You were never actually in the military were you? Where did you get your information? The internet? A firing range? TV? Because it's obviously not from actual combat or military training.
Sure was. Class of '72.
The effective combat range (against point targets = individuals) of the m16 is 550m, The AK's range is only slightly less at 400m. Those ranges aren't "how far will the round go," numbers, but "how far can the AVERAGE trained soldier hit human sized targets with this rifle." The AK's 7.62 round is more than enough to kill a human at those distances.
Yeah, if you can hit your target. Or see it. My experience was, 100-150 meters was combat range. Much further than that, you shot off a lot of ammo, they shot off a lot of ammo, and everybody melted back into the bushes, minimum casualties.
In my military carreer, I had more than enough chances to test both rifles at those distances, and both worked reliably out to those ranges with ease.
I'm not saying they don't. I'm saying effective combat range is a helluva lot closer than maximum range.
As far as your "any rifle" comment goes, what about the light.50's? They regularly reach out a mile or more in combat.
So? They're sniper rifles, not something you'd hump on a patrol someplace.
Unplug your xbox, it hasn't taught you shit. If you want to learn about firearms, raise your right hand and let Uncle Sam teach you about them. (Don't worry, you can still be a janitor in the military. You just can't live in your mom's house unless you go Nasty Gash and join the guard.
Try 11B for an MOS. I did. And I don't own an X-Box.
Except the one where he supposedly told Eisenhower that he needed just 10 days to get us in a war with the Soviets and make it look like THEY started it.
How is an AK-47 any defense against Nuclear weapons?
Invasion was never a contemplated option among US and NATO forces. NATO was always aligned on a defensive basis against a Soviet tank attack, against witch NATO did not expect to prevail without Nuclear response. This was common knowledge, as far back as the 50s and 60s.
Russia, post 1949 was never in danger of invasion by the US. China? maybe.
For your perusal:
The difficulty in understanding the Russians is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian have no regard for human life and is an all out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.
Statement (8 August 1945), as quoted in General Patton : A Soldier's Life (2002) by Stanley P. Hirshson, p. 650
And yeah, the Russians DO pay attention to what's going on around them!
There was of course an urban legend about Patton saying to Eisenhower that he wanted just 10 days to start a war with the Russians and make it look like they started it. He figured that since we already had tons of troops in Europe, might as well go for it now rather than send everybody home and have to come back in 10 years anyways.
Guns don't kill people children behind the gun kill people.
The AK matches the philosophy of it's designers country and the majority of those that adopted it: don't waste money on rifles when people themselves are cheap. Its crude but if you are training a bunch of troops for a warlord via a magazine of ammo and a few targets in a desert you don't exactly need the best tech because you aren't going to be getting the best troops either. Good enough that a idiot won't break it then lots of idiots that is the key to success.
It was designed with the memory of the Battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad freshly in mind. An easy to manufacture battle rifle that would stand up in combat conditions with limited or nonexistant support. The design worked.
The Kalashnikov is designed to loose manufacturing tolerances, instead of precision fits. That results in some loss of accuracy, which isn't a big problem because military small arms are seldom used for precision fire anyway...in return, it's easy to clean; it continues to work with an impressive amount of dirt and corrosion; and it's easy for a very lightly trained soldier to operate. It's also very cheap to manufacture.
In other words, the ideal product for cashing in on Third World conflicts.
Back in The Day, Soviet designers usually came up with two designs for any particular weapon system, the full tilt all the bells & whistles version and the stripped down idiot-proof 'export version' that they'd flood the Third World with. They'd make the damned thing work to prove the concept, THEN they'd rework it so it would stand up to indifferent maintanance at the hands of some Khazak mechanic without falling to pieces. A MiG, for example, would be made of cold rolled steel rather than spendy titanium or aluminum alloys, with what looked like primitive avionics and electronics. Vacuum tubes in a fighter jet sounds like a Rube Goldberg solution, but when you think about it, unshielded semiconductors go south in an EMP when somebody lights off a nuke. Vacuum tubes won't, just power cycle them and you're back in business. Who cares if your targetting radar can only engage two targets at once when the other side's highly automated fighter jets are falling like rocks from the EMP of a massive fucking nuke 30 miles away? Especially when you can afford to fly 5 or 6 jets to each one of theirs due to manufacturing costs, and only 10% of your airfleet is down for maintanance compared to 35-40% of the high tech fighters. It only looked like they bought them at Walmart for a quick throwaway plane, but they could afford to make them dirt cheap and keep them flying. Can't say that about the new American fighter jet that has yet to even take to the air after over a decade now, can you? Those old Russki engineers were not stupid.
