Watching the Democrats - it's Fun and Macabre!

Adak;841379 wrote:

At the same time. Like "Saw X in Washington" mashed up with a circus clown

Adak;841379 wrote:

But the flim-flam political lies have come down to the "brass tacks", and with the fiscal cliff approaching, we can see how earnest the Democrats REALLY are about cutting the government spending.

Adak;841379 wrote:

Will Obama and the Democrats cut current spending by 10%? [COLOR="Red"]NO[/COLOR].

Adak wrote:

Will Obama and the Democrats cut current spending by 5%? [COLOR="red"]NO.[/COLOR]

Adak wrote:

Will Obama and the Democrats cut current spending by even 1%? [COLOR="Red"]NO[/COLOR].

Adak wrote:

What Obama and the Democrats WILL do is immediately raise taxes - on the rich most conspicuously, but also on the middle class - when you're not looking of course. And it won't be called a tax, it will be called a "fee", a "levy", or some other friendlier euphemism.

ADAK wrote:

We have a new game: Catch the euphemisms for "new taxes"! I said it was going to be fun! :rolleyes:

Adak wrote:

After taxes are raised, Obama and the Democrats will cut PROJECTED FUTURE SPENDING - which is so horridly out of balance with income that not one democrat will support it, and why Obama and the democrats have never passed a budget (except Bush's budget, in the first year of Obama's first term).

Adak wrote:

Our childhood dreams are being realized, though - there IS a real Santa Clause who brings us all kinds of free gift$: The Democratic Party.

[COLOR="Red"]Fun! Fun! Fun! [/COLOR]

ZenGum;841416 wrote:

COAL??? That's damn fossil carbon. Bloody eco-vandals.

Will Grover Norquist and the Tea Party modify the tax code to bring in more revenue to help decrease the deficit by even so much as .000001% ? NO

I'm #19 on my team, and #389 on the entire Folding@Home project.
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.c...=169140#169140

glatt;841529 wrote:

What do we do now? I'm not sure, but I am pretty sure that we need to get money into the hands of consumers. Consumers drive the economy. Rich people do NOT drive the economy. Consumer demand created jobs. Small business monetary holdings do not create jobs.

Undertoad;841533 wrote:

as revenues are increasing

infinite monkey;841523 wrote:

What is that I don't even

My way of thinking is to look at a household for an analogy.

Lamplighter;841572 wrote:

Follow the way of a Republican household:

Don't use the check register to list all the checks you write.
... no list, it didn't happen.

When you move out, burn all the NSF notices and don't mention the lien on the property.

Then squawk like a male peacock when the next owner has to pay your debts.

Are you alluding to the way Obama screwed the bond holders of GM when he took it over - contrary to law, btw.

Adak;841500 wrote:

@Recipies? Might be a good distraction eh?

@Griff and @SamIam: Thanks for the welcome back.

@SamIam: In fracking, you bore a hole VERY deep (way past any ground water), and then you can bore horizontally, wherever you want to go, to get to the shale that has the oil, and fracture it.

There is NO strip mining!

It's like a hole for a water well, but much deeper. Everything else is hundreds to thousands of feet below the surface, and you see nothing of it.

SamIam;841615 wrote:

I don't mean to turn this thread into an expose' of environmental crimes now being committed in the American West, and I'll try not to turn my reply into something nobody else but tw can understand. But your statements are so completely wrong that I can't let them go unchallenged. I live here and it's happening to the mountains and back country plateaus that I love. It breaks my heart and I have VERY strong feelings about it.

You obviously know nothing about current oil shale and natural gas extraction methods in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Fracking is used to extract natural gas, not oil shale.

Stop! I live in the American Southwest, and fracking also allows access to oil that is in shale - it's not just natural gas (although there is a lot of that gas, as well, and natural gas burns VERY clean).

Your "burning water" was investigated (that was in Pennsylvania, btw), and found to be a contamination by above ground mishandling and contamination -- had NOTHING to do with fracking. You can't contaminate with fracking because they're working FAR deeper than ground water, UNLESS your well casings and pipes BOTH crack and leak, AND are passing through an area with groundwater.

The gov't has checked this out, (they wanted to stop it), and found that they could not, because there was NO evidence it contaminated ANYTHING. I will add that there is of course, SOME risk in doing ANYTHING - in the environment, or just crossing the street.

[quote]
Fracking often leads to the pollution of ground water with methane. As a result of this contamination, some communities in my part of the world - Colorado's Western Slope - have tap water that can actually be set on fire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQMA0zwMM4

Yes, this was checked out - above ground contamination, by poor handling of wastes. Had nothing to do with fracking.

[quote]
Out here, burning water is like burning $100 dollar bills. Water is a precious commodity in this land of little rain. It's bad enough that the energy companies come in and contaminate our water supplies, but the crime is compounded when outfits like Halliburten and Shell steal our water completely. Farmers and ranchers are being driven out of business because they can no longer afford the high costs of water rights - a price skyrocketing thanks to drought and energy exploitation methods.

That's just a few of the evils of fracking natural gas.

There is nothing responsible or sustainable about oil shale either. The process of extracting oil shale is similar to tar sands. The land is strip mined, then the oil is baked out of the rock by heating it to high temperatures. This is a process that destroys the land, uses massive amounts of water, and uses massive amounts of energy.

You'll be pleased to hear that this is one area where the Obama administration is in bed with the big oil and energy corporations. Obama's decision to allow big energy to pillage our public lands is worthy of Republicans like James Watt and Dick Cheney.

While I supported Obama in the election, he was merely the lesser of two evils. I and other Western environmentalists are fighting a losing battle to keep our backyards from becoming slag pits.

The first two pix that follow are of my beloved Uncomphaghre Plateau - two hours drive to the north of me. It's spectacular and one of Colorado's best kept secrets. Few tourists venture up there and I usually have the entire Uncomphaghre to myself when I go there - or so it feels. The Uncomphaghre is also a rich source of oil shale and falls under the Bureau of Land mis-Management (BLM). Obama is turning BLM lands into national sacrifice areas in the quest for so-called alternative energy sources.

Pix three and four are of shale debris and a shale strip mine, respectively. Obama wants to delete pix one and two and replace them with pix three and four.

Y'all can go back to the budget thing now. I think I'll go outside and look at the mountains for a while. :(

Oh there's no doubt that strip mining is about the only thing worse than clear cutting a huge forest - it destroys everything. What's the plan to restore the area's being mined, when they're done working with the shale? That's what I'd like to see. I don't believe [COLOR="DarkRed"]you[/COLOR] can stop strip mining, in area's rich in deposits. [COLOR="DarkRed"]You[/COLOR] CAN and SHOULD insist that the area be returned to something akin to it's former state though, when they are done.

We do need the energy - that's critical, but we don't need to strip mine and then leave the area a slag dump.

Lamplighter;841670 wrote:

Who is [COLOR="DarkRed"]YOU[/COLOR], and doesn't that involve "regulation"

Adak;841665 wrote:

Stop! I live in the American Southwest, and fracking also allows access to oil that is in shale - it's not just natural gas (although there is a lot of that gas, as well, and natural gas burns VERY clean).

Your "burning water" was investigated (that was in Pennsylvania, btw), and found to be a contamination by above ground mishandling and contamination -- had NOTHING to do with fracking. You can't contaminate with fracking because they're working FAR deeper than ground water, UNLESS your well casings and pipes BOTH crack and leak, AND are passing through an area with groundwater.

The gov't has checked this out, (they wanted to stop it), and found that they could not, because there was NO evidence it contaminated ANYTHING. I will add that there is of course, SOME risk in doing ANYTHING - in the environment, or just crossing the street.

BigV wrote:

OF COURSE the answer should be the Environmental Protection Agency, or the Department of Energy, or some combination of both. To rely on "self regulation" will never work, and would indeed be illegal.

Adak;841665 wrote:

Stop! I live in the American Southwest

Adak;841665 wrote:

fracking also allows access to oil that is in shale - it's not just natural gas (although there is a lot of that gas, as well, and natural gas burns VERY clean).

Adak;841665 wrote:

Your "burning water" was investigated (that was in Pennsylvania, btw), and found to be a contamination by above ground mishandling and contamination -- had NOTHING to do with fracking. You can't contaminate with fracking because they're working FAR deeper than ground water, UNLESS your well casings and pipes BOTH crack and leak, AND are passing through an area with groundwater.

