Wind and solar are not anywhere near being able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Not only are they more than close enough, they've been that way for decades. When are energy demands the greatest? On hot, sunny days, and cold, windy nights.
Then there's the massive subsidization that the oil industry receives in the Department of Defense, as most of our military is deployed in and around the world's gas station: the middle east.
You could cut our war budget in half (while still outspending the rest of the world combined) and use the savings to put up solar panels on every public building in America. Half of $1.2 trillion per year buys you a lot of solar panels and wind towers.
The Chinese also don't have a bunch of environmentalist nutjobs that block and hold up every initiative they have to save their pet environmental subject or piece of dirt. So when they say they are going to convert 100 square miles to a giant wind farm, it happens. Here, we would be stuck in the court systems arguing for years over bird migration paths and displaced trees squirrels.
Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.â - Steven Chu, 2008
Slight problem with this "smoking gun" that keeps getting spammed - name one thing the Obama Administration has actually done to actually increase gas prices. Then, explain why you're ignoring the fact that Obama has approved greatly expanded drilling and is now busy getting the Keystone Pipeline approved.
No, you're a Randian fundamentalist too busy speaking out of his ass to let facts interfere with his faith-based storyline.
It's not an open or free market when they are so heavily regulated that companies cannot drill new wells offshore, or cannot build a pipeline to transport crude.
Nevermind Obama boasting in his most recent SOTU speech of opening up 75% of available land for drilling. Nevermind Obama approving drilling just north of ANWR. Nevermind Obama busily approving the Keystone Pipeline.
Socailism is a completely radical idea that has failed every time throughout history and will continue to do so.
Socialism blew up more money than exists on the entire planet? Oh wait, that was the deregulated banking industry. And many of those "failures" you allege to were instigated in coups from the CIA.
And it's obvious by Obama's actions over the last few years that he would have been an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq invasion if he had been in the U.S. Senate at the time. Much like his former stances on gay rights and universal health care, his statements against the Iraq war were mere political pandering to his liberal district, not statements of principle.
There is no mass transportation in America because people don't and wouldn't use it.
Tautology that doesn't explain why millions of people use mass transit every week in America, or that city rail cars were highly used before the mass subsidization of driving automobiles.
The federal government spends billions on highways every year, but practically nothing on mass transit. American transportation habits are based not just on the 'freedom of driving your own car', but on decades of public policy.
I can tell you're touchy about this, but you'll have to excuse us... we're all a little baffled.
Because you're a bunch of Randian fundamentalists that cry foul when millions are wasted in the public sector but turn a blind eye when trillions are wasted in the private sector.
LOL, you apply that critical eye to corporate waste?
Travel about 50 miles due east to the wonderful world of the Detroit Public school system.
How much money has the DPS wasted compared to Enron? Worldcom? Take all public organizations together - have they blown up more money than exists on the planet the way the banking industry did in 2008?
The pressure to limit waste in private enterprise is clear
Which is why the executive class continues to be awarded with double digit increases on their multimillion dollar salaries even as they drive their companies into the ground. Something you can't say for the worst district superintendent you could find in the country.
So yeah, you're right....there's no comparison here, no comparison at all.
You use ever last dime you can scratch up, so that there is NONE left over at the end of the month, the end of the quarter, and the end of the year. I did monthly, quarterly, and annual returns for my ships long enough to know how it works.
And this is different from divisions in corporations....how, exactly? Every department manager in any organization (public or private) wants to maximize his department's resources and not see his budget cut the next fiscal year.
You get some compensation with no risk or effort on your part in a class action lawsuit. The attorneys take all of the risk - if they don't win, they get no $$$ and have to pay their staff out of pocket - so they get most of the money. Don't like it, hire your own lawyer at your own financial risk.
Name a better system if you can. There's government oversight and enforcement, but the same sort of people that wage war on their own class by buying propaganda on class action lawsuits, unions, etc usually oppose government regulation as well.
