if you bring someone that the other party is totally against, you cannot have it passed. hence, everyone has to pick a candidate that is acceptable by the other party under the guise of 'bipartisanship'. otherwise your candidate gets rejected, and you get into a standoff. that was the way the candidates were selected even by obama, supposedly a very leftist president. candidates are vetted even before they are selected as a lot, through unofficial channels in between the sides. this is the way things work in every country. not only such a situation is detrimental for the administration, but also bad for the image of the country internationally. it never happens, because the ones who appoint never chooses someone who wouldnt get accepted. so its either the approver's candidate, or closest to what they can get.
When one party holds more then 51% of the senate, any candidate can be approved. There only needs to be a 51% majority to confirm nominations. If you are the president and your party controls more then 50% of the senate, then you can get anyone confirmed as long as the party supports your nomination. No watering down needed.
huh ? democrats won senate at 9 Nov 2006, and biggest halliburton contract was canceled in 31 jul 2006 http://www.alternet.org/story/39567/ [alternet.org]
So what your saying is that the republicans did what the democrats wouldn't. Actually, no that's not what your saying. What you are saying is that you are confused. Halliburton is still in contract with the US government and had been long before Bush was a president. If there was something wrong, Clinton could have changed that and Obama certainly could have too.
in addition stopping a military contract is not a trifle. because of the immense lock-in that occurs due to the military equipment, armies use the same vendor for decades until they can slowly replace their vendor with newly acquired equipment. however as you can see, democrats at least canceled the biggest contract they can cancel.
Actually, Halliburton picked up one of the three logistics contracts that the old contract was broken into. This wasn't as intricate as you are suggesting as Halliburton was providing services that wasn't directly ties into military operations. these services was transportation (not lock in), food and shelter (again, no locking outside caloric requirements).
also, by saying 'you showed nothing', you wont end up invalidating the opposing argument. its self-reinforcement at best.
Actually, a claim was made. Support for that claims needs to be made when it's questioned. He showed nothing means he has not supported the claim at all. So for all we know, it's a wild claim made up on the spot. Just like the claim that a political party having control of the executive and senate couldn't get a confirmation passed without support from an apposing party. If shows ignorant and wrong someone is.
And what valid point was that? Was it that Microsoft was pardoned? Well, no because there was no fucking pardon. Was it that MS had a meeting with Bush? No because the court not Bush was in charge of it's punishment. So what fucking valid point is that? The only way he can make a point that is valid in anyone's mind is if you ignore the definition of pardon, ignore the separation of powers, ignore the president's inability to control the courts, ignore the fact that even if a meeting did take place, no money changed hands which is quite a bit different then Google's situation. I mean you have to fucking ignore reality in order to claim those are valid points at all. It's nothing more then specualtion and lines drawn that aren't visible without inventing something in connection with it. And that is not a valid point in any way.
You can choose to live in a fictional reality and allow lies to govern you conciseness, but it doesn't make me wrong.
I love how you can claim a business is bound to the public it serves, but not a government. A business is bound by law to screw the customers out of every penny they can, or the stockholders can sue.
Wrong. Where in the hell did you ever get that idea? Let me guess, it was made up in your mind one day when you couldn't understand something.
But a corporation is not really bound to the stockholders, it is bound to the old boys club that runs the board and appoints the CEOs. Stockholders get screwed all the time, as we see in every economic crisis we go through, and yet, somehow, that old boys club gets bigger and bigger bonuses all the time.
Again, something that only exists in the mind of a confused little boy. Perhaps you should inform everyone here which business school you went to so we can avoid hiring idiots who graduated from it. They are bound to the stock holders to a degree that doesn't violate their charter and that they can still live up to their fiduciary responsibility.
I also simply love how schizophrenic the right wing has become. They simultaneously defend and attack "big business." Wall street, good! No, Wall Street, bad! I guess the Wall Street that those ebil libruls pal around with is bad, but the Wall Street that gives Americans their jobs and Republicans their donations, THAT is the very HEART AND SOUL of capitalism. Haha, wow, you guys slay me.
This must be born out of ignorance and a willingness to ignore reality. The right wing has always supported open markets with the proper regulation but has always admonished markets with poor regulation, improper regulation, and the lack of enforcement of regulations. There is nothing in conflict unless you are not able to pay attention to detail and therefore are ignoring quite a but of relevant information. Of course this is probably your norm as you seem to blindly support the democrats while spewing lies.
