This is false, demonstrably so. The city of Minneapolis' own school choice program illustrates this. As do certan charter schools in high-poverty areas that have massive success. Success and failure of schools for poor people is very dependent on the control that the teacher-union backed politicians. And the Feds ARE involved in local school issues and provide funding for it - more and more every years.
Ah, yes. No doubt funded by the secret Federal Democratic government that's been operating next to the Republican one for years and years. Wait, no, so it's the Federal Republican who've been funding schools more and more? I'm getting really confused as to what the fuck you're even pretending your point to be.
But I like the fact you constantly bring up schools to deflect away infrastructure. Schools are complicated. We do not know how to fix them.
There are plenty of complicated things in the government that are difficult to figure out the correct thing to do, and sometimes trying to help actually makes things worse. I have, at absolutely no point, suggested schools were not these things, although suggesting that their entire problem is too much money is just bone stupid. If you have some magical school suggestion, feel free to mention it where people are actually discussing, you know, schools, and not where they are discussing, you know, bridges.
Bridges, though? They're easy. All we have to do is spend the money on having people inspect and fix them! That's it. Theres no argument, there's no debate. We can either repair infrastruture, or not. If we don't, it will fail...usually in slow slide to unuseablity, but sometimes in a very rapid collapse.
I quite understand why you're deflecting the argument from 'Republicans don't spend enough on required bridge maintenance' to 'Democrats spend too much on schools', but, honestly, you're the only person you've fooled there. Democrats may, indeed, spend too much on certain schools. I have my own suspicious as to what is wrong, but as they are completely irrelevant to bridges, I will not say them.
The chart in the NYTimes areticle you cite is bogus because it doesn't cite real dollars, just a percentage - and it does appear that feds DO fund a large amount of transportation costs.
Why the hell you think I was trying to make the claim the Federal government didn't fund anything to do with transportation costs is beyond me. I didn't say anything in that regard.
And maybe you should read your own article that you apparently googled but did not read. It seems the vetos has nothing to do with bridge maintenance. FTA: That has often meant construction of new, politically popular roads and transit projects rather than the mundane work of maintaining the worn-out ones.
It's you who's not reading the article. They are talking about Federal funds, not the transportation bill that was slashed.
In fact, almost all the article is talking about Federal funding, which I don't give a shit about because, and I repeat, the governor slashed the transportation budget. The entire reason I pointed to that article was the first damn line: In the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state's gas tax to pay for transportation needs.
To repeat my argument for the brain-damaged: In Minnesota, the governor twice vetoed increasing spending on transportation to where the legislature wanted it, because he had a 'No new tax pledge'. This got so bad that voters passed a constitutional amendment directing all fees and taxes from the sale of new cars to transportation, and they still had shortfalls. Google 'Minnesota gas tax Pawlenty amendment' if you want the full hilarious story about one man's attempt to keep from raising any taxes at all, as the transportation system fell to pieces around him.
You really should do some research into this particular issue before you speak up.
In this case, the Republican governor slashed transportation spending since taking office in 2004 by vetoing budgets, see here. And feel free to google it.
Alternatively, how to do you explain the absolute failure of school systems with massive spending in cities that are run by Democrats - and they sucked even when Dems controlled all three parts of the Federal government. Witness DC - 12k a month per student and 2/3ds of public school teachers with children send their kids to private schools.
Well, I certainly don't assert the failure of the schools is due to too much revenue, as you apparently do. That's completely nonsensical. Also, you've apparently failed to notice schools are, in fact, run by the states, not the Federal or city governments, so who is in charge of the city or the Federal government at the time is not very incredibly relevant.
Incidentally, the quality of schools is almost entirely unrelated to which political party is in office in the state, and almost entirely related to percentage of the poor. So suggesting that failing schools have more than enough money would seem to be somewhat illogical on that basis.
Anyway, the failure of schools is way too complicated to get into here, and has nothing to do with the recent disintegration of infrastructure around the country, which is almost entirely due to lack of spending on maintenance. We know how to make things work correctly, and we know how to spend money to make that happen. We do not know how to make students learn. I 'agree' with you that throwing money at schools is not 'the' solution, but that is because there are several other root problems. In the case of infrastructure, however, the entire problem is that we refuse to spend the money on it.
Bridges aren't too important to be left to government. They're too important to be left to a political party that thinks government is unneeded and unwanted, and that the less spent on it the better.
My sig, for future reference when I change it, or for those who don't see them: You can't drown a government in a bathtub without drowning a few people in a river. Or a whole city in a lake.
The very first thing I said in RL, when I heard about the bridge collapse was, despite not knowing anything about politics over there, was 'What do you want to bet it's because Republican over there have underfunded transportation to cut taxes?'. And damned if I wasn't right.
As for that specific line, I said it, at least the first sentence, on here somewhere. (Grover Norquist, of course, was the original guy that said he wanted to make the government so small he could drown it in a bathtub.) When I made it my sig, I added the second one. I thought it was clever at the time, but right now, when I googled to make sure I spelt 'Norquist' correctly, I see a lot of other people have made the same analogy. I guess it's a pretty obvious one.
Yeah, because people regularly complain when charges of $0.00 don't show up on their bill.
Dumbass, people want itemized charges, not itemized lack of charges. No one gives a fuck how many times some company thinks we did something that they are not charging us for.
I can just imagine people complaining at restaurants that the restaurant didn't include their free chips, or their free trip to the restroom, on the bill.
There might be one or two people in the world who have some reason for wanting to know this (For example, if they think a background software application on their iPhone is calling home.), but there would be absolutely no complains if they didn't show it...no ISP gives people a bill with their free data transactions itemized, and even ones that do charge for bandwidth don't normally itemize it.
No no no. SBC bought the corpse that was AT&T, and renamed itself AT&T, but Cingular was a joint venture between that and Bellsouth. Then the new AT&T bought Bellsouth.
To recap:
AT&T & AT&T Wireless exist, with the former owning the latter
AT&T Wireless fails, is bought by Cingular from AT&T. Cingular is a joint venture of Bellsouth and SBC.
AT&T is bought by SBC, which then names itself AT&T.
SBC (Calling itself AT&T) buys Bellsouth. Now Cingular is a joint venture of SBC (Calling itself AT&T) and Bellsouth (owned entirely by SBC, which is, again, calling itself AT&T) or, in other words, wholely owned by SBC, aka, AT&T.
