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Good luck with that. Even if Congress goes to the trouble of answering it, much of the media, including social media, will likely down play it if it might reflect badly on the current administration.

Heard anything about this one?

IRS sued for improperly seizing the medical records of 10 million Americans

It is just an adder to the growing pile.

The IRS Scandal, Day 8
Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims
Congressman Paul Ryan on Benghazi, IRS, and DOJ Snooping the House: “Of course I’m troubled. Are you kidding?”

One of the interesting controversies regarding the MX missile was the plans for basing. One of the proposals was called "dense pack." The idea was that if you put a bunch of missile silos close to each other, attacking one silo with a nuclear warhead would result in so much turbulence, blast, and local radiation that if more warheads were arriving at the same time, they would be battered by the effects of the previously exploding nuclear warhead and be ineffective in attacking the silo they were targeted at. (No, I'm not kidding.) You might be seeing the political equivalent of that right now. There are so many scandals coming out of so many agencies, they compete for attention, confuse the public, allow the media to more or less squeeze them out, and attenuate the political damage. This could be one of those, "They are incompetent, insane, or brilliant" moments. I don't like much of any of what has been revealed, but I wouldn't place a bet on it having any lasting impact on the administration. Most of the media, minus AP, seems indifferent to being spied on, and you would expect that to rouse them if nothing else would. Apparently not.

Well then, when you decide to look at the news you'll see that the benghazi talking points underwent 12 revisions including scrubbing all terrorist references. And that democrats have been leaning heavily on the press to try and get them to discredit the whistleblowers.

Yeah, all coming down to "it's a scandal, and a bad enough one that they're in CYA mode."

Whom do you think the Soviet and Chinese communists use? You may recall that they were both part of a club that treated Christians poorly? China still is.

... though their 'not-launching-the-missiles' capabilities might be a problem.

I think Christians understand that the end of the world is in God's hands, not man's. Trying to start it themselves would seem to be a sin.

“But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. -- Mark 13:32

This is in contrast to the Iranian branch of Shia Islam (the Iraqi branch is distinct) where many believe they can cause enough chaos in the world to bring the return of the Hidden Imam.

'Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader
Ahmadinejad: Chávez Will Rise Again with Jesus and the Hidden Imam

I get the impression you might be a little fixated.

No, they aren't far right wing. And if you can't tell the difference between the neo-Nazi Stormfront and the Daily Beast, you need a depot level recalibration of your political sensibilities - something is fundamentally broken, malfunctioning, or miscalibrated. I understand from the far left the distance between them may seem to vanish, but it is a trick of perspective, they aren't even close... at all.

I'll get you started: In lieu of anything else, think of the difference between the Greens and Pol Pot's regime and apply. (And I think this is a generous narrowing of the difference.)

One other thing you might keep in mind: In American politics, the right did something the left has never been willing to do - drive out the dangerous fringe. Actual Nazis and neo-Nazis (including Stormfront), generally fringe nut cases in the United States in the last 75 years*, have not been, and are not part of the right in America. They are an offshoot of progressive & socialist politics. (Hence the Socialist in National Socialist.) Who Is 'Fascist'?

You might benefit from occasionally indulging in material from a viewpoint that challenges your views from a center-right perspective, and no, that doesn't include EDL or Stormfront. Since you comment regularly on American politics, some examples might include: National Review, The Weekly Standard, Commentary. You might try some reading on the first link in the previous post as well.

*Overlooking the regrettable and long gone German American Bund organization that had a hold in the German-American immigrant community for a time.

Obama Treasury dude Jack Lew knows where to hide his cash

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz knows where to hide hers

Obama's pal and advisor Valerie Jarrett seems to like Bermuda for her cash

Nancy Pelosi Seems to like hiding her money in asia (see: Matthews International Capital Management LLC)

And then Obama himself seems to like parking cash in the Cayman Islands

The truth is that the political class lives by a very different set of rules than the rest of us and if you think Democrats are any more "for the people" than Republicans then you're just another "useful idiot". Many of the richest politicians in the US who hide cash offshore to avoid taxes are Democrats.... and it's worse when they do it because they are being hypocrites; Republicans at least call for everybody to have lower, flatter taxes...... but Democrats are always trying to fool the public into liking them by yelling "Tax the Rich!" while quietly hiding their personal fortunes from those very taxes they endorsed.

Huh?

The ONLY concession I'm willing to make, is to tax net profit, rather than gross profit. But, I want a damned strict accounting of those gross and net profits. Very damned strict.

Net profit is taxed, not gross. If a company makes an investment allowed under the tax code, that takes away from the gross profit margin. Accounting is strict and it has to be because companies that have huge receipts and little or no profit are scrutinized. Fundamentally, the use of off shore cash migrations and segmenting the business into various profit and loss centers is at the heart of the problem. I can have very, very profitable operations in one country and losing interests elsewhere however I can combine all of that to say "I didn't make any money." That's the multi-national play and tax havens like Ireland and the Cayman islands are shelters for these kinds of shenanigans. But then again, our new Treasury Secretary already knows how to play that game. He operated over 100 Investment funds in the Caymans.

One option to fix this is that States are using is to impose more and more franchise taxes, the privilege of operating in a state for example, to find revenue. Most of the time it is based on gross receipts and while I don't agree with that in principle, it may be one of those things that can be used to help balance out this multi-nationals when it comes to selling or operating in a country and not paying any taxes to that country.

No animal larger than a few kilograms and incapable of long sheltered hibernation could survive the Endorian calamity. The air might even have been poisoned and deoxygenated for a few years until simple plant life could return to growth. If so then it is possible that all animal life perished. In any case any ewok on the surface who was not equipped with impressive high-technology survival gear and a nuclear shelter must have died.