Perhaps you should get control of your emotions and take a deep breath. Perhaps in your own mind you are dispassionate, but you come across as highly emotionally invested. You use emotionally charged language and insults to try to make your case. And then turn around and in an obviously insulting and derogatory fashion and tell your opponent that they are being emotional.
Having an investment in reality might very well be an emotional attachment. However, it's not one you should caution people about when your alternative is a fictional representation of what you want things to be like in order to justify your own political bias.
o you have no capacity for introspection whatsoever? Are you really that blind to your own nature?
If by introspect, you mean jumping to conclusions that aren't supported by fact and using that to justify my own ideology, you would be right, I have none. Instead, I like to take things for what they actually are in the real life and work from there.
im not an american, i dont need to read the fucking constitution. however, ironically, i seem to know more than you that appointments need to be approved, and all the important places in bureaucracy therefore pass from approval by either house, even if appointment is done by administration. and, how each coming administration tries to stuff the bureaucracy with their own men, and how they staff the lower ranks with more of their men. and then how easy it is when you have congress and senate at your hand.
Evidently you don't even know what you speaking of yourself. First, it's the administration's right to stack the appointments under him. It's true that they need approval from congress but that's it. The president selects them, submits them, and directs their actions. IF at any time, they didn't want to use Halliburton, they could have stopped. If at any time, they wanted to make it legally required to have a separation between government employees and businesses like Halliburton, they could have by executive policy order as well as asked congress to pass a law. They didn't.
and back to the senate confirmation hearings. It takes a lot more then political bias to disqualify a candidate from approval except for appointments to the courts. For any position in the executive cabinet, a political bias is expected as that's how it was intentionally designed.
his is the way english and american bureaucracies have worked since centuries. in britain it is so solid that for centuries most of their policies remained same.
Outside of your confusion over political bias, you have shown nothing that could have prevented any democrat from stopping the government from using Halliburton. In fact, in Clinton's term, he had all his confirmation hearings for cabinet positions with a democrat congress. The same is true for Obama's. Again, you have showed nothing other then what's in your mind that would have prevented them from doing it.
You do realize that pardon has a specific meaning right? You do realize that the court is a separate branch of government right? This is why we use words to communicate with, they provide specific information and allows people to understand what is being communicated.
And yes, that is completely different from the case at hand. No matter how much you want to close your eyes and make believe it happened, Bush did not pardon Microsoft and he holds no power over the courts. So what if MS had a meeting with Bush, So what if Bush instructed the DOJ to back down. It's the court's final decision and you have absolutely no clue what happened in the meeting. It could have been Gate offering to give the US government a back door or kill switch into foreign deployments of operating systems. It could be that the famous UK Aircracft carrier that blue screened and needed a tow back to port was a demonstration. We simply do not know. But what we do know is that there was no fund raiser like with Google, no trackable money changed hands like with google, and unlike with Google, the ultimate decision was in the courts hands, not the administrations hands. And yes, that is completely different from the case at hand.
You can't really be this dense. I think you are pretending to have trouble in order to try to convince some imaginary reader that I am a loon. No one is reading this thread this far down but you and me, so give it a rest.
Is everyone out to get you? And now you somehow feel safe? Give it up.
A corporation has a legally bound fiduciary duty to do what, exactly? Make money for its shareholders. The government is bound by the constitution.
A corporation is bound to it's owners, business model/charter, and the public it serves. Nothing in the constitution makes the government to be bound to the people. In fact, there is quite a bit about what the government can do independently of the people and what the government is expressly forbidden to do to the people. Again, one is bound by law, the other is implied. That makes a big difference.
God, I love you, sumdumass. That sentence made this whole debate worthwhile. Ever watch Waiting for Godot? Yeah, that sentence reminded me of Lucky's monologue "Being given the existence such that it gushes forth from the public works of Poinçon and Wattman of a personal God quaquaquaqua..." Seriously, debating you is so much fun, I just have to wait for the frothing rage to reach your brain and render you incoherent, and you can be counted on to deliver gems like this. I think I might make it my sig.
And don't even try to tell me to take a deep breath and work on my emotions, I mean, who do you think you are fooling with that? Okaaaay, Mr. Spock. I shall work on my emotions, and become a creature of dispassionate logic, like you, ahahahahaha.
Nice debating tactic there. I mean attempting to show you addressed the subject without ever doing so and then comparing it with something else as an attempt to retort it without ever addressing it is slick- if we were in third grade. In any real debate, it's a sign of a losing argument. Perhaps you should take a deeper breath this time.