Why yes, the police can just stand around every check cashing store all day, but it actually might be useful to know check cashing store #1409 is visited by people from factory #294, so tend to show up on every second Thursday, and the criminals have figured this out and tend to mug them every second Thursday.
Instead of, you know, being everywhere at all times, which is quite probably impossible for a police department.
And saying 'the police should figure this out on their own' is idiotic. It is very hard to spot patterns that happen monthly, especially when you only see part of the picture, and when you consider the fact a crime 'near check-cashing places' might not be obvious. If a cop's been sent out to six arrests in the same area in the last four months, he's probably not going to twig on the fact that three of them happened on the first weekday after the 15th, especially if he's visited fifteen other crimes during that.
To see all the likelyhood of places and the exact pattern, you need to keep a record of it outside of individual cops memory. Like, I dunno, a database. Like cops have been doing forever, even before computers, with little pins stuck in maps.
It used to be that they'd keep them in a database and detectives and higher-ups would look at them and try to discover the patterns. Now data-mining has gotten so useful that the computers are actually able to notice things, like the link with check cashing places, that police might not have seen. (They see the sites of the crimes, they can't magically figure out there are check cashing places nearby.)
With Hilary, it really doesn't matter so much why people dislike her (or why they think they dislike her), it's just that it's out there. That makes her battle that much harder, especially since the Republicans will do their best to reinforce people's preconcieved notions about her. I don't see anything other than a very tough and ugly battle for her, should she get the nod. The other problem that she has is people in the middle really view her as more of the same, and are more ready for fresh ideas (Obama, Ron Paul). It doesn't help at all that she's literally another Clinton.
I agree with the rest of this, but I think you're really completely wrong here. Go out and ask people, right now, if they'd rather have another term of Clinton in the White House or another term of Bush.
Now, if the race is against a clone of Clinton politically vs. a clone of Bush politically, guess who's going to win? Now assume the Clinton-clone is squeaky-clean, 'family'-wise, whereas it's the Bush clone with infidelity and divorces.
Hillary has a lot of perceived dislike because it's imagined that a lot of other people disliked her ten years ago. No one actually dislikes her for any valid or logical reason (That they can figure out.), and voters aren't completely stupid, at least not anymore. If she actually shows up again, you'd be amazed how quickly the 'dislike' of her just melts away.
And the problem with the Dems isn't that the candidates get choses by the 'diehards'. If they did, Edwards would have won easily. The problem is that the candidates get chosen by the Democratic political machine, which was, until recently, run by the DLC, which is, and has been, in every single way, with a near-perfect-track record, completely and utterly wrong about what voters want. The only president they've managed to get elected is Clinton, who listened to them and implemented several incredibly stupid policies like NAFTA, which he was never called on because both the left and right machine still wants everyone to think they are good ideas.
Which is why I dislike her, she's still the DLC candidate, although, like I said, at least she ignored their debate. But the average voter doesn't know any of that stuff, and it would be very hard for a Republican to paint her as 'Too conservative', even though she is. They used to be able to paint her, and Clinton, as 'fascists', but, heheh, good luck with trying that now.
The Democrats need to do is pick someone who actually is willing to fight for something those people in the want, and have wanted for a long time. Like some sort of health care solution, or doing something about the fact more and more people are falling out of middle class and into the poor. Edwards is the big guy here, but understandable, the big money does not head his way.
Failing that he needs to have 18 CHA like Obama.:) And luckily Obama seems to be cribbing from Edward's platform. I wish we'd get Edwards/Obama, but maybe we'll get Obama/Edwards. (Someone once suggested, semi-seriously, that, to take advantage of Gore's popularity, a Democrat candidate should promise to appoint Gore to the EPA and have him tour with them. I wish someone would do the same with Edwards to some appropriate position. And Richardson, put him in the State Department.)
Of course, they all need to stay away from the third rail, supporting the Iraq war. Instead of just coming out and saying it, a lot of them are gradually building up to being totally anti-war by the election, which is cowardly, but, really, they can't end the war by their platform before they get elected anyway, so it doesn't actually matter.
WRT to Hillary: A lot of the 'dislike' of Hillary was Republican drones spewing their dislike of Hillary. You're right about the 25% at each end, but what you missed was that that is where at least 95% of 'the dislike' is coming from, the lunatic right managed to injest so much hatred for Bill and Hillary (That's how they got created in the first place) that it spilled over into the public sphere and looked as if it was some sort of general dislike.
You and I may dislike her for being a carpet bagger, and, not a career politician, (All candidates are that, they basically have to be.), but one that has been part of the 'mainstream beltway thought'(1) that she may not realize how incredibly wrong about every single thing they actually are. But most people don't know those things and don't have any actual opinion about her. They may think, like you, thanks to the Republicans, that people generally dislike her, but they don't dislike her.
As for the Republicans, I'm not too worried about any candidate that continues to desperately cling on to that third rail of Iraq and Bush support no matter how much it shocks the general population into disliking them. There's No. Possible. Way. they can reposition themselves fast enough after the primary to actually stand a chance. The only Republican that stands a chance in the election is Ron Paul, and while he may be incredibly popular, I'd give 1:10 odds of him actually winning as the Republican machine will stomp him.
No, I'll give the Republicans 4:5 odds they'll elect Giuliani or Romney. Ironically, those two are perfect Republican candidates...for 1996. They could move far enough right to win the primary, and then easily move back left where they started...but the Republican base caught on to that behavior, and are now asking incredibly specific questions they can't weasel out of, plus requires them to tie themselves to Bush, which they can't weasel out of either.
And to the crazed Fred Thompson supporter elsewhere in the thread: Avoiding entering the race to keep from having to go on the record in the wingnut debates was clever. Avoiding entering the race at all? Not really that smart plan, because, it turns out to be elected, people actually have to know who you are. That is all.
1) These are the thoughts that say "Democrats must appear tough", which, apparently, means being Republicans-lite, "Democrats must appease the religious loons", hence their random censoring of things, and "Democrats must not let themselves be called 'socialists'", hence the skuttling of all the new social programs. Every single one of those ideas is dead wrong, (Except the first one, which became right on 9/11 and stopped being right about 2003, so was right for one election.) and ye
Kennedy certainly could have handled Vietnam better, but blaming him for the entire war is a bit silly. Yeah, he escalated it, but he wanted out. And he intelligently kept it at the level of military advisors instead of actually trying to fight the war.