Adak;841665 wrote:

The gov't has checked this out, (they wanted to stop it), and found that they could not, because there was NO evidence it contaminated ANYTHING.

wrote:

"It challenges the view that natural gas, and the suite of hydrocarbons that exist around it, is isolated from water supplies by its extreme depth," said Judith Jordan, the oil and gas liaison for Garfield County who has worked as a hydrogeologist with DuPont and as a lawyer with Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection. "It is highly unlikely that methane would have migrated through natural faults and fractures and coincidentally arrived in domestic wells at the same time oil and gas development started, after having been down there ...for over 65 million years."

Adak;841665 wrote:

I will add that there is of course, SOME risk in doing ANYTHING - in the environment, or just crossing the street.

Adak;841665 wrote:

So now companies are to blame because costs are rising in the marketplace, for a scarce supply of water?

I cringe at your lack of understanding of supply and demand. Do you believe these companies can help that? They would LOVE to pay low prices for the water they need.

Adak;841665 wrote:

You CAN and SHOULD insist that the area be returned to something akin to it's former state though, when they are done.

BigV;841673 wrote:

OF COURSE the answer should be the Environmental Protection Agency, or the Department of Energy, or some combination of both. To rely on "self regulation" will never work, and would indeed be illegal.

All humor aside, much the same arguments as those made by Adak
helped the gas drilling industry in Colorado win rare exemptions from the Safe Drinking Water Act
and the Clean Water Act when Congress enacted the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

The Energy Policy Act is to the EPA as the Patriot Act is to the Constitution.

<snip>Much of the argument on Monday was devoted to the consequences
of the new environmental regulation for the two consolidated cases before the justices,
Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, No. 11-338,
and Georgia-Pacific West v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, No. 11-347.
They arose from suits against logging companies and Oregon forestry officials under the Clean Water Act,
saying the defendants were required to obtain permits for runoff from logging roads that ran through ditches and culverts.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]The E.P.A. has long taken the opposite view, and the ultimate answer to whether
the Clean Water Act applies to hundreds of thousands of miles of logging roads
is quite consequential, as it could provide a tool for conservationists to block logging
where silty runoff would choke forest streams.[/COLOR]

But it seemed on Monday that even a partial answer would have to wait.

A number of methods are used to extract oil shale - a sort of fracking is one of them, true. However, what most people know about fracking is in relation to natural gas extraction. There are significant differences between "fracking" oil shale versus fracking natural gas. In addition, given our current technology, strip mining and extraction of petroleum via a high temperature process remains the preferred technique. This is called "retorting." You are correct in stating that natural gas is a clean fuel to burn. However, it is not always a clean fuel to extract.

PA shares the dubious honor along with Colorado and a number of other states of having regions where the inhabitants can perform the burning water trick. Youtube has endless videos of people from all over the US burning their tap water.

Whatever source you found that states fracking has nothing to do with methane in the near-by area water supply is either out-of-date, or dismissive of science in the manner of many right wing outfits, or both.

In April of 2011, the peer reviewed publication of the American Academy of Science included a research paper describing &#8220;a clear correlation between drilling activity and the seepage of gas contaminants underground, a danger in itself and evidence that pathways do exist for contaminants to migrate deep within the earth.&#8221;

Even the scientists who conducted the research were surprised at the strength of correlation.

By contrast, research conducted at the behest of state and local governments has shown definate evidence of contamination and a host of other problems that result from fracking. See for example, the report issued by Garfield County containing an exhaustive examination of the methane problem on Colorado's Western Slope:

I honestly appreciate your final comments here, Adak - I really do. You seem to have done a little reading and you don't come across as wanting an environmental wasteland any more than I do.

~~~~~~
Colorado and the rest of the Inter mountain West will still never recover from what will amount to decade after decade of strip mining and other types of energy exploitation.

Remember those beautiful aspen in my first pic a way back? Well, those trees along with the spruce and the pinyon and the Doug fir and all the others are already dead. They just don't know it yet.

Notice how dry it's been out here? And it's been dry for quite a while now, come to think of it. And hasn't this been one of the warmest summers and falls ever? Sure has in MY part of the Southwest, anyhow.

Forests in the Inter Mountain West are already suffering from an ecological three strikes and out - climate change, fire suppression carried out like a slap in the face to all known forestry and ecological science, and an incredible outbreak - epidemic, really - of pine beetle and other destructive insects.
~~~~
Strip mining will be the final blow. The forest will never return.

Now, if you are like many of the other Republicans I've encountered, you probably don't "believe" in climate change or global warming.

I've typed you just about the longest response to a post that I can ever remember giving someone here. If you don't agree with my reasoning and don't bother to study any of the reputable links written for the scientific lay person that I've provided, that's your choice. I've already given you an ample response and I'm finished.

I wish like anything that your replies to my earlier post were correct. Unfortunately, they're not.

Adak;841833 wrote:

I'm in Southern California.

Adak;841833 wrote:

Just heard the geologist speak about it, last week. How obsolete can the info be, in 7 days?

Adak;841833 wrote:

I'm not familiar with strip mining.

Adak;841833 wrote:

I know the area around Colorado Springs has a lot of contamination. I worked under the director in charge of overseeing the clean up of my employer's dumping, both in Colorado Springs, and at a plant in CA.

Adak;841833 wrote:

It may seem that way, but forests can definitely return. Early Californians logged the giant coastal Redwoods like crazy, clear cutting everything they could get to. Etc., etc.

Adak;841833 wrote:

What I don't believe in is guys like Al Gore, who have invested millions into "green" everything, telling me about climate change caused by man.

Adak;841833 wrote:

A bond system seem sensible. The company puts up a big bond, and when the area is closed down and has been properly restored, the company gets the bond back. Otherwise, the big bond goes to restore the mine area. This may already be in place - I know VERY little about mines, aside from exploring an old Gold mine in Alaska, years ago.

Adak;842111 wrote:

On the bright side we have 25 more full days to count down Obama's willingness to reduce his current mad spending spree.

25 days to go. Amount Obama and the Democrats are willing to cut current spending: [COLOR="Red"]0.00% [/COLOR]

It's great having strong ideologically driven Socialists in the White House and Congress.

You won't find great fun and games like this among your rational political bodies - no siree, Bob!

We should charge admission! ;)

BigV;842079 wrote:

this is done.

[ATTACH]41971[/ATTACH]

Adak;842111 wrote:

@SamIam:, When you've lived on Adak Island, you would only be called "Urbane", by those who have not seen where Adak Island is located.

Ibby;842113 wrote:

also you're really bad at this whole... knowing what the fuck you're talking about thing

After Coulter started to say that Republicans should concede on taxes on the very rich, Hannity wondered why the House didn't just pass a bill extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone.

"OK fine, let's do that, but in the end, at some point, if the Bush tax cuts are repealed and everyone's taxes go up, I promise you Republicans will get blamed for it," she said. "It doesn't mean you cave on everything, but there are some things Republicans do that feed into what the media is telling America about Republicans."

"So are you saying that, for PR purposes, that they should give in to Obama on the tax rate?" Hannity asked.

"Not exactly, I--" Coulter said, before stopping herself and saying, "Well, yeah, I guess I am."

"You're saying capitulate to Obama?" Hannity stammered. "We don't have a revenue problem, Ann."

"We lost the election, Sean!" Coulter replied.

BigV;842276 wrote:

You don't believe the Democrats. We get it. I think there's *no* number that you would believe, you just Do. Not. Believe. What if they said they'd cut what the Republican's have offered? Would you believe it? Given the (mono)tone of your remarks, I doubt it. Since it appears you won't accept any communications coming from them, why do you bother? And if the parties negotiating feel that way, why would they bother to continue to negotiate? It's clear your respect for "the Democrats and Obama" is essentially zero. The "other side", such as it is, doesn't have the ability to have their way by fiat, so... so... so what? Together they must negotiate. You recuse yourself. Though you abdicate your opportunity to responsibly share your ideas, you don't remain silent, you just sit there with your loud tantrum, moving neither yourself nor the process forward.

Meanwhile, you just ignore facts. You say there are no cuts to spending proposed, not even a tiny fraction of a percent. Everyone else can see your statement's false; how can you expect to work with political opponents when you lie like this? How does that increase your credibilty as an informed citizen who has a point of view worthy of attention, never mind respect?

I know a little about you from what you've shared here, but none of that follows any kind of logic. You say you're so rational, but you don't exhibit any of that rationality when it comes to political discussions like this. It's a shame, I had high hopes for you. I'd hoped that you could share your viewpoints, some of which are different from mine. I'd hoped to learn from you, but posts like this offer nothing to learn from. I feel like I want to scold you, to tell you to grow up, but that's not really appropriate. But I do wish your arguments were more mature. When they are, I'll give them more attention. If they're good, I'll give them more respect. But not this crap.

