Slashdot Mirror

If I smack'em one, I would only be charged with assault and battery and NOT auscultating a police officer?

And if they wrongfully broke into my house for a raid and I shot them, I wouldn't be charged for killing a cop?

IRS Commissioner said otherwise. Now, it is possible this is all just incompetence and the commissioner doesn't have a clue about actual e-mail storage (nor does anyone who prepped his talking points for his testimony). But what does that say about the IRS as a whole? Either it's pretty much incompetent all the way through and needs a SERIOUS overhaul top-to-bottom, or it's now doing a CYA move with the tacit approval of the White House.

The same lawmakers should ban airlines (and other transportation providers) from offering "First Class" travel.

Oh, and, certainly, the namesake Fast Lanes — now increasingly reserved for customers of E-ZPass and similar payment systems — should be banned too.

Runaway1956 used the premise "Time and again, when cities and states make gun laws stricter, crime increases. And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime." which is false. In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern.

Citation needed. Google tells me the opposite. First hit, second hit. Of course, these articles focus on gun crime. Even in Australia, the gun bans have decreased gun crime but increased violent crime overall. Do you have any citations that support your claim, or are we all just arguing from emotion?

What business hires employees they don't need? If you lay people off because the minimum wage is raised, who takes over the work those people did?

For many low-skill jobs, machines and technology. Once you raise the minimum wage past the amortized cost of an automated solution (factoring in human-related issues like sick leave, unemployment benefits, lawsuits, etc.), you significantly reduce the incentive to hire the person. This is well understood and recognized outside the sphere of feel-good political promises.

The Koch brothers also donate to the Democrats. A lot.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/d...
http://www.americanthinker.com...

The alternative would likely be an increase in income taxes which would likely be progressive and come directly out of his pocket.

Sorry; no. The 73,954 pages of the Federal Income Tax Code blow that theory to hell. CEOs and other parasitic rich pricks leverage the countless loopholes to avoid the taxes.

But today's body of law is so great that I'm not sure it's possible for a person to read it all within a single lifetime, let alone piece together all of the cross links and understand everything that applies to you.

2,567 hours just to read the US Federal Tax law, which is 120% of a work year if your full time job was to read that Law. And just think of your joy when you find out next year laws are changed (not amended) and grows at a frightening rate. 26,300 pages in 1984, to 54,846 by 2003, to 67,204 in 2007, and 73,954 today. Reference.

Yes, a single tech _will_ replace petroleum because it has to. Right now, there seems to be exactly two ways to convert potential energy into kenetic energy that can power a vehicle down a road and they are burning something or magnetism, as in electric motors. Electricity will be the single tech that replaces petroleum for everything except possibly flight at jet-power speeds. We don't know how to do that with magnetism yet, I think.

Offset for low income people? Where's that supposed to come from? You one of those guys that thinks the rich can provide all $$$ to run everything? Hint: They're not THAT rich:

http://townhall.com/columnists...

They just don't have enough money to lift us all out of our miseries.

The right answer is to keep drilling, only faster, and keep everyone living well so those of us that may be capable of finding an answer are not occupying all their time trying to figure out how to live on what's left after the gov't steals their money with some nonsense like a carbon tax.

I don't have time to do a lot of research, but I'll give you an opportunity to read this: http://townhall.com/columnists...

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.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2013/10/21/obamacare-call-center-down-as-president-encourages-phone-registration-n1728960

The toll free number was also down a lot of time.

I think it is quite likely that people of your insight will ultimately succeed in building a hell on earth while enjoying the trip... until they arrive at the destination. Just saying....

Six inconvenient truths about the U.S. and slavery

3 alternate links. Take your pick:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell120313.php3

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2013/12/03/a-challenge-to-our-beliefs-n1756023/page/full

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/120213-681322-blacks-working-class-whites-were-similar-before.htm?p=full

No, he is probably the DC mayor who questioned Obamacare. Lying about it and rolling out a failure of a web site is ok, questioning it is unacceptable.
story

Or maybe he used to work for the ATF and told the media about fast and furious.
story

I could tell you about the NSA whistleblower, but I'm sure you know about him already.

