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Hoe Comcast Bought The Democratic Party

http://www.nationalreview.com/...

But laying this at the feet of "The Left" much less Obama is utter horseshit

Not really, no. This tactic of destroying people's livehoods by virtue of internet slacktivism is unquestionably a page out of the leftist playbook.

You're kidding right?

• Conservative groups call for national boycott of Girl Scout cookies
• Don't Buy Liberalism
• Talk of a religous conservative boycott of Delta, Home Depot and Coke
• American Family Association: Boycotts
• Conservative Group Calls for Boycott of Ben & Jerry's 'Schweddy Balls' Flavor
• Don’t Do Business with Progressive Appeasers
• Oreo Cookies' Gay Pride Backlash: 25 Companies And Products Boycotted For Supporting LGBT Rights

If you think that only liberals boycott companies and people they disagree with, you are living in a cognitive bubble.

The only reason anyone ever called this "the most transparent administration in history" is that Barack Obama made that statement. But there never was any reason to believe him.

He's an Alinskyite politician who came up through the Chicago political machine. What about this background would make you expect him to be anything other than a partisan who will say anything to advance his own agenda?

Then when he ran for President, he made vague promises that allowed everyone to project their fondest hopes onto him. The only way to have an 80% approval rating is to not be specific about anything. His greatest accomplishment has been his amazing skill in reading a prepared speech off a TelePrompter.

I no longer believe that government can do very much to help the economy; however, I firmly believe that government does have the power to screw the economy up. I'm not one of the haters who thinks that President Obama wants to screw things up, but still it keeps happening.

Here's a free tip for President Obama: find yourself some economists who actually predicted this recession, and then ask them for their advice on how to fix it. The Keynsian advice is to pump a bunch of money into the economy, borrowed is fine, and that's what this Administration did. But few, if any, of the Keynsian economists predicted the recession.

The housing crisis was "a huge blunder" that was a forced error due to Federal intervention trying to drive up home ownership. There was a reform attempt, but it was blocked in the Congress by, guess who? Dodd-Frank is an impediment to recovery, and yet another excuse for Federal snooping.

Post Mortems on the Financial Crisis

President Kennedy was assassinated by communist defector Lee Harvey Oswald, not the CIA.

The Real Culprits

In 1963, a popular Democratic president was assassinated by a Marxist named Oswald, who had actually defected to the Soviet Union and returned to the U.S. with a Soviet wife, was an active member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had attempted to assassinate a right-wing general named Edwin Walker earlier in the year.

Yet those who write history found these facts inconvenient. They created a different history ...

There's a government failrue that's decided that 3" fish are more important than people.

The Central Valley’s woes began in earnest in 2007, when the hardline Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) won a lawsuit against California’s intricate water-delivery system, sending farmers like John Harris into a tailspin. In court, the NRDC’s lawyers contended that the vast pumps that help to funnel water from the reservoirs up in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta down to the Central Valley, to Southern California, and to the Bay Area were sucking in and shredding an unacceptable number of smelt — and, the smelt being protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) since 1994, that this was illegal.

Given that the NRDC has long wished for farming operations in the valley to be curtailed on the peculiar grounds that it isn’t native to the area, this struck many observers as rather too convenient. Nevertheless, the outfit managed to convince Oliver Wanger, a George H. W. Bush–appointed federal judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, and with so much authority over matters environmental having been delegated, centralized, and put in the hands of judges and bureaucrats, that was all that mattered. Wanger ruled that the protections afforded to the smelt were insufficient and ordered the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a new “biological opinion” on the matter — this time without deciding that the smelt was in “no jeopardy.” And that, as they say, was that. What the NRDC could never have achieved legislatively, it achieved via the good old American tradition of lawyering up and smiling at a man in a robe. In 2007, the pumps were turned down; the Delta’s water output was lowered dramatically, contingent now upon the interests of a fish; and the farms that rely on the system in order to grow their crops were thrown into veritable chaos. Predictably, a man-made drought began.

This is a classic tale of activist government run amok — and, too, of the peculiarly suicidal instincts that rich and educated societies exhibit when they reach maturity. Were its consequences not so hideously injurious, the details would be almost comical. As a direct result of the overwrought concern that a few well-connected interest groups and their political allies have displayed for a fish — and of a federal Endangered Species Act that is in need of serious revision — hundreds of billions of gallons of water that would in other areas have been sent to parched farmland have been diverted away from the Central Valley and deliberately pushed out under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific Ocean, wasted forever, to the raucous applause of Luddites, misanthropes, and their powerful enablers.

saying that accusations of racism and bigotry is just a ploy: that's the strawman

because racists and bigots are real

It's not a ploy it's actually happening, and in response to nothing but questioning policy.

The argument that "well you're saying racists and bigots don't exist" is the real straw man, because nobody ever claimed that.

Surely you see the difference?

I agree. Government has no right to limit either a person's private behavior or their medical decisions.