Loose tolerances of internal parts, usually only specified if manufacturing is really crappy. However Kalashnikov did this on purpose -- even though Russia had decent manufacturing capabilities -- knowing that this will lead to much greater reliability in the presence of dirt. American guns such as AR-15s are built to much more precise tolerances, and while they are more accurate than the AK, they are much less tolerant of sand/dirt/grime/powder residue. The AK's reliability is legendary.
You can usually get a 2 to 3 inch group at 150 meters with an AK and some training in its use. You'll get a 2 inch or less group with an M16/AR15 with the same amount of training. The big selling point of the AK is, only 8 moving parts. And yeah, the tolerances are sloppy as hell compared to the highly machined AR15, which has more moving parts. Less moving parts means less things can go wrong. Looser tolerances means it won't jam up when it gets dirty, and while regular cleaning is a Good Thing to keep it from wearing out, lack of cleaning WON'T stop it dead in its tracks like an AR15. They're ridiculously easy to make, easy to repair in the field, and they keep on shooting. Kalashnikov was a genius.
I'm pretty sure the spooks in question were very polite when they cut into a conversation and said "Pardon my interruption, but could you please repeat what you just said? The tape didn't catch that. Thank you!"
Washington D.C. will never voluntarily relinquish its power. Left unchecked, the government will continue to bankrupt this nation and destroy the liberty of the people. It is time for citizens and the States to act and we have the solution.
The 'solution' they're proposing is an end run around Congress, in that the 'faq' states that said 'convention' can show up, propose Constitutional amendments, and have them instantly ratified, even though they admit in their faq that the Federal government is in compliance with all amendments so far:
In addition to this, it should be noted that the federal government has not violated the amendments
passed in recent years. Women’s suffrage, for example, has been 100% upheld.
So, they claim the Feds are overreaching their authority and bypassing the constitution even though they admit that is not the case? And that this is not an attempt to do an end run around Congress to rewrite the Constitution?
Incorrect, but thank you for playing. Article V plainly states:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.
You might only need 34 states to stick the gun to Congress' head, but you still need 38 to pull the trigger. AND said amendment MUST still go through Congress even after said 34 states hand it to Congress on a platter, passing with a 2/3 majority vote in both houses. That pesky bit of 'all legislation must go through Congress' and 'be proposed by the Congress', remember?
What are these guys calling for? Let's see, from the website:
Meckler said that “the purpose of the convention is to limit the scope, power, and jurisdiction of the federal government,” and “that’s a debate we should be having during a presidential year.”
Beck added that when he has spoken with lawmakers about the topic, they have told him that “the most important thing you can do is restrain our power.” But Congress will never willingly impose term limits on itself, they add. It must happen through the states.
“Our role is to organize the citizenry,” Meckler concluded. “My background is in the Tea Party movement, and so we know how to organize. We have citizens in every state, and we’re organizing literally at the state legislative level in all 50 states right now.”
