The background check that I had to undergo for my gun license was pathetic. It’s just not enough to search for criminal history, we need an invasive search for mental health issues. In these days of Google and ChoicePoint vacuuming up everything about us, it’s never been easier to gather information.
Why is it I need hundreds of dollars of insurance each year just to drive my car, but I don’t need ANY insurance for my handgun? They both can kill, and one of them is PRIMARILY for killing, so shouldn’t insurance be a requirement?
That would prevent a lot of poor gun owners from owning guns, but maybe this has gotten so out of hand that we need to restrict gun ownership.
I'm a total lefty, but Kerry, Albright, Rice, and Powell weren't running their own insecure servers which were hacked at least once that we know of. And none of those Secretaries of State claimed that they had done everything right in setting up such a server, and that it had been approved by the department, which the department subsequently denied.
Hillary Clinton either lied about this, or she was lied to by her staff. That the government has granted immunity to the staffer who set up the mail server leads me to believe that they've got her cold if she tries to claim she had no idea. I've been in IT for 25 years, and I've always protected myself by making my recommendations or warnings in writing to prevent just this sort of shifting of blame.
The Salon article today suggested that she just didn't follow State Department procedure, without ever mentioning that the department never sanctioned her server, or that her server had been hacked as a result of poor security. The article implies that other Secretaries did it too, so that makes it acceptable. Just absurd.
Years ago, the government sought to keep sources and methods classified so they could keep using them. OK, maybe that made sense.
But now, it’s routine for the government to deem evidence secret, or want secret access to someone’s data. We allowed private companies to gather information on everything we do, and now the government wants access to that information, ant secret access no less.
What have they got to fear? If the government is going to investigate me for software piracy and they want my ISP’s records, where is the harm in my being made aware of that? Shouldn’t I be able to plan for my defense?
Just as we’ve trained the police to view the citizen not as part of the community, but as the enemy, the government has taken secrecy tactics should only apply to terrorist suspects under active surveillance and used them against the populace at large.
It’s not the Internet that depends on it, it’s the security of all information which uses that encryption.
What do you think a sovereign nation would pay to obtain that master key? Even if the key were restricted to just a few government workers, being able to decrypt the traffic of Fortune 500 companies or foreign governments would be worth billions to any other nation, particularly if said nation could obtain the key in secret.
It’s almost like nobody saw “Sneakers” or something...
They keep reducing inventory, which means they expect lower sales, and as they do they’re reducing SG&A as well.
Perhaps Apple has been sitting on its $230B cash hoarde because they expect a worldwide depression soon. In that case, the paltry sums they’re spending on share repurchases via bond sales, as well as dividend payments, are just the price they have to pay to maintain so much cash, rather than reinvesting it in the business.
Apple is continuing to spend more and more on R&D, and they’ve always maintained they would innovate their way out of a predicament.
Tariffs built this country, and paid for most of this country’s expenses for the first 73 years, without having to institute an income tax.
Apple is hardly the worst offender. In fact, Apple pays more in taxes every year than any other U.S. corporation. Why not question companies like Google or Cisco, who also minimize taxes by keeping IP overseas.
Or why not focus on FedEx, GE, Honeywell, or the many other corporations who get tax credits every year, so rather than paying taxes, actually get money back from the taxpayer?
Republicans, are you looking for a senator who shares your values? A richer-than-fuck mucky-muck who will fit right in with the corrupt Wall Street crowd? Maybe you need a stooge who will rubber-stamp every authoritarian defense industry and law enforcement wet dream?
Pick yourself up a Senator Feinstein today! We only have one left, and we sure as fuck don’t want her in California. I know, she’s a “democrat” but that’s really in name only. She shares your values more than Grassley or Graham, and her whole career is a massive conflict of interest. You’ll just love her.
The Tillman Act (rightly) prohibited corporations from making political donations, and there has never been a law passed which grants corporations the same rights as natural persons. Ever. It's not in the Constitution.
However, activist conservative judges have (dishonestly) interpreted notes from a clerk in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific as a decision by the Court recognizing corporate personhood, which the decision did not.
For nearly the first 200 years of this country's existence, money was seen as property and not speech, until Buckley v. Valeo. So much for conservatives and stare decisis!
Corporations existed at the time the Constitution was written, and if the Framers had so desired, they could have made corporations persons. I wonder if this was discussed at the Constitutional Convention..
New justices have already been named 18 times in an election year. President Obama should tell McConnell that he can either confirm Judge Srinivasan now, or he can appoint Eliot Spitzer as an interim appointment, who will surely derail Chief Justice Roberts' entire agenda for he remainder of the Court’s term.
Australia banned guns, and gun deaths were cut in half.
England, France, Germany, and Japan all prohibit guns, and have lower gun deaths than the U.S.