You miss the point. If the Supreme Court had stuck with the text of the Constitution in deciding those cases, then they would not have been decided as they were. There are questions that the Constitution is silent upon, and powers not given to the Federal government are reserved for the states and the people. You may think it unwise, but sodomy laws would still be on the books, as would the various contraception laws.

Various scholars see Roe v Wade as one of the court's biggest blunders. The country was already heading in that direction anyway, but to move things along they had to fabricate law to do it. There will be more mischief to come from both that and Lawrence v Texas. You will very likely see polygamy legalized in your lifetime, and some scholars are already setting their sights on the next boundary.

they didn't ignore the data, they had bad data

the last couple of decades has seen the rise of conservative news sources. which is good for morale. you fudge the truth a little, make things look rosier than they really are, and you galvanize your base

the problem is when you start believing your own bullshit

romney was fed the fudges the conservative echo chamber feeds itself, and was kept in the dark. so they were overconfident

there's a respected solid analyst called nate silver at the new york times, who is very good at forecasting elections with his methods

he called the election early, in september, for obama

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n...

this analysis was pilloried on the right as a propaganda. even though he was just applying cold hard analysis

http://www.nationalreview.com/...

when in fact, the right was the one creating propaganda, and silver called them out on it:

http://www.businessinsider.com...

the decision makers around romney chose to ignore cold analysis as liberal propaganda. romney had a chance to buckle down and maybe do something with his message in october and maybe eke out a win

but just look at rove on election night: he couldn't believe the news about ohio. because the right wing media echo chamber was operating on its own bullshit, and kneejerk rejecting bad news as liberal propaganda

again, conservative media is great for the morale of the average conservative voter. but when the conservative media is depended upon by the decision makers on the right, the right loses, because decisions based on lies are bad, losing decisions

Democrats have used fake websites, and their functionality depended on the purpose. Of course they have done more than that too, including running fake candidates.

Dems who created fake Tea Party candidates arraigned in Michigan

Reid Campaign Targets Angle Supporters With Phishing Website

Harry Reid’s campaign, however, took the code from the prior Angle website and launched a website called “TheRealSharronAngle.com.” The fake website was what, in internet terminology, is called spoofing, where a seemingly real website is created, usually to obtain information under false pretenses (frequently referred to as “phishing”). ...

But the reality is that by creating a spoofed website with the contact and volunteer functions operable, the Reid campaign sought to obtain personally identifiable information about Angle supporters. At a minimum, such information about Angle supporters would have been gathered under false pretenses.

The phishing function also would have been disruptive to the Angle campaign because people who thought they had volunteered for the Angle campaign never would have been contacted to help out because they had, in fact, been tricked.

Regardless of whether the Reid campaign’s spoofing and phishing attempt was criminal, it was sleazy.

Is Reid Campaign Hiding Its Activities To Evade Campaign Finance Laws?

Litigious Laureate

From Dr. Mann's complaint filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia - Civil Division
"As a result of this research, Dr. Mann and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

Japan gives a lot of aid and comfort to the other thug nations. It's like helping someone dump a body and cover their tracks.

Japan has long been one of the more generous nations for foreign aid and its military has been pretty much limited to almost purely national defense of Japan itself since WW2. Although they can be highly competitive in business, I think it is hard to build a good case that Japan is currently a "thug" nation. Taco Cowboy's comment I can understand as Chinese anti-Japanese sentiment that has existed since at least the 1930s. But yours?

China and Russia aren't especially friendly to Japan, whereas the US is. That leaves you portraying the US and UK as thugs, but not necessarily China or Russia. (The current Chinese regime is the same one that killed 60,000,000 of its own people and is trying to seize territory held by Japan even while it (China) is trying to claim the entire South China Sea as its territory, stepping on its neighbors.)

So you are basically condemning your own country again, seemingly above others, and it isn't clear why. The influence of school reading assignments, perhaps? It's a pity that contemporary American education tends to be unfavorable towards some views.

American History 101

National Review Online:So how different is your history of the United States from, say, Howard Zinn’s?

Larry Schweikart: They are as different as night and day. We assume that people usually mean what they say; that they don’t always have hidden motivations; and that ideas are more important than “class” or “race” or “gender.” Under more normal times, our book would simply be entitled, A History of the United States, because it is accurate.

NRO:So a “Patriot’s Guide” isn’t all good?

Schweikart: Absolutely not. As we say in the intro/jacket flap, we reject “My Country, Right or Wrong,” but we equally reject “My Country, Always Wrong.” I think you’ll find us quite critical of such aspects of our past-such as the Founders’ unwillingness to actually act on slavery on at least three separate occasions; or about Teddy Roosevelt’s paternalistic regulations and his anti-business policies. On the other hand, as conservatives, we nevertheless destroy the myth that FDR “knew” about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance. Instead, we try to always put the past in the context of the time–why did people act then as they did, and was that typical?

History Lies

Japan gives a lot of aid and comfort to the other thug nations. It's like helping someone dump a body and cover their tracks.