Microsoft wasn't pardoned period. And the court punished Microsoft, not Bush or the DOJ under his direction. The courts are a separate branch of the government entirely.
And no, that's not being a pedant. What you suggest is completely a different issue then you are portraying it to be. Even if the DOJ asked the court to go soft on MS, it was still up to the independent branch of government known as the court to make that decision and Bush couldn't have done fuck all about it.
dude, read your fucking constitution and learn how the government operate. Halliburton is not part of the administration's staff and does not need congressional approval. Congress cannot mandate that the president uses a particular company for any particular task. The closest they can come is to prescribe an open bidding process and refuse to allow any government funds to be used for a specific purpose. That hasn't happened with Halliburton.
Your problems with reading comprehension aren't my problem. Normal users of the English language have no trouble following my prose. I'll give you the 'amoral' though. As for sociopaths, do you know what the term means? Psychological theory tells us one of the primary characteristics of sociopathy is the inability to see anyone, including oneself, as a person. Lacking empathy, sociopaths see everything as objects.
And here is where you fail. The problem is not with my reading comprehension, it's with you attempting to claim an inanimate object is not a person then anthropomorphizing it when it suits you needs. And if we took your definition of sociopath at the face value you wish us to, then we would have sociopath cars and trees. Actually cars are a better consideration because it clearly is at the direction of the drive or some outside force.
Now, as for airwaves, they are a public good. No one can buy them, they can only lease them, because we, the people, own and control them. They aren't like regular property, you transmit and it will enter my property whether I give you permission or not.
And your point is what? I mean seriously, are you attempting to get around the first amendment by controlling the medium in which the speech is being made?
It amazes me that you can defend corporations as simply made up of individuals, yet the evil Government is not.
And here is the difference between them. A corporation has a legally bound fiduciary duty where the government is only theoretically bound. Further more, the government government over all within it's realm which can and does include plants, animals and corporations too. And without either, the people wouldn't last too long at all. So it is a necessity to encourage the growth and population of them in order to benefit the people being governed. Without that, you nothing but a bunch of citizens starving and/or freezing to death.
Corporations, as I mentioned, diffuse responsibility by their very nature. They affect the people involved in them, allowing those people to do evil without thinking of it as evil.
Well first of all, Evil is a subjective term. What you think is evil might not be evil to other and vice versa (think premarital sex, abortion, praying to other gods or refusing to accept a god are just a few). Second, corporations do not absolve someone's liability for their own actions. At best, they allow the actions to be confused and hidden making it difficult to hold them accountable but there are plenty of people who end up going to jail for their actions within a corporation.
The stockholders of BP can rest easy at night, knowing they weren't the ones who ordered corners cut. The CEO can rest easy, knowing he just did what any CEO would do for their stockholders. Each gets to blame the other while they profit, don't you see that this combination of easy profit and no remorse can lead normal people to make very evil decisions?
Actually, the CEO lost his job and was replaced. The share holders did nothing to cause the spill or complicate the cleanup so they shouldn't be penalized at all in the first place. The CEO isn't escaping any legal trouble if there is anyways. However, regulations generally are written to punish companies on the whole so unless a specific law was broken, you couldn't punish the CEO for his actions anyways. Do you know of a specific law that he broke? And remember there is often a difference between a regulation and a law. A law is made by congress and has the full force and constitutionality of the government behind it. A regulation is made by a governing comity and typically sidesteps the constitutional requirements for making a law. A regulation has a law backing it, but isn't directly enforceable as a law is.
Bush pardoning Microsoft. In fact, weren't you one of his stalwart defenders on the issue? I'll need to look it up, but I seem to recall you were.
Bush never pardoned Microsoft. What the hell are you talking about? Come on man, keep living in reality with the rest of us.
So yeah, I am going to derail illegitimate bullshit like this every god damn time I see it, using the convenient and effective strategy of Telling the Truth. You might want to try it.
Is it illigitimate or is your view completely confused? I mean you seem to think Bush pardoned MS or something and it would be the first I ever heard of it. Oh yea, just because it exists in your mind, it doesn't mean it's the truth. You should make a mental note of that.
Not really. The senate bounced back and forth. However, this is pretty much pointless because the executive branch is what controls the executive, not congress.
