The thing is, i'm not being asked at all. I'm being told you do x or you get fined with no due process because we are callung it a tax now.
I would much rather what you said to be true, where it was optional because i was asked and not ordered. Baring that, i think it would have been much better to either expand the medicaid/medicare system to offer coverage to those that truely cannot afford it (verses those who would rather buy a new boat instead of maintaining health insurance) ot incorporatr it withing the VA system somehow.
There are loads of ways this could be less offensive.
As for the life liberty and the pursuit of happyness, why would you suggest i guarente it 100%? It is in the declaratiob of independence which was a document signifying our separation from the king. Are you expecting people to rebel agaist the US or something? I know there are a lot of people who think a civil war is appropriate, but i'm not onr of them quite yet.
I can see why you didn't log in. The ACA passed the house without a single republican voting for it. It passed the senate without a single republican voting for it. Part of it was found unconstitutional and the court changed another part (declared the penalty a tax in order to find it constitutional) of the law in order to find it constitutional.
The rest of your post is rubish with you assuming crap that wasn't said. Perhaps you have a guilty concience or something.
Well, we can worry about that when we get around to dismantling the armed forces. You know, since we're not at war and having a standing army is unconstitutional too.
What in the hell are you talking about? We can constitutionally have a standing army as long as congress funds it. We had a standing army all through the entire history of the US. Thomas Jefferson, one of the authors of the US constitution, created a standing navy and the marines when he became president..
I don't believe for a moment that their stand is so principled.
Then you are purposely ignorant. Don't you remember all the outcry about it being unconstitutional, all the lawsuits about it that eventually went to the supreme court who found part of it to be unconstitutional and then reinterpreted the penalty to be a fine in order to fake it's constitutionality? How old are you, this crap i recent.
When making these claims would you do us all a favor and provide something, anything credible that supports it? Can you?
Look at that link. I wrote it a few days ago on my phone but it is usable.
Then healthcare is the least of your concerns.
My electric bill is also the least of my concerns yet I won't ignore it either. We are talking about this one issue because it is the one issue we are talking about- not because there are no others. I could write enough on what's wrong with the government that shouldn't be that your eyes will gouge themselves out just to have a reason for bleeding.
So, how do I get my mortgage and car payments 'off budget' so the bank won't count them against me? Are you saying the money just materialized on his desk?
In short, yes, with the government, the money magically materialized and spent itself. Look into the differences between deficit and debt and the difference between on and off budget. Basically, off budget is all spending that wasn't budgeted for and generally is considered emergency spending. The US spends money off budget all the time. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for instance were all off budget until Obama Put them on it.
And under Clinton, the deficit did briefly go negative.
deficit is not debt and deficit is not budget deficit. The deficient spending never stopped under Clinton. However, all budgeted spending was balanced for a year or two and there was extra at the end of one. However, you can tell from this page that the debt increased every single year while Bill Clinton was president (1992-2000).
The deficit is currently positive but declining.
And it is still higher then when Bush was in office. However, this is pointless to argue as it is meaningless.
I'm not claiming the Democrats are perfect, but I know how to read a graph and the deficit most certainly trends down for all Democratic presidents since Carter and up for the Republicans.
I would like to see that graph. You are correct that the a democrat president (it would be technically incorrect to claim democrats in general because the democrats under Carter actively worked against him, and Clinton had a republican congress.) has presided over the smaller increases in debt but that is a misnomer. Both Clinton and Carter were restrained by congress. Reagan and Bush seemed to get away with anything they wanted.
The other 8 trillion happened under Bush's watch as well, regardless of the cause.
Well, no. 2 of the other 8 trillion happened under bush and the other 6 not attributed to wars or tax cuts happened under Obama. You can probably play off part of that on the recession that happened at the end of bush, but you can't completely blame that on Bush either. The ACA itself is supposed to cost 1 trillion dollars and another 1.7 over the next ten years according to the last CBO numbers I have seen.
Again, I'm not a staunch Democrat, but ignoring facts certainly isn't going to get us out of debt. If you want lower debt and acknowledge that the next president will be an R or a D, go for a D.
That is a little simplistic seeing how Obama is technically defunct on this observation. The deficits being run currently are still larger then when Bush was in office. Certainly voting for any party based on what other presidents have done for the debt is a bit misconstrued. It completely ignores their platform statements as well as historical events. If a democrat runs claiming he would increase the debt, you would be a complete fool to elect him.
Personally, I would prefer a third party that will slash TSA, NSA, and DEA as well as pulling back from the world police role as well. I'm just not holding my breath.
I agree with this except the last bit. The world has historically demonstrated it would sit idle while some country ended up starting a world war. Someone needs to tell some of these ambitious tin pot dictators to sit down and shut up. However, I think our current president is on the receiving end of that with the red line BS that backfired on him.
The only reason people are being forced to buy insurance is because there is no way in the US model of government that true universal tax payer funded health care would ever get up with Republican opposition.
Actually, there is no way it will happen without a constitutional amendment allowing them to do so. Republican opposition is not the problem, people ignoring it or trying to get around it is the real problem.
None of that is tied into taxing people for abortions and the government would by lynched by the people should such a move ever be attempted. In Australia everyone pays - you can go to a public hospital or see a doctor and it will cost you nothing, many medicines are subsidised, and in general services are decent. You can buy private insurance and go to better hospitals if you wish - if you have high income and don't have private insurance you pay a levy - but most people in that bracket have private cover anyway.