Japan has long been one of the more generous nations for foreign aid and its military has been pretty much limited to almost purely national defense of Japan itself since WW2. Although they can be highly competitive in business, I think it is hard to build a good case that Japan is currently a "thug" nation. Taco Cowboy's comment I can understand as Chinese anti-Japanese sentiment that has existed since at least the 1930s. But yours?

China and Russia aren't especially friendly to Japan, whereas the US is. That leaves you portraying the US and UK as thugs, but not necessarily China or Russia. (The current Chinese regime is the same one that killed 60,000,000 of its own people and is trying to seize territory held by Japan even while it (China) is trying to claim the entire South China Sea as its territory, stepping on its neighbors.)

So you are basically condemning your own country again, seemingly above others, and it isn't clear why. The influence of school reading assignments, perhaps? It's a pity that contemporary American education tends to be unfavorable towards some views.

American History 101

National Review Online:So how different is your history of the United States from, say, Howard Zinn’s?

Larry Schweikart: They are as different as night and day. We assume that people usually mean what they say; that they don’t always have hidden motivations; and that ideas are more important than “class” or “race” or “gender.” Under more normal times, our book would simply be entitled, A History of the United States, because it is accurate.

NRO:So a “Patriot’s Guide” isn’t all good?

Schweikart: Absolutely not. As we say in the intro/jacket flap, we reject “My Country, Right or Wrong,” but we equally reject “My Country, Always Wrong.” I think you’ll find us quite critical of such aspects of our past-such as the Founders’ unwillingness to actually act on slavery on at least three separate occasions; or about Teddy Roosevelt’s paternalistic regulations and his anti-business policies. On the other hand, as conservatives, we nevertheless destroy the myth that FDR “knew” about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance. Instead, we try to always put the past in the context of the time–why did people act then as they did, and was that typical?

History Lies

Myths: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350595/five-irs-scandal-myths-andrew-stiles

So you use a bunch of left-wing websites to "debunk" the news?

I don't have time to go into everything, and in fact most of the list doesn't interest me that much.

But the IRS scandal wasn't hatched a couple days before the national press finally noticed. The IRS behavior was being noticed and complained about for many many months before it became widespread knowledge. You probably heard about the IRS being used as a political weapon in spring of 2013.

From July of 2012, "Even worse, the IRS has responded to dozens of tax-exemption applications by tea-party groups with astonishingly intrusive document demands, seeking not only donor lists but also lists of volunteers." http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/310384/obama-s-sunshine-policy-david-french

Mr. French is referring to a DailyCaller article from February 2012, http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/22/congressional-investigations-sought-over-irs-assault-on-tea-party-groups/

Yes it's true that these are all conservative websites, but who else was going to cover news at that time that was negative to President Obama and wasn't already high profile?

Anyway, here is a non-conservative site debunking your debunking http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/14/irs-tea-party-progressive-groups/2158831/

However, those two years have brought on voter registration laws designed to disenfranchise, laws so blatantly racist that it's pants-on-heads insane that anybody let them get away with it.

Voter turnout in Texas nearly doubles under new ID law
Minority turnout increased dramatically after Georgia voter-ID law
New Analysis Shows Voter Identification Laws Do Not Reduce Turnout

Voting fraud is an important question since so many elections are now decided by margins of victory less than the margin of fraud.

Al Franken May Have Won His Senate Seat Through Voter Fraud

Poor and minority votes seem especially vulnerable.

Poor and Disadvantaged are Most Likely to Have Their Vote Stolen
Officials Plead Guilty in New York Voter Fraud Case

Mississippi NAACP leader sent to prison for 10 counts of voter fraud
New York Investigators Obtain Fraudulent Ballots 97 Percent of Time
The “snowbird vote” takes wing

"Largely rejected since then"?? Romneycare was implemented in Spring 2006 - a long time ago in the life of the iPhone but very recent political history.
And Mitt got praise from Gingrich, Heritage Fund, etc. Back in 2007 / 2008, Rush Limbaugh said Romney embodied all 3 legs of the conservative stool.
The National Review endorsed him in Dec 2007 - http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/223076/romney-president/editors and said he could speak on healthcare with more authority than any other.

lol.. One state adopted it which is largely a democrat state with a moderate republican governor who when running for president said Obama's plan was nothing like what Massachusetts did and that there was a difference between a state doing something like that verses the federal government doing it. You would think Romney would have offered the plan during his presidential bid but he didn't as even he rejected it then. So that is representative of all republicans liking the plan now. Who would have ever thought that while trying not to laugh.

What will a GOP Prez / House / Senate do? Repeal it? Have all the new insured go back to living on a wing & a prayer? Have insurerd drop millions with pre-existing conditions?
The law survived a SCOTUS challenge and by 2016, California will be forcing the nation towards single-payer.

You do realize there are at least 2 more SCOTUS challenges to be had and by most reasoning, there will be at least two more after that when the mandates fully kick in and people are subject to the taxes right? But a GOP house/senate/administration can easily thwart any single payer efforts in California by simply passing a federal law allowing insurance to be available across state lines and baring penalties under state law for participation or lack of participation in state programs.