Google's relationship with the Obama administration is nothing like Cheney and Halliburton. I mean, has Biden or Obama held large amounts of Google stock like Cheney and Bush held stock in Halliburton?
Neither Cheney nor Bush held large amounts of stocks in halliburton that would benefit them. Your claim otherwise here is either made out of ignorance or complete malice.
I don't remember anybody calling for an investigantion into Cheney and Halliburton during the Bush administration.
You must have a selective memory or are making statements out of malice again.
This is more like the Bush ties to Microsoft; the Bush Justice Department pretty much let MS off the hook after Clinton had them by the balls. I didn't see any investigations into that, either.
And as far as I know of, there weren't any fundraisers hosted by Microsoft or it's CEOs in the weeks leading up to the Bush administrations relaxation of antitrust prosecution on Microsoft. Something else you are leaving out of this is that the court ultimately approves of and made the ruling in the MS antitrust case. A court is a separate body from the administration entirely. This is notable here because it wasn't a court, it was a department under the administration that directly regulates the perceived actions. This is before another branch of the government (the courts) even begins to take it up. So no, it's not like the Bush ties to Microsoft that don't exist outside of your head.
This smells to me like nothing more than dirty politics; kind of like Clinton's forty million dollar blow job.
Ah.. So here is the truth. Your just a complete and total tool, a useful idiot who can't tell the difference between lying under oath and what the lie was about. This makes much more sense now. First you make shit up, take it out of context, then attempt to bury it in someone else that's completely out of context. Well, good for you, you are probably one of the most useful idiots out there.
Your use of the word immoral should be amoral and calling them sociopaths is sort of completely conflicts with your dead entity machine speech.
Do you find yourself fighting to get your message out? It's probably because you can't even get a sentence out that makes sense, analytically or when viewed in reality. You see, corporations are conglomerations of people. More appropriately, they are conglomerations of people who step back from running the business and hire third parties to direct the corporation in their best interests. If someone is separated from the company, then it makes sense to have their advisers operate on their behalf. When a corporation donates to a political group, works to enable or defeat a law, it's little more then those third parties working on someone's behalf with respect to the business they were hired to run. A corporation makes not decisions, does no actions, neither hire or fires anyone. People within that corporation do all that. Any morality of social mentality you want to assign to it must be accurately assigned to the people running it else you appear as nothing more then a confused little boy full of hate. And since not all corporations are run by the same people, assigning the acts of a few to the whole is completely futile. It's like saying all blacks are drug users who want to rob and mug you because you saw one of them like that in a movie.
What mistakes were made under Bush that need fixing now? I bet you can't think of one that didn't have a bunch of democrats behind or involved with, and there aren't many made that is directly related to the economy and jobs. SO please enlighten us on your mysterious insights that aren't just blind followings of a certain party.
So which is it that you are so vehemently protection? Is it Google, the Obama administration or what? I mean you openly admitted that you derailed a legitimate conversation into corporatism and political favors. It seems that you know a connection exists and want to dissolve it. Well, that or you are trolling which isn't out of the question.
Hell, I bet you secretly love Google for all it's might and worth and only threw the corporate scumbags line in there to prop your street cred as an ignorant anti capitalist so you can protect both Obama and Google. It's the old, look at me, I support X even though I hate X, Y, and Z, so my opinion must be correct and I'll call you the liar if it isn't. That seems to be the mode of operation for you doesn't it?
Dude, give it up. we are in an age when Science can be debunked or ignored or even left standing unchallenged after someone questions the claim because someone worked for an oil company, or some company that worked for an oil company 20 years ago.
You won't be able to convince people that others are just like them and act in their own interests. Everything has to be associated with the evil of the day (for or against) and nothing can be further from their own truth. Perhpas this is because they operate on an agenda too, perhaps it's because they haven't grown up and gotten off the third grade detective show investigative reporter kick. I don't know but it's a sign that the entire world is becoming increasingly paranoid and it mostly exists within their own heads. Attempts to change that is pretty much futile. You just have to ignore the idiots, pay attention to the seemingly innocent, and investigate the claim independently of the favorite agenda driven party of the time.
My god! You're right. The fact that lobbyists spent more money on the 2010 election than any other election in history had absolutely no influence on elections. Just like the financial services industry didn't write the Bankruptcy reform legislation in 2005, and the private corrections industry doesn't push the States for longer sentences just to lift their bottom line. No, Mr. sumdumass, you're right. You hold just as much political power as the CEO of Phillip Morris.