We're talking about Mark Meckler here, co-founder of 'Tea Party Patriots', funded by the Koch Brothers. Ah, but Meckler resigned from TPP and started 'Citizens For Self-Governance', as well as working for a 'Super-PAC' called Campaign for Primary Accountability (bankrolled by 3 Texican billionaires), still pushing for the Tea Party platform of 'limit the scope, power and juristiction of the federal government', so nothing's really changed except the name on the door. What do they want to limit? Taxation, mainly, and regulatory agencies. Basically, anything that would cause the backers of CFS-G to spend some of their profits, like those pesky Environmental Protection Agency 'illegally regulating health and safety' to corporations, the IRS 'illegally taxing corporate profits', OSHA 'illegally regulating safety concerns and mandating safety standards', the usual lot. If it costs a corporation a buck in profits, they're against it. Who funds C
Let us consider that for a moment. Some dude wants to bomb a target. He is approached by one or more unknown persons, who question him about bombs, question his desire to bomb the target, offer to supply the bomb(s), offer to supply the vehicle, offer training in setting the bomb(s) off, and offer assistance in getting away after the bomb is set. When he drives the vehicle with the faux bombs to the target, he is arrested by those unknown persons, and fifty other FBI, ATF, and local police officials.
Clever? I don't think so.
Funny how that turns out, eh? Even stranger, I read someplace that the only reason cells of the Communist Party in the US survived the 50's was because of the paid informers that infiltrated it were the ones paying dues to keep it running. Obviously, so they'd have something to report. NFI how true that is. Cool rumor, though...
Truman left office in Jan 1953. He declined to participate in the '52 elections. Hell, he had a rough enough time winning the '48 election, his own party tried to ratfuck him.
Congress passed the presidential pension law halfways thru Eisenhower's 2nd term. Truman didn't have shit to do with it, he was done with politics. He was 68 years old in an era where life expectancy was 65.2 years for a man. In 1952 he was earning 100k a year as president. In 1953 he was getting 13K a year from his Army pension.
Just remember, under the Old Regime, man oppressed man. Under the New Regime, they reversed that...
Agreed, in that both mainstream US political parties are nearly identical when it comes to screwing over US citizens. It's only the precise manner of implementation and rates at which individual liberty is lost that are up for debate.
Interesting. A Tea Party site because the Republican Party just isn't conservative or reactionary enough, advertising BlazeTV because FauxSnuz isn't conservative enough either. They're advocating a 'constitutional convention' to rewrite the Constitution to their liking, doing away with things like taxes, the EPA, the FDA, all the social safety nets, and so forth. Sounds like some 'almost a good idea', except they didn't bother to think through the repercussions OR tell you what some of those repercussions will be. No EPA means we go back to the smoggy skies I knew as a kid in the 50's. No FDA means they can legally sell contaminated meat, mix e. coli and rats into your ground round and you can't do shit about it. No taxes means a miniscule and powerless government, which means ZERO protection from predatory corporations. Dave Koch, one-time Libertarian candidate for Veep, is a serious backer of this. His platform included the usual Teap bullshit - repeal income tax, destroy the IRS, the EPA, the FTC, in general, if there was a government agency that had standing to keep his companies honest and nonpredatory, he was against it, all for the 'public good' of course. Dave Koch and his brother inherited the John Birch Society from their daddy along with a few hundred million bucks, and morphed the JBS into the Tea Party. All a matter of public record, which, if they get their way, is gonna go byebye.
I saw an interesting thing about the 'abuse of executive orders legislating from the Oval Office'. Nice propaganda piece. Executive orders are how the President runs the Executive branch of the Feds. They have no standing outside the Executive branch, i.e., El Presidente can't write an executive order dismissing Congress or the Supremes and declare himself El Presidente For Life, or putting laws on the books because he thinks they need to be there for whatever reason. They just don't work that way. It's more of a thing of 'Congress has legislated Policy X, and the Supreme Court has upheld that decision, and it is now a matter of law. This is how we will implement Policy X to bring the government into compliance.'
Kennedy was able to dissolve the CIA by executive order because the CIA was part of the Executive branch, and the tasks it performed were to be taken up by the Department of Defense, also part of the Executive ('Commander in Chief', remember), as was the FBI, a part of the Department of Justice, which falls under the Executive branch. Congress could pass any legislation they wanted to to try to prevent it, but would have triggered a constitutional crisis that the Supremes would have had to sort out. Fortunately, for the CIA, at least, Kennedy got assassinated, and one of LBJ's first steps was to write executive orders saying 'Never mind!! Just kidding!! Go back to what you were doing when you pissed Kennedy off!!'