But here is something I do wonder about. The government controlling insurance and medical access does some real damage to long held insitutitons. For instance, the ban on making abortions illegal was won in Roe v. Wade due to a right to privacy where the government didn't have an inherent right to know about the kinds of medical treatments people would have. But now, the feds can simply outlaw abortion because the ACA deeply interweaves them into it and the reasons for Roe v. Wade are now gone. But to make it even more fascinating, if the courts somehow find there is still a separation, they can ban abortions by creating a tax penalty for those performing it and receiving it that makes it cost prohibitive to anyone touching the procedures. And the courts specifically held up the ACA by changing the penalty in the mandate to a tax in order to not find it unconstitutional.

So yes, what can a GOP prez/house/senate do. Or should I say in this day and age of reinterpreting laws and the constitution in order to make anything fly, what can they not do?

"Largely rejected since then"?? Romneycare was implemented in Spring 2006 - a long time ago in the life of the iPhone but very recent political history.
And Mitt got praise from Gingrich, Heritage Fund, etc. Back in 2007 / 2008, Rush Limbaugh said Romney embodied all 3 legs of the conservative stool.
The National Review endorsed him in Dec 2007 - http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/223076/romney-president/editors and said he could speak on healthcare with more authority than any other.

Both Romney & Gingrich opined about eliminating "free riders" - thats' the mandate.

But as I said, it doesn't matter for the Dems going forward - they only have to play the Medicare card; the people on that plan love it and they VOTE.

The disillusioned young people who might be put off by the penalties are less likely to turn out. Maybe they'll show up in droves if they're pissed off enough but that's not enough at this point.
By then, Obamacare will be 3 yrs old, the stark contrasts between states that adopted it whole-heartedly and those who tried to scuttle it will be very apparent and it will still be the law of the land.
What will a GOP Prez / House / Senate do? Repeal it? Have all the new insured go back to living on a wing & a prayer? Have insurerd drop millions with pre-existing conditions?
The law survived a SCOTUS challenge and by 2016, California will be forcing the nation towards single-payer.

Aha! Yes, those were the exact stages I went through after realizing that the U.S. was just another torturing state and that all that BS they taught me in high school about how we were above all that was indeed BS.

Funny that you mention "BS," since I smell some right now. The US only waterboarded a total of 3 terrorists, the most recent of which was 10 years ago, although it has waterboarded probably tens of thousands of its own service members. You're claiming that you changed your entire viewpoint, went through denial and grief because of that?

Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA

Holder on Waterboarding -- Proving It’s Not Torture While Insisting It Is

You seem to have a perspective problem, at the very least, assuming you are maintaining your integrity in stating what you did.

Colleges Cut Men’s Programs to Satisfy Title IX
Sokal's Hoax
Yes, There’s a War on Boys in Schools
What About Our Boys?

The direction this is likely to go is easily predictable.

Colleges Cut Men’s Programs to Satisfy Title IX
Sokal's Hoax
Yes, There’s a War on Boys in Schools
What About Our Boys?

The direction this is likely to go is easily predictable.

Individual priests are a varied lot. It's church leadership that has been obsessed, and rank-and-file catholics, led by right-wing media. Dolan and other extremists.

I live in Brazil. I sometimes browse the CNBB (Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil) website and it rarely deals with abortion, almost never with homosexuality, and never contraception.

I'll just bet that unadulterated Catholic teaching doesn't mean what you think it means.

I admit my Bible knowledge is poor, but at least I have read the first 8 books of the New Testament and some parts of other Bible books.

Jesus was a chastity radical. He said that if you even fantasize about another woman, you are guilty of adultery. He said you need to be pure to see God. He said there is no divorce.

I am not saying that this should be repeated every week. I am complaining that priests don't say this at all , or say it once in a lifetime.

Just look at what Pope Francis has been adding to Church teaching over the past month.

He has emphasized old Catholic teaching.

Even he sees the institutional obsession with gays, abortion and free markets

Institutional obsession? Some tiny minority of priests can be obsessed with those subjects, but not the institution. For example, the Pope emeritus was certainly not obsessed. He had a broad preoccupation with the world's problems. Besides, read Caritas in Veritate, which was written by the Pope emeritus and had significant progressive elements wich led George Weigel (an otherwise reliable Catholic commentator, but with a right-wing bias) to create a conspiracy theory saying that the Pope was forced to write the encyclical because of a leftist Vatican plot against him.

Don't be misled by the ridiculous political categorization which pervades the media. The Pope emeritus is not "conservative" and Pope Francis is not leftist.
If you have a couple of hours, I advise the following reading:

* http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger2.html
* http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

The right-wing reaction to the Pope emeritus:
* http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227839/i-caritas-veritate-i-gold-and-red/george-weigel/page/0/1
And no, I am not a libertarian just because I linked to one page hosted in lewrockwell.com.