Adak;842367 wrote:

The spending cut i would believe from the Democrats, is the bill they pass in Congress, and give to the President to be signed into law - and the President signs it. That's the Democrats' spending cuts that I'll believe.

Adak;842367 wrote:

During (fill in the blank) 's presidency, the Democrats promised spending cuts, if (blank) would approve some tax hikes - he did. Those promised spending cuts were never passed for him to sign.

wrote:

To address projected budget deficits, the President and Congress in recent years have relied almost entirely on cuts to discretionary programs. First, they enacted funding legislation for fiscal year 2011 that cut discretionary funding below the 2010 level. Soon thereafter, they enacted the BCA that, as noted above, set ten-year binding “caps” on total budget authority for discretionary programs.

Figure 2 shows the impact to date on housing assistance and community development programs. From 2010 to 2012, funding for housing assistance fell by $2.5 billion, or 5.9 percent just in “nominal terms” — i.e., not counting the additional losses due to the effects of inflation — while funds for community development programs fell by $1.5 billion, or 24 percent. Policymakers cut funds for public housing and housing and community development block grant programs most sharply.

Adak wrote:

questions I'd love to have a Democrat answer:

1) What part of "The overspending has to stop", do you not understand? We're talking about a TRILLION dollars plus, per year.


2) What part of doing the wrong thing, do you want to compromise with?

wrote:

Lawrence O'Donnell slammed Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell for filibustering his own bill on Thursday.
McConnell's attempt to embarrass Senate Democrats backfired when he proposed a vote on legislation that would increase the national debt ceiling. Senate majority leader Harry Reid called his bluff and agreed to move forward with the offer. McConnell then objected, arguing that sixty votes — the number required to end a filibuster and go to a vote — were necessary.

Speaking on MSNBC later that day, O'Donnell said that the stunt was "the most idiotic thing any minority leader has ever done on the Senate floor." After recounting how it unfolded, O'Donnell said that the event was remarkable for two reasons.

"One: a minority leader who has introduced a bill and asked for a vote, then opposing proceeding to a vote on his bill saying his bill should be subjected to the filibuster breaking vote threshold of 60 votes," O'Donnell said.

He continued, "And miracle number two was that the presiding officer, played that hour by Sen. Claire McCaskill... she actually comments on what has just happened instead of simply issuing the normal to and three word traffic directions that the presiding officer is limited to." O'Donnell was referring to what he called McCaskill's reaction to the exchange between McConnell and Reid. She snapped to attention and said, "Got whiplash."

glatt;842382 wrote:

See the Budget Control Act of 2011 signed by President Obama and voted for by 95 Democrats in the House and by 45 Democrats in the Senate. That's a majority of Democrats in Congress.

These are the default budget cuts required by law, and the only way they won't occur is if Congress agrees to do something else. We're talking about up to $1.2 Trillion in cuts through 2021. Brought to you by the Democrats (and Republicans.)

How does this simple fact fit in your delusional worldview? Is it like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole?

"NOT ONE PENNY" :lol:

“Big corporations, which continue to outsource American jobs overseas, demand that the middle class relinquish its EARNED BENEFITS and give the taxes from their hard earned pay checks to special interests which couldn’t care less about this country or its people.”

Please respond with something other than dogma. If I want to take everything on faith, I’ll join the Branch Davidians.

Adak;842575 wrote:

And despite all the hot air and hand waving going on in Washington, (where Today, the Speaker of the House said there was no progress in the negotiations with the White House, because the White House has never negotiated on any issue, so far.

Adak;842581 wrote:

Oh, you should join 'em, Sam! Waco, Texas is looking for a few new head cases, I've heard. :D

Adak;842111 wrote:

On the bright side we have 25 more full days to count down Obama's willingness to reduce his current mad spending spree.

25 days to go. Amount Obama and the Democrats are willing to cut current spending: [COLOR="Red"]0.00% [/COLOR]

Ibby;842582 wrote:

sure, except that's the exact opposite of reality. On every major issue so far, the left has compromised much further than the right.

Oh, wait, i forgot, they aren't ~real conservatives~ like you so they don't count. :rolleyes:

Spexxvet;842599 wrote:

Obama and the Democrats have spent 4 years cutting programs and taxes. The increased spending was all to save big business, jobs, and fix what the republicans broke.

DanaC;842585 wrote:

If the Democrats bent any further in their negotiations they'd be hairpin shaped.

The tea-party influence in the republican negotiations has meant absolute heel digging and a refusal to consider any compromises.

Adak;842744 wrote:

[QUOTE=Adak;842744]1) Cut the spending. I don't mean as a percent above the current spending (which they are calling now "the baseline"). I'm talking about cutting ACTUAL current spending.

Adak;842744 wrote:

2) Obama care

Adak;842744 wrote:

3) military strength (we now have less than half the number of ships we had in the peak 1980's), for one example.

Adak;842744 wrote:

4) Gun ownership and/or right to carry.

Adak;842744 wrote:

5) Federal tax code littered with exclusions, exemptions, and both intentional and unintentional loopholes.

Adak;842744 wrote:

6) Trade treaties that force our businesses to go overseas to use cheap, almost slave labor, in order to stay competitive.

Adak;842744 wrote:

7) Paying Egypt 400 Million dollars per year in "Foreign Aid", for bribe money. Lots of other countries get this kind of aid, as well.

Adak;842744 wrote:

8) Bring our sons and daughters home from most (not all), of these overseas military bases.

Ibby;842763 wrote:

Your definition of "actual current spending" makes no broader political sense (as has already been pointed out to you IN THIS THREAD) and so i shall ignore it.

The left wanted single payer. Then they wanted exchanges. Then they got a plan that the Heritage Foundation invented. Oops. They ended up where the right was ten years ago, and the right moved right! yum yum, taste that compromise.

Remind me who we're at war with? Russia? no, wait, China? No, uh, NK? well, yes, technically, but not a shooting war anymore, ...

Obama has done absolutely nothing to change the guns laws from when he was elected into office, except to allow concealed carry in federally-maintained parks. OH GOSH LOOK AT THAT GUNHATER!

The left would be happy to close all the loopholes, if it meant we could lower taxes on the middle class/poor to make up for taking THEIR deductions away! it's the right's dogmatic insistence that CORPORATE and WEALTHY loopholes and deductions stay, or that the WEALTHY deserve to pay less, that is stopping comprehensive reform. The left has been compromising for years! (see, continuing the bush cuts for the wealthy, even though they didn't want to and bernie sanders filibustered it, to save the tax cuts for the poor and the middle-class)

You and I are at a fundamental disagreement about what level of corporate regulation is GOOD for business. I would slam any company who wanted to sell goods or services in the US with HUGE fines if they use exploitative labor tactics, which would then encourage economic growth here at home, as companies who kept jobs here would be no more profitable than ones who use cheap labor. That's a fairly common left-wing idea. It's the right who isn't letting regulatory tightening, and is in fact still asking for less regulation. The right is generally further from the status quo than the left when it comes to how much regulation is necessary.

Wait, so, we should put more money into our military, strengthen it, but bring back most of the people out there being our military? That seems like a total contradiction to me. ...

Adak;842799 wrote:

The conservatives are not against a nationalized health care service, IF they run a pilot in a region, and show it can work as well as they claim it will.

You can't just take over some odd 20% of the nations economy (the health care system), with something as full of nonsense as Obama care.

Adak;842799 wrote:

Well, let's see:

1) North Korea - has nukes, developing ICBM's, and a crackpot of a dictator. Need I say more?

2) We are providing security for every tanker (almost) that travels through the Straits of Hormuz, because the Iranians have attacked several of them with high speed gunboats.

3) We are still in Afghanistan - another year or two for that.

4) Still guarding Japan, which is in a heated argument with China, over ownership of some islands between the two.

5) Assad in Syria has chemical weapons, and is moving them around. At some point, he's likely to use them, since he is slowly losing the civil war.

Guess who will have to step in, if a slaughter is (hopefully), to be avoided?

6) If Iran goes ahead with developing nuclear weapons, or closes the Straits of Hormuz, we will immediately be at war, since nearly 38% of the world's oil passes through those Straits.

Yes, we need to keep our military strong, clearly. The UK, for instance, doesn't even have a single full size air craft carrier, for 2013.

Adak;842799 wrote:

He tried - the calls to the Senate and House switchboards were so numerous, he had to stop.

Adak;842799 wrote:

The Republicans have to plead "guilty" on this one. They want to favor their constituents with tax exemptions, etc., just as much as Democrats want to favor theirs. Conservatives just want low taxes, and a relatively flat tax rate.