The LEOs of today, based off of what limited information I have gathered, pale somewhat in comparison with the LEOs of yesteryear.
Stuff like the Rodney King beating happened all the time, it just wasn't caught on video. Two things HAVE made police relations worse, however:
1. The War on Drugs 2. The massive militarization of the police
First it was SWAT teams and assault rifles. Then came the tanks and the CIA-NYPD alliances. Next up: unarmed drones...which will be armed sooner or later.
That'll hurt Apple's app store revenue. Apple will fight that.
Not too much when they treat the store as a loss leader to sell hardware. Apple does make a small profit on it, but it's real purpose is to provide another reason to buy iDevices.
It's your comparison, it's not my fault that it sucks. There is no hypocrisy, no double standard in supporting stem cell research on single cells destined for a garbage and opposing animal research on beings that can feel pain.
I don't know. They do this with the FDA, the EPA, and others, so I assume they do that at the NRC too.
It's called regulatory capture. You can be the most rabid Randian fanboy and have to admit the fact that government officials have a direct incentive not to do their jobs if they companies they are in charge of regulating can reward them with fat paychecks when they leave office. Like Robert Rubin, who paved the way for the repeal of Glass-Steagall as Clinton's Treasury Secretary, who then went on to make a cool couple hundred million as they head of CitiGroup. Like the VP in charge of freaking lobbying for health insurerer Wellpoint getting to write Obamacare, I mean Romneycare, I mean the Heritage Foundation plan from 1992.
But that could never happen with nuclear power, did it? Except it does all the time in both the U.S. and in Japan - it just blew up in Japan's face first. Say you nuclear fanboy pedants go ahead and build hundreds of nuclear power plants to meet increasing energy demands and as the replacement for coal - the odds of one of them facing a once-in-a-thousand-years disaster like Fukishima will go up. Dramatically. Is each and every one of those plants going to be able to handle it, after the design process goes through the penny pinchers and the captured regulators?
But not Obama's chairman - that guy is just an incompetent partisan douchebag that was the first cabinet level administrator brought before congress because of votes of no confidence by every directly reporting member of his staff. He's also clearly wholly unqualified for the position, and makes idiotic decisions based on emotional criteria. Much like yourself. Greg Jaczko, is that you?
You're seriously trying to say that an example of regulatory capture (forcing out an official unfriendly to industry) is an example that regulatory capture doesn't exist? Get your own emotions under control, and wipe the spittle off your monitor while you're at it.
No, you fucktard, not as far as safety is concerned. No iota of evidence for such an accusation.
Other than constantly with TEPCO and the Fukishima plant? When plants in the U.S. share the same design and are of the same age? How about plants in the U.S. that disconnected earthquake sensors in budget cuts?
The facts go against your storyline. Again.
That's a great question! Oh, wait, no it's not. I reject the premise your question is based on.
Too damned bad:
Reagan withdrew from Granada and Lebannon, he didn't double down on an endless occupation.
Reagan not only negotiated with terrorists, he sold them weapons.
Reagan wanted terrorists treated as common criminals to delegitimize their cause - Obama assassinates American citizens without bothering to even bring charges, and bombs rescuers and funerals with predator drones.
Reagan granted amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants, Obama has deported more of them than Bush.
Reagan proudly signed a treaty that requires the prosecution of torturers - Obama is violating that treaty with his "look forward, not backward" bullshit on Bushco's torture.
Reagan raised taxes 11 times during his administration - not only did Obama fight to keep the budget-busting Bush Tax cuts, he's proposing new corporate tax breaks right now.
Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union to deescalate the cold war with arms r
Yeah all those social issues where the Democrats have moved right. Like how they now oppose gay marriage, oppose affirmative action, oppose abortion, and endorse religion in schools and public spaces... wait, no.
Wait, when was I talking about social issues? But lets go ahead and go through your attempted deflection, starting with affirmative action. Which party was Richard Nixon from, again?