And like I mentioned in my other post, in Australia and the UK the people are subjects of the crown or government, not the other way around which is how it is supposed to be in the US. The US federal government is not in any way, the same as the government in the UK or Australia.
The difference being our elections tend to matter - in Australia (while not perfect) the gerrymandering of representative seats is not easily done. Typically it is managed by the electoral commission so its hard for political influence to simply keep changing seat boundaries to suit the sitting member. That means come election time a poor performing or unpopular government has a real risk of being unseated. Our election cycle reflects that - poor performance is punished so the parties toe enough of the line to stay in power - but once they become to arrogant they get kicked out.
Again, a difference in government. The US constitution leaves this to the states. It can happen the way you suggest but would take a constitutional amendment. In the US, most of the stuff like healthcare is supposed to belong in the prevue of the states not the federal government. That is what foreigners as well as many ignorant citizens fail to grasp about the US government system. The US government is not an all encompassing government that does anything it wants. It is limited by the constitution not only in the bill of rights, but the make up and legislative powers of the government itself. Take something like Murder for instance. It is against the law on a federal level but the US federal government has no jurisdiction unless it crosses state lines, happens on federal property or to a federal employee, or happens outside the country to a citizen of the US. Unless that happens, only the state can prosecute for a violation of the murder law. A recent event in the US that you might have heard about is the George Zimmerman case in which a guy shot and killed a kid he was following after the kid proceeded to kick his ass. Only the state could prosecute Zimmerman and all the federal pressure and involvement in the case could do is pressure the state to prosecute after they decided not to. This is representative of the limits the federal government has constitutionally. Even with the Obamacare law or the PPACE law, the US supreme court had to construe the fine or penalty for not participating as a tax in order to find it was constitutional. Of course there are serious problems with that too.
Nothing about universal health cover is about governments taking away freedoms. Its about using the power of numbers to deliver the basic services everyone will need at some point in their life. Sure there are inefficiencies, waste, bun fights over proper funding etc but in the end its something a government should be providing. If you leave it up to the free market well you have the existing US system which from what I understand has costs far in excess of the same services anywhere else in the world s
Wouldn't growing a fodder crop like wheat be the same as fallow?
I mean the field will need a cover crop of some sort during this time else erosion is a serious risk. Also, without managing the field during something like this means weed seed and the use of more and more herbicide in future uses.
Ignore the history of the Tea Party movement. I don't really care as it doesn't mean much to me.
I stated what happened to form the tea party, you can bother to look it up if you want. Anyone can look into it. That is what happened and if you need to hold on to your ideal that the tea party is racists because of false information, then I cannot really do anything to help you or persuade you otherwise. I will accept that you want what you believe to be true no matter what the truth of the matter is and write you off as another loon.
Wrong. When Clinton was in office, we had a balanced budget but were not paying the debt down. The Debt increased every year Clinton was in office as well as Bush and Obama. The difference is in the rate of increases. Yes, Bush increased the debt, but not as much as the bailouts and stimulus's have. Bush is part of that bailout process too.
The Tax Rates is largely a non issue as the CBO scored Bush's first two budgets including the tax breaks as a balanced budget. The lack in economic activity after 9/11 turned things around but even Obama himself refused to increase taxes while the country was recovering so it shouldn't remain an issue. The war spending was off budget until Obama took office so they do not count to deficit spending on budget but they do increase the debt. From fy2001 to fy2014, the total spend on the two wars is $1.492 trillion. I know it isn't 2014 yet, but appropriations for the wars have been made until the end of the 2014 fiscal year. The total debt in 2001 was $5.807 trillion in 2013 is it $16.738 trillion and growing. The amount of increase is 11.9 trillion over both Bush and Obama's terms. The best estimates I can find on the costs of the Bush Tax Cuts is that if everything were economically the same, they costs the country 1.6 trillion and another $800 billion from Obama's extension of them. Together, that is about $2.4 trillion
If we take the $2.4 trillion and add the 1.492 trillion, we get a little over 3.82 trillion. So we can clearly say the two wars on a credit card and the tax cuts are 3.82 trillion of the $11.9 trillion in debt that has increased since Bush Took office. This leaves us with $8.08 trillion dollars in increased debt that are not accounted for by the wars or tax cuts.
Now I went through all this in hopes that you will actually read down this far without knee jerking into some response. With 8 trillion dollars in additional debt outside of what you appeared to be pinning it on, it should be clear that we have more problems then unfunded war or tax cuts. The wars are over or will be soon, the tax cuts have been over, and yet we still see the debt climbing because there are other problems with the US government spending. It is not just Crazy Republicans nor only democrats. When Clinton had a balanced budget, it was both, republicans in congress and Democrats in the white house.
I sincerely hope you actually read that and think about it for a bit. Nothing will ever be fixed if we continue along the same path and only blame part of the problems.
The Tea Party actually started at the end of Bush's terms. It was the result of the bailouts and stimulus packages. Obama being elected and his race is ancillary to this. If you remember right, even during the election, Bush tried to get a bailout going McCain suggested suspending the presidential debates, cancelled an appearance on Letterman, and told senate leaders he would help in any way they needed. The Tea party, or a bunch of concerned citizens at this time started protesting the bailouts as fiscally irresponsible and even caused congress to falter on what was considered a done deal. Congress eventually allowed the bailout and those concerned citizens started having mock tea parties to symbolize with the Boston Tea Party that was a protest on taxes. From these tea parties, the name Tea Party came about when a couple of idiots thought it would be funny to ask old ladies who likely had no clue, if they were tea baggers now.