The interesting thing is all these events no one was fired for wrongdoing, just for pointing it out. Whitehouse whistleblower protections indeed.

No, progressive is used in the same way in the US, for pretty much the same political spectrum. The missing piece of the puzzle for you is that fascism was once understood as a progressive movement until political and practical considerations forced a demarcation.

You may find these items interesting even if much of the discussion is framed in an American context.

What Is a Progressive
A Nicer Form of Tyranny
Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt

It's unfixable in a politically acceptable way for the Democrats and the Obama administration.

You know, Ann Coulter has told us that this was intentional. That the Democrats' plan is to make it unworkable and then replace the whole thing with Single Payer as a workable solution.

that's just crazy.

'Why does the White House need a private-sector "tech surge" to repair its wretched Obamacare website failures? Weren't all of the president's myriad IT czars and their underlings supposed to ensure that taxpayers got the most effective, innovative, cutting-edge and secure technology for their money? '

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/10/25/what-happened-to-all-of-obamas-technology-czars-n1731775/page/full

It's unfixable in a politically acceptable way for the Democrats and the Obama administration.

You know, Ann Coulter has told us that this was intentional. That the Democrats' plan is to make it unworkable and then replace the whole thing with Single Payer as a workable solution.

Quite correct.

Luby's massacre

In response to the massacre,[21] the Texas Legislature in 1995 passed a shall-issue gun law, which requires that all qualifying applicants be issued a Concealed Handgun License (the state's required permit to carry concealed weapons), removing the personal discretion of the issuing authority to deny such licenses. To qualify for a license, one must be free-and-clear of crimes, attend a minimum 10-hour class taught by a state-certified instructor, pass a 50-question test, show proficiency in a 50-round shooting test, and pass two background tests, one shallow and one deep. The license costs $140 for a four year license; in addition applicants must pay $10 for fingerprinting as well as instructor costs which vary.

And so: Woman with Concealed Carry Permit Stops 6 Robbers in Houston

I was able to register fairly early (around the 3rd) - when the site was still undergoing the initial onslaught of gawkers....

Wow, this is kind of like seeing an endangered species or something.

Only Five Iowans Have Signed Up on Obamacare Exchange - 10 Oct 2013
Hawaii Relaunching Obamacare Exchange After Not Selling Any Health Insurance Due To Software Problems - October 10, 2013
Good news: Maryland has successfully enrolled 326 people in ObamaCare - October 7, 2013

Just 51,000 Americans Have Enrolled in Federal Obamacare Exchanges? - Oct 11, 2013

Double Down: Obamacare Will Increase Avg. Individual-Market Insurance Premiums By 99% For Men, 62% For Women

The "liberals" didn't shut down the government.

Actually, they did. The (conservative) House passed a budget; the (liberal) Senate didn't. The (liberal) President stated he wouldn't sign it.

As Thomas Sowell put it:

Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.

Guess what? The House gets to make the budget. If the Senate doesn't like it, political negotiations aside, they can't even submit a bill of their own to start the process. And the President, of course, certainly can't.

From the article at the first link:

... Last week, the ACLU was in federal court, arguing that a Miami-Dade County school board broke the law by removing from its school libraries a book entitled Vamos a Cuba (Let’s Visit Cuba), which offers a strangely luminous view of life in Castro’s island “paradise.” A federal judge has already ruled that the book be returned to the shelves until the case can play out in court.

The school board’s beef isn’t with what is on the pages, but with what isn’t. Parents filed complaints after finding the book to be devoid of any mention of the oppressive regime instituted by Fidel Castro nearly 50 years ago. Instead, its pages are filled with breezy commentaries on how Cubans enjoy chicken with rice (under the country’s subsidized ration plan, the average Cuban is allotted a whopping 8 ounces per month) and boating as a leisure activity (“boating” being a rather ironic term for the fragile, homemade rafts so many launch out onto the ocean, in desperate bids to escape the regime).

