Rules and Guidelines updated 11-15-12 New Rule Added

Not allowed: "Abusive Ad-Hominem", meaning: No insults, name calling, or personal attacks (personal meaning at other posters) what so ever or Blatant baiting/bagering to get a angry response

Failure to follow the above rule will lead to a ban.

Being a board dealing with Politics the general concensus was that this board would function best with a range of mods from left to center to right. Ozmo is the board's neutral mod. Hugo Chavez is the left leaning mod. Beach Bum is the board's right leaning mod. This is politics, things are going to get heated at times, it's just not practical to think it wont which is exactly why the mod balance was created for the board. Just try to keep it constructive and not let it dissolve into baseless attacks without purpose--a hard task even for me. If you're not comfortable taking an issue to a mod you don't align politically with, you have the option of 2 other mods. Racism and nude pics are not allowed as per Ron..."Racial comments will need to be kept at a minimum and attacking someone with racial slurs will not be tolerated."--Ozmo. You may discuss racism and race issues but this is not the place to launch a hate campaign. Let the Crossfire Begin.

Forum Rules:

Quoting Sources: If your thread or post uses material created from another source, you must provide a link to the source. Do not post full articles; only copy a portion of the source material with a link to read the rest.

Troll Gimmicks: If you are or appear to be purposefully and directly posting for the sole purpose of antagonizing or attacking with out reasonable discussion and reciprocation you will eventually be banned.

Family: Do not attack people's family members here. Political is not the forum for launching personal attacks against family members. It could not possibly have 1 speck of political relevance so don't do it. You want to toss jabs at each other while you're discussing politics, fine, but leave each other's family out of it.

ALL CAPS: Don't use all caps for every thread you post. Use all caps sparingly, like a newspaper would, for really epic shit. And do not make your entire post all caps even if it is epic.

Off topic posts: Do not post completely off topic replies. Off topic posts that are clearly initiated to derail the thread will be removed. If what you have to say is completely unrelated to the topic, start a new thread.

On calling someone out: There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling someone out by creating a thread to hash out a specific political point with that person. This is really perfect when you've noted a serious discrepancy in your opponent and want to make a specific debate from it. Stay away from calling someone out for insult purposes only, have a valid political point that you indend on debating if you call someone out. If there is no point, the thread may be deleted at the leasure of the mods or by request.

Stickied Major News Events: Anyone can suggest a major news event be sticked. Major news events are sticked and unsticked at any mod's discretion. To limit stickies, no more than two news items will be sticked at a time. It must be of political importance and it must a large issue in the media, Scandals, Wars, Tragedies, Controversial Issue etc...

Illegal Speech
Like it or not, some things said can get you in trouble and put this forum in jeopardy. Do not threaten the life of the president on this forum. This should be a no brainer, but apparently not...

Grotesque Images
Do not post beheading or overly grotesque images or videos here. Check with mods before posting. If they get a pass the thread title must carry a warning.

Spam
All spam and all baiting of spam is strictly prohibited by popular demand. Any mod may delete spam or the baiting of spam at their discretion.

Banned Users
Violators of the rules will receive a warning and on the second breach a 30 day ban.

Topics with a strong religious subtext will be moved to religion

Political Issues:

This is a list of issues which are commonly considered to be political issues. Please post on these subjects in this forum or send topics from this list to this forum if you're a mod of another forum. thanks.

I tried to think of everything but if there is a major political issue missing from this list, let me know.

Abortion
Affirmative Action
Agricultural Policy
Animal Rights
Campaign Finance Reform
Corporate Corruption
Conspiracy Theories involving the Government. Example: 9/11 belongs in Politics, Chupacabra would not.
Censorship
Church-State Issues
Communications Decency Act
Conscription
Death Penalty
Drug Policy
Deregulation
Economy
Education Policy
Elections
Energy Policy
Environment
Firearms Policy
Flag Burning
Foreign Policy
Global Warming
Government Fraud and Waste
Gay Marriage
Hawaiian Sovereignty
Health Care Policy
Homelessness
Immigration Reform
Language Policy
Local Government.
Medical Marijuana
Minimum Wage
Missile Defense System
National Tobacco Settlement
Nato
Oil and Gas policy
Political Correctness
Presidential Administrations
Prayer in the Public Schools
Race Relations
Social Security Reform
Space Policy
Stem Cell Research
ANY Tax issue
Term Limits
Third Parties
Trade
Treaties, Pacts, and Agreements
United Nations
U.S. Budget
U.S. War on Drugs
Unemployment
Vieques Controversy or any military controversy where a policy chance is sought.
Voluntary National Testing
Terrorism & War
Weapons Disarmament and Nonproliferation
Welfare Reform