It is only the race baiters who claim the the tea party people are all racists that ignore this fact. The Tea Party existed before Obama was ever elected. They just weren't as organized and called the tea party before then but were before Bush left office and continued to protest the wild and out of control spending. You can say they were silent during everything that led up to the problems requiring the bailout, I would say that was the straw that broke the camel's back for many, but some were pissing and moaning about it all through Bush's term too.
It would be as likely that here in the US, her bill would have been $2000 or less too.
You foreigners and some liberals automatically assume that no one in the US has insurance. I can understand that assumption seeing how hard it is being pushed in order to justify socialized medicine but the fact is that over 85% of Americans already have medical coverage in some form. Out of over 313 billion people, something on the order of 15% of the population doesn't have medical insurance or coverage for medical conditions of some sort. Of those, the changes that the ACA implement will cover about half meaning that there will still be close to 7% of the population without coverage by the time it is fully implemented. The CBO says by the year 2022 it will be 30 million people.
It's funny, really, you have everybody pay a little, so your business people can fly for cheap, but ask them all to pay a little so sick people can be helped and you would think you asked them to cut off their arm or something.
You see, this isn't all about money or paying something. It isn't about helping others out who are or are not in need. This is about fundamental roles of government and it's abilities within the context of governing. I suspect it would be extremely hard for a European to understand this dilemma as even some incorrectly educated Americans can't grasp it. I will try to explain it in as rudimentary ways as I can. Don't take offense to how I do this as the over all result is what is trying to be explained.
What makes the American experience exceptional or did at one time was the fact that government was subjects of the people. In Europe and almost every single other government, the government exerts the right to exist and the people are subject to them. For instance, British citizens are subjects of the crown even if the crown doesn't have or use any real power. This is true to some degree in Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and all of the UK. In the US, we we are supposed to be citizens who constituted a government. More precisely, we are several sovereign states who surrendered portions of that sovereignty to a federal government that was constituted to provide a specific role as outlined within the US constitution. The legislative branch was divided into two sections, one representing the people directlty which has elections ever 2 years and one representing the states which originally was appointed by the state but is not elected every 6 years. The administration is supposed to be a figure head to provide a presence to foreign affairs and execute the laws of the land passed by congress while being a final check on congress with the power to obstruct congress by veto. In doing so, the government was to serve at the pleasure of the people in the roles the people constituted it for.
Now for once in American history, the people are subjects of the government and are being forced to purchase something from a third party under threat of a penalty that does not abide due process like the Constitution demands the government never remove. This is despite the fact that there is no constitutional role for the federal government to get involved with mandating healthcare coverage which is why the US Supreme Court had to rationalize it as a tax and assert the government had the right to tax but that has many problems too. For instance, what happens when the federal government who has no jurisdiction in DUI cases unless it happens on federal property decides that anyone who drinks and drives is taxed a $20,000 penalty and there is nothing you can do to object to it. What happens when the federal government who is constitutionally forbidden to bar Abortions, assess a 75% income tax penalty per year for the next 5 years to anyone who gets an abortion because they have absolute power to tax and there is no recourse around it? But more importantly, these people who are now subjects of the government are completely baffled to why the government does things against th
I would rather do nothing while people suffer and die then do something that causes people to suffer and die. You see, the difference is that on one, the results are the actions of fate and flaws, in the other, the results are the actions of me or you or whoever did whatever.
But more specifically, in this case anyways, if nothing is done, all that will happen is the status quo remains with the added bonus of a tax penalty digging into the pockets of Americans. If the penalty is removed, the same is true without the penalty. If all is fixed, then people can actually use the tools provided to them to avoid the penalty and the status quo is removed.
Good laugh on the former president of Iran. I enjoyed that more then you can realize.
That being said, the Zionist regime is a pejorative used by middle eastern Islamist to refer to the state of Israel. There is one situation in which Imadinnerjacket has said something that was wrote down on the transcripts of his speech differently from what people claim was actually said in the speech and people claim the entirety of the slam on Israel was a mistranslation. However, if everything was insulated to this one instance, I could agree with that presumption of a mistranslation. But that is not the case, in 2005 he called to move Israel to Eruope and boasted that it was illegitimate in the Palestine territory. In 2008, he made comments about Israel being destroyed by the surrounding nations because it wasn't legitimate. In 2012 he said "any freedom lover and justice seeker in the world must do its best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime"
The list goes on. And do not get stuck on "regime" in the term Zionist Regime. If he was talking specifically about Israel's leaders, he would have used terms like Netanyahu's regime much like we did with Saddam before Iraq. "Zionist Regime" has specifically to do with Israel as a nation, not the governing parties of it.
BTW, the division of the middle east happened after WWI with the collapse of the ottoman empire in it's defeat in WWI. I agree that there might be problems with the way it was divided but most all of the territories within the division had worked together sufficiently enough to become fully acknowledged states or countries within their own right and sovereignty. The fact that Iraq is muddled is more to the modern experience as previous as they through democratically elected government satisfied all of the west's demands for self government (remember, Saddam was elected originally).
The other thing you need to keep in mind is Iran was a modern secular country, until the CIA decided to dispose of the president and install a dictator more pliable to the USA's so called interests. And then we wonder how extremists come to power? Because they promise the people a 'saviour' from the current conditions.