For those unfortunate beings not painlessly obliterated by the impact concussions, the initial night of celebration would linger on and on with days of darkness. A chill would fall, the waters would turn to ice and the vegetation would wilt into death or dormancy, depending on species. Provided that radioactivity was insignificant and the air remained modestly breathable (a very generous assumption) the doomed ewoks might survive for days or weeks huddling around bonfires, until they starved.

Every read that about a hundred times and every time I read it just makes me so happy.

The only other thing better than this is this wonderful piece of liberal baiting from the WS

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp?nopager=1

Lucas wants the Empire to stand for evil, so he tells us that the Emperor and Darth Vader have gone over to the Dark Side and dresses them in black.

But look closer. When Palpatine is still a senator, he says, "The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good." At one point he laments that "the bureaucrats are in charge now."

Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. When he mutters, "There is no civility, there is only politics," we see that at heart, he's an esoteric Straussian.

Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. It's a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen.

Also, unlike the divine-right Jedi, the Empire is a meritocracy. The Empire runs academies throughout the galaxy (Han Solo begins his career at an Imperial academy), and those who show promise are promoted, often rapidly. In "The Empire Strikes Back" Captain Piett is quickly promoted to admiral when his predecessor "falls down on the job."

And while it's a small point, the Empire's manners and decorum speak well of it. When Darth Vader is forced to employ bounty hunters to track down Han Solo, he refuses to address them by name. Even Boba Fett, the greatest of all trackers, is referred to icily as "bounty hunter." And yet Fett understands the protocol. When he captures Solo, he calls him "Captain Solo." (Whether this is in deference to Han's former rank in the Imperial starfleet, or simply because Han owns and pilots his own ship, we don't know. I suspect it's the former.)

But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker. After an exhausting fight, Vader is poised to finish Luke off, but he stays his hand. He tries to convert Luke to the Dark Side with this simple plea: "There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. . . . Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." It is here we find the real controlling impulse for the Dark Side and the Empire. The Empire doesn't want slaves or destruction or "evil." It wants order.

None of which is to say that the Empire isn't sometimes brutal. In Episode IV, Imperial stormtroopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle and Grand Moff Tarkin

Google Complies With Government Requests for User Data 88% of the Time

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/google-complies-government-requests-user-data-88-time_697551.html

It would be just as valid to say that the Eurozone has the biggest debt the world has ever seen.

US has about 35% more debt per person then Greece.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/us-person-debt-now-35-percent-higher-greece_660409.html

So yes US of A is in a big heap of trouble. Something need to be done. The fiscal clip was not a joke.
USA really need to get its act together and fix the economy. And that means higher taxes to pay of the
debt.

You realize America is trying to run a first-world state with taxes that are around half of what they are almost anywhere else in the developed world?

Except the most successful / fastest rising countries in the world (ex. Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Luxembourg, etc) have lower gov spending than USA does. USA's corporate tax rate, which chases away the most mobile capital, is nearly the world's highest! Even Canada now ranks higher in overall Economic Freedom!

They can afford more "butter" for their tax dollars, because USA is paying for their "guns". Only a few European countries manage to combine high taxes with a decent standard of living, while coasting on the economic momentum of the past - their so-called "success" is thoroughly debunked.

This is the horrible thing about the current Republicans operate... Break program X, whatever X was going continues to coast on inertia in the short term, they brag about how we obviously didn't need X. Then of course the fallout lands, but by then it's too late, because X is Big Gubbermint Soc'lisms now.

When you get rid of a government program, you free those funds to be spent in the voluntary sector - where consumers actually have a choice, and the product / service providers are actually accountable. When you solve problems through reason and technology rather than through the guns of state, the results can be significantly more substantial and cost-effective.

You could make a conjectural argument that private charity would be insufficient to help the poor, which could justify direct redistribution of income, but not everything else that the government does. In the US, the government currently spends $61,000 per poor family - while they remain in poverty! Get the government middlemen out of the picture, and no poor people would remain!

Well, 30 years of "the wealth will trickle down" are now coming back to haunt us. 30 years of "if we only cut taxes enough we'll be more prosperous" is now coming back to haunt us. 30 years of blind faith in the Invisible Hand are haunting us. Starting two land wars, and then cutting taxes instead of passing a war tax (the first time in American history any administration has been so staggeringly foolish) are coming back to haunt us.

Socialists use the term "trickle down" without really understanding what is being discussed. The diffusional benefits are a non-controversial economic phenomenon, but that's not the point. You don't prevent Peter from robbing Paul because Peter too will be better off in the long run, you prevent it because theft is morally and pragmatically wrong - a system of systematized theft destroys all incentive to be productive in the first place! As brains and capital are no longer imprisoned by borders (unless you're willing to build a new Berlin Wall), they will simply go where they are stolen from the least. Why is this so hard to understand?!

It is the socialists who have blind faith in their policies - except the more cynical ones at the top, who see them as a means to power. The supremacy of free market capitalism is backed by every chapter of the entire econometric history of mankind!

We may not like it, but taxes are the price of civilization.

Civilization is not mo

. . . it can;t come from the Senate, it can't come from the President . . .So can we please drop this bullshit about how it's Harry Reid's fault for not coming up with a budget. The blame falls clearly on the House and thus on Boehner's lap

If we were to dispense with the bullshit, your post would be blank. How is it that you either don't know this, or expect everyone to be so ignorant as to not call you on it? Well, to your credit, you did suck in 3 moderators.

The Federal Budget Process

Once the president lays out his proposal, the House and Senate budget committees can begin writing their budget resolutions. The budget resolution sets targets for spending and tax revenue and identifies any policies that will need to move through reconciliation. The resolutions are sent to the floor for a vote, and differences are resolved in conference.

More: The Congressional Budget Process: A Brief Overview

The House has produced and passed budgets, the Senate hasn't. The Senate has voted plenty down though.