Kennedy could have and should have stopped Vietnam before the actual war. But saying it's his fault is ignoring the fact we were there in an advisor role before Kennedy, and we were there in an advisor role after him, and all he did was send more advisors. (Admittedly, a lot more.) When Kennedy was assassinated, less than 400 Americans had killed ever in Vietnam. (And some of those before him.)
Lyndon B. Johnson is the person who escalated the thing into an actual meat-grinder of soldiers.
Hey, I'm right there with you, I'm not a big fan of Obama either. I don't think he has enough experience. I think he'd make a good VP, and, if so, he should run in 8 years or so for Prez.
I'm not a Hillary fan either, but it looks like one of them is going to be our next president, and I'd slightly rather have her.
Yes, he has a position on all those amazing issues...
...except that simply voting for something isn't taking a position on it.
Until he actually stands up in front of the public and proclaims those positions, people will obviously not dislike them. Um, duh. Until someone is running, people do not bother to attack their positions, so the only people who think they know them are his supporters. (I would urge you to notice the 'think' there also.)
I will rephrase since you seemed to have missed it: The second he gets in the race, he'll actually have to, you know, state some actual positions, which will either piss off the 25% and he won't win the primary, and piss off the 75% and he won't win the election.
And in addition to the positions his voting record would seem to imply, he's also going to be asked some rather blunt questions about the war on terror he's been avoiding so far by avoiding the debates.
Then he can lie and ignore the law under any circumstances, no matter what the law says.
No, because FISA wiretaps went through a court. And the 'swearing under oath' thing went through Congress. In both cases, there were things in effect to check him if they lied about having legal justification for the taps
And the NSA was not supposed to do them without one of those two things on penalty of imprisonment. And, yes, the NSA had oversight that actually worked, which is why the executive had to go get WH lawyers (Including our current AG) to make up some bogus legal justification to give to them.
Ugh. So your concern is that they'll lie and ignore the law, but that now this update to the law allows them the escape of being able to say they thought they were targeting someone outside the US? Well, if they realize they are targeting someone within the US, a warrant is required, as it always has been.
And, as I said, if you believe that persons in the administration will just ignore the law, do whatever they want, and that even if they are caught, Bush will just commute or pardon, then what does the wording of the law even matter? I imagine the response will be something along the lines that this just makes it even easier for them to shred the Constitution.
What does that have to do with anything? Just because I believe that someone is ignoring important laws doesn't mean I should logically support those laws being loosened. In fact, that's actually a pretty irrational position to take.
No, this is exactly what I said it was: an update to a law to monitor communications that should NEVER require a warrant to monitor, period.
No, it's an update to the law allow the monitoring of communication without any oversight. Using systems that can include things it is unlawful to tap without a warrant. I don't care if something is legal or not, everything that could be use to violate the rights of American needs some sort of multi-branch government oversight.
As to the domestic NSA programs, it's pretty clear that pen register information is exempt from warrant requirements. The programs were secret. Congress was briefed and the programs had to be reauthorized every 45 days. Why even bother to brief Congress and authorize intelligence programs? To have deniability once it leaks out? Come on. And, again, if, as you seem to believe, they'll just do whatever they want anyway, then what's the difference? Why even update the law at all?
Um, you don't appear to actually know anything about the NSA warrantless-wiretapping scandal at all. Hint: Briefing a few people in Congress that you're violating the law and swearing them to secrecy on penalty of imprisonment does not make something legal.
No matter what your political stripe, this FISA update has a very specific purpose, and that is to continue to allow unfettered foreign SIGINT collection without warrants or other administrative requirements, even - rather, especially - when the traffic travels through equipment within the US. And thankfully, Congress agrees.
You're, at this point, lying even based on what you already admitted. The updated law doesn't make tapping foreign traffic legal. That already is legal. It makes 'accidentally' tapping domestic traffic legal if you 'really' were trying to tap foreign communication. The difference between you and I is that you don't see the single quotes in that last sentence.
And here's a fun question for you: Do you have an idea what the false positive rate is? Do you have the slightest idea at all what it would be? No, of course not, that's classified. We don't know if the NSA is tapping two US citizens per ten thousand foreign calls, or if they're tapping ten thousand citizens per two foreign calls, or if they are literally just tapping everyone.
That last one, I should point out, makes their system legal even without any sorts of lies, so even
Ha, I should have known there was Thompson supporter.
Do you know why Thompson has support? There's one, single reason:
Because he has absolutely no positions on anything whatsoever.
The second he gets in the race, he'll actually have to, you know, come up with some actual positions, which will either piss off the 25% and he won't win the primary, and piss off the 75% and he won't win the election.
And, yes, he is, indeed, the next Reagan...empty-suit actor waiting to be filled with whatever position will get him the most votes. But I've already explained why that can't possibly work this election, because there are no positions that can win the Republican primary and the general election, because the general population is of the opinion that the 25% of the people who continue to support the president, and likewise who vote in the Republican primary, are totally utterly batshit insane.
No, wait, there are two reasons he has supporters. The second is: Because no one's actually bothered to dig up any dirt on him, because he's not fucking running. If he was actually running they might actually do it, and the 'lobby for abortion providers' is just the tip of the iceberg. And he's waiting amazingly late to get in the election. The Democrats already gave up on Gore months ago.
Waiting so late is a pretty clever ploy to keep from having to say anything stupid at this point, which would work great if, by the time of the primary, the 25% had come to their senses. He could leap in at the last minute and say he's always been against all that, without having had answered questions on the record as to how many people we should torture and that we should bomb Iran. The problem is that that is not going to happen in time for him to enter the race, and probably not happen at all before the primary.
I don't trust Hillary, she's too close to the DLC, although she wisely stayed out of their debate and now is moving away from them.
The Republicans managed to build up a lot of irrational dislike of her at the start of Bill's presidency, but that was back when just saying the word 'liberal' worked to trash someone. There are people who'd never vote for her, but that category is fairly close to the people who'd never vote for a Democrat at all. (This has always been the fatal Democratic flaw: They try to avoid the irrational dislike of hardcode GOPers. Luckily, they've apparently figured out those people don't vote for them anyway, so they can just ignore them.)