America has the highest number of gun deaths annually of any developed nation. And it's the only nation which allows its citizens to own guns en masse.
If the radiation doesn’t kill you, the perchlorates will. If the perchlorates don’t kill you, the lack of food will. If the lack of food doesn’t kill you, the low gravity will weaken your muscles and bones to the point that return to Earth will be impossibleand you’ll still die on Mars.
My bet: the trip to Mars will last longer than you will on the Martian surface.
Sorry Elon, but it would make more sense to build floating colonies on Venus than to colonize Mars.
Do you really believe that Trump or Sanders would be seated by the Electoral College? Those elites will put Clinton or some establishment Republican in the White House.
We need to get Americans involved in their government as they are in most of Europe and Australia, and as selfish as Americans are, this will only happen after the next global economic crash.
To paraphrase Churchill: America can always be counted on to do the right thing...after having exhausted all other available options.
The last I checked, Jews weren't the majority of the CEOs, nor are they the majority of the leaders of the OECD countries.
American business has long hated Jews (well before World War II) so I'd love to hear your explanation for how Jews are running everything.
Perhaps your ire should be directed at the greedy sociopaths who want ever more power and money, rather than channeling Henry Ford with your anti-semitism.
We had all of those things in Vietnam and still couldn't manage to hold the country against an army mostly comprised of simple infantrymen with small arms.
An excellent point. Even if individuals could buy tanks, planes, and drones, only the very wealthy would be able to afford them. Citizens would never have them in sufficient numbers to prevail in an armed conflict with the federal government.
Most citizens support private gun ownership and they support some common-sense gun control laws, however when Liberals push for "Sensible gun controls" they are as believable as Conservatives pushing for "Abortion restrictions meant to protect the life of the mother."
Chief Justice Warren Burger was appointed by Nixon. Neither of them were Democrats, neither of them were liberals. For the first 175 years of this country's founding, the second amendment was interpreted to mean that the federal government could not do away with state militias, as the states might need those militias to protect themselves from an overbearing federal government.
It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant conservatives are. They read something on Drudge, or hear it on Fox, and they just assume it's true. The whole "I have a right to own a gun under the Constitution" movement only began in earnest in the last fifty years, and is a radical reinterpretation of the Constitution...because it's the WRONG interpretation.
Remember how important stare decisis was to John Roberts before he became Chief Justice? For most of the history of the United States, conservatives like Warren Burger didn’t find any right to own a gun in the Second Amendment. It was only the Roberts Court that found such a right where none existed:
Were John Roberts to leave the Court, Obama would appoint another Kagan or non-conservative as Chief.
At that point, the Court is 5-4 in favor of liberals, AND the Chief sets the agenda and the calendar.
We could reverse Citizens United, which stops corrupting politics with bribes, and get people into Congress who would actually improve the lives of Americans.
Now, who wants to volunteer to help Roberts retire?
It's a specious argument to assert that democracy runs on lies in the U.S.; in European democracies the electorate is both educated and engaged, and does a terrific job reigning in their government abuses compared to the unfettered power we give abusers in the U.S.
And it wasn't always this way! Under Reagan, Bill Black put tons of bankers in jail for the S&L failures, while Bush and Obama did practically nothing to the bankers who wrecked our economy.
American democracy doesn't run on lies, but on the ignorance, apathy, and helplessness of the American voter.
That's just not true. Have a look at Article III, Section 2. Congress can pass laws that cannot be decided by the Supreme Court.
If Congress passes law which reads "money is property, not speech, and the Supreme Court may not review this law" and the President signs it, that's it. There's nothing Roberts and his cabal of right-wing traitors can do about it.
Private insurance costs 30% to run, Medicare costs 3% to run.
I understand that you're just a worker bee, but those of us who own our own businesses are tired of overpaying for healthcare for our employees when government could do the same job for one-tenth the cost. In spite of their incompetence, government programs don't need to make a profit like private insurance companies do.
I fail to understand why dumbshits like you continue to want to hand over your money to private insurance companies which provide fewer benefits year after year, while raising prices 10% year after year. Is it simply that you're too ignorant to know you're being duped?
Hey libertarian idiots, you really want to shrink the size of government? If you're serious, then allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices again (THANKS Obama...oh wait, I mean Bush), and healthcare cost plummet.
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The background check that I had to undergo for my gun license was pathetic. It’s just not enough to search for criminal history, we need an invasive search for mental health issues. In these days of Google and ChoicePoint vacuuming up everything about us, it’s never been easier to gather information.
Why is it I need hundreds of dollars of insurance each year just to drive my car, but I don’t need ANY insurance for my handgun? They both can kill, and one of them is PRIMARILY for killing, so shouldn’t insurance be a requirement?
That would prevent a lot of poor gun owners from owning guns, but maybe this has gotten so out of hand that we need to restrict gun ownership.