Adak;842799 wrote:

You can't slam a business for responding to a new law or treaty, that demands they act, or risk going bankrupt. It's our politicians we should be furious at, not our businessmen. They didn't WANT to have to move to China, they were forced into it, by economic realities which our signed treaties forced down their throats.

Adak;842799 wrote:

Oh, China doesn't call their workers "virtual slaves", NO, NO! The workers there have been committing suicide at the Foxconn (Intel motherboards) plant, because they really LIKE their jobs.

Adak;842799 wrote:

Nobody likes wars, but what are you going to do when Assad starts using nerve gas on the rebels, from aircraft sprayers (like Chemical Ali did in Iraq)?

What are you going to do when Iran stops all the oil going through the Straits, as they have threatened, and attacks our fleet in the Gulf of Persia? I don't believe running away and hiding is a viable option.

Adak;842799 wrote:

I don't want to increase funds to the military, but I do want to stop any cuts to it, and use our funds better - and we can't do that with our personnel spread out all over the globe, guarding nations that have long ago been able to guard themselves. That's very expensive, year after year. Very hard on the military families, as well. My nephew was an officer in the Army - and was overseas or in the field, nearly all the time. Bosnia, Iraq, year long training in Germany, year long deployment in South Korea, long field training, exercises, etc. After 10 years of that, his marriage was in the toilet. He got out, but it was too late to save his marriage.

Adak;842799 wrote:

I haven't documented all of my assertions in this thread, because I believe the most basic one, is self-evident.

We have sharply increased our spending, and we can't continue to do that, without running the risk of a total fiscal crisis. Which would be much worse than the fiscal "cliff", btw.

We CAN and we SHOULD cut our current spending, back to the levels of the Clinton years, and perhaps, increase our tax revenues, as well - and not just on the rich.

Problem is, the Democrats won't hear of cutting our current spending, and only want to even TALK about cutting our projected spending, by a small percentage.

That won't do the job. It still continues to run up our National Debt, and continually diminish the value of every US dollar, everywhere. This seems like easy to understand, common sense to me.

thinkprogress wrote:

Corporate profits are currently at an all-time high (while worker wages as a percentage of the economy have plummeted to record lows). But despite those sky-high profits, corporate income tax revenue is projected to be just 1.5 percent of GDP this year, below the recent average and far below the amount raised by the tax just a few decades ago.
As the Century Foundation noted in this chart, the corporate income tax, as a share of total government revenue, used to track reasonably well with corporate profits. But in the last decade, the two have become decoupled:


As the Century Foundation&#8217;s Benjamin Landy explained, &#8220;In 1952, the corporate income tax accounted for about one third of of all federal tax revenue. But, over the years, U.S. multinationals have devised increasingly complex tax avoidance schemes, far beyond the ability of the IRS to credibly monitor or enforce. Although the corporate tax rate was also lowered significantly in 1986, tax avoidance is one of primary reasons why corporate taxes supply less than 9 percent of federal revenues today.&#8221;
Between 2008 and 2011, dozens of multinational corporations paid no corporate income tax at all, despite making billions in profits. In 2011, the effective tax rate paid by American corporations fell to 12.1 percent, a forty-year low.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/10/1308981/chart-corporate-profits-skyrocket-while-corporate-taxes-plummet/

Adak;843141 wrote:

Busy programming right now, but there's a young man named Zach, who's dying of cancer, who has recorded a nice song with a bit of help, and a bunch of us are trying to give his YouTube song, a BOATLOAD of hits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDC97j6lfyc

Ian on Coast to Coast radio mentioned this Sunday late night, and said Zach has about 8 more weeks to live.

Hope you'll consider clicking over to it.

Adak;843317 wrote:

Obama Finds Legal Way Around The 2nd. Amendment and Uses It. The Full Article Here http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE59E0Q920091015

Subject: Obama Takes First Step in Banning All Firearms On Wednesday Obama Took the First Major Step in a Plan to Ban All Firearms in the United States.

<snip>

U.S. reverses stance on treaty to regulate arms trade
(Reuters) - The United States reversed policy on Wednesday
and said it would back launching talks [COLOR="DarkRed"]on a treaty to regulate arms sales[/COLOR]
as long as the talks operated by consensus, a stance critics said gave every nation a veto.
<snip>

piercehawkeye45;843342 wrote:

Obama is not going to ban all guns in the US...

Adak;843600 wrote:

<snip>
@Lamplighter: The inflammatory editing "Subject: ..."etc., you're referring to was from the article that I was reading - I didn't write it.

Yes, it is VERY inflammatory, and that's why it was so alarming, and got such a strong response.
<snip>

glatt;843603 wrote:

Not to mention the NRA itself. If the NRA can get everyone afraid, then it can convince them to send money to the NRA to fight the good fight. Gee, I wonder why the NRA would promote those fears?

Adak;843638 wrote:

snip.

@Lamplighter: Already stated, I did not author this:

Subject: Obama Takes First Step in Banning All Firearms On Wednesday Obama Took the First Major Step in a Plan to Ban All Firearms in the United States.


That was an example of the "yellow journalism" that gun owners were seeing red about in 2009.

Sticking with the color metaphors today. ;)

BigV;843848 wrote:

Yes you did. You are the only person who brought it to the cellar. It was not even in the article you linked to. You created it. If you heard it somewhere else, you still brought it here and attempted to tie it to the subject at hand.

Take personal responsibility for what you say.

Adak;843905 wrote:

And just HOW LIBERAL are YOU?

Carlos in Ocala Florida has decided to fight in court for his civil right to have sex with his "consenting" Donkey:

www.ocala.com/article/20120918/ARTICLES/120919696

Which is REALLY funny, because Conservative Roger Hedgecock (of the RH Show), said this would happen, if gay marriage rights were granted, many years ago. <ROFL!> :eek: :eek:

Lamplighter;843911 wrote:

Adek is sounding more Merc-ian all the time.

Obama is no longer a Socialist, but now is called out as a "true liberal" !
Yea ! I felt there was hope for him all along.

But how long will it be until we have a post about Obama having sex with a donkey
That post will connect the donkey, as an allegory of a consenting Democrat,
with a link to an article that Michelle is pregnant again... whether she is or not.

Culpability will be denied.... such is the adekian way

All socialists are "true" liberals,...

Adak;843955 wrote:

Now, here it is, just as Roger predicted. Funny stuff! :D

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Lamplighter;843968 wrote:

From this, it follows that all conservatives are "true" facists.

What other "true" terms shall we throw about ?

richlevy;843972 wrote:

I must have missed the civil rights claim. Was there one? It's not in the article cited.

He has been charged with beastiality, which his attorney has announced they will be fighting as illegal as it violates Carlos's civil rights.

That's the announcement - but legal work has to be done before it can be filed.

[quote]

I love slippery slope arguments. Everyone makes them, for and against. Guns, abortion, you name it. I'm sure someone made the donkey argument in Loving v. Virginia, which struck down miscegenation laws against interracial marriage.

The point is that it always comes the the 'reasonable person' argument. That middle of the road man or woman who draws the line.

Adak, I'm pretty sure I know where you would have come down on Loving v. Virginia. The reason you don't say so now is the same reason no one else does - that what seemed radical, heretical, and against tradition to a large number of people turned out to be rational public policy.

Look at the 'biblical' justification by the segregationist judge ruling against the couple. The wave of ignorance coming off a man in a position of trust is terrifying.



We evolve, Adak. The reason Christians are not still burning people at the stake or in other ways acting as atrociously as some conservative Muslims is that 'liberal' forces as well as a few hundred years of internal bloodshed have acted upon the church. There is still ethnic strife involving Christian populations, but none of it is sanctioned. People evolve, religions evolve. Maybe at some point they will go too far, but I for one am glad that noone listened to the Adaks of the past who fought for tradition and belittled change.

ZenGum;844110 wrote:

Seriously, you can shoot animals and eat them; you can force-feed them and slaughter them; you can cage them and harvest eggs and milk; you can do medical experiments on them; in some cases you can shoot them just because you feel like shooting them; and if you own one, you can (humanely) put it to death at your whim.

Adak;844338 wrote:

Good news!

Tim Scott, the Tea Party supported Republican Representative, will be taking over Jim DeMint's seat, representing South Carolina.

Adak;844339 wrote:

Say a prayer for all the victims of the school shooting in Connecticut, please.

You can see the result of having a gun law to keep guns away from those with murderous intent. By law, the shooter couldn't have a gun in Connecticut (he was 1 year too young).

And where did the shooter go to do his killings? The gun free zone in Newtown, of course.

Gun free zones are magnets for people with (mass) murderous intent. They're evil, not stupid. They don't want people shooting back at them. The police will respond in 5 to 10 minutes (generally), but that's too late.