President Obama proposed a FY2012 budget last year, and the Senate voted it down 97–0. (And that budget was no prize—according to the Congressional Budget Office, that proposal never had an annual deficit of less than $748 billion, would double the national debt in 10 years and would see annual interest payments approach $1 trillion per year.)
-- 1,000 Days Without a Budget: Facts on the Senate’s Failure

'1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget'

Congress has spent $11.2 trillion since passing its last budget on April 29, 2009, according to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. The new debt since that date is $4.8 trillion.

"Since the last budget resolution was passed 1,200 days ago, the government has borrowed 42 cents of every dollar spent," the chart notes. The chart is based on Treasury Department figures.

The Senate obviously has no problem passing bills to spend money - why can't they pass a budget?

If this continues, it can't end well.

'U.S. Per Person Debt Now 35 Percent Higher than that of Greece'

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop. --Stein's Law

. . . it can;t come from the Senate, it can't come from the President . . .So can we please drop this bullshit about how it's Harry Reid's fault for not coming up with a budget. The blame falls clearly on the House and thus on Boehner's lap

If we were to dispense with the bullshit, your post would be blank. How is it that you either don't know this, or expect everyone to be so ignorant as to not call you on it? Well, to your credit, you did suck in 3 moderators.

The Federal Budget Process

Once the president lays out his proposal, the House and Senate budget committees can begin writing their budget resolutions. The budget resolution sets targets for spending and tax revenue and identifies any policies that will need to move through reconciliation. The resolutions are sent to the floor for a vote, and differences are resolved in conference.

More: The Congressional Budget Process: A Brief Overview

The House has produced and passed budgets, the Senate hasn't. The Senate has voted plenty down though.

President Obama proposed a FY2012 budget last year, and the Senate voted it down 97–0. (And that budget was no prize—according to the Congressional Budget Office, that proposal never had an annual deficit of less than $748 billion, would double the national debt in 10 years and would see annual interest payments approach $1 trillion per year.)
-- 1,000 Days Without a Budget: Facts on the Senate’s Failure

'1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget'

Congress has spent $11.2 trillion since passing its last budget on April 29, 2009, according to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. The new debt since that date is $4.8 trillion.

"Since the last budget resolution was passed 1,200 days ago, the government has borrowed 42 cents of every dollar spent," the chart notes. The chart is based on Treasury Department figures.

The Senate obviously has no problem passing bills to spend money - why can't they pass a budget?

If this continues, it can't end well.

'U.S. Per Person Debt Now 35 Percent Higher than that of Greece'

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop. --Stein's Law

Typical black father: just drops in to see his kids and his baby momma long enough to say he did it:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/how-obama-vacationed_692073.html

47 million on food stamps, average welfare spending per poor household is HIGHER than median income

Lets do a back of the napkin check for that.

Median household income is $50k (roughly) in the US. Assume all 47 million on food stamps are poor. (Seems fair enough). Assume average household size in the US is 2.6, and that poor people are similar (some poor with kids, some elderly single poor, should average out.)

So that's 18 million households in poverty. At $50k per household, that's 18 * 50 billion in spending. Or .9 trillion.

Seems doable. So I dug up what appears to be your source of the information, and find it's roughly $60k of spending per poor household, and a hair over a trillion total spent.

[Just an aside - this is why back of the napkin estimates can be pretty accurate - I probably screwed up on some of the estimates, but it's close enough that the errors somewhat balance out.]

To break down the spending, a third of that is healthcare. The elderly poor are probably eating up a big chunk of that, as well as poor kids. About a quarter of that is "state contributions to federal welfare", which I assume is the state's share of the cost of federal welfare programs. (Not sure how the state contribution works - is it mostly medicare/caid, or SNAP, or housing assistance, etc?). $245 billion goes to direct cash aid and foodstamps, or roughly $13,600 per household. Another $90 billion, or $5,000 per household, goes to housing programs. $70 billion is other social programs, which seems vague (are Pell grants counted, even if they don't go to the poor? Does it count unemployment payments?).

Average welfare spending per poor household IS NOT higher than median income. That is a god damn lie and you fucking know it.

Then perhaps you should direct your fuck-yous to the appropriate liars then.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/welfare-spending-equates-168-day-every-household-poverty_665160.html

Slightly earlier claim, but it depends on what you mean by "welfare"; if you mean the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program - the program that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children, both programs being what people often mean by "welfare", it's not true. The Republican statement to which the Weekly Standard was referring is using "welfare" to refer to a list of 83 items.

(Of course, if you're a fan of Congressional Research Service reports, you're presumably not going to argue that cutting tax rates for the top tax brackets is a way to boost economic growth, but I digress....)

Lesson: Facts do not cease to be facts just because they were reported on Fox News.

Different members of the Obama Administration have said different things about Benghazi at different times.

American forces in a position to help were evidently told repeatedly to stand down.

Charles Woods, the father of the slain Tyrone Woods, thinks Obama is lying. And the mother of slain State Department employee Sean Patrick Smith just came out and said "I believe that Obama murdered my son” though his negligence. Compare the amount of press given to them compared to Cindy Sheehan.

Now two chain-of-command figures central to the Benghazi controversy, CIA Director David Petraeus and General Carter Ham, commander of AFRICOM, have resigned, while a third, Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette, has been reassigned.

None of this necessarily means that Obama issued the stand-down order, or validates the speculation in some quarters that Ambassador Stevens may have been involved in arms transfers. But how blind do you have to be to think that the fact that no additional forces were sent to protect Americans during a seven hour battle with jihadests is unworthy of being investigated?

Re sig: "Government "economic stimulus" programs destroy more jobs than they create." Can you present concrete evidence of this?

Depends on what you would accept as "proof".