Of course. It still is to a minor degree. For instance, they don't mind Christians living inside their border as long as they can tax them for being Christians and even go so far as to allow the use of alcoholic beverages in Christian rituals. But, if those Christians don't pay the tax or evangelize outside of Christians already, they go to jail.
But you are correct, the US did screw them over and the people rose up in opposition. We even missed an opertunity to put that behind us at the start of the Afghanistan war but feared ta possible outcome more then a likely outcome. Iran actually supported the US in it's initial invasion of Afghanistan. They wanted to send troops and supplies to help. The US thought there might be more to the package like Russia expecting to keep conquered/liberated territories after WWII, but had even grater fears of the neighboring countries seeing a middle east country (Iran) invading as a larger plot and involving them against us. Our rejection of Iran's help in this matter sparked the start of Iran's president hating the US and publicly speaking directly against us and Israel.
Don't let that page's bias suggest anything is untrue. It's just the first page I could find accurately reflecting the situation mixed in with all the pages about Iran's influence after we leave. I was following this closely at the time. I had a friend who
The tea party wasn't around until bush was almost out of office. There was no waiting for it, there just happened to be a culmination of offending events that drove a lot off people to collectivly oppose big government and government spending.
Also, can you explain what was racist about the birthers? There was definately enough evidence for people aligned with hillary to ask the question. There is also evidence that he is a natursl born citizen but that was withheld and even fought to avoid releasing it until after so many conspiracy theories were around it was pathetic. Nothing outsie of a few racist going along with the idea seems to indicate the claims have anything to do with race. But if that is our guage, then most everything in politics, including ideals on the left would be racist too.
Reletively flat compared to mountians in north corolina but im in a vally. I don't have good reception without the amplified antenna and the switch to digital made a huge difference.
All i can suggest is to try and find out on one tv before cutting the cable.
I live in the country about 35 miles from the nearest city with a TV station. I found long ago that I could use the amplified rabit ear style antennas and pick up about 15 stations. Granted, some of those stations are split channels of another station but I find all the major networks are more then covered. I get OBS, the local Fox, cbs, nbc, abd, CW and some religious channels that believe it or not, have some decent movies that aren't all preachy.
Anyways, I think the rabbit ears cost about $35 and I needed 2 of them. I also needed a converter box for one of the TVs but decided to upgrade the VCR/DVD player and got one that can burn dvds and also has the digital tuner. But I hear you can get a converter box for around $50. I place the rabbit ear behind the TV and they are barely noticeable.
So all told, it cost me about $120 to get rid of a $60 per month cable bill and I didn't miss anything that I cared about. That was 5 or 6 years ago.
Iran has claimed it wanted to wipe Israel off the map. However, the past experience I mentioned wasn't with Iran and Israel, it was Iran watching Israel with other countries in the area and how Israel kicked ass.
Israel and Iran were friendly until the Islamic revolution in Iran. They didn't become enemies so to say until Iran announced it wanted to eliminate Israel and the Jews from the world. When the leaders, or the figure head for the leaders of a nation say they want to erase your existence, meddling with that country's nuclear program sort of seems a little less of a step then I would of taken.
I think you are ignoring a purpose of the ICMB and sub launched missiles. You are correct that both Russia and the US has failed to defeat a bunch of desert-dwellers with rifles during either country's sustained military campaigns. But while that is called war, it pales in comparison to wars we traditionally waged like WWI and WWII and before.
We have had a hard time in any war in which we didn't go all out on and instead attempted to protect the populous or portions of an area. But because of ICBMs and the such, we have not had a war in which we had to go all out on. keeping up with the Jone's is paramount to that remaining a reality even if it does benefit the industrial complex. That fact that WWIII has not happened is sort of a testament to this fact as there have been many opportunities over the years to make it happen.
A bomb, pistol, or riffle can be detected more readily then a hacked mobile phone running custom code or the hotel's wifi signal which purposely entered the room they are in.
However, I have been informed that ordinarily, to use the wifi, you have to pass a magnet of certain stength over the device within a certain distance from it. At that time, a small signal can be detected which limits the range the programming device can be from the person. I hope that is true in all situations. On the linked article, they talked about a security researcher who was able to hack a pacemaker from 50 feet away. That is doable with a modified cell phone I would think.
It is exactly from past experiences. Iran has seen Israel defeat enemies many times larger then itself without using anything as advanced as nuclear bombs. In one war, I forget which, most of Israel's heavy armaments were actually captured from the enemies coming after them.
Iran has stated several times it wants Israel wiped off the map. They know it won't happen as long as Israel possesses nukes and they don't. Whether that was just political grandstanding or a real intention is beside the point. People within the country were being catered to. No nation wants to be perceived as another's bitch if anything came down the pike- not even peace loving Iran.
There are several permanent members who couldn't be dismissed if they didn't enter a verification agreement or left one. These are China, France, Russia, the US and the UK.
This is by charter so if you ignore it and throw one out or impose obligations, you risk destroying the charter and hence any meaningful purpose of the security council.
I agree with your sentiment. It just isn't that simple.
Government spending is required by law. That mean each time a government obligation comes due, the President is required to pay it by law. (Well, presumably he only to pay it if he has the money on hand. This has never been tested in court, but he can't do things that are physically impossible.).