It's the same principle that the Supremes couldn't step in to rewrite the rules Congress operates under. Not their department, they have no say and no standing. The Supremes can write any decision they want to regarding the operation of Congress, and Congress can, quite rightly, tell them to go piss up a rope. This is called 'balance of powers', and is the way it's written in the Constitution to keep one branch of the government from going batshit crazy and fucking things up for the rest of government.
Sometimes I wonder if unpaid internships are just part of a sinister plot to keep the class divide as large as possible. In college I knew lots of really bright people who had to skip internships because they had to do things like work so they could pay for school and, well, eat.
I don't know if there is such a plot, but it is definitely an effect of the increasing income disparity. I rather doubt a plot, because historical evidence suggests that an increasing divide in wealth distribution results in less wealth for all (including the wealthy) over time.
A quick glance at history suggests a shorter lifespan for those at the top of the wealth distribution curve. Shorter by a head, that is...
The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division allows an employer not to pay a trainee if all of the following are true:
The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.
The 'trainees' WILL replace 'regular employees' and the employer DOES receive an immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees. That was the whole point of this, wasn't it? NOT to train up the next gen of cyberwarriors, but to put them in place to DO SHIT.
The big tech companies write their job descriptions these days to where they 'can't' find Americans trained 'well enough' to fill them, thus, they NEED H1Bs to fill the slots that they 'can't find any American to fill'. H1Bs work cheaper, and besides, you have a stranglehold on them because they're not citizens. The only thing cheaper than an H1B for an employer is an UNPAID INTERN. We should be surprised that the government would take this advice from the big tech corps?
There are some amazing evangelists for global trade because there are some that truly believe this to be the path to world peace
That'd be funny if it weren't such a serious issue. It's exactly what people said during the first so-called great age of free trade (late 19th and early 20th centuries). People were saying that in 1913. By 1914, WWI had thoroughly disproved the theory.
They've been telling me that trickle down economics works, too. Still haven't seen the money trickling down. Money ain't brown, anyways, not in the US...
Irrelevant since even selling weapons to terrorists that had killed over a hundred US Marines less than a year before was not enough to make it difficult for Oliver North to get a new government job requiring a high security clearance. There are no "real consequences" down that road.
They had to do the paperwork first to clear him of his felony convictions. It's called a 'presidential pardon'. And I consider its useage in this instance to have been an impeachable offense, but nobody was paying attention til the ink was dry.
Good idea. It won't work, though. Do some research on ALEC. They're handcrafting 'model legislation' for every state legislature that will defeat any attempt to push a constitutional ammendment contrary to ALEC's sponsors.
Tell it to Obamacare. A blatantly unconstitutional law.
Actually, you might want to read it sometime. Granted, it'll take you awhile. But the main point of Obamacare is insurance company reform. Some great stuff in there. And yes, it is constitutional in that it regulates corporations. Even the right-wing Supreme Court says it's constitutional.
The DNC just said that presidental appointments no longer need 60 votes, it only needs 50. There is nothing stopping them from doing the same with treaties.
We have gotten to the point where the two parties no longer prevent each other from doing stupid things, if the House is not involved the DNC can do whatever they want. Glad you all voted the way you did in order to make this possible!
No, you need 51 votes to consider an appointee. That's a simple majority. You can't filibuster the nomination portion of the appointment process anymore. If the nominee gets their 51 votes, it goes into the hearings phase, then when the confirmation hearings are done, it comes up for a vote that you need the supermajority of 60 votes. What was happening was, certain people were filibustering the appointees at the nomination phase, keeping a vote from attaining the 60 needed at that time to go to confirmation hearings.
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You were never actually in the military were you? Where did you get your information? The internet? A firing range? TV? Because it's obviously not from actual combat or military training.
Sure was. Class of '72.
The effective combat range (against point targets = individuals) of the m16 is 550m, The AK's range is only slightly less at 400m. Those ranges aren't "how far will the round go," numbers, but "how far can the AVERAGE trained soldier hit human sized targets with this rifle." The AK's 7.62 round is more than enough to kill a human at those distances.