The book’s cover, available in both English and Spanish versions, is adorned with beaming children dressed in the uniform of the Pioneers, the Communist youth organization that Cuban children are required to join. They look like Cuban Bobbsey Twins.

Obviously, the Miami children targeted for this book have never been told that questioning the Cuban government is likely to lead to imprisonment that milk is far too expensive for most on the island to purchase that access to everyday activities like surfing the Internet is not only severely limited, but closely monitored by the government for any shred of dissent against Castro and his cronies.

Absent from the pages of Vamos a Cuba is any mention of the ruthless 20-year prison sentences levied on Cuban poets and journalists and priests who failed to fawn over their fearless leader. Instead, the book depicts Cubans as living as freely as they please.

I think that is a more substantial concern that you let on.

I'm not even going to follow the second link.

I think I can understand why you might find it disagreeable.

The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage

Other documents released in the 1990s by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin show the American Communist Party was under the Moscow’s direct control until 1989.

“These guys were advocating a regime that arguably was the biggest mass murderer in all of human history,” Kengor said. “Where is the moral authority in that?”

Kengor told The Daily Caller he found numerous other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives that also show a close relationship between the Communist Party and the ACLU.

These documents corroborate rumors that have circulated about the ACLU’s founders and early leaders dating back to the 1920s.

The ACLU would not comment on Kengor’s research, but the ACLU’s official history describes its founders as a “small group of idealists” who began the organization amid the “Palmer Raids” of late 1919 and early 1920 against “so-called radicals”.

“The problem here is what is being left out of the narrative,” Kengor said. “Palmer, who was attorney general to Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive’s progressive, understood, as did the Wilson administration, that many of these radicals were American communists who were literally devoted to the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a ‘Soviet-American republic.’

“American communists actually stated such things in their proclamations, documents, and fliers.”

A better link for the first link: The ACLU Never Forgets Its Pro-Communist Roots

Oh no, no, no. The ACLU does not protect the rights of everyone. They are both selective and can be highly doctrinaire about whose rights they protect. They work towards a particular vision of society and only protect "everyone's" rights when it fits with their views.

The ACLU Never Forgets Its Pro-Communist Roots
The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage

linkie

if you dig in, you can find lots of small places where costs could easily be cut, and together they add up to big inefficiencies.

How about this tiny litte place where costs can be cut: Coach Salaries Or, how about professor salaries.

The real reason it costs so much is because of fiddling by the government and professor unions. Loans, subsidies, mandated maximum working hours by professors, and a host of other, "minor" things as you call them. Not only that, but the colleges themselves are more than willing to raise the barrier for entry into the college market through supposed "accreditation" rules, stiffling competition from leaner/more efficient colleges that might spring up.

And some more info on the subject, from Thomas Sowell here.

Oh please spare your bleeding heart bullshit. At a time when we needed a leader we got a dumbfuck who was inept at everything:

1) There was an Embargo in 1973 and in 1977. The difference between those two, we had better leadership in the WH in 1973 than in 1977. Great leaders work around problems, motivate their constituents and forge ahead. Carter layed there like a bowl of jello. He couldn't forge alliances and he didn't reach out to try and bridge the gaps. Yes there's hate in the Middle East, there was hate before so I can't blame him for that and instead of in 1977 he waited till 1979 to promote domestic production by deregulation of oil prices. Something the Industry had been clamoring for since 1973. At least he learned from his first mistake.

2) Interest rates were rampant, that's failed economic policies and the president sets the agenda. He had a willing congress who'd pass is legislative agenda, but he didn't lead. Inaction in this case led to the biggest drop in our standard of living

3) His foreign policy failings led to the invasion of Afghanistan because the Soviets saw an opportunity with the turmoil in Iran and the US helpless to stop them. The US couldn't build a coalition and the only response we had "boycott the olympics" Who didn't go? Oh yeah I think it was just us a handful of nations. Hell he even sent Mohammad Ali to convince African Nations to boycott the games. Even the British went to the games! That was his diplomacy; what a fucking joke.

