Hello all, and welcome to my first Libtard session I have multiple things I would like to discuss. As things go though, certainly add your two cents to anything else you would like to talk about. For now though:

1.)  We were close to a government shutdown over, of all things, FEMA funding and offsets to it. Now, Congress didn't compromise to avoid the shutdown, but FEMA basically said it can get itself through the end of the fiscal year without new funding. The new CR runs through November 18th. As a federal employee, I am way too biased to answer this question, so I'll ask you guys. Is there a scenario where a government shutdown helps politically, in terms of what they are fighting over? Note this a solely political question, since we all know there is no economic benefit to a shutdown.

2.) On to the GOP presidential race, where we all know it's a two man race between Romney and Perry. At the same time though, the Chris Christie speculation keeps growing here in the Beltway, so we'll include him for now as the new Flavor of the Month. My question, which will be the actual poll, is you could pick the GOP nominee, which of those three would it be?

3.) What political writers and media do you read and/or watch? I'll give my answer in the comments so you know what I'm talking about. If you have a conservative writer/pundit who's worth reading/watching, definitely let us know. I'd be most interested to hear one.

4.) Finally, getting back to straight electoral politics, I want to spend some time on the upcoming Senate cycle. I'll post in the comments the full list of who's up this time, and what the races look like at this juncture, but the short of it, it's not a good map for Democrats. For this one, I'm mainly hoping to get some insight on the races from a local perspective. Any information outside the DC bubble is good with me.

Of course, this is your poll, so take it wherever you all desire. I'm just hear to kick the conversation off.

Please remember that all opinions are welcome, but this poll is geared towards the liberals here. So it can and often gets heated, so if you can't take the heat stay out of the poll. And let's all remember the CoC. Basically, don't be like our politicians, but disagree without being disagreeable.

*bangs gavel*