Yeah, if you can hit your target. Or see it. My experience was, 100-150 meters was combat range. Much further than that, you shot off a lot of ammo, they shot off a lot of ammo, and everybody melted back into the bushes, minimum casualties.
In my military carreer, I had more than enough chances to test both rifles at those distances, and both worked reliably out to those ranges with ease.
I'm not saying they don't. I'm saying effective combat range is a helluva lot closer than maximum range.
As far as your "any rifle" comment goes, what about the light .50's? They regularly reach out a mile or more in combat.
So? They're sniper rifles, not something you'd hump on a patrol someplace.
Unplug your xbox, it hasn't taught you shit. If you want to learn about firearms, raise your right hand and let Uncle Sam teach you about them. (Don't worry, you can still be a janitor in the military. You just can't live in your mom's house unless you go Nasty Gash and join the guard.
Try 11B for an MOS. I did. And I don't own an X-Box.
Except the one where he supposedly told Eisenhower that he needed just 10 days to get us in a war with the Soviets and make it look like THEY started it.
How is an AK-47 any defense against Nuclear weapons?
Invasion was never a contemplated option among US and NATO forces. NATO was always aligned on a defensive basis against a Soviet tank attack, against witch NATO did not expect to prevail without Nuclear response. This was common knowledge, as far back as the 50s and 60s.
Russia, post 1949 was never in danger of invasion by the US. China? maybe.
For your perusal:
The difficulty in understanding the Russians is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian have no regard for human life and is an all out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.
Statement (8 August 1945), as quoted in General Patton : A Soldier's Life (2002) by Stanley P. Hirshson, p. 650
And yeah, the Russians DO pay attention to what's going on around them!
There was of course an urban legend about Patton saying to Eisenhower that he wanted just 10 days to start a war with the Russians and make it look like they started it. He figured that since we already had tons of troops in Europe, might as well go for it now rather than send everybody home and have to come back in 10 years anyways.
The AK-47 is basically a ripped off MP42 which was invented and manufactured by Germany during WW2. Kalashnikov didn't invent anything.
Ever taken the two apart? Considerable differences in the internals.
Guns don't kill people children behind the gun kill people.
The AK matches the philosophy of it's designers country and the majority of those that adopted it: don't waste money on rifles when people themselves are cheap. Its crude but if you are training a bunch of troops for a warlord via a magazine of ammo and a few targets in a desert you don't exactly need the best tech because you aren't going to be getting the best troops either. Good enough that a idiot won't break it then lots of idiots that is the key to success.
It was designed with the memory of the Battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad freshly in mind. An easy to manufacture battle rifle that would stand up in combat conditions with limited or nonexistant support. The design worked.
Effective combat range for ANY rifle is 100 meters or less. In Vietnam, 'combat range' tended to be under 50 meters.
The Kalashnikov is designed to loose manufacturing tolerances, instead of precision fits. That results in some loss of accuracy, which isn't a big problem because military small arms are seldom used for precision fire anyway...in return, it's easy to clean; it continues to work with an impressive amount of dirt and corrosion; and it's easy for a very lightly trained soldier to operate. It's also very cheap to manufacture.
In other words, the ideal product for cashing in on Third World conflicts.
Back in The Day, Soviet designers usually came up with two designs for any particular weapon system, the full tilt all the bells & whistles version and the stripped down idiot-proof 'export version' that they'd flood the Third World with. They'd make the damned thing work to prove the concept, THEN they'd rework it so it would stand up to indifferent maintanance at the hands of some Khazak mechanic without falling to pieces. A MiG, for example, would be made of cold rolled steel rather than spendy titanium or aluminum alloys, with what looked like primitive avionics and electronics. Vacuum tubes in a fighter jet sounds like a Rube Goldberg solution, but when you think about it, unshielded semiconductors go south in an EMP when somebody lights off a nuke. Vacuum tubes won't, just power cycle them and you're back in business. Who cares if your targetting radar can only engage two targets at once when the other side's highly automated fighter jets are falling like rocks from the EMP of a massive fucking nuke 30 miles away? Especially when you can afford to fly 5 or 6 jets to each one of theirs due to manufacturing costs, and only 10% of your airfleet is down for maintanance compared to 35-40% of the high tech fighters. It only looked like they bought them at Walmart for a quick throwaway plane, but they could afford to make them dirt cheap and keep them flying. Can't say that about the new American fighter jet that has yet to even take to the air after over a decade now, can you? Those old Russki engineers were not stupid.