Bill was the most popular president of recent times, and health care, which is big this time around, is something she actually tried to address once, so she's got cred there if she'd just admit what happened last time: She and the Democrats in Congress got tricked into repeatedly weakening the system to include existing insurance companies, and then got stabbed in the back when the Republicans didn't support it anyway. If she'd just come out and say that, I might be willing to vote for her in the primary if it looks like Edwards isn't going to win. (Or Richardson, but it already somewhat looks like he isn't going to win.)
But you're crazy if you think Giuliani or Romney could beat her in the general election. They are walking an incredibly fine line because Bush has managed to divide the country almost perfectly, 1/4th on one side and 3/4th on the other, into wanting diametrically opposed things. For example, one side wants people tortured, the other side does not. One side thinks the war in Iraq was a good idea and going well, the other believes the sky is blue. Etc.
Before this election, there were vague statements that candidates could make that would work in the primary, and then be 'clarified' for the general election. But the Republican candidates are being asked very explicit questions like 'How many people do you think we should be torturing' that are rather hard to back away from, and, right now, they have to answer to win the primary.
So those two have to continue to appeal to the 1/4th to win the primary without doing something that will piss off the other 3/4th, or vis versa...and the joke is that, at some point before the primary, one of them will slip off the edge to one side or another.
The only Republican hope for the general election is that one of them slips to the left, thus the other one can simply not talk at all until after the primary, and win it and can move safely to the left then. If one of them slips to the right, they will win the primary and lose the election. (Or the other, seeing them go off to the right, will leap after them, and win the primary instead and still lose the election.)
When they say any communication of any kind between any two people, including US citizens, can be actively and substantively monitored and targeted, then I'll raise the alarm.
They did say that. All the AG has to do is lie and say it was someone else who was targeted. And, hey, we already know he can lie.
Before it was, at least, perjury, although entirely uncheckable, and now it's not even that. Yay progress.
I will repeat: This is about as useful as laws against murder would be if anyone could just assert they thought it was self-defense and the case gets thrown out of court, with no checks on whether or not a reasonable person would have thought that.
No, wait, it's less useful than that, because it wouldn't even see a court. It's like you could just yell 'self-defense' to the arresting officers and they'd have to let you go.
Or maybe he'll just 'forget' why he authorized that tap, although he'll be sure he had some sort of legal reason. And, no, he won't turn over any documents or let anyone testify, because that's executive privilege. If someone impedes the investigation into any abuse, he'll just refuse to arrest them for contempt of Congress, and if he is forced to arrest them anyway, Bush will just commute their sentence. Do you think any sort of abuse of this is going to lead to any sort of punishment or even admission of wrongdoing?
It would be one thing to trust a government that actually behaved in a trustworthy behavior, that is actually concerned with at least appearing to do the right thing, but trustworthy behavior and how the current administration has behaved towards warrentless-wiretapping are about as far as humanly possible. Don't forget Bush got out there and lied for three years about the existence of his programs, and then the AG has repeatedly mislead and misdirected investigations into it. We still don't know the full extent of everything that's been done under 'this program', or 'all these infinite wiretapping programs that the AG won't explain which he's talking about at any time', and you want to trust them?
If Gonzales is such an untrustworthy liar, why bother with the law at all? Just spy and say he didn't, or make up the evidence for a retro warrant on the old rules. Don't bother to reply. I don't want to take time from your Jihad duty.
Hey, fucktard, the executive branch did lie about this program's entire existence for three goddamn years.
George W. Bush must not leave office, through death or any other means, without this completely fucked-up powergrab being addressed first by Congress and the courts. If all this just happened, without any blowback or successful legal challenges, than it stands as precedent.
Correct. This isn't a failure of the Democratic takeover of the House. This is a sign the takeover was not large enough, and that there are still some Republicans who are pretending to be Democrats.
Not that I want the party marching in lockstep, but, Jesus Christ. Giving more power to the people you're investigating for abuses of that exact same power, and who won't give you any straight answers? WTF? Those 41 Democrats are out in a year and half.
For once, this isn't actually throwing your vote away, either.
Ron Paul is the only Republican who actually would have a chance of winning the general election. Anyone who thinks Giuliani or Romney can win the general election are entirely delusional, as both those are positioning themselves as Bush 2.0 to win the primary. You can't 'move outside for the primary, move to the center for the election' when moving back to the center in that time would require FTL travel.
In other words, thanks to the large disconnect between the 23% that still support Bush, and vote in the Republican primary, and the actual sane people who vote in the general election, a vote for Ron Paul is basically the only way to not throw your vote away in the Republican primary, as he's the only Republican that could possibly win.
However, thanks to the stupidity of people currently voting in the Republican primary, Ron Paul has almost no chance of winning it, and hence the Republicans will lose in 2008. A concentrated effort to stir up support among disgruntled Republicans might let him win, but most people stopped being Republicans when they lost their minds, and really have no interest in going back and trying to fix the problems.
Me? I'd like Ron Paul as president and a powerful Democratic Senate and House with enough people for a veto-override. But more in 2012 than in 2008, because there's some stuff that needs to be be done before then. I'd like Edwards in 2008, but odds are I will not have to pick between Ron Paul and a Democrat in the first place.
No, that was already legal. FISA allowed such wiretaps without a warrant, in the US, if the AG would swear, under oath, that such taps did not intercept US citizens. This is how, traditionally, we go about bugging embassies, for one thing.
What this made legal is for the NSA to continue to make the mistakes they already say they are making and cannot fix. The NSA does not have the technological ability to determine when a communication starts or ends in the US when wiretapping within the US, and hence their huge wiretap array systems they've installed in US telecoms are tapping US citizens. Sometimes both ends of a converstation are in the US!
Now, that's legal because, someone, somewhere, is willing to assert it's 'targeting' non-US citizens. They can make it as loose as they want, and as over as many people as they want, while continuing to say it 'targets' non-citizens.
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77 cents minus the trading fees is not, however, 77 cents.
VMWare ESX is not, in anyway, 'software for Linux'.