Ya, because he'd rather spend the rest of his life a fugitive, essentially exiled from his home country and family under fear of rotting in solitary confinement in a military prison without charge. He'd rather do this than simply follow the perfectly effective checks and balances this completely innocent organization is government by.

How stupid do they think we are?

Immensely, if you don't realize that other people have done very similar things for ideological reasons, or the demands of their ego. Kim Philby, for example. And like Lee Harvey Oswald, who also went to Russia, it appears that Snowden acted alone.

Obamacare actually saves money while insuring more people. (Congressional Budget Office analysis).

I will now refute you: Health care costs were going down, but the ACA made them go up. (CMS actuaries analysis).

So, maybe you are annoyed that I didn't put any kind of reference, just threw that out there as a fact? Well, right back at you.

And I do have a reference and here it is: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/364815/governments-own-actuaries-think-obamacare-raising-not-lowering-costs-veronique-de-rugy

Roger that:

• The Specter of Bankruptcy Haunts California
• Detroit’s Bankrupt. Is California Next?
• California Bankrupt
• Bankrupt San Bernardino in showdown with California pension fund over arrears
• Bankrupt Cities, Municipalities List and Map

As soon as you're done reviewing that information, plus what you can find with a simple Google query, kindly go fuck yourself.

But what does happen is the price of beef and pork rises, to the point where feedlots can't survive meaning cattle ranchers have to resort to more costly means of feeding a herd longer on range land.

It's all about whose ox is being gored, isn't it?

It was feedlots that were originally responsible for the enormous over-supply of corn. The policy was "fencerow to fencerow" and "get big or get out" so that the feeder industry could buy their mountains of subsidized corn at right about the cost of production. Inevitably, more corn was produced than could be consumed by feedlots, so something had to be done with it. Enter corn ethanol. Now the feedlot owners want to complain? Fuck off.

Feedlots can die as far as I'm concerned. The only reason we still have them is because corn and soybean subsidies are hiding the price of production of beef. $1.99/lb is not even remotely attached to the real production cost of hamburger. You're paying several dollars a pound more in taxes to support Big Ag's share. But the sheeple don't see it on the price tag at the supermarket, so they blithely believe feedlot beef is cheap.

Let me reiterate that: if corn and soybeans were not subsidized, feedlots would be the more expensive way to produce beef. American beef would go back to range production in a heartbeat, because (as should be obvious to any halfwit) without government meddling, grass is far and away the cheapest way to feed cattle.

You are essentially right, and the effects are felt in many sectors of the econemy.

Bio fuel corn is exactly the same as livestock corn, and often the same mills turn out the same product (distillers dried grains, or DDGs) for both uses. The farmer isn't put in a box of having to sell only to one market.

But what does happen is the price of beef and pork rises, to the point where feedlots can't survive meaning cattle ranchers have to resort to more costly means of feeding a herd longer on range land.

Government subsidies have paid about 45 cents for every gallon of Ethanol produced.

In addition there has sprung into being an entire secondary market for RINs (Renewable Identification Numbers) like bitcoin without the math or verifiability). This has actually boosted ethanol production above demand, which causes them to over-blend (slamming the racks) ethanol to the point where you can't be sure what you are getting at the pump.

. I'm just not confident enough will be awake in time to prevent some very very bad things from happening in a very short time.

Too late, and it wasn't symmetric.. Just label it excerpts from the road towards a one party state.

There might actually have to be enforcement of the law for it to have an affect*, and from what I hear, forged "papers" aren't exactly unknown. That is assuming the business or organization is actually making an effort to comply.

* Not much of a priority for the Obama administration. Before anyone complains, the Obama administration is cooking the books to make it look better.

"liberal fascists". Utter language abuse.

Not so much, no. Apparently there is some history you aren't acquainted with. As used in contemporary America, liberal politics are associated with "progressive" politics. Fascism was also aligned with progressivism.

Rich Lowry on Liberal Fascism

In his brilliant new book Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg (a colleague of mine) demonstrates how the opposite is the case, that fascism was a movement of the left and that liberal heroes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were products of what Goldberg calls “the fascist moment” in America early in the 20th century. ...

Benito Mussolini was a socialist and earned the title “Il Duce” as the leader of the socialists in Italy. When he founded the fascist party, its program called for implementing a minimum wage, expropriating property from landowners, repealing titles of nobility, creating state-run secular schools and imposing a progressive tax rate. Mussolini took socialism and turned it in a more populist and militaristic direction, but remained a modernizing, secular man of the left. ...

On the other hand, the progressive movement of the early 20th century looked to Mussolini as an inspiration and shared intellectual roots with European fascism, including an appreciation of the “top-down socialism” of Otto von Bismarck. Goldberg eviscerates Woodrow Wilson as the closest we have ever had to a fascist president. Wilson and his supporters welcomed World War I as an opportunity to expand the state, instituting “war socialism” and a far-reaching crackdown on dissent.