4) The US had interests in Iran, we f*d up with the CIA and by helping the British but in for a penny in for a pound and we abandoned our allies at their time of need and got a radical regime instead. The Shaw was horrible and he did horrible things to his people but the way we just sat there and said "Meh" gave all of our other allies in the world a chance to think and say "They didn't step in to help? What happens if I'm in trouble?" Supporting Dictators and repressive regimes is bad but you also don't turn your back on friends. I can't blame him for what happened in Iran but I can blame every president since for not even trying to heal that wound.

5) Give him credit for the Camp David Accords, that was good work but he ignored everything else and tried to tell Americans out of work, with prices skyrocketing that he was good leader.

The country was poorer and still is because of his tenure in office. Even his "malaise" speech showed that he was a defeatist and not a leader.

He's done good work since then but you still can't paint over the fact that he was a bumbling idiot. History may paint a rosier picture of him but living with him as our president was a bad bad time. People were even longing for Gerald Ford, he was so bad. His end approval rating was in the low 34%. Put that into perspective: Even the people who voted for him thought he sucked, Democrats, Independents and Republicans after 4 years. He does share that with Dubya but more people in Dubya's case were against him vs. undecided. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/final_approval.php but it took 8 years to get that kind of coverage.. So, twice as bad as Dubya? Maybe...

Obama is on his way there now... just watch.

[quote]
The Presidential Leadership Index fell to 43.2 from 48.9 a month earlier. The 11.7% slide was the worst since Obama took office. For the fourth straight month, the reading stood below 50, signaling disapproval.
[/quote]

And he's not even done with his first year of his second term. Let's all give him a round of applause folks!

Politifact: Is the penalty less than the cost of insurance? TRUE
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jan/24/ron-desantis/desantis-says-obamacare-tax-cheaper-insurance/

CBO estimates that 6 million people will pay penalty rather than buy insurance in 2014; also, IRS says the cheapest insurance for a family under the ACA will be $20,000. (I think the CBO estimates will prove to be very low. $20K is more than the pre-ACA average cost of insurance for a family.)
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/03/05/six-million-to-pay-obamacare-penatly-n1526185

Columnist spells out the details on why the penalty is cheaper than insurance and says he already cancelled his insurance. (He thinks this implies that the ACA will "crash" and that the architects of the ACA are worried. I think this is an intended feature, paving the road for single payer.)
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/01/25/Politifact-Ignores-Primary-Reason-Obama-Might-Crash

Investors Business Daily asks "will only suckers buy insurance under the ACA?" and suggests insurance companies are headed for a "death spiral" (words in original).
http://news.investors.com/021913-644948-will-only-suckers-buy-obamacare-coverage.htm?p=full

He was using a hypothetical (meaning stop being pedantic) that few people wouldnt give up a fraction of their pay in the actual case it would help

I don't sense pedantry in the GP. More like pointing out a false analogy. The reason people wouldn't give up extra tax money to politicians isn't because they don't want to help or because they don't want change -- it's because they don't trust Congress (which has had ridiculously low approval ratings for years) to spend the money in any way that would actually help.

Now, if they thought giving up 1% of their pay would actually make a positive difference in the world, heck yeah, a lot of people would pay up, particularly conservatives. Lots of people, especially lots of Christian conservatives, practice tithing, i.e., giving up 10% of their income to help the church or sometimes other charitable causes. Conservatives, on average, give about 30% more than liberals, even though, on average conservatives households have a lower salary (contrary to popular belief). In fact, the working poor tend to give the most, percentage-wise.

I'm not a conservative, but I bring this up not only because of the strong tradition among many conservatives of giving a large portion of one's salary to worthy causes, but also because these same conservatives are more likely to participate in this giving action to various organizations that might make a difference, rather than simply raising taxes on everyone (as proposed in this thread).