Consider this article: "Obama's Economists: 'Stimulus' Has Cost $278,000 per Job." No doubt that's an underestimate, too, but let's take it as accurate.

As I read it, that means: For each job "created or saved" about five were destroyed. That's because the median income for the period was about a fifth of that number, and the value of the money spent "creating or saving" those jobs was sucked out of the private sector, thus destroying about that number of jobs.

The value was sucked in one of about three ways: Direct taxation, currency inflation (diluting the existing money in private hands), or borrowing from those with money to invest - in competition with other borrowers who would have used it to create actual productive economic activity. That third one costs several times, by the way: Once when the investment money is pulled out of the economy initially, again when it must be paid off out of tax money, along with years of interest.

A Keynsian would prattle about the "multiplier effect" of the created jobs creating more. But the destroyed jobs also have the same multiplier effect, so the created/destroyed ratio remains the same if multiplier effect jobs are included (and the total job loss is far higher than the direct job loss minus the direct job creation.)

For a classic explanation of how this happens see the broken window falacy.

Election Judge wearing an Obama cap and allegedly handing out extra ballots.

Planning on going to the polls after work today. The boss is letting us leave early to vote after I suggested he do so, so yay for me. Then Minecraft time!
Here's just a few of the stories about shenanigans today.
Philly GOP: Poll inspectors being ousted for Dems
Election Judge Wears Obama Cap While Checking in Voters in Obama's Chicago Ward
GOP - Poll watcher in Detroit threatened with gun, 911 call rejected
Former DNC Chair Howard Dean: The Only Way We Lose Is Through Fraud
Obama Poster Hanging in Florida Polling Station
GOP officials booted, Black Panthers return -- and Obama at polling site?

of course, our infrastructure is in fine shape, our roads don't need upgrading. neither do our comms infra or any of the other social programs that help raise the overall qualtiy of life for everyone.

oh, but the infra can go fark itself. it will just self manage. right? that rotting bridge or overpass - we don't need to invest in fixing that.

You'll never make any real progress until you start identifying the actual source of the problems.

Obama and the Women’s Lobby

. . . The 2009 stimulus program set the pattern. The president had originally called for a two-year “shovel-ready” plan to modernize roads, bridges, electrical grids, and dams. Women’s activists were appalled. Op-eds appeared with titles like “Where Are the New Jobs for Women?” and “The Macho Stimulus Plan.” More than 1,000 feminist historians signed an open letter urging Mr. Obama not to favor a “heavily male-dominated field” like construction: “We need to rebuild not only concrete and steel bridges but also human bridges.” Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), attacked the “testosterone-laden ‘shovel-ready’ terminology.” Christina Romer, who chaired the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, would later say, “The very first e-mail I got . . . was from a women’s group saying, ‘We don’t want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.’”

The president’s original plan was designed to stop the hemorrhaging in construction and manufacturing while investing in physical infrastructure. It was not a grab bag of gender-correct transfer programs. The whole idea was to get Americans back to work, and it was “burly men” who had lost most of the jobs following the financial collapse of 2008. But as protests mounted, the president’s team reconfigured the bill according to NOW’s specifications. In a column entitled “Economic Recovery: What’s NOW Got to Do with It?” Gandy could hardly contain her elation: “As we looked through the act, over and over we saw reflections of the very specific proposals that we had made, and with big numbers next to them. Numbers that started with a ‘B’ (as in billion).” To read Gandy’s column is to understand why shovels are still standing idle and the stimulus was such a disappointment . . . .more . . .

No Country for Burly Men - How feminist groups skewed the Obama stimulus plan towards women's jobs.

A "man-cession." That's what some economists are starting to call it. Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men. Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, characterizes the recession as a "downturn" for women but a "catastrophe" for men.

It’s the public sector that’s ‘doing fine’

- - - - -

but lets give the rich more reasons to not help out. they'll just naturally be good people on their own, right?

right??

left to their own devices, they'll steal you blind. this class of people need to be watched more than the worst criminal among us.

You could watch the rich all day long and completely miss what happened to the stimulus as noted above. You would be better off watching the government and governing class with vigilance rat

The Republican Party has created a bubble of alternate facts and alternate narratives.
It damages their ability to govern and has destroyed their ability to compromise.

Do tell.

Reid says he can't work with Romney

As of August 11, 2012: '1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget'

The enemy is trying to blow up shopping malls and Christmas tree lightings, not prevent those actions. Very few people will shuffle off this mortal coil due to a pat-down for refusing the back-scatter sensor, or from having excess shampoo removed from their baggy of liquids before boarding a flight. Very few people will survive having a building collapse on top of them, their plane being flown into the ground, or standing too close to a truck bomb that goes off 50 feet away at the mall.

I would say that some people are immature, or badly confused, or mentally ill, if they think DHS are the enemy. One might reasonably argue about their necessity, but not their hostility.

This is genuine state terror: Stalin's Cannibals , Remember the Holodomor

.

Clinton: I Thought Obama 'Was Going to Cry'

"Governor Romney's argument is, we're not fixed, so fire him and put me in," said Clinton. "It is true we're not fixed. ...

Ouch. That's the sound bite that matters. The rest is just giving Bill Clinton cover. Makes one wonder if the Cintons have decided Hillary has a better chance running in 2016 as an outsider against Romney instead of as an effective incumbent against whoever.

I bet Obama's having second thoughts about trying to pin the blame for Benghazi on Hillary...

It's an idealistic vision for how economies work that is very appealing to people with money or people who think they're going to be rich one day. . . . If the economy runs out of bargain hunters as capital dries up, you end up in a feedback loop as the economy spirals downward. Hence, trillions in government stimulus spending.

You must be doing some special math if you think this is a good idea over the long term.