FDR picked up where Wilson left off. The crisis of the Great Depression was the occasion for reviving “war socialism.” The man who ran the National Recovery Administration was an open admirer of Mussolini, and the alphabet soup of New Deal agencies had their roots in World War I and the classic fascist impulse to mobilize society and put it on a war footing.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change

Halliburton was a competatively bid contract for rebuilding. In fact, it is very similar, so either that contract was not no-bid or this contract was no bid. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207451/bush-iraq-scandal-wasnt/byron-york

You mean "lexically challenged."

The military is well into a new era of political correctness:

    Pentagon’s Chief Personnel and Readiness Officer: Diversity and Inclusion Critical to Mission Success

...at building complex, database-driven websites.

Repeatedly.

CGI is so Canadian their name is French: Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique. Their most famous government project was for the Canadian Firearms Registry. The registry was estimated to cost in total $119 million, which would be offset by $117 million in fees. That’s a net cost of $2 million. Instead, by 2004 the CBC (Canada’s PBS) was reporting costs of some $2 billion — or a thousand times more expensive.

Yeah, yeah, I know, we’ve all had bathroom remodelers like that. But in this case the database had to register some 7 million long guns belonging to some two-and-a-half to three million Canadians. That works out to almost $300 per gun — or somewhat higher than the original estimate for processing a firearm registration of $4.60. Of those $300 gun registrations, Canada’s auditor general reported to parliament that much of the information was either duplicated or wrong in respect to basic information such as names and addresses.

Sound familiar?

Also, there was a 1-800 number, but it wasn’t any use.

Sound familiar?

So it was decided that the sclerotic database needed to be improved.

Sound familiar?

But it proved impossible to “improve” CFIS (the Canadian Firearms Information System). So CGI was hired to create an entirely new CFIS II, which would operate alongside CFIS I until the old system could be scrapped. CFIS II was supposed to go operational on January 9, 2003, but the January date got postponed to June, and 2003 to 2004, and $81 million was thrown at it before a new Conservative government scrapped the fiasco in 2007. Last year, the government of Ontario canceled another CGI registry that never saw the light of day — just for one disease, diabetes, and costing a mere $46 million.

So in short you have no actual familiarity with its content. Maybe you could critique this article?

Obamacare Website Violates Licensing Agreement for Copyrighted Software

Or maybe this one at National Review?

Europe Tries Welfare Reform

Guessing is generally a poor substitute for knowledge, but I respect the fact that you stated that. I suggest you do a little outside reading. It could be dangerous though, it might broaden your horizons.

the problem is that the preventative care is not cheaper.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229356/preventive-care-myth/michael-fumento
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/29/us-preventive-economics-idUSBRE90S05M20130129

It looks like the personnel necessary for safety and immediate response are still on the job.

Shutdown furloughs about to hit nuclear safety agency

The 300 essential personnel who would stay on include about 150 so-called "resident inspectors." They serve as the NRC's eyes and ears at nuclear plants. They also include employees who support emergency response, investigators, a skeleton management team, the five NRC commissioners and a few commission staff members, the NRC said.

The retained group would also include employees who support emergency response, investigators, a skeleton management team, the five NRC commissioners and a few commission staff members, the NRC said.

Approximately 83% of government employees are still at work, so why is the NRC being hit so hard?

I think there is still an interesting question of how much of this is "shutdown theater" to squeeze the public as has been occurring with the Park Service. Although there has been an issue with it in the past, the current administration seems to have kicked it up a level.

It looks like the personnel necessary for safety and immediate response are still on the job.

Shutdown furloughs about to hit nuclear safety agency

The 300 essential personnel who would stay on include about 150 so-called "resident inspectors." They serve as the NRC's eyes and ears at nuclear plants. They also include employees who support emergency response, investigators, a skeleton management team, the five NRC commissioners and a few commission staff members, the NRC said.

The retained group would also include employees who support emergency response, investigators, a skeleton management team, the five NRC commissioners and a few commission staff members, the NRC said.

Approximately 83% of government employees are still at work, so why is the NRC being hit so hard?

I think there is still an interesting question of how much of this is "shutdown theater" to squeeze the public as has been occurring with the Park Service. Although there has been an issue with it in the past, the current administration seems to have kicked it up a level.

Do you have a citation for any study that is not an obvious partisan hatchet job?

I can see where this is headed. I've seen it many times. Most likely, anything that disagrees with your point of view will be labeled as a hatchet job.

But you can try this. Lots of facts there.

Even liberal Democrat Claire McCaskill knows the IRS did wrong in targeting conservative groups. It is a scandal. I bet you don't think Fast & Furious is a scandal either.

I was responding to the original post which asked about WMDs. Both chemical weapons and nuclear weapons are WMDs. White phosphorous is not considered a chemical weapon, it is an incendiary weapon, and not a WMD.

Israel -- an Apartheid State?

You seem to have an excess of "political awareness" formed by indoctrination tinged with what is a growing vice on the Left. As I indicated, if the shoe fits....

Is the problem "not getting it" or "forgetting it"? The US has been down this path before under the leadership of Democrats.