This is false, demonstrably so. The city of Minneapolis' own school choice program illustrates this. As do certan charter schools in high-poverty areas that have massive success. Success and failure of schools for poor people is very dependent on the control that the teacher-union backed politicians. And the Feds ARE involved in local school issues and provide funding for it - more and more every years.
Ah, yes. No doubt funded by the secret Federal Democratic government that's been operating next to the Republican one for years and years. Wait, no, so it's the Federal Republican who've been funding schools more and more? I'm getting really confused as to what the fuck you're even pretending your point to be.
But I like the fact you constantly bring up schools to deflect away infrastructure. Schools are complicated. We do not know how to fix them.
There are plenty of complicated things in the government that are difficult to figure out the correct thing to do, and sometimes trying to help actually makes things worse. I have, at absolutely no point, suggested schools were not these things, although suggesting that their entire problem is too much money is just bone stupid. If you have some magical school suggestion, feel free to mention it where people are actually discussing, you know, schools, and not where they are discussing, you know, bridges.
Bridges, though? They're easy. All we have to do is spend the money on having people inspect and fix them! That's it. Theres no argument, there's no debate. We can either repair infrastruture, or not. If we don't, it will fail...usually in slow slide to unuseablity, but sometimes in a very rapid collapse.
I quite understand why you're deflecting the argument from 'Republicans don't spend enough on required bridge maintenance' to 'Democrats spend too much on schools', but, honestly, you're the only person you've fooled there. Democrats may, indeed, spend too much on certain schools. I have my own suspicious as to what is wrong, but as they are completely irrelevant to bridges, I will not say them.
The chart in the NYTimes areticle you cite is bogus because it doesn't cite real dollars, just a percentage - and it does appear that feds DO fund a large amount of transportation costs.
Why the hell you think I was trying to make the claim the Federal government didn't fund anything to do with transportation costs is beyond me. I didn't say anything in that regard.
And maybe you should read your own article that you apparently googled but did not read. It seems the vetos has nothing to do with bridge maintenance. FTA: That has often meant construction of new, politically popular roads and transit projects rather than the mundane work of maintaining the worn-out ones.
It's you who's not reading the article. They are talking about Federal funds, not the transportation bill that was slashed.
In fact, almost all the article is talking about Federal funding, which I don't give a shit about because, and I repeat, the governor slashed the transportation budget. The entire reason I pointed to that article was the first damn line: In the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state's gas tax to pay for transportation needs.
To repeat my argument for the brain-damaged: In Minnesota, the governor twice vetoed increasing spending on transportation to where the legislature wanted it, because he had a 'No new tax pledge'. This got so bad that voters passed a constitutional amendment directing all fees and taxes from the sale of new cars to transportation, and they still had shortfalls. Google 'Minnesota gas tax Pawlenty amendment' if you want the full hilarious story about one man's attempt to keep from raising any taxes at all, as the transportation system fell to pieces around him.
Of course,
You really should do some research into this particular issue before you speak up.
In this case, the Republican governor slashed transportation spending since taking office in 2004 by vetoing budgets, see here. And feel free to google it.
Alternatively, how to do you explain the absolute failure of school systems with massive spending in cities that are run by Democrats - and they sucked even when Dems controlled all three parts of the Federal government. Witness DC - 12k a month per student and 2/3ds of public school teachers with children send their kids to private schools.
Well, I certainly don't assert the failure of the schools is due to too much revenue, as you apparently do. That's completely nonsensical. Also, you've apparently failed to notice schools are, in fact, run by the states, not the Federal or city governments, so who is in charge of the city or the Federal government at the time is not very incredibly relevant.
Incidentally, the quality of schools is almost entirely unrelated to which political party is in office in the state, and almost entirely related to percentage of the poor. So suggesting that failing schools have more than enough money would seem to be somewhat illogical on that basis.
Anyway, the failure of schools is way too complicated to get into here, and has nothing to do with the recent disintegration of infrastructure around the country, which is almost entirely due to lack of spending on maintenance. We know how to make things work correctly, and we know how to spend money to make that happen. We do not know how to make students learn. I 'agree' with you that throwing money at schools is not 'the' solution, but that is because there are several other root problems. In the case of infrastructure, however, the entire problem is that we refuse to spend the money on it.
Bridges aren't too important to be left to government. They're too important to be left to a political party that thinks government is unneeded and unwanted, and that the less spent on it the better.
He neglects to mention Bellsouth also used to be AT&T.
It's pretty funny, but, really, could be funnier.
My sig, for future reference when I change it, or for those who don't see them:
You can't drown a government in a bathtub without drowning a few people in a river. Or a whole city in a lake.
The very first thing I said in RL, when I heard about the bridge collapse was, despite not knowing anything about politics over there, was 'What do you want to bet it's because Republican over there have underfunded transportation to cut taxes?'. And damned if I wasn't right.
As for that specific line, I said it, at least the first sentence, on here somewhere. (Grover Norquist, of course, was the original guy that said he wanted to make the government so small he could drown it in a bathtub.) When I made it my sig, I added the second one. I thought it was clever at the time, but right now, when I googled to make sure I spelt 'Norquist' correctly, I see a lot of other people have made the same analogy. I guess it's a pretty obvious one.
Feel free to use it, I hereby public domain it.
That's what I said. They rename 'Cingular' 'AT&T'.
Yeah, because people regularly complain when charges of $0.00 don't show up on their bill.
Dumbass, people want itemized charges, not itemized lack of charges. No one gives a fuck how many times some company thinks we did something that they are not charging us for.
I can just imagine people complaining at restaurants that the restaurant didn't include their free chips, or their free trip to the restroom, on the bill.
There might be one or two people in the world who have some reason for wanting to know this (For example, if they think a background software application on their iPhone is calling home.), but there would be absolutely no complains if they didn't show it...no ISP gives people a bill with their free data transactions itemized, and even ones that do charge for bandwidth don't normally itemize it.
No no no. SBC bought the corpse that was AT&T, and renamed itself AT&T, but Cingular was a joint venture between that and Bellsouth. Then the new AT&T bought Bellsouth.
To recap:
AT&T & AT&T Wireless exist, with the former owning the latter
AT&T Wireless fails, is bought by Cingular from AT&T. Cingular is a joint venture of Bellsouth and SBC.
AT&T is bought by SBC, which then names itself AT&T.