I'm a total lefty, but Kerry, Albright, Rice, and Powell weren't running their own insecure servers which were hacked at least once that we know of. And none of those Secretaries of State claimed that they had done everything right in setting up such a server, and that it had been approved by the department, which the department subsequently denied.
Hillary Clinton either lied about this, or she was lied to by her staff. That the government has granted immunity to the staffer who set up the mail server leads me to believe that they've got her cold if she tries to claim she had no idea. I've been in IT for 25 years, and I've always protected myself by making my recommendations or warnings in writing to prevent just this sort of shifting of blame.
The Salon article today suggested that she just didn't follow State Department procedure, without ever mentioning that the department never sanctioned her server, or that her server had been hacked as a result of poor security. The article implies that other Secretaries did it too, so that makes it acceptable. Just absurd.
Years ago, the government sought to keep sources and methods classified so they could keep using them. OK, maybe that made sense.
But now, it’s routine for the government to deem evidence secret, or want secret access to someone’s data. We allowed private companies to gather information on everything we do, and now the government wants access to that information, ant secret access no less.
What have they got to fear? If the government is going to investigate me for software piracy and they want my ISP’s records, where is the harm in my being made aware of that? Shouldn’t I be able to plan for my defense?
Just as we’ve trained the police to view the citizen not as part of the community, but as the enemy, the government has taken secrecy tactics should only apply to terrorist suspects under active surveillance and used them against the populace at large.
It’s not the Internet that depends on it, it’s the security of all information which uses that encryption.
What do you think a sovereign nation would pay to obtain that master key? Even if the key were restricted to just a few government workers, being able to decrypt the traffic of Fortune 500 companies or foreign governments would be worth billions to any other nation, particularly if said nation could obtain the key in secret.
It’s almost like nobody saw “Sneakers” or something...
They keep reducing inventory, which means they expect lower sales, and as they do they’re reducing SG&A as well.
Perhaps Apple has been sitting on its $230B cash hoarde because they expect a worldwide depression soon. In that case, the paltry sums they’re spending on share repurchases via bond sales, as well as dividend payments, are just the price they have to pay to maintain so much cash, rather than reinvesting it in the business.
Apple is continuing to spend more and more on R&D, and they’ve always maintained they would innovate their way out of a predicament.
Tariffs built this country, and paid for most of this country’s expenses for the first 73 years, without having to institute an income tax.
Apple is hardly the worst offender. In fact, Apple pays more in taxes every year than any other U.S. corporation. Why not question companies like Google or Cisco, who also minimize taxes by keeping IP overseas.
Or why not focus on FedEx, GE, Honeywell, or the many other corporations who get tax credits every year, so rather than paying taxes, actually get money back from the taxpayer?
Republicans, are you looking for a senator who shares your values? A richer-than-fuck mucky-muck who will fit right in with the corrupt Wall Street crowd? Maybe you need a stooge who will rubber-stamp every authoritarian defense industry and law enforcement wet dream?
Pick yourself up a Senator Feinstein today! We only have one left, and we sure as fuck don’t want her in California. I know, she’s a “democrat” but that’s really in name only. She shares your values more than Grassley or Graham, and her whole career is a massive conflict of interest. You’ll just love her.
Ohall sales are final. No refunds, no returns.
Your ignorance on this is just staggering.
The Tillman Act (rightly) prohibited corporations from making political donations, and there has never been a law passed which grants corporations the same rights as natural persons. Ever. It's not in the Constitution.
However, activist conservative judges have (dishonestly) interpreted notes from a clerk in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific as a decision by the Court recognizing corporate personhood, which the decision did not.
For nearly the first 200 years of this country's existence, money was seen as property and not speech, until Buckley v. Valeo. So much for conservatives and stare decisis!
Corporations existed at the time the Constitution was written, and if the Framers had so desired, they could have made corporations persons. I wonder if this was discussed at the Constitutional Convention..
New justices have already been named 18 times in an election year. President Obama should tell McConnell that he can either confirm Judge Srinivasan now, or he can appoint Eliot Spitzer as an interim appointment, who will surely derail Chief Justice Roberts' entire agenda for he remainder of the Court’s term.
What can we do about it? We could use tariffs like we did for most of America's history.
Or we could use a VAT like most of the other OECD nations do.
The fix is easy. Getting mouth-breathing sixth-grade education Republican sociopaths to see it is hard.
Australia banned guns, and gun deaths were cut in half.
England, France, Germany, and Japan all prohibit guns, and have lower gun deaths than the U.S.
America has the highest number of gun deaths annually of any developed nation. And it's the only nation which allows its citizens to own guns en masse.
Is that some sort of coincidence?
If the radiation doesn’t kill you, the perchlorates will. If the perchlorates don’t kill you, the lack of food will. If the lack of food doesn’t kill you, the low gravity will weaken your muscles and bones to the point that return to Earth will be impossibleand you’ll still die on Mars.