Just because people wouldn't want their taxes raised by 1% doesn't mean that many people wouldn't shell out a lot of their cash if it could actually make a difference -- the difficulty is often creating a way for people to get that money to people or causes they actually believe in and are confident will make a difference.

Well it was really only ever truly free for people who were not of African descent. If your ancestors were from Africa (in the recent past) then the US had no freedom at all.

That is false. Maybe you heard that the US used to be split into states with slavery and states without slavery? It led to a big deal called the Civil War? And slaves could certainly be freed, even in slave states. And there were white slaves as well.

Six inconvenient truths about the U.S. and slavery

Silly, paranoid people! Why, it's like they believe they live in a country where:

• The IRS routinely conducts spite audits of the President's enemies.
• Or sicks the FBI, ATF and OSHA on them as well.
• Where the DOJ can seize the phone records of reporters without a warrant.
• Or where the DOJ illegally seizing the health records of 10 million Americans.
• Or where the government gave weapons to Mexican drug lords in order to make the case for gun control.
• Or where a leading Democrat publically stated she wanted to confiscated the guns of all Americans.

Silly, paranoid gun owners!

Thank God we live in America rather than that paranoid, nightmarish, Orwellian police state!

This wasn't spying between two different sides of one company. This was someone in the Bloomberg corporation who was able to spy on people in Goldman Sachs corporation - two different companies. It isn't clear that you could firewall this as it seems to be covert functionality built into the software.

Keep in mind that this is the company started by the current mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. That is the same Mayor Bloomberg that tried to limit the size of sodas in New York City to 16 oz., and started the scandal ridden "Mayors against Guns."

Although John Stewart said this about the soda ban, I'm thinking it might have wider application.

"combines the draconian government overreach people love with the probable lack of results they expect." -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Gun ownership among everyone in the U.K. is low. It was so low in WWII that ``The American Committee for defense of British Homes has organized to collect gifts of pistols, rifles, revolvers, shotguns (and binoculars) from American civilians who wish to answer the call and aid in defense of British homes'':

http://twinbuttebunch.org/index.php?fuseaction=misc.sendguns

I'm given to understand that my grandfather sent over a Remington No. 4 which an uncle of mine had cut down to a pistol....

This article indicates a dramatic uptick in gun crime (89%) in the U.K. though:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html

FWIW, I can't think of a single police force in the U.S. where regular police officers on patrol carry submachine guns.

Another article:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/11/gun-crime-soars-in-england-where-guns-are-banned-n1464528

An interesting statistic is that a home is burglarized when occupied ~13% of the time in the U.S., while that number is 47% in the U.K. --- my father worked as a prison guard, and a recurring theme among people serving time for robbery was the importance of ``casing the joint'' because one didn't want to risk confronting an armed home-owner.

and here's an article which argues about statistical reporting:
http://www.theendrun.com/larry-pratt-british-gun-crime-stats-a-sham

and here're some hard numbers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

A government strong enough to protect you from everything, is strong enough to take everything from you.

William

I'm not an american, but tell me what the hell the difference between whoever is teaching your children now vs the same person + a gun. Probably the best bet would be a thumbprint desk safe for it, not actually carrying it on their person but you get the idea.

Its not really a outlaw fantasy or anything, its just facts. Crime in the U.K. involving guns actually increased after their gun ban.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/11/gun-crime-soars-in-england-where-guns-are-banned-n1464528

You should inform yourself instead of making knee-jerk emotional reactionary decisions.

Just this week, Biden, told us that just slapping women is not that bad of a thing. Lets add to that all the personal attacks against Palin and her kids and then reexamine your statement about which party hates women.

No, requireing a voter to identify themselves is always racist and a way to conduct voter suppression. Since all the cardinals know each other and you have to be known in order to vote it is OBVIOUSLY the method used to prevent the minority from voting, not to give them an equal vote.
I read it here what I'm told is a relyable source according to /. readers.