Section 503 requires affirmative action and prohibits employment discrimination by Federal government contractors and subcontractors with contracts of more than $10,000. [1]
President Richard Nixon signed H.R. 8070 into law on September 26, 1973.
The opportunity for full participation in our free enterprise system by socially and economically disadvantaged persons is essential if we are to obtain social and economic justice for such persons and improve the functioning of our national economy.
Still throwing stones here?
Like how they now oppose gay marriage
Who signed the Defense of Marriage Act? Who's defended it in court? Who said "god is in the mix" and that marriage is 'between a man and a woman'? Just how do small-government conservatives rationalize Big Government Action in preventing gay marriage, anyway?
oppose abortion
Who issued an executive order re-affirming the Hyde Amendment? Who overruled the FDA's science-based decision on Plan B? Just how do small-government conservatives justify Big Government Action in preventing abortion, anyway? Especially when they don't give a shit about the actual health of actual mothers and children once they are born? Few things are as evil as forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies and then throwing those children to the wolves if their families are incapable of supporting them.
and endorse religion in schools and public spaces
Why do you hate the Constitution?
You must have a very left-wing definition of what right-wing means.
Your definition of "left wing" is divorced from reality. Maybe you could see a nice proctologist in North Korea for help on getting your head out, and then you can see what "left wing" really looks like.
Now, how about the Democrats supporting indefinite detention, assassinations of American citizens, austerity over job creation, endless war with ever-increasing DOD budgets, cutting Social Security and Medicare, deporting more immigrants than Bush, opening more offshore drilling than Bush, cutting corporate taxes more than Bush, cutting home heating assistance more than Bush, passing the Heritage Foundation's health care plan from 1992, immunity from prosecution for torturers, and immunity for bankers that caused a financial collapse 70 times worse than the S&L crisis when Reagan and H.W. Bush sent a thousand people to jail for it? While giving same bankers trillions in bailout money?
Nice try, chief.
Uh, yes? There are plenty of things that need whole organisms to test on, not single cells.
Uh, missing the obvious point that there's obviously no comparison between testing a single cell destined for a trash can and live animal testing, and thus no hypocrisy in being fore the former and against the latter?
No it's not. It's opposed by people who think nuclear power = proliferation, even though countries are developing nuclear weapons all on their own without our help.
Too bad the facts don't match your storyline - starting to get to be a pattern here. Nucle
The government is totally wrong, as are you. Women have a host of options to deal with an unplanned pregnancy: abortion, adoption (with or without the fathers consent or knowledge), or raise the child in secret and hit the father up later for child support when he has no chance of getting custody.
Men have none of those options. They are only told, "you made a choice, now deal with the consequences" - which doesn't apply to women. No, there is no comparison between the father's life in the 9 months after conception and the mothers. But that only takes care of those first 9 months, not the remaining 216 months before the child turns 18.
Upping the blathering bloviation may work great on AM radio, but it's not gonna fly here.
I assume by this that you refuse to even acknowledge your own use of fallacious arguments. That's not just lazy, it's myopic.
Are embryos thrown in the trash if not used for research? Yes or no.
Do the same individuals in the nuclear industry hop back and forth between government regulatory bodies and working for the very companies they were supposedly regulating: yes or no.
Is the nuclear power industry given to pinching pennies and cutting corners to make a buck: yes or no.
Is Obama to the right of Reagan on the vast majority of issues: yes or no.
That's why you're lazily engaging in hand waving and word salads: because the answer to each of these questions is, of course, yes.
But Obama *is* on the left
Name one issue where Obama is actually on the actual left, much less many. Don't bother with another lazy response, as it wont fare any better than your previous lazy responses. Or do we really have to go over how Reagan raised taxes 11 times to cut the deficit - whereas Obama extends the Bush Tax cuts after the national debt has quintupled since Reagan left office. Reagan wanted terrorists treated as criminals and torturers prosecuted - Obama sweeps torture under the rug and assassinates American citizens. Reagan declared amnesty for millions of immigrants - Obama has deported more than his Republican predecessor.