Wrong. The laws automatically appropriate funding which is considered spending but it in no way requires it _all_ to be spent or _all_ to be spent at once. Under the 14th amendment of the US constitution, the president is obligated to service our debt first then deal with any lawful spending. I know it is a problem for most of you on the left when the constitution gets in your way, but constitutionally, he is obligated to honor the debts before any spending by law. that means even if congress passed a law saying all money appropriated either by entitlement law or whatever must be spent on anything other then the debt, it would be unconstitutional to do so.
So, if we didn't raise the debt limit, the constitution would supersede any laws in place, the president would have to service debt obligations and then make judgement calls about which entitlements would remain fully funded. To suggest that a law can create a conflict here is incorrect as the US constitution as well as judicial declaration, clearly places the constitution and it's amendments over top of any law made by congress or states or judicial order.
Everything else you wrote is negated by that fact there alone. I will not bother addressing them in detail but no criminal act can withstand conflict with the Constitution so that argument is dead on arrival. Your ad hominem attacks fail also because it clearly demonstrate you have a lack of knowledge of the constitution and it's role in government.
And the idea of an impeachment is already completely ignorant because Obama has already violated his constitutional obligations and faced no repercussions at all over it. Why do you think that all the sudden one more time would make a difference when congress cannot even get together to work out a reasonable deal on the debt or budget? IS it because the thought emboldens your ignorance and bluster's your false understandings?
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It is more like liberals or feminist more precisely in todays world.
Look up human trafficing.
Ffs. Im postimg from my phonr and it seemd to reject all my corrections when i hit submit
Well, most anyway.
The thing is, i'm not being asked at all. I'm being told you do x or you get fined with no due process because we are callung it a tax now.
I would much rather what you said to be true, where it was optional because i was asked and not ordered. Baring that, i think it would have been much better to either expand the medicaid/medicare system to offer coverage to those that truely cannot afford it (verses those who would rather buy a new boat instead of maintaining health insurance) ot incorporatr it withing the VA system somehow.
There are loads of ways this could be less offensive.
Yes, the billion should be million.
As for the life liberty and the pursuit of happyness, why would you suggest i guarente it 100%? It is in the declaratiob of independence which was a document signifying our separation from the king. Are you expecting people to rebel agaist the US or something? I know there are a lot of people who think a civil war is appropriate, but i'm not onr of them quite yet.
I can see why you didn't log in. The ACA passed the house without a single republican voting for it. It passed the senate without a single republican voting for it. Part of it was found unconstitutional and the court changed another part (declared the penalty a tax in order to find it constitutional) of the law in order to find it constitutional.
The rest of your post is rubish with you assuming crap that wasn't said. Perhaps you have a guilty concience or something.
What in the hell are you talking about? We can constitutionally have a standing army as long as congress funds it. We had a standing army all through the entire history of the US. Thomas Jefferson, one of the authors of the US constitution, created a standing navy and the marines when he became president..
Then you are purposely ignorant. Don't you remember all the outcry about it being unconstitutional, all the lawsuits about it that eventually went to the supreme court who found part of it to be unconstitutional and then reinterpreted the penalty to be a fine in order to fake it's constitutionality? How old are you, this crap i recent.
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4345611&cid=45150107
Look at that link. I wrote it a few days ago on my phone but it is usable.
My electric bill is also the least of my concerns yet I won't ignore it either. We are talking about this one issue because it is the one issue we are talking about- not because there are no others. I could write enough on what's wrong with the government that shouldn't be that your eyes will gouge themselves out just to have a reason for bleeding.
In short, yes, with the government, the money magically materialized and spent itself. Look into the differences between deficit and debt and the difference between on and off budget. Basically, off budget is all spending that wasn't budgeted for and generally is considered emergency spending. The US spends money off budget all the time. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for instance were all off budget until Obama Put them on it.
deficit is not debt and deficit is not budget deficit. The deficient spending never stopped under Clinton. However, all budgeted spending was balanced for a year or two and there was extra at the end of one. However, you can tell from this page that the debt increased every single year while Bill Clinton was president (1992-2000).
And it is still higher then when Bush was in office. However, this is pointless to argue as it is meaningless.
I would like to see that graph. You are correct that the a democrat president (it would be technically incorrect to claim democrats in general because the democrats under Carter actively worked against him, and Clinton had a republican congress.) has presided over the smaller increases in debt but that is a misnomer. Both Clinton and Carter were restrained by congress. Reagan and Bush seemed to get away with anything they wanted.
Well, no. 2 of the other 8 trillion happened under bush and the other 6 not attributed to wars or tax cuts happened under Obama. You can probably play off part of that on the recession that happened at the end of bush, but you can't completely blame that on Bush either. The ACA itself is supposed to cost 1 trillion dollars and another 1.7 over the next ten years according to the last CBO numbers I have seen.
That is a little simplistic seeing how Obama is technically defunct on this observation. The deficits being run currently are still larger then when Bush was in office. Certainly voting for any party based on what other presidents have done for the debt is a bit misconstrued. It completely ignores their platform statements as well as historical events. If a democrat runs claiming he would increase the debt, you would be a complete fool to elect him.
I agree with this except the last bit. The world has historically demonstrated it would sit idle while some country ended up starting a world war. Someone needs to tell some of these ambitious tin pot dictators to sit down and shut up. However, I think our current president is on the receiving end of that with the red line BS that backfired on him.
Actually, there is no way it will happen without a constitutional amendment allowing them to do so. Republican opposition is not the problem, people ignoring it or trying to get around it is the real problem.