When Tip Did It - Tip O’Neill presided over two-thirds of the government shutdowns since 1976

In most states you only get to redraw the district boundaries if your party is in the majority at the state level. So you care in effect complaining that Republicans are winning at the national level because Republicans are winning at the state level.

Besides that, there is no "popular vote" for House elections. Each vote is district by district. Excess votes in one district have no meaning in another. Excess votes in one state have no meaning in another. The Republicans have a majority in the House, period. They haven't lost any non-existent "popular vote."

As to shutdowns, the Republicans are still playing catch up.

When Tip Did It - Tip O’Neill presided over two-thirds of the government shutdowns since 1976

Most shutdowns have resulted in budget concessions.

Democracy would seem to require the input of all involved. Not negotiating would literally be the end run around democracy. Perhaps you meant an end run around what you want?

Calling the republicans terrorist because they are using valid and existing tools of the trade to participate within this republic- and those tools have been used by democrats in the past 40 years as well, is just another symptom of a mindset that doesn't jive with reality.

In the last 40 years, there have been 17 shut downs, Of the 17 shutdowns in, Democrats controlled the House during 15 and had charge of both chambers during eight. Five shutdowns happened when the democrats controlled the house, senate, and presidency. This isn't anything new, it just seems that way because even though G.W Bush was hated, he never got a shutdown (most likely because he never passed an opportunity to spend more).

You can validate those numbers here and here.+

This first link I suspect is a bit sided, but the second is wikipedia and I looked over the edits for the last 3 days only to find wording issues being changed (tonal and grammar)

So please stop with the Rhetoric about terrorist. It is untrue unless you want to call all the democrats who many are still in office terrorist too. This is the problem with government- when party politics come into play, one party does something, it's all puppies and kittens frolicking in a sunny field. When the other does the same things, it is terrorist and evil dead part 99.

Whatever you think of Obamacare, it was passed into law by a majority of both houses and the president's signature, just like the Constitution requires. Now the house R's, instead of trying to repeal the law, are instituting a tyranny of the minority.

Obamacare was passed on a straight party line vote by the Democrats. They had the majority of both houses of Congress at the time, and even then it took all manner of pork bribes to a few, as well as various threats and party discipline, to get it passed by legislative hook or crook. That is a big part of the reason that the law creating Obamacare has had so many screwed up provisions - nobody had time to read it, and they scraped together whatever bill they could get passed with the unusual maneuvers that they resorted to in the face of wide opposition. Now the Republicans have the majority in the House. You can't institute a "tyranny of the minority" if you are the majority party, which the Republicans are. The current Congress isn't bound by the decisions of a previous Congress, they can revisit whatever they choose to. The Democrats are doing it, and so are the Republicans.

Schumer: Democrats Won't Accept a Clean C.R. through 2014
Democrats Chose the Shutdown - And Republicans are within their legal and constitutional rights to act as they have

You're probably forgetting a little history, and a bit of the Constitution.

When Tip Did It - Tip O’Neill presided over two-thirds of the government shutdowns since 1976
Blame the Shutdown on James Madison - Gridlock is a feature, not a bug, of our system of separated powers
The Origins of the Origination Clause - The House’s power of the purse includes spending bills

I expect that you approved of Tip O’Neill's maneuvering.

Whatever you think of Obamacare, it was passed into law by a majority of both houses and the president's signature, just like the Constitution requires. Now the house R's, instead of trying to repeal the law, are instituting a tyranny of the minority.

Obamacare was passed on a straight party line vote by the Democrats. They had the majority of both houses of Congress at the time, and even then it took all manner of pork bribes to a few, as well as various threats and party discipline, to get it passed by legislative hook or crook. That is a big part of the reason that the law creating Obamacare has had so many screwed up provisions - nobody had time to read it, and they scraped together whatever bill they could get passed with the unusual maneuvers that they resorted to in the face of wide opposition. Now the Republicans have the majority in the House. You can't institute a "tyranny of the minority" if you are the majority party, which the Republicans are. The current Congress isn't bound by the decisions of a previous Congress, they can revisit whatever they choose to. The Democrats are doing it, and so are the Republicans.

Schumer: Democrats Won't Accept a Clean C.R. through 2014
Democrats Chose the Shutdown - And Republicans are within their legal and constitutional rights to act as they have

You're probably forgetting a little history, and a bit of the Constitution.

When Tip Did It - Tip O’Neill presided over two-thirds of the government shutdowns since 1976
Blame the Shutdown on James Madison - Gridlock is a feature, not a bug, of our system of separated powers
The Origins of the Origination Clause - The House’s power of the purse includes spending bills

I expect that you approved of Tip O’Neill's maneuvering.

Whatever you think of Obamacare, it was passed into law by a majority of both houses and the president's signature, just like the Constitution requires. Now the house R's, instead of trying to repeal the law, are instituting a tyranny of the minority.