Loose tolerances of internal parts, usually only specified if manufacturing is really crappy. However Kalashnikov did this on purpose -- even though Russia had decent manufacturing capabilities -- knowing that this will lead to much greater reliability in the presence of dirt. American guns such as AR-15s are built to much more precise tolerances, and while they are more accurate than the AK, they are much less tolerant of sand/dirt/grime/powder residue. The AK's reliability is legendary.
You can usually get a 2 to 3 inch group at 150 meters with an AK and some training in its use. You'll get a 2 inch or less group with an M16/AR15 with the same amount of training. The big selling point of the AK is, only 8 moving parts. And yeah, the tolerances are sloppy as hell compared to the highly machined AR15, which has more moving parts. Less moving parts means less things can go wrong. Looser tolerances means it won't jam up when it gets dirty, and while regular cleaning is a Good Thing to keep it from wearing out, lack of cleaning WON'T stop it dead in its tracks like an AR15. They're ridiculously easy to make, easy to repair in the field, and they keep on shooting. Kalashnikov was a genius.
I'm pretty sure they said they were sorry.
I'm pretty sure the spooks in question were very polite when they cut into a conversation and said "Pardon my interruption, but could you please repeat what you just said? The tape didn't catch that. Thank you!"
Excuse me, I meant Leo Strauss, not Levi. It's 2AM here and I need caffeine...
The Federal Government is broken.
Washington D.C. will never voluntarily relinquish its power. Left unchecked, the government will continue to bankrupt this nation and destroy the liberty of the people. It is time for citizens and the States to act and we have the solution.
The 'solution' they're proposing is an end run around Congress, in that the 'faq' states that said 'convention' can show up, propose Constitutional amendments, and have them instantly ratified, even though they admit in their faq that the Federal government is in compliance with all amendments so far:
In addition to this, it should be noted that the federal government has not violated the amendments passed in recent years. Women’s suffrage, for example, has been 100% upheld.
So, they claim the Feds are overreaching their authority and bypassing the constitution even though they admit that is not the case? And that this is not an attempt to do an end run around Congress to rewrite the Constitution?
Incorrect, but thank you for playing. Article V plainly states:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.
You might only need 34 states to stick the gun to Congress' head, but you still need 38 to pull the trigger. AND said amendment MUST still go through Congress even after said 34 states hand it to Congress on a platter, passing with a 2/3 majority vote in both houses. That pesky bit of 'all legislation must go through Congress' and 'be proposed by the Congress', remember?
What are these guys calling for? Let's see, from the website:
Meckler said that “the purpose of the convention is to limit the scope, power, and jurisdiction of the federal government,” and “that’s a debate we should be having during a presidential year.”
Beck added that when he has spoken with lawmakers about the topic, they have told him that “the most important thing you can do is restrain our power.” But Congress will never willingly impose term limits on itself, they add. It must happen through the states.
“Our role is to organize the citizenry,” Meckler concluded. “My background is in the Tea Party movement, and so we know how to organize. We have citizens in every state, and we’re organizing literally at the state legislative level in all 50 states right now.”