ZenGum;845194 wrote:

In the event of a school shooting, the reload time is so long that you'd only get off one shot.

tw;845186 wrote:

How ironic. We once had as many if not more mentally ill citizens. And did not need guns everywhere to protect kids. What changed? Suddenly everyone needs military weapons including 155 mm howitzers. After all, the solution to violence and mentally ill people is more guns - so says the NRA. Extremists will eventually demand their rights to own a howitzer. After all, the NRA says everyone should have as many assult rifles and artillery necessary to protection to protect themselves.

We have long known the only reason for increased gun violence. Well documented in history. More guns means gun violence then increases significantly. This was especially true just after the civil war and during the 1920s. Two periods where gun possession increased to record levels and was followed by increased violent death rates.

When did gun violence decrease? When the population had less guns. When guns were sold more for hunting game - not people. What did the wild west do to stop violent deaths? Everyone surrendered their guns before entering town. Facts that contradict emotions promoted by the NRA. Facts that have always been known.

Today we should have armed guards at every ATM. And National Guard with M-16s in every grocery store. Because the NRA says so. The gun industry will then give the NRA even more money.

Is the need for armed guards (that significantly reduce America's incomes and standards of living) a solution? Yes, because every teacher and child should have a gun to protect themselves. Even though history says more guns only reduce public safety. One can think like an emotional child. Or one can finally address the only reason for so much violence. 100 round clips, assault rifles, hollow point and armor piecing bullets, and an NRA that promoted the fear and violence - in the US and Mexico.

That 'big dic' thinking and the resulting hardware is the only thing that changed. As a result, violent deaths are increasing.

Adak;845206 wrote:

Get your facts straight, please.

If you're hunting game, hollow point ammo is required.

tw;845208 wrote:

And then blames it all on families without fathers. Or PTSD because it was only recently discovered. I just can't decide which one deserves more laughter. Since no numbers can quantify something that extreme.

So how did the great white hunters do so much game hunting in Africa? They did not have hollow point. Could not fire 47 rounds per minute. And managed to kill in record numbers. Well, today hollow point rounds are needed to hunt humans. Since humans are now fair game in America, we need weapons far more destructive than what great white hunters once needed. After all, hunting 1st graders may become harder than hunting elephants.

More assault weapons and hollow point bullets - to kill people - are needed.

Just using your logic (or do I need permission).

Lamplighter;845397 wrote:

@Adek
... does "federal gov't loan system" mean Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac ?
(if so, you're mistaken because those loans are usually initiated by banks, mortgage companies, etc.)

... do you include the VA loans ?
... do you include the Dept of Agriculture (farm) loans ?
... do you include the WWII FHA mortgage insurance ?
Do you believe these should be eliminated ?

I admit I'm assuming your remarks are in the nature of negative criticism.
Are you being critical of the entire "federal gov't loan system",
as opposed to the mortgages held within a "private lending system" ?

<snip>That's WHY I don't like the feds running everything
- they do a poor job of things, on the whole
-- some agencies of the feds notably excepted, of course.

Think about it though, if the feds can determine whether you can buy a house or not,
that's a huge fulcrum to make you do any little old thing they want, when they want you to do it.

That doesn't strike me as liberty or freedom.

Adak;845541 wrote:

And the derivatives! That's just about the same as casino gambling, imo. The occupy crowd were largely paid to be there.....

Adak;845542 wrote:

Because raising some taxes on the wealthy, is maybe going to give us another 10 days or so of spending at our current rate. It will NOT let us keep spending like we are now, throughout the year - no way.

Adak;845979 wrote:

[CENTER][COLOR="Navy"][SIZE="5"]< Happy New Year! >[/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER]

Too bad we're saddled with a socialist in the White House, but maybe we'll finally learn from his next term in office.

Socialism is fine if:

* you want to live simply

* you highly value a more equal society, and are willing to sacrifice to have it.

Because it's worked very well for the Amish and other groups that have used it. You don't have to be religious to make it work - but you DO have to be willing to make big sacrifices in your lifestyle.

Ask somebody today if they'd be willing to give up their iPhone for the sake of a "fairer" society, and see how far you get. ;)

When you see the sacrifices necessary for a socialist society, you'll quickly decide to run - not walk - back to a capitalist system.

Adak;845979 wrote:

[CENTER][COLOR="Navy"][SIZE="5"]< Happy New Year! >[/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER]

Too bad we're saddled with a socialist in the White House, but maybe we'll finally learn from his next term in office.

Socialism is fine if:

* you want to live simply

* you highly value a more equal society, and are willing to sacrifice to have it.

Because it's worked very well for the Amish and other groups that have used it. You don't have to be religious to make it work - but you DO have to be willing to make big sacrifices in your lifestyle.

DanaC;845986 wrote:

*shakes head*

Obama a socialist. Just redefine the whole language whilst you're about it eh?

Adak;846218 wrote:

When the politician wants to take away your livelihood, to give it to those who did not earn it, to be "fair" - he's moved from capitalism to socialism.

glatt;846232 wrote:

Your gunman was a law abiding citizen up until the moment he wasn't. If he didn't have access to that gun, this wouldn't have happened. If you put even more guns into even more hands, then this sort of thing is going to happen even more often. You have good in you. You also have evil in you. Sometimes you give in to the evil. If you happen to have a gun when you give in to the evil, then the damage is worse. If your gun is a semi automatic that holds 30 rounds, then the damage is much worse.

You have to draw the line somewhere. The line is currently drawn in the wrong place. It needs to move in the direction of fewer rounds, and a slower firing rate.

regular.joe;846321 wrote:

You still have not define socialism. While you are free to do so, giving your opinion is not a definition. So I ask you to please define the word socialism.

Sent from an undisclosed location.

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy,[1] and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.[2] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.[3] They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets or planning, how management is to be organised within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4]

A socialist economic system would consist of a system of production and distribution organized to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit[5] driven by the accumulation of capital. Accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time in place of financial calculation.[6][7] Distribution would be based on the principle to each according to his contribution.

As a political movement, socialism includes a diverse array of political philosophies, ranging from reformism to revolutionary socialism. Proponents of state socialism advocate the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange as a strategy for implementing socialism. In contrast, libertarian socialism proposes the traditional view of direct worker's control of the means of production and opposes the use of state power to achieve such an arrangement, opposing both parliamentary politics and state ownership. Democratic socialism seeks to establish socialism through democratic processes and propagate its ideals within the context of a democratic political system.

Ibby;846507 wrote:

*snort*

holy false equivalency, batman!

Adak;846678 wrote:

We've focused on guns for illegal uses, but what about for their legal use?

Let's give the city folk a try at this one:

The gov't has employees to (usually) kill predators that keep killing/maiming livestock. [A species that is rare or protected will be trapped if possible.]

So here's the question:

How many coyotes did the gov't hunters kill last year?

(If you know the answer, give the liberals time to guess first. They are slow with factual, real life matters like this, so be patient.)

Adak;846679 wrote:

The longer barreled rifle will give the bullet more speed than the shorter barreled versions, increasing it's range and energy.

Adak;846455 wrote:

Unlike liberals, I shy away from redefining words, to suit my POV atm.

Socialism has already been well defined:



All socialism definitions have this in common - your freedoms become less - sometimes MUCH less. The control by the state becomes more - sometimes MUCH more.

Adak;846679 wrote:

Yes, those plastic stocks really add a TREMENDOUS ferocity to the rifle, don't they? People just fall down dead when they see plastic, don't ya know? :rolleyes:

Same bullet
Same barrel
Same firing mechanism
Same ejector mechanism
Same breech
Sights can be the same, or different, depending on the type of game it's intended for.

The longer stock on the long rifle, allows a better "float" system to be used, if ultra accuracy is desired.

The carbine (shorter stocked rifle), has a banana clip on it. I haven't seen a high capacity clip for the longer rifle, but they may be out there.

The longer barreled rifle will give the bullet more speed than the shorter barreled versions, increasing it's range and energy.

Although the Web page and the book it promotes focuses on black racial violence, there is similar Caucasian-on-black crime, such as that perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan.