SBC (Calling itself AT&T) buys Bellsouth. Now Cingular is a joint venture of SBC (Calling itself AT&T) and Bellsouth (owned entirely by SBC, which is, again, calling itself AT&T) or, in other words, wholely owned by SBC, aka, AT&T.
They rename Cingular AT&T.
Why yes, the police can just stand around every check cashing store all day, but it actually might be useful to know check cashing store #1409 is visited by people from factory #294, so tend to show up on every second Thursday, and the criminals have figured this out and tend to mug them every second Thursday.
Instead of, you know, being everywhere at all times, which is quite probably impossible for a police department.
And saying 'the police should figure this out on their own' is idiotic. It is very hard to spot patterns that happen monthly, especially when you only see part of the picture, and when you consider the fact a crime 'near check-cashing places' might not be obvious. If a cop's been sent out to six arrests in the same area in the last four months, he's probably not going to twig on the fact that three of them happened on the first weekday after the 15th, especially if he's visited fifteen other crimes during that.
To see all the likelyhood of places and the exact pattern, you need to keep a record of it outside of individual cops memory. Like, I dunno, a database. Like cops have been doing forever, even before computers, with little pins stuck in maps.
It used to be that they'd keep them in a database and detectives and higher-ups would look at them and try to discover the patterns. Now data-mining has gotten so useful that the computers are actually able to notice things, like the link with check cashing places, that police might not have seen. (They see the sites of the crimes, they can't magically figure out there are check cashing places nearby.)
You cannot both be friendly and operate assault teams that break in people's doors.
With Hilary, it really doesn't matter so much why people dislike her (or why they think they dislike her), it's just that it's out there. That makes her battle that much harder, especially since the Republicans will do their best to reinforce people's preconcieved notions about her. I don't see anything other than a very tough and ugly battle for her, should she get the nod. The other problem that she has is people in the middle really view her as more of the same, and are more ready for fresh ideas (Obama, Ron Paul). It doesn't help at all that she's literally another Clinton.
I agree with the rest of this, but I think you're really completely wrong here. Go out and ask people, right now, if they'd rather have another term of Clinton in the White House or another term of Bush.
Now, if the race is against a clone of Clinton politically vs. a clone of Bush politically, guess who's going to win? Now assume the Clinton-clone is squeaky-clean, 'family'-wise, whereas it's the Bush clone with infidelity and divorces.
Hillary has a lot of perceived dislike because it's imagined that a lot of other people disliked her ten years ago. No one actually dislikes her for any valid or logical reason (That they can figure out.), and voters aren't completely stupid, at least not anymore. If she actually shows up again, you'd be amazed how quickly the 'dislike' of her just melts away.
And the problem with the Dems isn't that the candidates get choses by the 'diehards'. If they did, Edwards would have won easily. The problem is that the candidates get chosen by the Democratic political machine, which was, until recently, run by the DLC, which is, and has been, in every single way, with a near-perfect-track record, completely and utterly wrong about what voters want. The only president they've managed to get elected is Clinton, who listened to them and implemented several incredibly stupid policies like NAFTA, which he was never called on because both the left and right machine still wants everyone to think they are good ideas.
Which is why I dislike her, she's still the DLC candidate, although, like I said, at least she ignored their debate. But the average voter doesn't know any of that stuff, and it would be very hard for a Republican to paint her as 'Too conservative', even though she is. They used to be able to paint her, and Clinton, as 'fascists', but, heheh, good luck with trying that now.
The Democrats need to do is pick someone who actually is willing to fight for something those people in the want, and have wanted for a long time. Like some sort of health care solution, or doing something about the fact more and more people are falling out of middle class and into the poor. Edwards is the big guy here, but understandable, the big money does not head his way.
Failing that he needs to have 18 CHA like Obama. :) And luckily Obama seems to be cribbing from Edward's platform. I wish we'd get Edwards/Obama, but maybe we'll get Obama/Edwards. (Someone once suggested, semi-seriously, that, to take advantage of Gore's popularity, a Democrat candidate should promise to appoint Gore to the EPA and have him tour with them. I wish someone would do the same with Edwards to some appropriate position. And Richardson, put him in the State Department.)
Of course, they all need to stay away from the third rail, supporting the Iraq war. Instead of just coming out and saying it, a lot of them are gradually building up to being totally anti-war by the election, which is cowardly, but, really, they can't end the war by their platform before they get elected anyway, so it doesn't actually matter.
WRT to Hillary: A lot of the 'dislike' of Hillary was Republican drones spewing their dislike of Hillary. You're right about the 25% at each end, but what you missed was that that is where at least 95% of 'the dislike' is coming from, the lunatic right managed to injest so much hatred for Bill and Hillary (That's how they got created in the first place) that it spilled over into the public sphere and looked as if it was some sort of general dislike.
You and I may dislike her for being a carpet bagger, and, not a career politician, (All candidates are that, they basically have to be.), but one that has been part of the 'mainstream beltway thought'(1) that she may not realize how incredibly wrong about every single thing they actually are. But most people don't know those things and don't have any actual opinion about her. They may think, like you, thanks to the Republicans, that people generally dislike her, but they don't dislike her.
As for the Republicans, I'm not too worried about any candidate that continues to desperately cling on to that third rail of Iraq and Bush support no matter how much it shocks the general population into disliking them. There's No. Possible. Way. they can reposition themselves fast enough after the primary to actually stand a chance. The only Republican that stands a chance in the election is Ron Paul, and while he may be incredibly popular, I'd give 1:10 odds of him actually winning as the Republican machine will stomp him.
No, I'll give the Republicans 4:5 odds they'll elect Giuliani or Romney. Ironically, those two are perfect Republican candidates...for 1996. They could move far enough right to win the primary, and then easily move back left where they started...but the Republican base caught on to that behavior, and are now asking incredibly specific questions they can't weasel out of, plus requires them to tie themselves to Bush, which they can't weasel out of either.
And to the crazed Fred Thompson supporter elsewhere in the thread: Avoiding entering the race to keep from having to go on the record in the wingnut debates was clever.
Avoiding entering the race at all? Not really that smart plan, because, it turns out to be elected, people actually have to know who you are. That is all.