. . . the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead. -- Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

Romney has stated that he plans to slash income taxes by 20% and eliminate the estate tax -- a huge giveaway to the old rich that will cost $4.8T over ten years. He insists he'll pay for it all by closing loopholes, but that's mathematically impossible. Either he's going to raise taxes on the middle class, or run up the deficit, or he's just flat out lying.

Except of course that several sources show that it is mathematically possible. Princeton economics professor Harvey S. Rosen has a paper that shows how it is possible for Romney's tax cuts to be both revenue neutral and to not reduce the amount of tax paid by high earners. Does that mean that that is what Romney is going to do? No, but it does mean that it is mathematically possible to do what he says he is going to do.

Your post is largely nonsense, and you get some very important things wrong.

In the Pentagon Papers case, the courts didn't say it was ok, but simply that the government couldn't stop the papers from publishing them. The option to prosecute them was left open, and has been so. It is just the case that the government generally hasn't pursued that option.

The US is still largely a nation of laws, even if there are issues that need to be addressed, and more trouble is on the horizon. Unfortunately some people are either ignorant about the law, or pretend the law is something other than what it is. A perfect example of this is the question of how the conflict with Al Qaeda is being pursued. Much of it is being acted upon under the Law of War, not under criminal law. This is intolerable to many people, so they pretend that the US is lawless rather than following the rules of a different body of law. Case in point - indefinite detention of enemy combatants without trial. That is not only permissible under the law of war, but in fact customary. That is how the US held 300-400,00,000 German prisoners in the US in WW2. They didn't get trials, and no habeas corpus. Don't like it? Don't take up arms against another state, especially if you are a non-state actor with a proclivity towards war crimes, as Al Qaeda is. Things are a bit more complicated now that the US Supreme Court has muddied the waters on the subject.

Crime rates in the US have been falling for quite some time, which baffles some people. And no, there is no dictate for people to engage in mass murder. The US isn't a large prison. It isn't related to police brutality. The police are not prison guards, nor are they thugs in general (specific exceptions made for behavior).

The way that things get better is by voting and the courts, not armed rebellion - the US isn't every anywhere close to that point once you move out of the realm of fantasy.

Wrong. If a company does not provide the goods or services that they sold you, in this case, a lifetime account, that's illegal in the US.

Can someone please tell that to John Corzine? And Barack Obama?

"In most civilised nations, healthcare is treated as an essential basic service just like policing, fire, and the military are."

Another poster said, "Imagine just NOT HAVING TO WORRY about healthcare or costs."

Both of these attitudes are problematic. No society has unlimited resources to devote to anything, including healthcare. Therefore, healthcare consumers should shop around, and financially reward the providers who give higher-quality care at lower cost. They should not be thrown into the largest government bureaucracy that ever existed (which is currently being spun up, now that John Roberts said the "Affordable Care Act" "is within Congress's power to tax," nevermind this). Such bureaucracies are notoriously insensitive to cost, and tend to rely on rationing mechanisms.

Am I saying that patients should be expected to shop around in emergency situations? Of course not. And most healthcare is not delivered in emergency situations.

Free markets and competition rarely intersect with the world of healthcare, but this is what happens when they do: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3602626

A truly civilized nation would make healthcare a very free market, which would drive prices very low and make unsubsidized treatments affordable to many more people than they otherwise would be. And then, the burden of helping those people who are still unable to afford treatment would be quite light and manageable.

Actually.... http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/go-gold-pay-irs_649187.html

and ooh what do we have here? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:InflationAdjustedDefenseSpending.PNG [wikipedia.org] . curious how the defense spending shoots up right there too. what should be worrying is that you're going to be paying a lot of money just for the interest rates of money loaned to wage war.

I am. Are you? I thought you guys were all hunky-dory with the war spending now that your guy is in charge. I guess people really did take it to the bank since they didn't show up at the war protest rallies once The O was in office.

You should also be worried about all the "non-discretionary" spending which now exceeds the entire federal revenue, and yet congress not only refuses to reform or slow down any of that spending, but actively refused to end the $500 million bonuses paid to states for INCREASING the welfare rolls!

On your second point, I have yet to meet a non-feminist who doesn't consider this a blatant attempt to destroy a random guy's life for embarrassing the US government.

If that is true, you need to get out more, and maybe take in some news and views from other sources that don't play to your prejudices. And you should be clear, Assange isn't a "random guy", far from it. No suprise he picked Ecuador though.

I have 100% confidence he has no shot whatsoever at ever getting anything even remotely resembling a fair trial, either in Sweden or in the US.

Don't be ridiculous. I doubt that even half of the people eligible for jury duty have heard of Assange in either country. Fair trial, no problem.

I only hope "we" let him go down in a Swedish court rather than one of our sham anti-terrorism tribunals

Rape isn't terrorism. Espionage isn't terrorism. Copyright infringement isn't terrorism. Military tribunals were fine to try American and German spies and saboteurs in WW2, they are perfectly adequate for trying Al Qaeda members. The only sham is your understanding.

Having them sign a statement is believed to already be part of the procedure (link). Fair enough, if you believe there's no coercion.

Because this is China.

Executable offensives include: political dissent, terrorism, drug dealing, child pornography, being of the wrong religous groups, the usual laundry list.

Where it gets exciting is when they send doctors to determine your blood type to decide if you've committed an executable offense.

Since you're badly confused, and misinformed, this should help:

    'Collateral Murder' in Baghdad Anything But

OH NOES! IRAN THREATENS US AND UK!!!!

You should probably change the title of your post to, "Iran threatens its neighbors, Europe, the US, and some other country they want to remove from the pages of history." You didn't post anything about how convenient those the US bases in nearby countries make Iranian or Iranian backed attacks against US forces performing missions in those other countries. Also, I notice that Iranian bases and activities aren't depicted on the map - I suppose that would challenge the narrative of "poor little Iran". I will also note that this post is barely skimming the surface of Iran's activities. For instance, it doesn't cover much of anything about Iran's activities in Syria, where it is helping prop up the current regime, or Lebanon, where its proxy Hezbollah is virtually a state within a state, and armed with 50,000 rockets to attack Israel.