My bet: the trip to Mars will last longer than you will on the Martian surface.
Sorry Elon, but it would make more sense to build floating colonies on Venus than to colonize Mars.
Do you really believe that Trump or Sanders would be seated by the Electoral College? Those elites will put Clinton or some establishment Republican in the White House.
We need to get Americans involved in their government as they are in most of Europe and Australia, and as selfish as Americans are, this will only happen after the next global economic crash.
To paraphrase Churchill: America can always be counted on to do the right thing...after having exhausted all other available options.
The last I checked, Jews weren't the majority of the CEOs, nor are they the majority of the leaders of the OECD countries.
American business has long hated Jews (well before World War II) so I'd love to hear your explanation for how Jews are running everything.
Perhaps your ire should be directed at the greedy sociopaths who want ever more power and money, rather than channeling Henry Ford with your anti-semitism.
We had all of those things in Vietnam and still couldn't manage to hold the country against an army mostly comprised of simple infantrymen with small arms.
An excellent point. Even if individuals could buy tanks, planes, and drones, only the very wealthy would be able to afford them. Citizens would never have them in sufficient numbers to prevail in an armed conflict with the federal government.
Most citizens support private gun ownership and they support some common-sense gun control laws, however when Liberals push for "Sensible gun controls" they are as believable as Conservatives pushing for "Abortion restrictions meant to protect the life of the mother."
Chief Justice Warren Burger was appointed by Nixon. Neither of them were Democrats, neither of them were liberals. For the first 175 years of this country's founding, the second amendment was interpreted to mean that the federal government could not do away with state militias, as the states might need those militias to protect themselves from an overbearing federal government.
It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant conservatives are. They read something on Drudge, or hear it on Fox, and they just assume it's true. The whole "I have a right to own a gun under the Constitution" movement only began in earnest in the last fifty years, and is a radical reinterpretation of the Constitution...because it's the WRONG interpretation.
It was also written at a time when groups of armed men could defend themselves against a belligerent government.
Now that the government has tanks, cruise missiles, and nuclear weapons, a pistol or machine gun won’t stop them. Hence, we don’t need to own guns.
Remember how important stare decisis was to John Roberts before he became Chief Justice? For most of the history of the United States, conservatives like Warren Burger didn’t find any right to own a gun in the Second Amendment. It was only the Roberts Court that found such a right where none existed:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
The NRA is not the slightest bit interested in gun safety, that’s a smokescreen. They’re the lobby for the arms industry.
Australia got that right, as well as gun control.
I have a realistic solution.
Were John Roberts to leave the Court, Obama would appoint another Kagan or non-conservative as Chief.
At that point, the Court is 5-4 in favor of liberals, AND the Chief sets the agenda and the calendar.
We could reverse Citizens United, which stops corrupting politics with bribes, and get people into Congress who would actually improve the lives of Americans.
Now, who wants to volunteer to help Roberts retire?
What a bunch of defeatist bullshit.
It's a specious argument to assert that democracy runs on lies in the U.S.; in European democracies the electorate is both educated and engaged, and does a terrific job reigning in their government abuses compared to the unfettered power we give abusers in the U.S.
And it wasn't always this way! Under Reagan, Bill Black put tons of bankers in jail for the S&L failures, while Bush and Obama did practically nothing to the bankers who wrecked our economy.
American democracy doesn't run on lies, but on the ignorance, apathy, and helplessness of the American voter.
As a liberal, the Tea Party Republicans are our best hope of defeating the TPP, because they hate it too.
And the next Speaker of the House is going to have to have the Tea Party's agenda in order to get elected Speaker.
That's just not true. Have a look at Article III, Section 2. Congress can pass laws that cannot be decided by the Supreme Court.
If Congress passes law which reads "money is property, not speech, and the Supreme Court may not review this law" and the President signs it, that's it. There's nothing Roberts and his cabal of right-wing traitors can do about it.
Here we go again.
Private insurance costs 30% to run, Medicare costs 3% to run.
I understand that you're just a worker bee, but those of us who own our own businesses are tired of overpaying for healthcare for our employees when government could do the same job for one-tenth the cost. In spite of their incompetence, government programs don't need to make a profit like private insurance companies do.
I fail to understand why dumbshits like you continue to want to hand over your money to private insurance companies which provide fewer benefits year after year, while raising prices 10% year after year. Is it simply that you're too ignorant to know you're being duped?
Hey libertarian idiots, you really want to shrink the size of government? If you're serious, then allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices again (THANKS Obama...oh wait, I mean Bush), and healthcare cost plummet.
The Constitution doesn't give the Supreme Court the power to overrule Congress, Marbury v. Madison does. Will John Marshall be allowed to vote?