And like I mentioned in my other post, in Australia and the UK the people are subjects of the crown or government, not the other way around which is how it is supposed to be in the US. The US federal government is not in any way, the same as the government in the UK or Australia.
Again, a difference in government. The US constitution leaves this to the states. It can happen the way you suggest but would take a constitutional amendment. In the US, most of the stuff like healthcare is supposed to belong in the prevue of the states not the federal government. That is what foreigners as well as many ignorant citizens fail to grasp about the US government system. The US government is not an all encompassing government that does anything it wants. It is limited by the constitution not only in the bill of rights, but the make up and legislative powers of the government itself. Take something like Murder for instance. It is against the law on a federal level but the US federal government has no jurisdiction unless it crosses state lines, happens on federal property or to a federal employee, or happens outside the country to a citizen of the US. Unless that happens, only the state can prosecute for a violation of the murder law. A recent event in the US that you might have heard about is the George Zimmerman case in which a guy shot and killed a kid he was following after the kid proceeded to kick his ass. Only the state could prosecute Zimmerman and all the federal pressure and involvement in the case could do is pressure the state to prosecute after they decided not to. This is representative of the limits the federal government has constitutionally. Even with the Obamacare law or the PPACE law, the US supreme court had to construe the fine or penalty for not participating as a tax in order to find it was constitutional. Of course there are serious problems with that too.
Wouldn't growing a fodder crop like wheat be the same as fallow?
I mean the field will need a cover crop of some sort during this time else erosion is a serious risk. Also, without managing the field during something like this means weed seed and the use of more and more herbicide in future uses.
Ignore the history of the Tea Party movement. I don't really care as it doesn't mean much to me.
I stated what happened to form the tea party, you can bother to look it up if you want. Anyone can look into it. That is what happened and if you need to hold on to your ideal that the tea party is racists because of false information, then I cannot really do anything to help you or persuade you otherwise. I will accept that you want what you believe to be true no matter what the truth of the matter is and write you off as another loon.
Wrong. When Clinton was in office, we had a balanced budget but were not paying the debt down. The Debt increased every year Clinton was in office as well as Bush and Obama. The difference is in the rate of increases. Yes, Bush increased the debt, but not as much as the bailouts and stimulus's have. Bush is part of that bailout process too.
The Tax Rates is largely a non issue as the CBO scored Bush's first two budgets including the tax breaks as a balanced budget. The lack in economic activity after 9/11 turned things around but even Obama himself refused to increase taxes while the country was recovering so it shouldn't remain an issue. The war spending was off budget until Obama took office so they do not count to deficit spending on budget but they do increase the debt. From fy2001 to fy2014, the total spend on the two wars is $1.492 trillion. I know it isn't 2014 yet, but appropriations for the wars have been made until the end of the 2014 fiscal year. The total debt in 2001 was $5.807 trillion in 2013 is it $16.738 trillion and growing. The amount of increase is 11.9 trillion over both Bush and Obama's terms. The best estimates I can find on the costs of the Bush Tax Cuts is that if everything were economically the same, they costs the country 1.6 trillion and another $800 billion from Obama's extension of them. Together, that is about $2.4 trillion
If we take the $2.4 trillion and add the 1.492 trillion, we get a little over 3.82 trillion. So we can clearly say the two wars on a credit card and the tax cuts are 3.82 trillion of the $11.9 trillion in debt that has increased since Bush Took office. This leaves us with $8.08 trillion dollars in increased debt that are not accounted for by the wars or tax cuts.
Now I went through all this in hopes that you will actually read down this far without knee jerking into some response. With 8 trillion dollars in additional debt outside of what you appeared to be pinning it on, it should be clear that we have more problems then unfunded war or tax cuts. The wars are over or will be soon, the tax cuts have been over, and yet we still see the debt climbing because there are other problems with the US government spending. It is not just Crazy Republicans nor only democrats. When Clinton had a balanced budget, it was both, republicans in congress and Democrats in the white house.
I sincerely hope you actually read that and think about it for a bit. Nothing will ever be fixed if we continue along the same path and only blame part of the problems.
The Tea Party actually started at the end of Bush's terms. It was the result of the bailouts and stimulus packages. Obama being elected and his race is ancillary to this. If you remember right, even during the election, Bush tried to get a bailout going McCain suggested suspending the presidential debates, cancelled an appearance on Letterman, and told senate leaders he would help in any way they needed. The Tea party, or a bunch of concerned citizens at this time started protesting the bailouts as fiscally irresponsible and even caused congress to falter on what was considered a done deal. Congress eventually allowed the bailout and those concerned citizens started having mock tea parties to symbolize with the Boston Tea Party that was a protest on taxes. From these tea parties, the name Tea Party came about when a couple of idiots thought it would be funny to ask old ladies who likely had no clue, if they were tea baggers now.
It is only the race baiters who claim the the tea party people are all racists that ignore this fact. The Tea Party existed before Obama was ever elected. They just weren't as organized and called the tea party before then but were before Bush left office and continued to protest the wild and out of control spending. You can say they were silent during everything that led up to the problems requiring the bailout, I would say that was the straw that broke the camel's back for many, but some were pissing and moaning about it all through Bush's term too.
Nice reading comprehension there. Where did I say buying health insurance was going to kill someone? Oh I didn't. So your comment is about what?
It would be as likely that here in the US, her bill would have been $2000 or less too.