Gulf States on Arms Buying Binge to Counter Iran Threat

Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf monarchies are buying huge amounts of advanced arms from the United States and Europe. The weaponry is clearly aimed to counter the growing threat they see coming from Iran.

The United States alone has around $100 billion in potential sales in the pipeline right now. The biggest is a Saudi deal, initiated in 2010 and approved by Congress, totaling around $60 billion. The package includes jets, helicopters, hundreds of Harpoon anti-ship missiles, training, and logistical services. Israel, initially worried about the sale, agreed — after U.S. assurances — to support it in September

Iran Threatens To 'Freeze' Europe for Backing Sanctions - First Publish: 2/28/2010

Brigadier-General Hossein Salami of Iran's Revolutionary Guard warned Sunday that Iran has the power to cut Europe's energy supply. The warning was issued as European leaders prepared to debate sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

"Iran sits on 50 percent of the world's energy, and if it wants, Europe will spend the winter in the cold,” Salami told Iranian troops in the city of Kerman. His speech was published by the Iranian Fars news agency.

Iran threatens to block Strait of Hormuz oil route

Iran threatens US Navy over Gulf activity - Warns US aircraft carrier not to return to Gulf waters

Iran Threatens Two More Naval Chokepoints - In addition to the Strait of Hormuz.

Considerable attention is being given to Iranian threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large proportion of the world’s petroleum sails. The U.S Energy Information Administration estimates that “almost 17 million barrels in 2011, up from between 15.5-16.0 million bbl/d in 2009-2010,” sails past Iranian gun and missile emplacements along the coast, mine-laying ships, and Revolutionary Guard fast boats. In 2011, that amounted to “roughly 35 percent of all seaborne traded oil, or almost 20 percent of oil traded worldwide.”

Yet the recent visit of two Iranian naval vessels to the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah should draw attention to two more vital naval chokepoints—the Bab el Mandeb Strait at the southern tip of the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal located between the northern tip of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. (See this map.) More than three million barrels of oil pass through the Bab el Mandeb every day on the way to the Suez Canal and the SUMED (Suez-Mediterranean) pipeline used by tankers that are too big to traverse the Can

>What policy or action did Obama put in place that lead to finding Osama?

Obama made the hunt for bin Laden a priority. Bush had backed off. Reference: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/696wnfcp.asp

More references available through google. Try this search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=obama+vs+bush+osama

But I doubt you'll care - a read of your posting history shows that you've made up your mind on a variety of topics, facts be damned.

The fact that it also covers up government wrong-doing, like spying on American citizens

It is hard to understand why the government would ever engage in surveillance of American citizens, isn't it? You've got to wonder, what are they thinking? Are they stepping over the line?

And that's not all - at times it's almost like they are guided and operating according to something other than criminal law, almost as if they had a body of law that nobody else knows about that lets them do things like shoot dead large numbers of people, en masse, legally, with neither trial nor warrant. How could that be? Does Congress know about this? Does Congress approve?

The recruiter: Anwar al-Awlaki, portrait of an American jihadist CNN: Al-Awlaki threatens Americans
40 Americans Have Joined Al Qaeda Group
U.S.-educated Misunderstander of Islam pleads guilty to jihad war crimes, turns government witness

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

Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based designated foreign terrorist organization. Full Story

Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center

U.S. citizen Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain, pled guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against federal property in connection with a scheme to attack an armed forces recruiting station in Catonsville, Maryland. Full Story

Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings

Yonathan Melaku, of Alexandria, Virginia, pled guilty to damaging property and to firearms violations involving five separate shootings at military installations in northern Virginia between October and November 2010, and to attempting to damage veterans’ memorials at Arlington National Cemetery. Full Story

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012

1.Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa

A 25-year-old resident of Pinellas Park, Florida was charged in connection with an alleged plot to attack locations in Tampa with a vehicle bomb, assault rifle, and other explosives. Full Story

2.Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

A man who secretly converted to Islam days before he separated from the Army was charged with attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization, and was arrested upon his return to Maryland after traveling to Africa. Full Story

Consumption taxes are not inherently simpler than income taxes

- I am just going to respond to this, the rest I won't touch with you.

Consumption taxes are not just 'inherently simpler' than income taxes, they are infinitely simpler for the consumers.

What does one have to do to file taxes? At the minimum buy a software package and install it on a computer (so must own and operate a computer) and then go over forms, but this means having to pull out various papers collected over the year (or more than one year), receipts, statements, payslips, etc.

Otherwise all of that information must be collected and brought to a tax accountant.

Tax accountants must be hired, workplace must be supplied to them.

When it comes to more complex stuff - tax lawyers must be hired. Sometimes IRS comes in and audits you.

Then there are corporations. GE filed 57,000 pages as its tax return and managed to pay no taxes to US government as I understand, good for them.

====

Compare all of this to consumption taxes: you come to a store, the tax is either already in the price or it is applied to the total on the cash register. You don't have to keep the receipt even if you don't care about returning the item.

It's the store that has to take a percentage of its sales and send the check (or electronic payment) to the government.

Don't need IRS, why? Because it's not store's money, it's client's money, the law is simple and can be understood by a person as opposed to income tax/payroll tax/corporate tax/death tax/capital gains tax/other type of so called "income" tax law.

I show why income taxes are illegal and illegally collected here, and part of it the fact that nobody can understand the law and even based on that fact it's illegal, never mind the fact that there is no such concept as 'income', it's all profit tax, and it can only apply to corporations legally.