1) These are the thoughts that say "Democrats must appear tough", which, apparently, means being Republicans-lite, "Democrats must appease the religious loons", hence their random censoring of things, and "Democrats must not let themselves be called 'socialists'", hence the skuttling of all the new social programs. Every single one of those ideas is dead wrong, (Except the first one, which became right on 9/11 and stopped being right about 2003, so was right for one election.) and ye
Kennedy certainly could have handled Vietnam better, but blaming him for the entire war is a bit silly. Yeah, he escalated it, but he wanted out. And he intelligently kept it at the level of military advisors instead of actually trying to fight the war.
Kennedy could have and should have stopped Vietnam before the actual war. But saying it's his fault is ignoring the fact we were there in an advisor role before Kennedy, and we were there in an advisor role after him, and all he did was send more advisors. (Admittedly, a lot more.) When Kennedy was assassinated, less than 400 Americans had killed ever in Vietnam. (And some of those before him.)
Lyndon B. Johnson is the person who escalated the thing into an actual meat-grinder of soldiers.
Hey, I'm right there with you, I'm not a big fan of Obama either. I don't think he has enough experience. I think he'd make a good VP, and, if so, he should run in 8 years or so for Prez.
I'm not a Hillary fan either, but it looks like one of them is going to be our next president, and I'd slightly rather have her.
Yes, he has a position on all those amazing issues...
Until he actually stands up in front of the public and proclaims those positions, people will obviously not dislike them. Um, duh. Until someone is running, people do not bother to attack their positions, so the only people who think they know them are his supporters. (I would urge you to notice the 'think' there also.)
I will rephrase since you seemed to have missed it: The second he gets in the race, he'll actually have to, you know, state some actual positions, which will either piss off the 25% and he won't win the primary, and piss off the 75% and he won't win the election.
And in addition to the positions his voting record would seem to imply, he's also going to be asked some rather blunt questions about the war on terror he's been avoiding so far by avoiding the debates.
Then he can lie and ignore the law under any circumstances, no matter what the law says.
No, because FISA wiretaps went through a court. And the 'swearing under oath' thing went through Congress. In both cases, there were things in effect to check him if they lied about having legal justification for the taps
And the NSA was not supposed to do them without one of those two things on penalty of imprisonment. And, yes, the NSA had oversight that actually worked, which is why the executive had to go get WH lawyers (Including our current AG) to make up some bogus legal justification to give to them.
Ugh. So your concern is that they'll lie and ignore the law, but that now this update to the law allows them the escape of being able to say they thought they were targeting someone outside the US? Well, if they realize they are targeting someone within the US, a warrant is required, as it always has been.
And, as I said, if you believe that persons in the administration will just ignore the law, do whatever they want, and that even if they are caught, Bush will just commute or pardon, then what does the wording of the law even matter? I imagine the response will be something along the lines that this just makes it even easier for them to shred the Constitution.
What does that have to do with anything? Just because I believe that someone is ignoring important laws doesn't mean I should logically support those laws being loosened. In fact, that's actually a pretty irrational position to take.
No, this is exactly what I said it was: an update to a law to monitor communications that should NEVER require a warrant to monitor, period.
No, it's an update to the law allow the monitoring of communication without any oversight. Using systems that can include things it is unlawful to tap without a warrant. I don't care if something is legal or not, everything that could be use to violate the rights of American needs some sort of multi-branch government oversight.
As to the domestic NSA programs, it's pretty clear that pen register information is exempt from warrant requirements. The programs were secret. Congress was briefed and the programs had to be reauthorized every 45 days. Why even bother to brief Congress and authorize intelligence programs? To have deniability once it leaks out? Come on. And, again, if, as you seem to believe, they'll just do whatever they want anyway, then what's the difference? Why even update the law at all?
Um, you don't appear to actually know anything about the NSA warrantless-wiretapping scandal at all. Hint: Briefing a few people in Congress that you're violating the law and swearing them to secrecy on penalty of imprisonment does not make something legal.
No matter what your political stripe, this FISA update has a very specific purpose, and that is to continue to allow unfettered foreign SIGINT collection without warrants or other administrative requirements, even - rather, especially - when the traffic travels through equipment within the US. And thankfully, Congress agrees.
You're, at this point, lying even based on what you already admitted. The updated law doesn't make tapping foreign traffic legal. That already is legal. It makes 'accidentally' tapping domestic traffic legal if you 'really' were trying to tap foreign communication. The difference between you and I is that you don't see the single quotes in that last sentence.
And here's a fun question for you: Do you have an idea what the false positive rate is? Do you have the slightest idea at all what it would be? No, of course not, that's classified. We don't know if the NSA is tapping two US citizens per ten thousand foreign calls, or if they're tapping ten thousand citizens per two foreign calls, or if they are literally just tapping everyone.
That last one, I should point out, makes their system legal even without any sorts of lies, so even
Ha, I should have known there was Thompson supporter.
Do you know why Thompson has support? There's one, single reason:
Because he has absolutely no positions on anything whatsoever.
The second he gets in the race, he'll actually have to, you know, come up with some actual positions, which will either piss off the 25% and he won't win the primary, and piss off the 75% and he won't win the election.
And, yes, he is, indeed, the next Reagan...empty-suit actor waiting to be filled with whatever position will get him the most votes. But I've already explained why that can't possibly work this election, because there are no positions that can win the Republican primary and the general election, because the general population is of the opinion that the 25% of the people who continue to support the president, and likewise who vote in the Republican primary, are totally utterly batshit insane.
No, wait, there are two reasons he has supporters. The second is: Because no one's actually bothered to dig up any dirt on him, because he's not fucking running. If he was actually running they might actually do it, and the 'lobby for abortion providers' is just the tip of the iceberg. And he's waiting amazingly late to get in the election. The Democrats already gave up on Gore months ago.
Waiting so late is a pretty clever ploy to keep from having to say anything stupid at this point, which would work great if, by the time of the primary, the 25% had come to their senses. He could leap in at the last minute and say he's always been against all that, without having had answered questions on the record as to how many people we should torture and that we should bomb Iran. The problem is that that is not going to happen in time for him to enter the race, and probably not happen at all before the primary.
I don't trust Hillary, she's too close to the DLC, although she wisely stayed out of their debate and now is moving away from them.