And what with all this is evidence that the politicians are bought and paid for? I mean seriously, if you spend money promoting a politicians does that mean you paid for him? If you supported stronger sentencing, does that mean you paid for them? Crap, you are doing nothing but taking A,B, and C and adding them up to justify your own made up scenario.
And if I may offer you some friendly advice: smoking crack can still get you a decade in prison, so I suggest you get some help for that.
No it can't. At least not in most jurisdictions. This is because court challenges found the disproportional penalties to be racially motivated. Anyways, I'm not smoking crack. So perhaps you should stop too and we can have an intelligent conversation.
Nonsense. Our politicians are no more bought and paid for then you are. Stop assuming that someone who has money wanting to do something that other with money benefit from means they are on the take.
And your completely full of it on the pharmaceutical company thing. I'm assuming that you are talking about the seniors and drugs. The public was clamoring for drugs for seniors to be paid for by Medicare, when it happened, now all the sudden you think it's because drug companies paid for politicians. This is little more then attempting to keep a bitter face. So what if it wasn't the absolutely best deal possible. It's not like the feds could just take the drugs (constitutionally they are required to pay a fair prices for it if they did), and seeing how it's the first time it's happened, I don't expect the idiots would have gotten it perfect.
OF course you didn't pay attention to what was said. That or simple math escapes you. Paying 10% is paying more if you earn more. If you all the sudden have to pay 15%, then you should get 1.5 votes as you are paying your share plus half of someone else.
Which is exactly how Republicans have used it at times in the past as well, which is why it was so hypocritical of them to go after the dems for it. This is typical of politics. They all condemn the other side for doing exactly the same things they do. Just like Republicans spent the last couple years railing against the dems for the lack of bipartisanship, only to declare that they will be exactly the same. Must be nice to have principles that are so... flexible.
It's not exactly black and white as you pretend to put it. The so called attempts at bipartisanship in the last few years consisted specifically of This is what we are going to do, either do it with us or not at all. Hell, even the so called concessions were little more then what they wanted to do claiming that the republicans should agree to it.
The Republicans have been calling the shots for most of the last decade and a half because the democrats can't get their shit together to save their lives. This isn't entirely their fault, as democrats run the gamut from right-leaning fiscal conservatives to wacky lefty nutjobs, and everything inbetween. Republicans have managed to exorcise practically all remnants of moderation from their party, so they generally move in lockstep anymore. Will be interesting to see what happens with the new blood in the House. I wonder how long they'll hang onto their idealism.
If you think they move in lockstep, then you simply haven't been paying attention much over the last decade or so. IF they had been moving in lockstep, they never would have lost the government in the first place.
Raising taxes on small businesses how?
Cap and trade as well as the 250k removal of the Bush tax cuts, health car requirements places on by Obamacare and so on. They also talked about moving capitol gains back to match the income rates and there was plenty of talk about business not paying it's fair share which only means some intended to raise their shares.
As for the energy issue, I assume you're referring to cap and trade. I really don't know what to make of that, as I've seen a ton of different predictions from both sides, so apparently nobody is really sure how that will pan out. I do think it's rather ridiculous to think that we can continue to pump mind-boggling amounts of pollution into the atmosphere without having a real, noticeable effect, and possibly a rather severe one. Most of the arguments against cap and trade dismiss the idea altogether though. I think it probably will cost us something, although I doubt it will be nearly the amount that the predictions from the right are claiming, but I don't believe it'll be the job-creating behemoth that practically pays for itself that some from the left are claiming either. I think anyone that claims they know how it would work out is kidding themselves, but I do think that something does need to be done to rein in the pollution.
Here is my take on it. Suppose your right and we cannot continue to pump crap loads of Co2 and other GHGs into the atmosphere. There is no practical replacement to doing that as of now and there won't be within the next decade or two. The supposed idea behind taxing is that it will raise the cost of normal energy to make alternatives more attractive. Ok, so they are more attractive, they still aren't as prevalent, reliable, or as dependable as traditional energy sources. So all that happens is that it costs us more to produce things and provide goods and services. But wait, China and India aren't involves in it so they now have an advantage. So some suggest that we put tariffs in place to protect American industry. Now if the WTO and the trade agreements we have in place allow that to happen in the first place, then all the sudden they are collecting a tax on imports too. But does the cap and tax plans attempt to use this extra money to offset the t
You can play the "what if" game until the cows come home, you haven't proven anything.