But saying that there is no difference between how complex income tax is compared to consumption tax is ridiculous.

All the unproductive jobs and resources spent that are used to file income tax, then fight the IRS, and what happens to people who lose this battle (85% of cases).... With consumption tax you pay it and forget about it, nobody is coming to get you, so if you don't get it, shut up.

The best dissection of this idiotic 'movement' I have yet to read - not fawning, not pandering, but a realistic evaluation of who and what they are: "The idea is utopian socialism. The method is revolutionary anarchism." http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/anarchy-usa_609222.html

You missed my point. I restated the golden rule: treat others as you would have them treat you. It's not about getting something out of it (preferential treatment by the government), it's about doing the right thing.

When the senator voluntarily joined a group with a long and storied history of abusing the golden rule not only did he invalidate any claim to it, he practically asked to end up on the wrong end of it.

In particular, his past issues regarding personal privacy of political opponents suggests the criticism is not baseless. You may not like the hyperbole used to express that skepticism, but that's your problem. A pol who would take that personally would be to thin skinned to ever get elected in the first place.

Reagan Policies Gave Green Light to Red Ink [Washington Post]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26402-2004Jun8

What Killed Off The GOP Deficit Hawks? [Business Week]
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_52/b3914021_mz007.htm

Do Deficits Matter? [The Weekly Standard]
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/245esggv.asp

The Tea Party Patriots will not be villified
They will be portrayed as clinically insane
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/msnbc-host-guest-call-tea-partiers-addicts-delusional_581987.html

According to the following article and United Nations report (linked below) the Taliban were responsible for 76% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2009. NATO were responsible for 12% (although the media likes to pump it up as if NATO are the bad dudes). That's a ratio of 13:2, plus the Taliban will kill indiscriminately, take hostages as human shields (they consider 'involuntary matyrdom' of civilians as acceptable), and seize villagers as 'wives'. NATO generally tries to avoid killing civilians, unless they are within a compound there are armed Taliban in (likely to be wives and children of Taliban members than can't be separated from the gunmen). Then there is the classic Afghan trick of claiming 'casualties' in a village when in fact a goat has been killed (they get financial compensation from NATO for villagers killed, but not for goats - apparently this is a scam that the Afghans are all to happy to use on foreigners).

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/taliban-responsible-76-deaths-afghanistan-un

Thanks for asking with an open mind - wish more people were like that.

Greenpeace has an impressive number of scalps on its belt. A recent campaign against Nestle's Kit Kat chocolate bars resulted in the company changing the way it buys its materials. Clorox began using a new, more expensive way to transport chlorine after a FUD campaign from Greenpeace. Greenpeace successfully stopped a clean coal plant from being built in the UK, and its activists were cleared of any wrongdoing on the defence of 'lawful excuse' - claiming they shut the power station in order to defend property of a greater value from the global impact of climate change (the first time 'lawful excuse' was used in the context of climate change). Apple phased out PVC plastics due to Greenpeace's online campaign (it won a Webby award...see what I mean about their influential friends). Greenpeace got Argentina to ban the incandescent light bulb after a media campaign. Greenpeace got Spain, Sweden, Germany, Italy and Belgium to abandon nuclear power.

Whistle past the graveyard if you wish. But Greenpeace is powerful, and more importantly, has a lot of fellow travelers who will promote their agenda for free. Read the list of Greenpeace victories. It is long and impressive. Every victory was won in a developed country or the UN - the real sources of power in the world. You will note a total lack of victories in powerless areas like China, India, Africa, and so on.

Tipper gore. Obamacare. Bans on smoking in public spaces. High tobacco taxes. High gasoline taxes. Bans on devoloping known sources of oil. HOV lanes. Every left wing polemic about the middle class voting against their own interest assumes that the author has some sort of ability to decide what is in their best interests regardless of what they themselves actually prefer, which reveals a desire to impose the author's preferred solutions whether the public likes it or not.

I don't think you understand what was happening when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.

even though Southern Rhodesia declared independence shortening it's name to Rhodesia in '65 or so, the entire world still recognized English colonial rule over it until 1980 or so when England finally release claim on it. England maintained it wouldn't release it's claim to it (and all their colonies) until they were governed under a majority rule. Anyways, in 78-79 a biracial party was formed to govern and the Lancaster house agreement placed it back under British colonial control.

An election was held, someone other then Mugabe was elected (Abel Muzorewa), And now enters the Carter administration.

Carter didn't have to invade. All he had to do is support the democratically elected leaders of the country instead of imposing his own desires on it by blocking UN action and supporting Mugabe knowing he was wanting to create a single party communist state.

The Carter Administration played a lead role in why Mugabe was not removed from power, why the rightful people elected wasn't allowed to stay in power, and why the world recognized Mugabe as the leader..In fact, People from Carter's administration, was toasting Mugabe as late as 2001 when they were attacking whites for their land.

"The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible," Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations

What an utter, complete lie. Total book-cooking of the CBO methodology. Those first-run numbers counted 10 years of taxes, but only 6 years of benefits, and in broad daylight, ignored the "doctor fix" for Medicare. Also counted on Medicare cuts that will never happen. Of course, give the CBO real numbers, and it runs huge deficits. So yeah, refute ever single point I made and then tell me who is confused. And today the CBO says Obamacare will cost 800,000 jobs.

Talk about confused, a new entitlement will cover 30 million new people and save money! LOL! If Medicare - which cost like 10 times what they originally said it would (and only covers 70% of seniors' bills) - it will be a bankrupting boondoggle.

Butchered? Civilians, children and reporters butchered with hollow point bullets, you're fine with that. Showing the world it's happening, you call that butchery.

Let me guess.... "collateral murder"?

The "civilians" were armed insurgents, apparently associated with running firefights and rocket attacks through the night. They were also probably in violation of curfew, which would once again make them targets. (You noticed how empty the streets were, right?)