While Apple bashing is always fun, let us remember that Apple is not the only FoxConn client. So while you may revel in this negative publicity of APPLE, would you be as thrilled to hear that your Xbox 360, your PS3, your Wii, and your Kindle are also built at those same FoxConn factories?
Who gives a fuck?
Who gives a fuck - your words. Right, next time we'll try and read your mind more clearly so we know you mean they opposite of what you say....
You're using that phrase, "no true Scotsman", but it doesn't mean whatever it is you think it means.
A typically lazy response from a lazy conservative mind. Those embryos WILL be thrown into the trash if they aren't used for research. Nuclear regulators ARE completely cooped by a penny pinching, corner cutting industry. Obama IS to the right of Reagan, on everything from military spending to suspects rights to undocumented workers to the deficit to Social Security.
Oh, I think trying to conflate a non-profit health care organization to right wing think tanks funded by right wing billionaires for the sole purpose of outputting propaganda is going to require some explanation, yes.
What's the agenda of Cato and the Heritage Foundation? To maximize the money making potential of monied interests, especially in the United States. Do you really have to ask why any report from them on the "economic freedom" of the United States should be viewed with a great deal of skepticism?
So, then, the buget deficits of GWB are the problems of the Democrats
So, which party controlled the House for 75% of Bush's time in office? Which party controlled the Senate for the majority of the same - and fired the Senate Parliamentarian so they could pass Bush's budget busting tax cuts?
So, the budget surpluses of Clinton are the result of Republicans
So, who was in control of Congress when Clinton's tax increase was passed, which paved the way for the budget surpluses by the time he left office?
Obvious one right here. You can claim this is one both sides ignore - but like Republicans claiming to be "pro family", Democrats should be held to a higher standard when they are always claiming so vociferously to be the "pro science" party.
True. But that's because, to paraphrase Bill Maher, the Democratic Party has moved into the right wing, and the GOP has moved into the insane asylum.
Note, for example, that Democrats oppose scientific studies if it involves testing on animals - human embryo research, though, poses no problems for them.
A single cell that's going to go in the trash anyway, as they're taken from fertility clinics? Vs a living, breathing animal made up of billions of cells that can think and feel pain? I suggest you and Pete Hoekstra get some clinical help for your laughably broken analogies.
Democrats ignore the scientific consensus in favor of more nuclear power plants, and oppose them for mostly emotional reasons.
Ah, let the outright sophistry commence. Nuclear power is opposed for entirely rational, scientific reasons - but you knew that already. Nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build and run compared to other, greener sources of power. We'll be dealing with the radioactive waste they produce - from normal operation - for hundreds to thousands of years. And then there's the biggest flaws in nuclear power: human avarice and hubris. Oh, and the fact that regulatory bodies in charge of oversight have entirely succumbed to regulatory capture, where the same people shuttle back and forth between government and corporate positions.
Note also the Democrat's reliance on the Precautionary Principle for evaluating policy decisions. That idea "imposes a burden of proof on those who create potential risks, and it requires regulation of activities even if it cannot be shown that those activities are likely to produce significant harms." - that doesn't sound very scientific at all, but it's used to oppose all forms of GM food, nuclear power, and even to block research funding in the absence of the ability to prove a negative.
Yes, we will note your word salad, and give it all the attention it deserves. Why, monied interests minimizing the environmental, societal or economic impacts of their money making schemes - that's never happened!
Oh, and then there's the Obama administration's decision to support the oil companies in the fracking lawsuit, even when their own task force had had exactly the opposite conclusion. There is even evidence that many in the current administration are guilty of scientific misconduct.