We're talking about Mark Meckler here, co-founder of 'Tea Party Patriots', funded by the Koch Brothers. Ah, but Meckler resigned from TPP and started 'Citizens For Self-Governance', as well as working for a 'Super-PAC' called Campaign for Primary Accountability (bankrolled by 3 Texican billionaires), still pushing for the Tea Party platform of 'limit the scope, power and juristiction of the federal government', so nothing's really changed except the name on the door. What do they want to limit? Taxation, mainly, and regulatory agencies. Basically, anything that would cause the backers of CFS-G to spend some of their profits, like those pesky Environmental Protection Agency 'illegally regulating health and safety' to corporations, the IRS 'illegally taxing corporate profits', OSHA 'illegally regulating safety concerns and mandating safety standards', the usual lot. If it costs a corporation a buck in profits, they're against it. Who funds C
Let us consider that for a moment. Some dude wants to bomb a target. He is approached by one or more unknown persons, who question him about bombs, question his desire to bomb the target, offer to supply the bomb(s), offer to supply the vehicle, offer training in setting the bomb(s) off, and offer assistance in getting away after the bomb is set. When he drives the vehicle with the faux bombs to the target, he is arrested by those unknown persons, and fifty other FBI, ATF, and local police officials.
Clever? I don't think so.
Funny how that turns out, eh? Even stranger, I read someplace that the only reason cells of the Communist Party in the US survived the 50's was because of the paid informers that infiltrated it were the ones paying dues to keep it running. Obviously, so they'd have something to report. NFI how true that is. Cool rumor, though...
Excuse me. Just read that his Army pension was 95.66/month, or 1100ish a year. That was January 1953.
Truman left office in Jan 1953. He declined to participate in the '52 elections. Hell, he had a rough enough time winning the '48 election, his own party tried to ratfuck him.
Congress passed the presidential pension law halfways thru Eisenhower's 2nd term. Truman didn't have shit to do with it, he was done with politics. He was 68 years old in an era where life expectancy was 65.2 years for a man. In 1952 he was earning 100k a year as president. In 1953 he was getting 13K a year from his Army pension.
Just remember, under the Old Regime, man oppressed man. Under the New Regime, they reversed that...
Agreed, in that both mainstream US political parties are nearly identical when it comes to screwing over US citizens. It's only the precise manner of implementation and rates at which individual liberty is lost that are up for debate.
Time for a convention of States. http://conventionofstates.com/
Strat
Interesting. A Tea Party site because the Republican Party just isn't conservative or reactionary enough, advertising BlazeTV because FauxSnuz isn't conservative enough either. They're advocating a 'constitutional convention' to rewrite the Constitution to their liking, doing away with things like taxes, the EPA, the FDA, all the social safety nets, and so forth. Sounds like some 'almost a good idea', except they didn't bother to think through the repercussions OR tell you what some of those repercussions will be. No EPA means we go back to the smoggy skies I knew as a kid in the 50's. No FDA means they can legally sell contaminated meat, mix e. coli and rats into your ground round and you can't do shit about it. No taxes means a miniscule and powerless government, which means ZERO protection from predatory corporations. Dave Koch, one-time Libertarian candidate for Veep, is a serious backer of this. His platform included the usual Teap bullshit - repeal income tax, destroy the IRS, the EPA, the FTC, in general, if there was a government agency that had standing to keep his companies honest and nonpredatory, he was against it, all for the 'public good' of course. Dave Koch and his brother inherited the John Birch Society from their daddy along with a few hundred million bucks, and morphed the JBS into the Tea Party. All a matter of public record, which, if they get their way, is gonna go byebye.
I saw an interesting thing about the 'abuse of executive orders legislating from the Oval Office'. Nice propaganda piece. Executive orders are how the President runs the Executive branch of the Feds. They have no standing outside the Executive branch, i.e., El Presidente can't write an executive order dismissing Congress or the Supremes and declare himself El Presidente For Life, or putting laws on the books because he thinks they need to be there for whatever reason. They just don't work that way. It's more of a thing of 'Congress has legislated Policy X, and the Supreme Court has upheld that decision, and it is now a matter of law. This is how we will implement Policy X to bring the government into compliance.'
Kennedy was able to dissolve the CIA by executive order because the CIA was part of the Executive branch, and the tasks it performed were to be taken up by the Department of Defense, also part of the Executive ('Commander in Chief', remember), as was the FBI, a part of the Department of Justice, which falls under the Executive branch. Congress could pass any legislation they wanted to to try to prevent it, but would have triggered a constitutional crisis that the Supremes would have had to sort out. Fortunately, for the CIA, at least, Kennedy got assassinated, and one of LBJ's first steps was to write executive orders saying 'Never mind!! Just kidding!! Go back to what you were doing when you pissed Kennedy off!!'