Of course I'm a little confused by facts though. Like you said it gives the minority an equal vote and I can't find an intelectually honest argument against that. I also have this story where a black woman voted 6 times last year where voter id doesn't exist, something the Mother Jones article said never actually happens or could happen.

But, in order to not be called a racist/bigot and tea party moron, I'll have to ignore the facts and keep with the statement that voter id continues to suppress the black vote and the Catholic church should be ashamed for suppressing the votes of minorities in this situation the way they are. After all its not about facts anymore in this world, its all about not being called names by the left as they seem to have lost this debate with facts but still can rely on their name calling.

• It was a term used by Sarah Palin

  one "news source"

  another

  and another

I think the whole "Death Panel" thing was just a Republican thing to scare people about Obamacare, as opposed to the sensible policy of only providing good health care to those who can afford it.

Also, just for the record, there are no Death Panels in the UK. No, it's called the Ministry of Death! ;)

Not really. We have a dog's breakfast of programs that provide food subsidies, housing subsidies, subsidies for mothers with children they can't support, free cell phones, unemployment benefits, medical subsides, and disability subsidies.

The system is so crazy that we have parents actually encouraging their kids to BE crazy so they can receive more money.

But by gaming the system a person can do pretty well. A single mother with two kids making $29,000/year receives net income and benefits of over $57,000. Earning more income actually results in a net decrease in total income+benefits -- this is the "welfare cliff".

The NRA puts out a safety manual? Why, I was just told the NRA=KKK! Are you sure it's not a manual on how to kill black or brown people?

Actually, Michael Medved has gone after Amtrak quite a bit lately: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/michaelmedved/2012/10/29/billions_for_burgers . I don't know about the others -- I prefer to listen to Medved.

Obama wants the top tax bracket to go up 3%. That's it. It was higher under Reagan.

Actually, President Obama wants the top rate to go from 35% to 39.6% (4.6%). There is also likely a double hit there as many states index their taxes to Federal taxes, so an increase in Federal taxes results in an increase in state taxes. He also wants to increase the capital gains tax by 33%, from 15% to 20%. And this isn't all,:

Factbox: Stark differences in Ryan, Romney, Obama tax plans

- Personal income taxes: Obama would keep tax rates the same for families making less than $250,000 annually. For families earning more than that, he would raise the top two tax brackets to 36 percent and 39.6 percent. The highest tax rates have been 33 percent and 35 percent for the last 11 years.

Obama in February offered a long list of corporate tax breaks he wants to end, ranging from accelerated depreciation and inventory accounting to interest on overseas profits and various tax provisions benefiting oil and gas companies. . . .

- Investment income: Obama wants to raise the tax rate on dividends to match the ordinary income tax rate for the two highest income brackets. He would boost capital gains taxes from 15 percent to 20 percent for that group.

Private equity and other financiers would see a portion of their compensation, known as "carried interest," taxed as ordinary income, a change from the 15 percent rate they pay now.

- Alternative minimum tax: Obama has endorsed the "Buffett rule," named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett. It would require households making more than $1 million a year to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.

- Estate tax: Obama backs restoring the 45 percent estate tax level after a $3.5 million exemption imposed on assets passed to heirs. The current estate tax level is a 35 percent tax after the first $5 million.

- Corporate tax rates: The president would lower the top corporate rate to 28 percent from 35 percent. A corporation's foreign profits would be subject to an unspecified minimum tax rate. Businesses would get a 20-percent income tax credit to move operations into the United States while tax deductions for shifting operations abroad would be dropped.

There would be other consequences in a newly reelected President Obama as well.

550 goddamn votes in Florida and you'd see what difference not electing Bush the Lesser would have made, kemosabe.

Would we? Here are a couple of views:

The History of the U.S. – If Al Gore Became President
If Al Gore Had Won in 2000

Here are a few of mine:

Al Qaida was attacking United States embassies and the Cole under the Clinton administration.
It seems pretty certain that 9/11 would still have happened.
If 9/11 happens, it's pretty certain a global war against Al Qaida follows, and very likely war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Invasion? Probably.