Obama is a good example of a Democrat willing to throw science under the bus. But no example of someone from the "left", given the fact that he's moved farther to the right than Reagan.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only are they more than close enough, they've been that way for decades. When are energy demands the greatest? On hot, sunny days, and cold, windy nights.
Then there's the massive subsidization that the oil industry receives in the Department of Defense, as most of our military is deployed in and around the world's gas station: the middle east.
You could cut our war budget in half (while still outspending the rest of the world combined) and use the savings to put up solar panels on every public building in America. Half of $1.2 trillion per year buys you a lot of solar panels and wind towers.
[Citation for conservatrolling needed]
How about fuck you and your crab mentality instead?
Slight problem with this "smoking gun" that keeps getting spammed - name one thing the Obama Administration has actually done to actually increase gas prices. Then, explain why you're ignoring the fact that Obama has approved greatly expanded drilling and is now busy getting the Keystone Pipeline approved.
No, you're a Randian fundamentalist too busy speaking out of his ass to let facts interfere with his faith-based storyline.
Nevermind Obama boasting in his most recent SOTU speech of opening up 75% of available land for drilling. Nevermind Obama approving drilling just north of ANWR. Nevermind Obama busily approving the Keystone Pipeline.
Socialism blew up more money than exists on the entire planet? Oh wait, that was the deregulated banking industry. And many of those "failures" you allege to were instigated in coups from the CIA.
And it's obvious by Obama's actions over the last few years that he would have been an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq invasion if he had been in the U.S. Senate at the time. Much like his former stances on gay rights and universal health care, his statements against the Iraq war were mere political pandering to his liberal district, not statements of principle.
Tautology that doesn't explain why millions of people use mass transit every week in America, or that city rail cars were highly used before the mass subsidization of driving automobiles.
The federal government spends billions on highways every year, but practically nothing on mass transit. American transportation habits are based not just on the 'freedom of driving your own car', but on decades of public policy.
Because you're a bunch of Randian fundamentalists that cry foul when millions are wasted in the public sector but turn a blind eye when trillions are wasted in the private sector.
LOL, you apply that critical eye to corporate waste?
How much money has the DPS wasted compared to Enron? Worldcom? Take all public organizations together - have they blown up more money than exists on the planet the way the banking industry did in 2008?
Which is why the executive class continues to be awarded with double digit increases on their multimillion dollar salaries even as they drive their companies into the ground. Something you can't say for the worst district superintendent you could find in the country.
So yeah, you're right....there's no comparison here, no comparison at all.
And this is different from divisions in corporations....how, exactly? Every department manager in any organization (public or private) wants to maximize his department's resources and not see his budget cut the next fiscal year.
What part of the facts don't you like, anonymous coward?
Which is why gigantic corporations like GE and Exxon pay a whole $0 in taxes per year. Because they are taxed too much.
You get some compensation with no risk or effort on your part in a class action lawsuit. The attorneys take all of the risk - if they don't win, they get no $$$ and have to pay their staff out of pocket - so they get most of the money. Don't like it, hire your own lawyer at your own financial risk.
Name a better system if you can. There's government oversight and enforcement, but the same sort of people that wage war on their own class by buying propaganda on class action lawsuits, unions, etc usually oppose government regulation as well.
Stuff like the Rodney King beating happened all the time, it just wasn't caught on video. Two things HAVE made police relations worse, however:
1. The War on Drugs
2. The massive militarization of the police
First it was SWAT teams and assault rifles. Then came the tanks and the CIA-NYPD alliances. Next up: unarmed drones...which will be armed sooner or later.
Not too much when they treat the store as a loss leader to sell hardware. Apple does make a small profit on it, but it's real purpose is to provide another reason to buy iDevices.
It's your comparison, it's not my fault that it sucks. There is no hypocrisy, no double standard in supporting stem cell research on single cells destined for a garbage and opposing animal research on beings that can feel pain.