It's the same principle that the Supremes couldn't step in to rewrite the rules Congress operates under. Not their department, they have no say and no standing. The Supremes can write any decision they want to regarding the operation of Congress, and Congress can, quite rightly, tell them to go piss up a rope. This is called 'balance of powers', and is the way it's written in the Constitution to keep one branch of the government from going batshit crazy and fucking things up for the rest of government.
Didn't America have a civil war over slavery?
Yes, twice.
Once in 2008 and again in 2012.
The slavers won both times.
Strat
That's debatable. Just remember, under the Old Regime, man oppressed man. Under the New Regime, they reversed that...
From each according to his ability...
Marxist.
New Testament, actually.
I don't know if there is such a plot, but it is definitely an effect of the increasing income disparity. I rather doubt a plot, because historical evidence suggests that an increasing divide in wealth distribution results in less wealth for all (including the wealthy) over time.
A quick glance at history suggests a shorter lifespan for those at the top of the wealth distribution curve. Shorter by a head, that is...
The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division allows an employer not to pay a trainee if all of the following are true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship#United_States
The 'trainees' WILL replace 'regular employees' and the employer DOES receive an immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees. That was the whole point of this, wasn't it? NOT to train up the next gen of cyberwarriors, but to put them in place to DO SHIT.
The big tech companies write their job descriptions these days to where they 'can't' find Americans trained 'well enough' to fill them, thus, they NEED H1Bs to fill the slots that they 'can't find any American to fill'. H1Bs work cheaper, and besides, you have a stranglehold on them because they're not citizens. The only thing cheaper than an H1B for an employer is an UNPAID INTERN. We should be surprised that the government would take this advice from the big tech corps?
Two words: bull and shit.
Show me a single congressman (house or senate) that left "public service" poorer than they started.
Harry Truman. When he ended his 2nd term, all he had was his old WW1 Army pension to fall back on.
There are some amazing evangelists for global trade because there are some that truly believe this to be the path to world peace
That'd be funny if it weren't such a serious issue. It's exactly what people said during the first so-called great age of free trade (late 19th and early 20th centuries). People were saying that in 1913. By 1914, WWI had thoroughly disproved the theory.
They've been telling me that trickle down economics works, too. Still haven't seen the money trickling down. Money ain't brown, anyways, not in the US...
Irrelevant since even selling weapons to terrorists that had killed over a hundred US Marines less than a year before was not enough to make it difficult for Oliver North to get a new government job requiring a high security clearance. There are no "real consequences" down that road.
They had to do the paperwork first to clear him of his felony convictions. It's called a 'presidential pardon'. And I consider its useage in this instance to have been an impeachable offense, but nobody was paying attention til the ink was dry.
Good idea. It won't work, though. Do some research on ALEC. They're handcrafting 'model legislation' for every state legislature that will defeat any attempt to push a constitutional ammendment contrary to ALEC's sponsors.
Tell it to Obamacare. A blatantly unconstitutional law.
Actually, you might want to read it sometime. Granted, it'll take you awhile. But the main point of Obamacare is insurance company reform. Some great stuff in there. And yes, it is constitutional in that it regulates corporations. Even the right-wing Supreme Court says it's constitutional.
The DNC just said that presidental appointments no longer need 60 votes, it only needs 50. There is nothing stopping them from doing the same with treaties.
We have gotten to the point where the two parties no longer prevent each other from doing stupid things, if the House is not involved the DNC can do whatever they want. Glad you all voted the way you did in order to make this possible!
No, you need 51 votes to consider an appointee. That's a simple majority. You can't filibuster the nomination portion of the appointment process anymore. If the nominee gets their 51 votes, it goes into the hearings phase, then when the confirmation hearings are done, it comes up for a vote that you need the supermajority of 60 votes. What was happening was, certain people were filibustering the appointees at the nomination phase, keeping a vote from attaining the 60 needed at that time to go to confirmation hearings.