Senator Feinstein's latest attack on the Second Amendment relies entirely on public ignorance of firearms and their legitimate uses, and this ignorance extends even to many people who support the principles of the Second Amendment.
Education is the cure for ignorance

xoxoxoBruce;846787 wrote:

I'm not terrified.
I even travel below the Mason Dixon line on a regular basis.

xoxoxoBruce;846833 wrote:

OMG Sam, how did you avoid becoming a statistic. :eek:

Classicman wrote:

Perhaps dear Ibster, we could address the issue in those VERY SPECIFIC "highly localized" areas and leave the VAST MAJORITY or the rest of the fucking country alone.
Just a thought.

piercehawkeye45;846894 wrote:

Better schools and economic opportunities? :D

piercehawkeye45;846899 wrote:

Considering the US is the largest exporter of legal and illegal guns, I don't think national gun control will work either. Seriously, where do you think most of the guns in Brazil and Africa come from?

classicman;846902 wrote:

Oh c'mon PH45, we stopped all those illegal drugs "just like that" by changing the laws. :right:
Heck, when was the last time you saw any coke or weed on campus? :eyebrow:

Zengum wrote:

SOCIALIST!!!!! OMG!

piercehawkeye45;846899 wrote:

Considering the US is the largest exporter of legal and illegal guns, I don't think national gun control will work either. Seriously, where do you think most of the guns in Brazil and Africa come from?

xoxoxoBruce;846911 wrote:

Yes but US made "assault rifles" are only used by good guys, the bad guys use AK's made in China and the former Soviet Bloc countries.

glatt;846896 wrote:

Local gun restrictions don't work. Guns are small and easily smuggled across local borders where there are no border controls. Border controls only exist on the national level, and that is the only level where gun restrictions have a chance of working.

Adak;846958 wrote:

There is NO ARGUMENT that Obama has been the best thing that ever happened to gun shops and shows in CA -- since EVER.

wrote:

The rifles you see today may look the same, because they use a lot of black plastic for the stock, etc., but they are NOT assault rifles. They are ordinary semi-automatic rifles with plastic, instead of the traditional wooden, stock.

"It's more common for an armed homeowner in the United States to be a victim of suicide, homicide, assault or an accidental shooting than it is for that person to shoot an intruder," according to Dr. Arthur Kellermann, a senior health policy analyst at Rand Corporation, a non-partisan think tank.

Kellermann led research for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 1990s which found that people who have guns in their homes are nearly three times more likely to be a victim of homicide and nearly five times more likely to commit suicide.

Unfortunately, the home invader lived,

Adak;847637 wrote:

Unfortunately, the home invader lived, but in an odd twist, the Sheriff has not arrested him yet. That means HE will have to be responsible for the cost of his medical bills, and THEN the Sheriff will arrest him.

;) Sweet! ;)

Why unfortunately? Why do we want the man to die? Any violent assault he had in mind was averted. Why does he deserve to die, for breaking into a house?

Adak;847734 wrote:

I wonder what our Miss America would suggest here, as a non-violent response? :rolleyes:

Adak;847637 wrote:

The Miss America contestant was asked to respond to this question:
"Should we put armed guards in our schools?"

Her "winning" response was:
"No, we shouldn't fight violence with violence."

[SIZE="5"][COLOR="Red"][CENTER]ROFL!![/CENTER][/COLOR][/SIZE]

What the liberals would do is have the kids hide under their desks, and pray that the nutcase won't see them.

Well, OMG! He's nutty, but he's not blind!

Here's how it should go down:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/10/us/home-invasion-gun-rights/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Now I know, I'm bringing up a FACTUAL incident, and not something a liberal dreamed up, but there it is:

Mother alone at home with her children, shoots the home invader 5 times, while her husband gives her advice over the cell phone.

He had taught her how to shoot, just two weeks before.

Unfortunately, the home invader lived, but in an odd twist, the Sheriff has not arrested him yet. That means HE will have to be responsible for the cost of his medical bills, and THEN the Sheriff will arrest him.

;) Sweet! ;)

Pete Zicato;847769 wrote:

Anecdotal evidence is no kind of proof. And one byte of data is not a full meal.

Adak;847828 wrote:

And do you sir, have ANY evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, showing that unarmed, defenseless people, are safe from violence?

On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, he had killed 35 people and wounded 23 more. It was the worst mass murder in Australia's history.

Twelve days later, Australia's government did something remarkable. Led by newly elected conservative Prime Minister John Howard, it announced a bipartisan deal with state and local governments to enact sweeping gun-control measures. A decade and a half hence, the results of these policy changes are clear: They worked really, really well.

But here's the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn't been a single one in Australia since.

BigV;847982 wrote:

I listened to the press conference today. The main topic was the debt ceiling. If you also listened to it, you learned that it has NOTHING AT ALL to do with "Obama's" out control spending. You ignorance of civics is the major obstacle to a real understanding of the issue, and why you're incapable of participating in a meaningful dialog on the subject. When you can demonstrate a better grasp of how our government works, come back here and we will try again to reason together.

Pete Zicato;848049 wrote:

Why yes. As a matter of fact, I do.
The above quotes are from here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/18/5060929/mass-shooting-in-australia-provides.html

A Times magazine article on the UK and Australia bans: http://world.time.com/2012/12/17/when-massacres-force-change-lessons-from-the-u-k-and-australia/

So there you have it - hard statistical data.

Go peddle your NRA talking points elsewhere.

AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN

April 13, 2009

It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer. In 2002 -- five years after enacting its gun ban -- the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent.
During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

While this doesn't prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.

Source: Howard Nemerov, "Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban," D.C. Examiner, April 8, 2009.

For text:

http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d8-Australia-experiencing-more-violent-crime-despite-gun-ban

Pete Zicato;848344 wrote:

What part of "no mass shootings" are you having problems with?

I have no illusions that that gun control will make life perfect and we'll have double rainbows every day. There will still be guns of some sort and we'll continue to have gun crime.

But obviously, Australia has reduced mass shootings. That's worth a lot right there.

And don't think I didn't notice that you went from NRA talking points to quoting a right-wing mouthpiece. You really need to get out more.

Adak;848277 wrote:

Your disconnect denying the obvious connection between spending and the debt limit, in the face of our HUGE increase in spending under Obama, borders on a mental defect.

Adak;848277 wrote:

Consult any 10 year old - when you have only 90 cents, you don't keep buying the one dollar candy, and have to keep borrowing from your friends, to do so.

Because you will run out of THEIR money, and then you'll be broke and probably friendless for a spell, as well.

Adak;848277 wrote:

I know it's safe for a country to run up a national debt, and we don't need to panic every time the debt increases -- but come on! We can't just run our currency into the realm of being worthless and cause a monetary crisis!

As with most things, there are reasonable limits, and we have far exceeded ours.

Adak;847711 wrote:

Most accidents with firearms are caused by kids or adults...

glatt;848482 wrote:

What about the school buses? The kids aren't protected on the buses. Should we have armed guards there?

There are 50 thousand public elementary schools in this country. There are another 40 thousand middle schools and high schools. That doesn't even begin to count private schools. All told, there are probably 120 thousand schools in this country. To hire one guard for each one at $35,000 per year would cost about $4 Billion. But really you need more than one guard. The school won't be protected when they go to the bathroom or eat lunch. You need at least 2 per school. So that's $8 Billion. And what about those buses? And the bus stops? Let's say you have an average of 2 buses per school, and 10 bus stops per school that means you need another 12 guards. So let's see, 12 time 4 is 48, plus the two you already had at the school. Now we're at $52 Billion (per year) just for guards. And all you've protected in the kids at school. What about the library? and the park? Oh jeez. And the playgrounds! What about walking to the bus stops? And walking to school? We'll need a guard on every corner. this is going to start getting expensive.

BigV;848483 wrote:

First of all, I've denied nothing about any connection between spending and the debt limit. When you can cite a contrary example, your petty name-calling will be justified. Until then, you just keep your mental defect badge.

Adak, our country's fiscal and monetary policy is not run like a ten-year-old's. You know that. When you make such a comparison, you insult me and you embarrass yourself. Please stop it.

Ok, now to the obvious connection between our spending the debt ceiling. I notice now you use rational, neutral terms like "our" and "a country". I am glad for the change of tone, thanks. If you think we've far exceeded the reasonable limit to our borrowing, what is that limit? How much debt do you think we can reasonably bear?

A more pressing question is how to deal with the debt limit now. We both listened to the President's press conference of the other day, I'll tell you now, I agree with his characterization of the debt ceiling and what to do about it and importantly, what not to do about it. Last first--dithering and arguing and fiddlefarting around while NOT immediately and decisively raising the debt ceiling is all by itself a very bad idea. Acting (Congressional acting) as though there might be any kind of suggestion whatsoever that the United States will not pay our debts is irresponsible and dangerous.

That is just the effect that trying to link debt ceiling increases, which must be done by Congress, with any other business. Anything besides "Yes, and here's the limit (which in my opinion should be high enough to make further such discussion moot for a year or more), generates more of that "uncertainty" that is anathema to the business community. It's a Bad. Idea.

What is your position?