Obamacare was passed on a straight party line vote by the Democrats. They had the majority of both houses of Congress at the time, and even then it took all manner of pork bribes to a few, as well as various threats and party discipline, to get it passed by legislative hook or crook. That is a big part of the reason that the law creating Obamacare has had so many screwed up provisions - nobody had time to read it, and they scraped together whatever bill they could get passed with the unusual maneuvers that they resorted to in the face of wide opposition. Now the Republicans have the majority in the House. You can't institute a "tyranny of the minority" if you are the majority party, which the Republicans are. The current Congress isn't bound by the decisions of a previous Congress, they can revisit whatever they choose to. The Democrats are doing it, and so are the Republicans.

Schumer: Democrats Won't Accept a Clean C.R. through 2014
Democrats Chose the Shutdown - And Republicans are within their legal and constitutional rights to act as they have

You're probably forgetting a little history, and a bit of the Constitution.

When Tip Did It - Tip O’Neill presided over two-thirds of the government shutdowns since 1976
Blame the Shutdown on James Madison - Gridlock is a feature, not a bug, of our system of separated powers
The Origins of the Origination Clause - The House’s power of the purse includes spending bills

I expect that you approved of Tip O’Neill's maneuvering.

Whatever you think of Obamacare, it was passed into law by a majority of both houses and the president's signature, just like the Constitution requires. Now the house R's, instead of trying to repeal the law, are instituting a tyranny of the minority.

Obamacare was passed on a straight party line vote by the Democrats. They had the majority of both houses of Congress at the time, and even then it took all manner of pork bribes to a few, as well as various threats and party discipline, to get it passed by legislative hook or crook. That is a big part of the reason that the law creating Obamacare has had so many screwed up provisions - nobody had time to read it, and they scraped together whatever bill they could get passed with the unusual maneuvers that they resorted to in the face of wide opposition. Now the Republicans have the majority in the House. You can't institute a "tyranny of the minority" if you are the majority party, which the Republicans are. The current Congress isn't bound by the decisions of a previous Congress, they can revisit whatever they choose to. The Democrats are doing it, and so are the Republicans.

Schumer: Democrats Won't Accept a Clean C.R. through 2014
Democrats Chose the Shutdown - And Republicans are within their legal and constitutional rights to act as they have

You're probably forgetting a little history, and a bit of the Constitution.

When Tip Did It - Tip O’Neill presided over two-thirds of the government shutdowns since 1976
Blame the Shutdown on James Madison - Gridlock is a feature, not a bug, of our system of separated powers
The Origins of the Origination Clause - The House’s power of the purse includes spending bills

I expect that you approved of Tip O’Neill's maneuvering.

I think you're missing something.

Blame the Shutdown on James Madison - Gridlock is a feature, not a bug, of our system of separated powers.

Happy to reply to you, AC to AC. You should probably learn the actual budget process as you've got it wrong.

A Guide to the federal budget process

You're also mistaken about who owns what in regard to the shutdown. I'm sure you've read plenty of opinion in line with your views, want to try some from another perspective?

Democrats Chose the Shutdown
The Intransigents
Blame the Shutdown on James Madison
The Origins of the Origination Clause
When Tip Did It

Schumer: Democrats Won't Accept a Clean C.R. through 2014
Senior Admin. Official: 'We Are Winning...It Doesn't Really Matter to Us' When Shutdown Ends
Schumer: No Funding for Veterans and NIH 'Because We Have a Tea Party'
Reid: Senate Democrats Won't Fund Programs for Kids with Cancer Until the Entire Government Is Funded

Happy to reply to you, AC to AC. You should probably learn the actual budget process as you've got it wrong.

A Guide to the federal budget process

You're also mistaken about who owns what in regard to the shutdown. I'm sure you've read plenty of opinion in line with your views, want to try some from another perspective?

Democrats Chose the Shutdown
The Intransigents
Blame the Shutdown on James Madison
The Origins of the Origination Clause
When Tip Did It

Schumer: Democrats Won't Accept a Clean C.R. through 2014
Senior Admin. Official: 'We Are Winning...It Doesn't Really Matter to Us' When Shutdown Ends
Schumer: No Funding for Veterans and NIH 'Because We Have a Tea Party'
Reid: Senate Democrats Won't Fund Programs for Kids with Cancer Until the Entire Government Is Funded

Happy to reply to you, AC to AC. You should probably learn the actual budget process as you've got it wrong.

A Guide to the federal budget process

You're also mistaken about who owns what in regard to the shutdown. I'm sure you've read plenty of opinion in line with your views, want to try some from another perspective?

Democrats Chose the Shutdown
The Intransigents
Blame the Shutdown on James Madison
The Origins of the Origination Clause
When Tip Did It

Schumer: Democrats Won't Accept a Clean C.R. through 2014
Senior Admin. Official: 'We Are Winning...It Doesn't Really Matter to Us' When Shutdown Ends
Schumer: No Funding for Veterans and NIH 'Because We Have a Tea Party'
Reid: Senate Democrats Won't Fund Programs for Kids with Cancer Until the Entire Government Is Funded