The Republicans managed to build up a lot of irrational dislike of her at the start of Bill's presidency, but that was back when just saying the word 'liberal' worked to trash someone. There are people who'd never vote for her, but that category is fairly close to the people who'd never vote for a Democrat at all. (This has always been the fatal Democratic flaw: They try to avoid the irrational dislike of hardcode GOPers. Luckily, they've apparently figured out those people don't vote for them anyway, so they can just ignore them.)
Bill was the most popular president of recent times, and health care, which is big this time around, is something she actually tried to address once, so she's got cred there if she'd just admit what happened last time: She and the Democrats in Congress got tricked into repeatedly weakening the system to include existing insurance companies, and then got stabbed in the back when the Republicans didn't support it anyway. If she'd just come out and say that, I might be willing to vote for her in the primary if it looks like Edwards isn't going to win. (Or Richardson, but it already somewhat looks like he isn't going to win.)
But you're crazy if you think Giuliani or Romney could beat her in the general election. They are walking an incredibly fine line because Bush has managed to divide the country almost perfectly, 1/4th on one side and 3/4th on the other, into wanting diametrically opposed things. For example, one side wants people tortured, the other side does not. One side thinks the war in Iraq was a good idea and going well, the other believes the sky is blue. Etc.
Before this election, there were vague statements that candidates could make that would work in the primary, and then be 'clarified' for the general election. But the Republican candidates are being asked very explicit questions like 'How many people do you think we should be torturing' that are rather hard to back away from, and, right now, they have to answer to win the primary.
So those two have to continue to appeal to the 1/4th to win the primary without doing something that will piss off the other 3/4th, or vis versa...and the joke is that, at some point before the primary, one of them will slip off the edge to one side or another.
The only Republican hope for the general election is that one of them slips to the left, thus the other one can simply not talk at all until after the primary, and win it and can move safely to the left then. If one of them slips to the right, they will win the primary and lose the election. (Or the other, seeing them go off to the right, will leap after them, and win the primary instead and still lose the election.)
When they say any communication of any kind between any two people, including US citizens, can be actively and substantively monitored and targeted, then I'll raise the alarm.
They did say that. All the AG has to do is lie and say it was someone else who was targeted. And, hey, we already know he can lie.
Before it was, at least, perjury, although entirely uncheckable, and now it's not even that. Yay progress.
I will repeat: This is about as useful as laws against murder would be if anyone could just assert they thought it was self-defense and the case gets thrown out of court, with no checks on whether or not a reasonable person would have thought that.
No, wait, it's less useful than that, because it wouldn't even see a court. It's like you could just yell 'self-defense' to the arresting officers and they'd have to let you go.
Or maybe he'll just 'forget' why he authorized that tap, although he'll be sure he had some sort of legal reason. And, no, he won't turn over any documents or let anyone testify, because that's executive privilege. If someone impedes the investigation into any abuse, he'll just refuse to arrest them for contempt of Congress, and if he is forced to arrest them anyway, Bush will just commute their sentence. Do you think any sort of abuse of this is going to lead to any sort of punishment or even admission of wrongdoing?
It would be one thing to trust a government that actually behaved in a trustworthy behavior, that is actually concerned with at least appearing to do the right thing, but trustworthy behavior and how the current administration has behaved towards warrentless-wiretapping are about as far as humanly possible. Don't forget Bush got out there and lied for three years about the existence of his programs, and then the AG has repeatedly mislead and misdirected investigations into it. We still don't know the full extent of everything that's been done under 'this program', or 'all these infinite wiretapping programs that the AG won't explain which he's talking about at any time', and you want to trust them?
If Gonzales is such an untrustworthy liar, why bother with the law at all? Just spy and say he didn't, or make up the evidence for a retro warrant on the old rules. Don't bother to reply. I don't want to take time from your Jihad duty.
Hey, fucktard, the executive branch did lie about this program's entire existence for three goddamn years.
NO
George W. Bush must not leave office, through death or any other means, without this completely fucked-up powergrab being addressed first by Congress and the courts. If all this just happened, without any blowback or successful legal challenges, than it stands as precedent.
Correct. This isn't a failure of the Democratic takeover of the House. This is a sign the takeover was not large enough, and that there are still some Republicans who are pretending to be Democrats.
Not that I want the party marching in lockstep, but, Jesus Christ. Giving more power to the people you're investigating for abuses of that exact same power, and who won't give you any straight answers? WTF? Those 41 Democrats are out in a year and half.
For once, this isn't actually throwing your vote away, either.
Ron Paul is the only Republican who actually would have a chance of winning the general election. Anyone who thinks Giuliani or Romney can win the general election are entirely delusional, as both those are positioning themselves as Bush 2.0 to win the primary. You can't 'move outside for the primary, move to the center for the election' when moving back to the center in that time would require FTL travel.
In other words, thanks to the large disconnect between the 23% that still support Bush, and vote in the Republican primary, and the actual sane people who vote in the general election, a vote for Ron Paul is basically the only way to not throw your vote away in the Republican primary, as he's the only Republican that could possibly win.
However, thanks to the stupidity of people currently voting in the Republican primary, Ron Paul has almost no chance of winning it, and hence the Republicans will lose in 2008. A concentrated effort to stir up support among disgruntled Republicans might let him win, but most people stopped being Republicans when they lost their minds, and really have no interest in going back and trying to fix the problems.
Me? I'd like Ron Paul as president and a powerful Democratic Senate and House with enough people for a veto-override. But more in 2012 than in 2008, because there's some stuff that needs to be be done before then. I'd like Edwards in 2008, but odds are I will not have to pick between Ron Paul and a Democrat in the first place.
No, that was already legal. FISA allowed such wiretaps without a warrant, in the US, if the AG would swear, under oath, that such taps did not intercept US citizens. This is how, traditionally, we go about bugging embassies, for one thing.
What this made legal is for the NSA to continue to make the mistakes they already say they are making and cannot fix. The NSA does not have the technological ability to determine when a communication starts or ends in the US when wiretapping within the US, and hence their huge wiretap array systems they've installed in US telecoms are tapping US citizens. Sometimes both ends of a converstation are in the US!
Now, that's legal because, someone, somewhere, is willing to assert it's 'targeting' non-US citizens. They can make it as loose as they want, and as over as many people as they want, while continuing to say it 'targets' non-citizens.