Adak;848561 wrote:

And it's MUCH better than yanking the rug out from underneath our second amendment rights. Once the gov't has knocked those down, we'll never get them back.

And not to be a doomsayer, but once they can knock one part of the Bill of Rights down, then clearly they can see about knocking down other parts, as well. All they need is some kind of an emergency (real or imagined), and they'll be all over it.

IamSam;848564 wrote:

Well, we could always grab all our guns, head for the hills, and demand the repeal of the Patriot Act.

ZenGum;848566 wrote:

These are serious concerns. They're just in the wrong thread, that's all.
They should be in a thread with a title mentioning Bush, Cheney, Patriot Act, and the last 12 years.

Warrantless wire-tapping? Detention without trial? "Enhanced interrogation"?

If you seriously think your gun rights are effectively protecting all your other rights, you haven't been paying attention for the last 12 years.

Adak;848469 wrote:

Brevik shot over 60 children, in a country that has a long history of gun control, (compared to say, Australia which has a very short history of it).

Pete Zicato;848652 wrote:

And when was the previous mass shooting in Norway - all the other mass shootings they must have had because of their gun control laws?

glatt;848649 wrote:

The police are randomly searching regular people going about their daily commutes without probable cause or warrants on public transit systems in many major US cities including Washington DC. I've seen it with my own eyes in person.

Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Bill of Rights is being violated by the government on a daily basis already.

Adak;849439 wrote:

I'm not familiar enough with the warrantless searches on people in cities back East, to know if it's unreasonable or not. Point is that ALL searches, according to the Bill of Rights, are NOT unreasonable - and therefore some are legal. Look at what the TSA is doing for air travelers, for crying out loud! THAT seems unreasonable to me.

glatt;849516 wrote:

Or I should say, the only reason people aren't being searched on roads yet is because it's too difficult and the outcry would be too great.

The stop-and-frisk program of New York City is a practice of the New York City Police Department by which a police officer who reasonably suspects a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a felony or a Penal Law misdemeanor, stops and questions that person, and, if the officer reasonably suspects he or she is in danger of physical injury, frisks the person stopped for weapons.

About[SIZE=3] 684,000[/SIZE] people were stopped in 2011.

The rationale behind the Supreme Court decision revolves around the understanding that, as the opinion notes, "the exclusionary rule has its limitations." The meaning of the rule is to protect persons from unreasonable searches and seizures aimed at gathering evidence, not searches and seizures for other purposes (like prevention of crime or personal protection of police officers).

Editor's note: Edward J. McCaffery is Robert C. Packard Trustee Chair in law and a professor of law, economics and political science at the University of Southern California. He is the author of "Fair Not Flat: How to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler."

(CNN) -- Phil Mickelson, aka Lefty, is thinking of leaving California and perhaps America because, according to his own reckoning, he is facing tax rates of 62% or 63%. Mickelson, probably the second-most-famous professional golfer in the world after Tiger Woods, later backed off from his initial comments about making "drastic changes."

Reports suggest that Mickelson earned more than $60 million in 2012. In that sense, he appears to be doing better than the Romneys, and perhaps you are not all that sympathetic to him.

The Romneys (remember them?) paid so little tax. In 2011, Mitt and Ann Romney paid federal taxes of $2 million on reported income of $14 million, for an effective tax rate of 14%, all roughly. The Romneys even had to foreswear taking all of their available charitable deductions to make their tax rate seem so high for appearance's sake.
Edward J. McCaffery
Edward J. McCaffery

It does bear noting that Mickelson is doing something to earn his $60 million. Whoever is paying him that much believes that he is worth it. Who are we, really, to argue?

Mickelson's instinctive reactions to high tax rates, even if his math may be a bit muddled, are sound and sensible ones. Tiger Woods certainly agrees with him.

But that is not the problem in the story. Lefty faces such seemingly inescapably high tax rates that he might just pack up his golf bags and leave home. Mitt pays so little tax that he has to ignore the law to pay a higher rate for appearance's sake.
Become a fan of CNNOpinion
Stay up to date on the latest opinion, analysis and conversations through social media. Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion and follow us @CNNOpinion on Twitter. We welcome your ideas and comments.



How can this be?

The Mitt-Lefty paradox has a simple explanation: In America, we tax work. And highly. We do not tax capital or wealth much at all. Indeed, if you have wealth already, taxes are essentially optional under what I call tax Planning 101, the simple advice to buy/borrow/die.

In step one, you buy assets that rise in value without producing cash, such as growth stocks or real estate. In step two, you borrow to finance your lifestyle. In step three, you die, and your heirs get your assets, tax free, and with a "stepped up" basis that eliminates all capital gains. That's it.

Romney, with a personal fortune estimated at $250 million (his five kids have another $100 million) has figured this out. When he pays taxes, at all, he does so at the low capital gains rate.

Not so with Lefty.

He is a wage-earner, albeit a very highly paid one, and he's going to pay over one-half of his income in taxes if he stays in California. We may not be shedding any tears for Lefty any more than we feel for Gerard Depardieu, who recently left France for Russia to escape taxes, or for the Rolling Stones, who many moons ago left England and recorded Exile on Main Street from France.

Yet one fact not making news is that it is still the case that the highest marginal tax rates in America do not fall on the highest incomes, like Lefty, but on certain of the working poor, many of them single parents, who are being taxed at rates approaching 90% as they lose benefits attempting to better themselves.

It's a "poverty trap" that works just like the severe marriage penalties for the lower-income classes. But the working poor do not have the options of going to Canada, Russia or France.

Lefty has a point -- high tax rates create disincentives. If the rates are high enough, people react by moving. This should not surprise us: American companies have been fleeing our shores for years, in droves. Ask Mitt.

But this should worry us, for two reasons.

One, the fact that the high incomers do flee jurisdictions, or flee from the productive activity of working, is a bad thing for the U.S.

Two, the very risk that the rich and famous might leave, aided by the appearance that some do, holds tax reform hostage. We have struggled to raise rates at all on the rich, blocked by the mostly mythical Joe the Plumber as much as by the realities of Mickelson or the Rolling Stones. When we do finally raise rates, as we did at the fiscal cliff, we do so on the wrong rich, in the wrong way. Lefty's taxes went up, Mitt's need not.

The problem -- and it is the same problem as with Mitt's taxes -- is that we are taxing the wrong thing, in the wrong way. In sum, we tax work, not wealth. This is backward.

We should be taxing the act of spending, not the socially beneficial ones of work and savings. Then we could raise tax rates without fear of ill effects.

Mitt's taxes would go up, for he is surely spending more than $14 million a year, as by running for president, and we wouldn't need any special capital gains preference under a consistent spending tax. Lefty's taxes would go down to the extent he saves some of his $60 million, helping us all by working and saving. When and if Mickelson or his kids spend, we could tax him or them then.

[... cutesy and stupid ending without merit, has been edited out. Wish they wouldn't add these endings to every article they publish.]

Now those appointed, and everything they have done in the past year, is null and void.

xoxoxoBruce;850135 wrote:

If they deport your gardener is everything he did null and void?
At least someone was running the show, while congress was playing who's on first.

I don't think anyone can argue with McCaffery, that the tax code is totally fucked up.

Adak;850146 wrote:

If your gardener was a department head in the Federal gov't, who needed to be confirmed, and was not, then yepper! :cool:

xoxoxoBruce;850247 wrote:

I don't think so, it's no different than having an acting chief stuck in there for a year, like they do in government agencies all the time.
Do you think the people in those agencies said, you're not the boss of me, I'm not doing what you say.

I'd had a letter exchange with the acting head of the Federal Flood Insurance Program. I certainly didn't disregard what he wrote because he was only the acting head.

xoxoxoBruce;851036 wrote:

OK, thanks for setting the record straight, then we'll just ban hand guns.

Adak;851031 wrote:

1) There was no assault rifle used in the Newtown, CONN, shooting.

Griff;851225 wrote:

.
___________________________________
[SIZE="1"]Last edited by Griff; 02-02-2013 at [COLOR="Orange"]11:37 AM.[/COLOR] Reason: never mind not putting myself between the nuts again[/SIZE]

IamSam;851236 wrote:

... However, since there's so many nuts around here, here's a few extra nuts to you ...

sexobon;851177 wrote:

When you say that they can only be used to hunt and kill humans ["His guns only have one purpose. To hunt and kill humans."] you deny the reality that they can also be used in self defense just as readily as a single shot pistol or a baseball bat.

tw;851271 wrote:

B) Why do cops routinely not carry assault rifles?