Economic crashes? Of course. The internet-centric business meltdown is virtually certain to have occurred, and the housing bubble not much less so. The internet-centric business meltdown was the result of trends started in the Clinton administration. The actual wrong-doing for Enron occurred under the Clinton administration. The housing bubble was a result of policies with broad bi-partisan support.

Iraq? That is more of a wildcard. The US policy calling for regime change in Iraq was set under the Clinton administration. It is virtually certain that there would have been conflicts with Iraq, including armed action. Would it have lead to invasion and occupation of Iraq? Somewhere along the line of less likely to no. There almost certainly would have been bombings though, probably a lot more of them to compensate for the lack of ground forces. Saddams army in 2003 was strong enough to hold Iraq against rebellion that wasn't aided externally. It seems pretty certain that either Saddam or one of his sons would still be in power. They might even have thrown off sanctions due to the "Oil for Food" program bribes and the loss of interest in the world community in containing him. Saddam with no sanctions means a Saddam rearming and continuing to support terrorism (no, not Al Qaida). He might ever do it with a vengence. Would Iraqis be better off? Very unlikely. Saddam used the food money to build palaces and buy weapons while the infrastructure crumbled, and people perished. That is from simple neglect. Saddam's government filled Iraq with large numbers of mass graves. Had Saddam's regime not been overthrown, the killing would have continued.

You may recall that Saddam had to restrain his sons, they were crueler than he was.

How Bad Was Saddam’s Son?

. . . Latif’s first lesson was to learn how to not react in disgust or become sick at Hussein regime cruelty. He was taken to a viewing room holding thousands of videos of torture sessions.

Saddam’s son had learned the same way. “Uday told me whenever he seemed weak or squeamish as a child his father would beat him with an iron bar and then force him to watch videos of prisoners being tortured.”

It worked. “Just wait until I become president,” Uday promised, “I’ll be crueler than my father ever was. You mark my words. You’ll yearn for the days of Saddam
Hussein.”

Now, read this carefully. If there is no US invasion of Iraq, there is not the same opportunity for an Al Qaida supported and led insurgency in Iraq that drew Al Qaida members from around the world to Iraq. That movement generated intelligence and provided opport

When Poppa Bush lost to Clinton because of Perot being the election, the rules were changed. At that point, the republicans pushed through rules that pretty much prevented 3rd parties. Sadly, the dems went along with it. Now, that our system really is down to 2 parties, you can see the republicans pushing for 1 party rule. A good example is Chuck Norris claiming that it is unpatriotic to vote for ANYTHING except a republican. In fact, even if the guy was Hitler or Stalin, it appears that he would be OK with it so long as he has an R after it. At this point, America is in serious need of major re-working.

**NEWSFLASH**

Countries run by anti-religious bigots commit all manner of evil acts and promote despicable hatred.

More news at 11 !!

And now for news INSIDE the USA . . .

Who gives to charity?

19,187 separate attacks? Can we get a citation for this? Or some methodology?

4.75 attacks per day in the world is a lot? Hardly.

You'll need to follow up on this yourself, but just to get you started.. . . .

If memory serves me, there are at least 20 countries experiencing either an Islamist insurgency and/or terrorism include: India, Iraq, Afghanistan, Thailand, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Yemen, and others.

577 glorious pages of incidents at Iraq Body Count (The observant among you will notice that attacks against Iraqis haven't stopped despite the US pullout, so no, the war didn't end.

Taliban Attacks 100 Times per Day

Afghanistan: Update. Daily reporting from Afghanistan indicates the Taliban have sustained at least 100 attacks and security incidents per day since the start of the spring offensive. That is a high number for a group supposedly on the ropes.