And neither have you. Except perhaps how one sided and irrational you are. In fact, if you think either of us was going to prove something, perhaps you are a bit stupid to boot. This is because we aren't arguing facts, we are arguing opinions which very much isn't facts.
If anyone should be playing the what if game, it should be you anyways. You are the one trying to argue that something should be a way it isn't today and you have failed. The closest you came was stating that I have proved nothing and attempting to walk away from debate.
You have yet to convince me that carrying a firearm on an airplane "endangers" your life. You have no problem with Federal LEOs carrying them but do have a problem with civilians carrying them? Your logic escapes me. I guess bullets are only dangerous when they come out of a civilians gun and those that come out of a LEOs gun never miss their target and can't "blow up" the airplane?
Convince me that it doesn't. convince me that there is no way for you to shoot through the fuel tanks, shoot through instrument panels or wiring connecting them, convince me that there is no way for you to miss your target and hit me or my family or the only people remaining who could fly the damn thing. You can't prove any of that to be impossible unless you do not fire your weapon. In that case, what's the use of it anyways?
And yes, I do have a problem with untrained civilians carrying a firearm on airplanes when they don't know where the fuel tanks are, where the electrical subsystems or hydraulic lines that control the flight of the plane are. Yes I have a problem with any tom dick or harry carrying a firearm on a plane with the intent of using it when innocent people are in a confined space that has paper thin walls compared to any other wall structure that you would find on the street or in a ground based building. And no, I don't have a problem with LEOs carrying a firearm with the intent of using it if necessary on a plane because they would have been trained on all that shit. And yes, if you want to go through all that training and show that you are qualified to take all the necessary consideration into play if and when you need to use the weapon, I don't have a problem with it. However, I doubt anyone would be willing to go through all that just to CC on a plane once or twice a year- especially when it may be illegal for them to CC at their destination.
How does that problem in any way disagree with my suggestion that people should be allowed to carry firearms on aircraft, and that doing so would prevent someone from pulling off a 9/11?
The problem is that coming from another country or countries, only a certain few will have them. Those few are the people who come from, or pretend to come from countries that allow the possession of a firearm.
And yes, it doesn't really matter how quick of a draw or straight of a shot you are. If they kill you first, there is nothing you can do to them. It's not like you will respawn and be able to continue fighting. Basically, all the terrorist would need to do is camp on you so when their time comes, they simply sneak up behind and kill everyone not in their band who comes from a gun toting country.
you do realize that people coming in from international flights have to go through a full security screening to enter the non-international section of an airport, right?
Them not getting into the US is not the problem. Them taking control of a plane and using it as a missile is. You getting into a close quarter shoot out with crap loads of innocent civilians around in a confined area, highly flammable fuel tanks, wiring and hydraulic lines as well as instruments necessary to keep the 300 plus ton vehicle floating gracefully in the air that could all be taken out with a stray bullet from you or the terrorist who won't be making sure they do little damage, is the problem.
And for every 10 people like you, there are a few that simply abuse the system or was the product of a parent who did the same. When you have 3rd and 4th generation welfare recipients, the need starts becoming self inflicted and we need to take a deep look at policy.
We also need to change the welfare system so people can take the lower paying jobs and work up instead of being thrown off and expected to live at 2/3rd the equivalent income levels or less. And yes, I know people who had to go on various welfare programs that basically took a life pay cut if they got a job making less then $12 per hour. This was back when minimum wage was still as $4.95 or $5.25 an hour. This made it damn near impossible for them to get a hand up instead of a hand out.
It should be the exact opposite, if your not working, you should be making less then a working person. The help should continue and graduate off gracefully over time after the person has established themselves somewhat instead of making it near impossible to support their illegitimate children on the only jobs hiring in the area.
I'm not even sure why the emphasis is completely on foreign oil. Our largest oil imports come from Canada- a somewhat friendly country to out north that we share common defense goals with.
Importing oil isn't really the problem. Importing it from places that aren't stable seems to be.
Slashdot Mirror
When one party holds more then 51% of the senate, any candidate can be approved. There only needs to be a 51% majority to confirm nominations. If you are the president and your party controls more then 50% of the senate, then you can get anyone confirmed as long as the party supports your nomination. No watering down needed.
So what your saying is that the republicans did what the democrats wouldn't. Actually, no that's not what your saying. What you are saying is that you are confused. Halliburton is still in contract with the US government and had been long before Bush was a president. If there was something wrong, Clinton could have changed that and Obama certainly could have too.