We have found most officers have difficulty hitting the MPTC Q target with regularity using their service pistol at distances further than the 10 yard line. Now, factor in the stress level of a life and death encounter with rapidly evolving circumstances &#8211; the actual hit ratio drops even further. Beyond 15 yards the shotgun with multiple round projectile, may yield more hit potential however the recoil and manual operation of the shotgun has historically proved to be an issue with some Officers. If the load is buck shot, beyond 18 yards the shot spread will begin to exceed the width of the torso. This violates the accountability for all rounds down range rule. The slug round provides the logical alternative with longer range, more accuracy and no shot spread. It also has greater penetration which can be considered both a positive and negative factor when considering its use in urban areas or near thin walled homes. Conversely, the most popular patrol rifle round, the 5.56mm NATO (.223 Remington) will penetrate fewer walls than service pistol rounds or 12 gauge slugs.

xoxoxoBruce;851272 wrote:

Because they prefer an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

xoxoxoBruce;851278 wrote:

They're not swat teams, regular cops. They don't walk around with that gear but it's in the trunk of the cruiser.

tw;851280 wrote:

If any department has not trained every officer with AR-15s, then they must fire upon their town council.

tw;851280 wrote:

How often do you see the beat cop patrolling with an AR-15 in his hands?

sexobon;851255 wrote:

Here's a decently written article that gives insight into the confusion: http://m.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-01-31/story/fact-check-misinformation-over-sandy-hook-shooting-wont-go-away

wrote:

There was a gun found in Lanza’s car, but it was a shotgun. The primary weapon used in the Dec. 14 attack, said Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance, “was a Bushmaster AR-15 assault-type weapon.”

sexobon;851286 wrote:

You are entitled to your own opinions; but, not to your own facts. .

tw;851303 wrote:

Somehow we should know an AR-15 Bushmaster was not used in Sandy Hook because you said so?

wrote:

Here's a decently written article that gives insight into the confusion: http://m.jacksonville.com/news/metro...g-wont-go-away

IamSam;851195 wrote:

AAAARGH!

Adam Lanza used a semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 rifle.

sexobon;851255 wrote:

Here's a decently written article that gives insight into the confusion: http://m.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-01-31/story/fact-check-misinformation-over-sandy-hook-shooting-wont-go-away

tw;851303 wrote:

... Somehow we should know an AR-15 Bushmaster was not used in Sandy Hook because you said so? ...

IamSam;851325 wrote:

Hold on, big guy. Sexobon said no such thing. In fact, he provided a link stating the opposite: ...

sexobon;851286 wrote:

Gibberish, all you've done is what you always do, you take what someone says and extrapolate it to ridiculous proportions which they never said, implied; or meant in a lame effort to discredit them.

sexobon;852084 wrote:

Misinformation is a tw hallmark. I don't hold it against him; because, I know he's really more interested in argument just for the sake of argument than he is in debate. That's why tw does not fact check himself before engaging me and why few others care to engage him.

tw;851303 wrote:

Why does the NRA need 'gun violence' research banned? Why do you know a gun is not 43 times more likely to be used on a family member? If facts are posted multiple times, then will you address facts rather than post spiteful like a child? History says you will either post angry. Or run away.

sexobon;852105 wrote:

Your second world ethics simply limit your value to me as being for entertainment use only.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - As night fell over Benghazi, a familiar sound echoed across the eastern Libyan city - an explosion, and then gunfire. A bomb had just been thrown at a police car on patrol, injuring an officer.

It was the latest of many attacks on local security forces. Two months before, the man whose job it was to ensure Benghazi was safe, the police chief, was shot dead outside his home.

Two years after Libya's second city kindled the uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, it epitomises a popular revolution gone awry - rival militias and Islamist gunmen more powerful than the police, moving residents to ask: where is the state?

"Imagine a city taken over by militias when all you want is to support the state," activist Mohammed Buganah said. "People feel insecure. They are very upset and annoyed about this."

There have been assaults on diplomats and international missions, including the September 11 killing of the U.S. ambassador, amid a rising tide of kidnappings, bombings and assassinations, mainly of security officials.

The anarchy, along with garbage-strewn streets and unraveling municipal services, have deepened a sense of neglect by the capital Tripoli far to the west and reawakened demands for autonomy in a region with most of Libya's oil wealth.

"Everyone is increasingly worried about eastern Libya," a diplomatic source said. "Things are seriously deteriorating."

Undertoad;852994 wrote:

Not so fast on Benghazi

Happy Monkey;852812 wrote:

It's actually unconstitutional to change the pay of Congress during a term.

Automatic cuts are getting a big yawn from Washington

As deadlines go, the March 1 sequester lacks punch. Nobody's taxes will go up; the U.S. Treasury won't run out of cash. Government offices won't immediately turn out the lights and lock the doors. No federal worker will be furloughed for at least 30 days.

So Washington felt little need to cancel the Presidents' Day break. On Friday, President Obama flew to Florida for a long weekend of golf. And Congress left town for nine days, with scant hope of averting deep cuts to the Pentagon and other agencies in the short time remaining when lawmakers return.

Instead of negotiating, party leaders were busy issuing ultimatums and casting blame. ...

Behind the scenes, there was real concern that the cuts eventually would disrupt critical government functions, hamper economic growth and destroy 750,000 jobs. But for now, the sequester is amorphous and slow-moving, and it has emerged as a convenient hill on which to plant a flag and fight the next battle in the ongoing partisan conflict over taxes and spending.

Lamplighter;859178 wrote:

More here

Adak;859497 wrote:

What the Democrats refuse to believe, and everyone with common sense does?
You protect the things that are valuable to you, your community, and your country, with firearms. <snip>

Adak;859497 wrote:

Neither gun was "dangerous" or needed "controlling" by any government official, in order to be made safe.

tw;859524 wrote:

Three Stoogers did the same experiment. All ended up in heaven ... without virgins.

Lamplighter;859500 wrote:

Unfortunately, you are 3 days late with this post.

Public perception of the party is at record lows. Young voters are increasing rolling their eyes at what the party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.

Moreover, the party's appetite for introspection appears to be waning. At the CPAC conference, a conservative jamboree held outside Washington a few days before the report's release, Mitch McConnell ... insisted the time for navel gazing had passed. The party was in danger of joining the "crybaby caucus" ... It should call a halt to agonized seminars , and simply "stand up" and punch back.

tw;859699 wrote:

When America worked, those low income kids would also become millionaires who innovated - who invented America's world class products. Or who became world class champions. Today, the party of hate says one must be born with a silver spoon in the mouth and an extremist politician, bought and paid for, in the pocket.

Wacko extremists routinely disparage what has always been the source of American wealth and innovation. Immigrants, Irish, gays, Italians, lesbians, Jews, atheists, blacks, Hispanics, women who practice family planning, and veterans. Hate them all. Which party left Iraqi veterans lying in a bed of their own urine in Walter Reed? Power comes from inventing bogeymen to hate.

The Economist said on 23 March 2013,
Go back to hate even of the French because French accurately described Mission Accomplished before that unilateral attack. And so Adak is again posting hate rhetoric. As party extremists encourage him to do.

This time hate of basketball players. He forgets that plywood exists due to George Jr's intelligence and extremist lies generated by his administration and Project for a New American Century.

Extremists also said we want America to fail. Extremists will not even apologize for that.

Public perception of the party is at record lows. Young voters are increasing rolling their eyes at what the party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.

Young voters are increasing rolling their eyes at what the party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.

Young voters are increasing rolling their eyes at what the party represents. Many minorities think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.

Adak;859721 wrote:

It isn't a battle between political parties, as much as it is a battle between liberal hands on your throat, or conservative hands from the gov't. The liberals want to control every aspect of your life. The conservatives want YOU to control more aspects of your life.

That's called freedom, and we could certainly use a bit more of it.

Obama Promise To 'Protect Whistleblowers' Just Disappeared From Change.gov

<snip> They were wondering why the administration would
suddenly pull all that interesting archival information...
and hit upon a clue. A little bit from the "ethics agenda":

Undertoad;841533 wrote:

On the other hand, the deficit is falling pretty fast right about now as revenues are increasing.

FY 2007: $161 billion
FY 2008: $459 billion
FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
FY 2012: $1,089 billion
FY 2013*: $901 billion

The 2014 deficit will be 2.8 percent of the economy, according to CBO, almost 32 percent below fiscal year 2013, when it was 4.1 percent. The deficit will shrink again in fiscal 2015 to $469 billion, before rising to about $1 trillion in fiscal years 2022 to 2024, CBO said.

“This will be the fifth consecutive year in which the deficit has declined as a share of GDP since peaking at 9.8 percent in 2009,” CBO said in a report released today. The 2.8 figure as a percentage of gross domestic product is lower than the 3.1 percent average of the last 40 years, CBO said.