It's called regulatory capture. You can be the most rabid Randian fanboy and have to admit the fact that government officials have a direct incentive not to do their jobs if they companies they are in charge of regulating can reward them with fat paychecks when they leave office. Like Robert Rubin, who paved the way for the repeal of Glass-Steagall as Clinton's Treasury Secretary, who then went on to make a cool couple hundred million as they head of CitiGroup. Like the VP in charge of freaking lobbying for health insurerer Wellpoint getting to write Obamacare, I mean Romneycare, I mean the Heritage Foundation plan from 1992.
But that could never happen with nuclear power, did it? Except it does all the time in both the U.S. and in Japan - it just blew up in Japan's face first. Say you nuclear fanboy pedants go ahead and build hundreds of nuclear power plants to meet increasing energy demands and as the replacement for coal - the odds of one of them facing a once-in-a-thousand-years disaster like Fukishima will go up. Dramatically. Is each and every one of those plants going to be able to handle it, after the design process goes through the penny pinchers and the captured regulators?
You're seriously trying to say that an example of regulatory capture (forcing out an official unfriendly to industry) is an example that regulatory capture doesn't exist? Get your own emotions under control, and wipe the spittle off your monitor while you're at it.
Other than constantly with TEPCO and the Fukishima plant? When plants in the U.S. share the same design and are of the same age? How about plants in the U.S. that disconnected earthquake sensors in budget cuts?
The facts go against your storyline. Again.
Too damned bad:
Reagan withdrew from Granada and Lebannon, he didn't double down on an endless occupation.
Reagan not only negotiated with terrorists, he sold them weapons.
Reagan wanted terrorists treated as common criminals to delegitimize their cause - Obama assassinates American citizens without bothering to even bring charges, and bombs rescuers and funerals with predator drones.
Reagan granted amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants, Obama has deported more of them than Bush.
Reagan proudly signed a treaty that requires the prosecution of torturers - Obama is violating that treaty with his "look forward, not backward" bullshit on Bushco's torture.
Reagan raised taxes 11 times during his administration - not only did Obama fight to keep the budget-busting Bush Tax cuts, he's proposing new corporate tax breaks right now.
Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union to deescalate the cold war with arms r
Wait, when was I talking about social issues? But lets go ahead and go through your attempted deflection, starting with affirmative action. Which party was Richard Nixon from, again?
Still throwing stones here?
Who signed the Defense of Marriage Act? Who's defended it in court? Who said "god is in the mix" and that marriage is 'between a man and a woman'? Just how do small-government conservatives rationalize Big Government Action in preventing gay marriage, anyway?
Who issued an executive order re-affirming the Hyde Amendment? Who overruled the FDA's science-based decision on Plan B? Just how do small-government conservatives justify Big Government Action in preventing abortion, anyway? Especially when they don't give a shit about the actual health of actual mothers and children once they are born? Few things are as evil as forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies and then throwing those children to the wolves if their families are incapable of supporting them.
Why do you hate the Constitution?
Your definition of "left wing" is divorced from reality. Maybe you could see a nice proctologist in North Korea for help on getting your head out, and then you can see what "left wing" really looks like.
Now, how about the Democrats supporting indefinite detention, assassinations of American citizens, austerity over job creation, endless war with ever-increasing DOD budgets, cutting Social Security and Medicare, deporting more immigrants than Bush, opening more offshore drilling than Bush, cutting corporate taxes more than Bush, cutting home heating assistance more than Bush, passing the Heritage Foundation's health care plan from 1992, immunity from prosecution for torturers, and immunity for bankers that caused a financial collapse 70 times worse than the S&L crisis when Reagan and H.W. Bush sent a thousand people to jail for it? While giving same bankers trillions in bailout money?
Nice try, chief.
Uh, missing the obvious point that there's obviously no comparison between testing a single cell destined for a trash can and live animal testing, and thus no hypocrisy in being fore the former and against the latter?
