond to repeated requests for information regarding Palin's small-business experience.

What's certain is the vice-presidential debate wasn't the first time on the campaign trail that Palin sought to identify herself with the nation's 27 million small-business owners and the millions more they employ. At a stump speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last month, Palin spoke of her family's "commercial fishing business," as well as her sister's gas station and her in-law's hardware store.

Two days earlier at a rally in Golden, Colo., she described the fishing business as a shared enterprise with her husband, Todd Palin, saying "my husband Todd and I, we have a commercial fishing operation."

"We've all built small businesses and worked hard to earn a living," Palin told the crowd. "We know the struggles out there."

Toad's Fisheries sells salmon caught in Bristol Bay to a commercial buyer in Seattle. Last year, the business made $15,513 in profits, with a gross income of $49,893 offset by $32,979 in expenses, the couple's joint tax return shows. The previous year was even leaner, raising $7,690 after expenses. Both returns name Todd Palin as proprietor and the couple's Wasilla home as a main office.

On her public financial disclosure form, Palin describes the business as a sole proprietorship owned by her husband, listing the type and amount of proceeds simply as "Fishing Income."

Of course, the low payoff isn't unusual for the fishing industry. According to the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, permits alone for entry into the state's limited-access fisheries can run from $8,000 to $450,000, with payments on a 10- to 15-year schedule. That's on top of rising costs for fuel, nets, and other gear. "You can appreciate the tremendous overhead involved," the agency says on its Web site.

The couple's taxes also list several thousand dollars in sponsorship proceeds from Todd Palin's snowmobile racing career, though these were also largely offset by expenses.

In both cases, the businesses are filed in a Schedule C form under Todd Palin's name as sole proprietor. According to Barbara Weltman, a New York-based small-business tax expert, that means Sarah Palin isn't technically a small-business owner -- at least for tax purposes.

"If it were a husband-wife partnership, than each would have filed a Schedule C to report their share of profits and on which each would figure self-employment tax," Weltman said.

Carmen Bianchi, a family business expert at San Diego State University, says it's not a stretch for Palin to call herself a small-business owner.

"It's fairly typical for family businesses to file in this way," Bianchi says about the couple's income tax returns.

Still, Palin's business dealings don't end there. A few years ago, the couple each invested a 20 percent stake in a local carwash that public records show never got off the ground. In April 2007, the state division of corporations, business, and professional licensing issued an involuntary dissolution of the registered business, which had long since been sold off and abandoned.

Palin's gubernatorial financial disclosure filings also show she secured a license for a consulting firm tentatively called "Rouge Cou," a literal French translation of "redneck." Like the carwash, the venture was never pursued and the license eventually expired.

Given that the Republican VP nominee has spent most of her adult life as a full-time public official -- as a small-town mayor and later as a state governor -- it's not surprising her involvement with these businesses is limited, if only from a time-management standpoint.

Yet, bona fide or not, Washington insiders are mixed on how Palin's small-business experience will play with voters.

"It's always nice to have someone with hands-on small-business experience, albeit in a supporting role," says Andrew Sherman, a small-business policy expert at Dickstein Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky, a Washington-based law firm. "I assume she will be small-business friendly, given her conservative politics."

That said, Sherman adds he's yet to hear specific policies from either the McCain or the Obama camps regarding the Small Business Administration or research and development programs, or other topics owners consistently identify as important to them.

George Cloutier, the CEO of American Management Services, an Orlando, Fla.-based small-business consulting firm, says regardless of Palin's background as a small-business owner, it hasn't translated into policy.

"None of the candidates would know a small business if they tripped over one," Cloutier says. "Joe Biden has absolutely no small business experience, neither does Barack Obama or John McCain. Palin has maybe a little experience, but it's total pablum."

Despite those shortcomings, Cloutier, who in 2003 was named the nation's top small-business advocate by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says voters seem to like Palin's style and that her identification with small-business owners was a plus for the McCain ticket.

"I suspect it's pulling a few independents towards her column," he says.

But a McCain-Palin victory could be bad news for Toad's Fisheries. Under Barack Obama's tax plan, which would raise the tax rate a few points for businesses earning a net annual income of over $250,000 after expenses, the Palins -- along with "Joe the Plumber" -- would be eligible for a tax cut.

[GirlsMama]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq-eeWow_WU


Thank you.

[Bellaelle]

Filing the dh's name as the business owner is pretty standard. It does not mean she has nothing to do with running it. Dh does not have me listed as an owner for his companies. I am on the Board, however and draw a salary.

Her Executive experience is her role as Governor of Alaska.

[JudyJudyJudy]

Filing the dh's name as the business owner is pretty standard. It does not mean she has nothing to do with running it. Dh does not have me listed as an owner for his companies. I am on the Board, however and draw a salary.
Based on the amount they claim their company makes, it's not likely she draws a salary from it. When I saw the tax returns, it didn't show one. (Of course, I don't draw a salary from dh's business for what I do, either.)

Her Executive experience is her role as Governor of Alaska.
I understand that, but she has also included her family business ownership as executive experience.