The children should have been left behind by the insurgents attempting to rescue their comrades.

No: Innocent bystanders and journalists. You don't get to just label anyone "insurgent" to justify shooting them.

That car was there because he was bringing the children home from school, he saw people who were injured and stopped to help them, and he and the children were shot. By cowards hiding faraway, shooting armor-piercing explosive shells.

Yeah, those are forbidden to use against people, making this a clear war crime.

Butchered? Civilians, children and reporters butchered with hollow point bullets, you're fine with that. Showing the world it's happening, you call that butchery.

Let me guess.... "collateral murder"?

The "civilians" were armed insurgents, apparently associated with running firefights and rocket attacks through the night. They were also probably in violation of curfew, which would once again make them targets. (You noticed how empty the streets were, right?)

The children should have been left behind by the insurgents attempting to rescue their comrades.

By accompanying the insurgents, and without marking themselves, the reporters made themselves targets. They weren't attacked because they were reporters. That was a risk they took upon themselves when they decided to accompany violent extremists fighting against the Iraqi government.

The lot of them were apparently engaged with the apache's 30mm automatic cannon. The military doesn't use hollow point bullets (Geneva & Hague Conventions, and all that).

2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as U.S. Forces Clash With Militias

Clashes in a southeastern neighborhood here between the American military and Shiite militias on Thursday left at least 16 people dead, including two Reuters journalists who had driven to the area to cover the turbulence, according to an official at the Interior Ministry....

The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.

''There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,'' said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.

Butchery? No. If you want to know true butchery, look at Al Qaeda's attack on the Yezidi.

A U.S. air strike killed a senior al Qaeda militant who masterminded truck bombings on Iraq's minority Yazidi community last month that killed more than 400 people, the military said on Sunday.

"On September 3, a coalition air strike killed the terrorist responsible for the planning and conducting of the horrific attack against the Yazidis in northern Iraq on August 14," military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told a news conference.

Iraq's government has put the death toll at 411 from the suicide bombings, although the Iraqi Red Crescent has said it could be more than 500. The bombings in the villages of Kahtaniya and al-Jazeera were the deadliest militant attacks in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

A U.S. military statement named the mastermind as Abu Mohammad al-Afri, adding he was the al Qaeda "emir", or prince, in the area where the bombings took place.

Or Al Qaeda's attacks on markets: Al Qaeda use two Down's syndrome women to blow up 99 people in Baghdad markets

Do you have any words for Al Qaeda's actions? Genocidal might fit, as they want to rub out the Yezidi as a people & belief system. What about the attack on the market?

Why exactly some decent Western power has had that vile repugnant monster Mugabe filled so full of holes you could use him as a soup strainer is beyond me. That incompetent tyrant has turned Africa's breadbasket into a ill-run starving madhouse.

Because of IDIOTS like Jimmy Carter. The Slashdot herd likes to label George W. Bush the "worst President ever", but that's only because they're as a whole to young to remember a REAL incompetent boob like Jimmy Carter. (If Bush II is the "worst President ever, why has a complete Democrat government ratified Bush II's biggest policies? The US still has combat troops in Iraq and the Bush tax cuts were just extended by a Democratic House, Senate, and President....)

Jimmy Carter was instrumental in ensuring Robert Mugabe came to power:

How Tyranny Came to Zimbabwe
Jimmy Carter still has a lot to answer for.

In April 1979, 64 percent of the black citizens of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) lined up at the polls to vote in the first democratic election in the history of that southern African nation. Two-thirds of them supported Abel Muzorewa, a bishop in the United Methodist Church. He was the first black prime minister of a country only 4 percent white. Muzorewa's victory put an end to the 14-year political odyssey of outgoing prime minister Ian Smith, the stubborn World War II veteran who had infamously announced in 1976, "I do not believe in black majority rule--not in a thousand years." Fortunately for the country's blacks, majority rule came sooner than Smith had in mind.

Less than a year after Muzorewa's victory, however, in February 1980, another election was held in Zimbabwe. This time, Robert Mugabe, the Marxist who had fought a seven-year guerrilla war against Rhodesia's white-led government, won 64 percent of the vote, after a campaign marked by widespread intimidation, outright violence, and Mugabe's threat to continue the civil war if he lost. Mugabe became prime minister and was toasted by the international community and media as a new sort of African leader. "I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible," Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, had gushed to the Times of London in 1978. The rest, as they say, is history.

...

The Carter administration, the Labour government in Britain, and the international left all insisted that Mugabe and Nkomo be part of the negotiating process--on its face a concession to terrorism. Presaging the edicts of Al Qaeda in Iraq, both guerrilla leaders pledged violence against any black Zimbabwean who dared take part in the April balloting. Nkomo called for a "bloodbath." A year earlier he had ridiculed the "all party nonsense" advocated by the moderate black leaders and said, "We mean to get that country by force, and we shall get it." Mugabe, not to be outdone, issued a public death list of 50 individuals associated with the internal settlement, including the three black leaders of the executive council. ZANU described these individuals as "Zimbabwean black bourgeoisie, traitors, fellow-travelers, and puppets of the Ian Smith regime, opportunistic running-dogs and other capitalist vultures." Mugabe also expressed his belief that "the multiparty system is a luxury" and said that if Zimbabwean blacks did not like Marxism, "then we will have to reeducate them." This was the same Mugabe whom Young, in that 1978 interview with the Times of London, had called "a very gentle man," adding, "I can't imagine Joshua Nkomo, or Robert Mugabe, ever pulling the trigger on a gun to kill anyone. I doubt that they ever have."

Nevertheless, in April 1979, in a scene reminiscent of the recent Iraqi elections, nearly 3 million blacks came out to vote under a state of martial law and with arm