You foreigners and some liberals automatically assume that no one in the US has insurance. I can understand that assumption seeing how hard it is being pushed in order to justify socialized medicine but the fact is that over 85% of Americans already have medical coverage in some form. Out of over 313 billion people, something on the order of 15% of the population doesn't have medical insurance or coverage for medical conditions of some sort. Of those, the changes that the ACA implement will cover about half meaning that there will still be close to 7% of the population without coverage by the time it is fully implemented. The CBO says by the year 2022 it will be 30 million people.
You see, this isn't all about money or paying something. It isn't about helping others out who are or are not in need. This is about fundamental roles of government and it's abilities within the context of governing. I suspect it would be extremely hard for a European to understand this dilemma as even some incorrectly educated Americans can't grasp it. I will try to explain it in as rudimentary ways as I can. Don't take offense to how I do this as the over all result is what is trying to be explained.
What makes the American experience exceptional or did at one time was the fact that government was subjects of the people. In Europe and almost every single other government, the government exerts the right to exist and the people are subject to them. For instance, British citizens are subjects of the crown even if the crown doesn't have or use any real power. This is true to some degree in Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and all of the UK. In the US, we we are supposed to be citizens who constituted a government. More precisely, we are several sovereign states who surrendered portions of that sovereignty to a federal government that was constituted to provide a specific role as outlined within the US constitution. The legislative branch was divided into two sections, one representing the people directlty which has elections ever 2 years and one representing the states which originally was appointed by the state but is not elected every 6 years. The administration is supposed to be a figure head to provide a presence to foreign affairs and execute the laws of the land passed by congress while being a final check on congress with the power to obstruct congress by veto. In doing so, the government was to serve at the pleasure of the people in the roles the people constituted it for.
Now for once in American history, the people are subjects of the government and are being forced to purchase something from a third party under threat of a penalty that does not abide due process like the Constitution demands the government never remove. This is despite the fact that there is no constitutional role for the federal government to get involved with mandating healthcare coverage which is why the US Supreme Court had to rationalize it as a tax and assert the government had the right to tax but that has many problems too. For instance, what happens when the federal government who has no jurisdiction in DUI cases unless it happens on federal property decides that anyone who drinks and drives is taxed a $20,000 penalty and there is nothing you can do to object to it. What happens when the federal government who is constitutionally forbidden to bar Abortions, assess a 75% income tax penalty per year for the next 5 years to anyone who gets an abortion because they have absolute power to tax and there is no recourse around it? But more importantly, these people who are now subjects of the government are completely baffled to why the government does things against th
I would rather do nothing while people suffer and die then do something that causes people to suffer and die. You see, the difference is that on one, the results are the actions of fate and flaws, in the other, the results are the actions of me or you or whoever did whatever.
But more specifically, in this case anyways, if nothing is done, all that will happen is the status quo remains with the added bonus of a tax penalty digging into the pockets of Americans. If the penalty is removed, the same is true without the penalty. If all is fixed, then people can actually use the tools provided to them to avoid the penalty and the status quo is removed.
Good laugh on the former president of Iran. I enjoyed that more then you can realize.
That being said, the Zionist regime is a pejorative used by middle eastern Islamist to refer to the state of Israel. There is one situation in which Imadinnerjacket has said something that was wrote down on the transcripts of his speech differently from what people claim was actually said in the speech and people claim the entirety of the slam on Israel was a mistranslation. However, if everything was insulated to this one instance, I could agree with that presumption of a mistranslation. But that is not the case, in 2005 he called to move Israel to Eruope and boasted that it was illegitimate in the Palestine territory. In 2008, he made comments about Israel being destroyed by the surrounding nations because it wasn't legitimate. In 2012 he said "any freedom lover and justice seeker in the world must do its best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime"
The list goes on. And do not get stuck on "regime" in the term Zionist Regime. If he was talking specifically about Israel's leaders, he would have used terms like Netanyahu's regime much like we did with Saddam before Iraq. "Zionist Regime" has specifically to do with Israel as a nation, not the governing parties of it.
BTW, the division of the middle east happened after WWI with the collapse of the ottoman empire in it's defeat in WWI. I agree that there might be problems with the way it was divided but most all of the territories within the division had worked together sufficiently enough to become fully acknowledged states or countries within their own right and sovereignty. The fact that Iraq is muddled is more to the modern experience as previous as they through democratically elected government satisfied all of the west's demands for self government (remember, Saddam was elected originally).
Of course. It still is to a minor degree. For instance, they don't mind Christians living inside their border as long as they can tax them for being Christians and even go so far as to allow the use of alcoholic beverages in Christian rituals. But, if those Christians don't pay the tax or evangelize outside of Christians already, they go to jail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402254/Saeed-Abedini-U-S-pastor-sentenced-8-years-Iranian-prison-preaching-Christianity-appeal-rejected.html
But you are correct, the US did screw them over and the people rose up in opposition. We even missed an opertunity to put that behind us at the start of the Afghanistan war but feared ta possible outcome more then a likely outcome. Iran actually supported the US in it's initial invasion of Afghanistan. They wanted to send troops and supplies to help. The US thought there might be more to the package like Russia expecting to keep conquered/liberated territories after WWII, but had even grater fears of the neighboring countries seeing a middle east country (Iran) invading as a larger plot and involving them against us. Our rejection of Iran's help in this matter sparked the start of Iran's president hating the US and publicly speaking directly against us and Israel.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=8590
Don't let that page's bias suggest anything is untrue. It's just the first page I could find accurately reflecting the situation mixed in with all the pages about Iran's influence after we leave. I was following this closely at the time. I had a friend who
The tea party wasn't around until bush was almost out of office. There was no waiting for it, there just happened to be a culmination of offending events that drove a lot off people to collectivly oppose big government and government spending.