From 2010 - Afghanistan: 57 Insurgent Attacks a Day (the insufferable)

Negotiations are certain to be part of the mix in any attempt to resolve the crisis. The military situation is getting worse. There were 400 attacks in the past week in Afghanistan, 60 percent of them by roadside bomb There were over 1,000 roadside bomb attacks in April 2010, twice as many as in April 2009.

This number of attacks per day, some 57, about 34 of them roadside bombs, is breathtaking. That level of violence is what characterized Iraq in March, 2005, before the Sunni-Shiite civil war. The year 2005 was a bloody year in Iraq, and nobody but then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld doubted we were mired in a vicious guerrilla war.

That is only two countries out of the many marked by Islamist violence. What about Thailand?

Terrorism in South Thailand

Looking at the Thai news, one can notice that almost every day people are being killed or injured due to terrorist attacks in South Thailand. Federal Foreign Offices around the world warn tourists to visit these areas because of mortal danger

That doesn't include Iran's attempts to kill Israeli diplomats in Thailand, as they have in various other nations in the last several months.

Pity the Yezhidi.
The Vanishing Yezidi of Iraq

The worst incident occurred on August 14, 2007, when four coordinated truck bombs exploded in two Yezidi villages, killing at least 500 people and wounding more than 1,500. It was the second deadliest terrorist attack in world history after 9/11.

Of course there are plenty more mass casualty attacks. I'll leave that as an exercise for you. You could check out the Bali bombing, the 7/7 bombing, the Madrid bombing, plenty of markets being bombed in Iraq.

The US has been fortunate in that it has been able to foil many attempts by would-be Jihadis, but sadly not all, including the "workplace violence" of Major Hasan at Fort Hood (13 dead, 31 wounded). (May Justice be done upon him.)

Just a few recent reports from the US:
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012

Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-green-tech-program-that-backed-solyndra-struggles-to-create-jobs/2011/09/07/gIQA9Zs3SK_story.html

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/12/07/cost-benefit-analysis-of-jobs-stimulus/

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/jeffreeves/2011/09/03/cbo_cost_per_job_between_$196,750_and_$562,000

http://investinginkids.net/2011/08/24/cost-effective-short-term-job-creation-policies/

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/why-government-cant-create-jobs/

In other words, there is plenty of information out there that clearly shows how inefficient government is at creating jobs. Governments can't help people get jobs, it only gets in the way of people getting jobs. Want to create jobs, let businesses hire people without regulatory red tape and high costs (taxes).

We may disagree with you about social issues and government assistance, but you'd better believe we're your brothers in fucking arms when it comes to the overreach of Hollywood and big government censorship.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2012/01/18/republicans_backing_off_internet_piracy_acts
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/15-republicans-you-can-thank-for-bailing-on-sopap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_Congresspersons_who_support_or_oppose_SOPA/PIPA

Seems to me if everyone raises their hands on camera, it would be much more trustworthy than "lol.. whoops - we just found 7000 votes on *insert_media_here* that got misplaced. We'll be sure to add those to the recount"*

Sure, pics can be doctored up too but it's a bit harder to do when there are multiple copies. Especially if anyone/everyone observing is able to take a picture.

[*] - http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2011/04/07/whoa_prosser_gains_7,381_votes_after_computer_error_is_fixed

Wrong on both counts.

First, our military budget is close to $650 billion, not 1.2T, and we can't afford it either. We have a 1.5T DEFICIT. If we take that supposed $1.2T you state from the military, our only real course of action would be to use it to reduce the deficit. We'd still have $200B deficit left over, and still no money to apply to the supposed crisis of global warming.

Second,. there juist isn't that much money in "the rich" as you suppose. As Walter E. Williams shows here:

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2011/04/13/eat_the_rich/page/full/

"the rich" are not the bottomless pit of money that you suppose them to be. This shows that taing absolutely ALL their wealth, earnings, and adding in coroporate profits of $400B annually, we STILL couldn't balance the budget with all the trillions we're spending. We have no choice but to stop the spending, and adding some trillions of dollars devoted to global warming is not the way to stop the spending.