Too bad the facts don't match your storyline - starting to get to be a pattern here. Nucle
The government is totally wrong, as are you. Women have a host of options to deal with an unplanned pregnancy: abortion, adoption (with or without the fathers consent or knowledge), or raise the child in secret and hit the father up later for child support when he has no chance of getting custody.
Men have none of those options. They are only told, "you made a choice, now deal with the consequences" - which doesn't apply to women. No, there is no comparison between the father's life in the 9 months after conception and the mothers. But that only takes care of those first 9 months, not the remaining 216 months before the child turns 18.
Upping the blathering bloviation may work great on AM radio, but it's not gonna fly here.
Are embryos thrown in the trash if not used for research? Yes or no.
Do the same individuals in the nuclear industry hop back and forth between government regulatory bodies and working for the very companies they were supposedly regulating: yes or no.
Is the nuclear power industry given to pinching pennies and cutting corners to make a buck: yes or no.
Is Obama to the right of Reagan on the vast majority of issues: yes or no.
That's why you're lazily engaging in hand waving and word salads: because the answer to each of these questions is, of course, yes.
Name one issue where Obama is actually on the actual left, much less many. Don't bother with another lazy response, as it wont fare any better than your previous lazy responses. Or do we really have to go over how Reagan raised taxes 11 times to cut the deficit - whereas Obama extends the Bush Tax cuts after the national debt has quintupled since Reagan left office. Reagan wanted terrorists treated as criminals and torturers prosecuted - Obama sweeps torture under the rug and assassinates American citizens. Reagan declared amnesty for millions of immigrants - Obama has deported more than his Republican predecessor.
Who gives a fuck - your words. Right, next time we'll try and read your mind more clearly so we know you mean they opposite of what you say....
You're using that phrase, "no true Scotsman", but it doesn't mean whatever it is you think it means.
A typically lazy response from a lazy conservative mind. Those embryos WILL be thrown into the trash if they aren't used for research. Nuclear regulators ARE completely cooped by a penny pinching, corner cutting industry. Obama IS to the right of Reagan, on everything from military spending to suspects rights to undocumented workers to the deficit to Social Security.
Oh, I think trying to conflate a non-profit health care organization to right wing think tanks funded by right wing billionaires for the sole purpose of outputting propaganda is going to require some explanation, yes.
What's the agenda of Cato and the Heritage Foundation? To maximize the money making potential of monied interests, especially in the United States. Do you really have to ask why any report from them on the "economic freedom" of the United States should be viewed with a great deal of skepticism?
So, which party controlled the House for 75% of Bush's time in office? Which party controlled the Senate for the majority of the same - and fired the Senate Parliamentarian so they could pass Bush's budget busting tax cuts?
So, who was in control of Congress when Clinton's tax increase was passed, which paved the way for the budget surpluses by the time he left office?
Looks like it's not working for you, either.
True. But that's because, to paraphrase Bill Maher, the Democratic Party has moved into the right wing, and the GOP has moved into the insane asylum.
A single cell that's going to go in the trash anyway, as they're taken from fertility clinics? Vs a living, breathing animal made up of billions of cells that can think and feel pain? I suggest you and Pete Hoekstra get some clinical help for your laughably broken analogies.
Ah, let the outright sophistry commence. Nuclear power is opposed for entirely rational, scientific reasons - but you knew that already. Nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build and run compared to other, greener sources of power. We'll be dealing with the radioactive waste they produce - from normal operation - for hundreds to thousands of years. And then there's the biggest flaws in nuclear power: human avarice and hubris. Oh, and the fact that regulatory bodies in charge of oversight have entirely succumbed to regulatory capture, where the same people shuttle back and forth between government and corporate positions.
Yes, we will note your word salad, and give it all the attention it deserves. Why, monied interests minimizing the environmental, societal or economic impacts of their money making schemes - that's never happened!
Obama is a good example of a Democrat willing to throw science under the bus. But no example of someone from the "left", given the fact that he's moved farther to the right than Reagan.