Also, can you explain what was racist about the birthers? There was definately enough evidence for people aligned with hillary to ask the question. There is also evidence that he is a natursl born citizen but that was withheld and even fought to avoid releasing it until after so many conspiracy theories were around it was pathetic. Nothing outsie of a few racist going along with the idea seems to indicate the claims have anything to do with race. But if that is our guage, then most everything in politics, including ideals on the left would be racist too.
Reletively flat compared to mountians in north corolina but im in a vally. I don't have good reception without the amplified antenna and the switch to digital made a huge difference.
All i can suggest is to try and find out on one tv before cutting the cable.
I live in the country about 35 miles from the nearest city with a TV station. I found long ago that I could use the amplified rabit ear style antennas and pick up about 15 stations. Granted, some of those stations are split channels of another station but I find all the major networks are more then covered. I get OBS, the local Fox, cbs, nbc, abd, CW and some religious channels that believe it or not, have some decent movies that aren't all preachy.
Anyways, I think the rabbit ears cost about $35 and I needed 2 of them. I also needed a converter box for one of the TVs but decided to upgrade the VCR/DVD player and got one that can burn dvds and also has the digital tuner. But I hear you can get a converter box for around $50. I place the rabbit ear behind the TV and they are barely noticeable.
So all told, it cost me about $120 to get rid of a $60 per month cable bill and I didn't miss anything that I cared about. That was 5 or 6 years ago.
Iran has claimed it wanted to wipe Israel off the map. However, the past experience I mentioned wasn't with Iran and Israel, it was Iran watching Israel with other countries in the area and how Israel kicked ass.
Israel and Iran were friendly until the Islamic revolution in Iran. They didn't become enemies so to say until Iran announced it wanted to eliminate Israel and the Jews from the world. When the leaders, or the figure head for the leaders of a nation say they want to erase your existence, meddling with that country's nuclear program sort of seems a little less of a step then I would of taken.
I think you are ignoring a purpose of the ICMB and sub launched missiles. You are correct that both Russia and the US has failed to defeat a bunch of desert-dwellers with rifles during either country's sustained military campaigns. But while that is called war, it pales in comparison to wars we traditionally waged like WWI and WWII and before.
We have had a hard time in any war in which we didn't go all out on and instead attempted to protect the populous or portions of an area. But because of ICBMs and the such, we have not had a war in which we had to go all out on. keeping up with the Jone's is paramount to that remaining a reality even if it does benefit the industrial complex. That fact that WWIII has not happened is sort of a testament to this fact as there have been many opportunities over the years to make it happen.
A bomb, pistol, or riffle can be detected more readily then a hacked mobile phone running custom code or the hotel's wifi signal which purposely entered the room they are in.
However, I have been informed that ordinarily, to use the wifi, you have to pass a magnet of certain stength over the device within a certain distance from it. At that time, a small signal can be detected which limits the range the programming device can be from the person. I hope that is true in all situations. On the linked article, they talked about a security researcher who was able to hack a pacemaker from 50 feet away. That is doable with a modified cell phone I would think.
It is exactly from past experiences. Iran has seen Israel defeat enemies many times larger then itself without using anything as advanced as nuclear bombs. In one war, I forget which, most of Israel's heavy armaments were actually captured from the enemies coming after them.
Iran has stated several times it wants Israel wiped off the map. They know it won't happen as long as Israel possesses nukes and they don't. Whether that was just political grandstanding or a real intention is beside the point. People within the country were being catered to. No nation wants to be perceived as another's bitch if anything came down the pike- not even peace loving Iran.
There are several permanent members who couldn't be dismissed if they didn't enter a verification agreement or left one. These are China, France, Russia, the US and the UK.
This is by charter so if you ignore it and throw one out or impose obligations, you risk destroying the charter and hence any meaningful purpose of the security council.
I agree with your sentiment. It just isn't that simple.
Wrong. The laws automatically appropriate funding which is considered spending but it in no way requires it _all_ to be spent or _all_ to be spent at once. Under the 14th amendment of the US constitution, the president is obligated to service our debt first then deal with any lawful spending. I know it is a problem for most of you on the left when the constitution gets in your way, but constitutionally, he is obligated to honor the debts before any spending by law. that means even if congress passed a law saying all money appropriated either by entitlement law or whatever must be spent on anything other then the debt, it would be unconstitutional to do so.
So, if we didn't raise the debt limit, the constitution would supersede any laws in place, the president would have to service debt obligations and then make judgement calls about which entitlements would remain fully funded. To suggest that a law can create a conflict here is incorrect as the US constitution as well as judicial declaration, clearly places the constitution and it's amendments over top of any law made by congress or states or judicial order.
Everything else you wrote is negated by that fact there alone. I will not bother addressing them in detail but no criminal act can withstand conflict with the Constitution so that argument is dead on arrival. Your ad hominem attacks fail also because it clearly demonstrate you have a lack of knowledge of the constitution and it's role in government.
And the idea of an impeachment is already completely ignorant because Obama has already violated his constitutional obligations and faced no repercussions at all over it. Why do you think that all the sudden one more time would make a difference when congress cannot even get together to work out a reasonable deal on the debt or budget? IS it because the thought emboldens your ignorance and bluster's your false understandings?