Actually, Halliburton picked up one of the three logistics contracts that the old contract was broken into. This wasn't as intricate as you are suggesting as Halliburton was providing services that wasn't directly ties into military operations. these services was transportation (not lock in), food and shelter (again, no locking outside caloric requirements).
Actually, a claim was made. Support for that claims needs to be made when it's questioned. He showed nothing means he has not supported the claim at all. So for all we know, it's a wild claim made up on the spot. Just like the claim that a political party having control of the executive and senate couldn't get a confirmation passed without support from an apposing party. If shows ignorant and wrong someone is.
And what valid point was that? Was it that Microsoft was pardoned? Well, no because there was no fucking pardon. Was it that MS had a meeting with Bush? No because the court not Bush was in charge of it's punishment. So what fucking valid point is that? The only way he can make a point that is valid in anyone's mind is if you ignore the definition of pardon, ignore the separation of powers, ignore the president's inability to control the courts, ignore the fact that even if a meeting did take place, no money changed hands which is quite a bit different then Google's situation. I mean you have to fucking ignore reality in order to claim those are valid points at all. It's nothing more then specualtion and lines drawn that aren't visible without inventing something in connection with it. And that is not a valid point in any way.
You can choose to live in a fictional reality and allow lies to govern you conciseness, but it doesn't make me wrong.
Wrong. Where in the hell did you ever get that idea? Let me guess, it was made up in your mind one day when you couldn't understand something.
Again, something that only exists in the mind of a confused little boy. Perhaps you should inform everyone here which business school you went to so we can avoid hiring idiots who graduated from it. They are bound to the stock holders to a degree that doesn't violate their charter and that they can still live up to their fiduciary responsibility.
This must be born out of ignorance and a willingness to ignore reality. The right wing has always supported open markets with the proper regulation but has always admonished markets with poor regulation, improper regulation, and the lack of enforcement of regulations. There is nothing in conflict unless you are not able to pay attention to detail and therefore are ignoring quite a but of relevant information. Of course this is probably your norm as you seem to blindly support the democrats while spewing lies.
Having an investment in reality might very well be an emotional attachment. However, it's not one you should caution people about when your alternative is a fictional representation of what you want things to be like in order to justify your own political bias.
If by introspect, you mean jumping to conclusions that aren't supported by fact and using that to justify my own ideology, you would be right, I have none. Instead, I like to take things for what they actually are in the real life and work from there.
Evidently you don't even know what you speaking of yourself. First, it's the administration's right to stack the appointments under him. It's true that they need approval from congress but that's it. The president selects them, submits them, and directs their actions. IF at any time, they didn't want to use Halliburton, they could have stopped. If at any time, they wanted to make it legally required to have a separation between government employees and businesses like Halliburton, they could have by executive policy order as well as asked congress to pass a law. They didn't.
and back to the senate confirmation hearings. It takes a lot more then political bias to disqualify a candidate from approval except for appointments to the courts. For any position in the executive cabinet, a political bias is expected as that's how it was intentionally designed.
Outside of your confusion over political bias, you have shown nothing that could have prevented any democrat from stopping the government from using Halliburton. In fact, in Clinton's term, he had all his confirmation hearings for cabinet positions with a democrat congress. The same is true for Obama's. Again, you have showed nothing other then what's in your mind that would have prevented them from doing it.
You do realize that pardon has a specific meaning right? You do realize that the court is a separate branch of government right? This is why we use words to communicate with, they provide specific information and allows people to understand what is being communicated.
And yes, that is completely different from the case at hand. No matter how much you want to close your eyes and make believe it happened, Bush did not pardon Microsoft and he holds no power over the courts. So what if MS had a meeting with Bush, So what if Bush instructed the DOJ to back down. It's the court's final decision and you have absolutely no clue what happened in the meeting. It could have been Gate offering to give the US government a back door or kill switch into foreign deployments of operating systems. It could be that the famous UK Aircracft carrier that blue screened and needed a tow back to port was a demonstration. We simply do not know. But what we do know is that there was no fund raiser like with Google, no trackable money changed hands like with google, and unlike with Google, the ultimate decision was in the courts hands, not the administrations hands. And yes, that is completely different from the case at hand.
Is everyone out to get you? And now you somehow feel safe? Give it up.
A corporation is bound to it's owners, business model/charter, and the public it serves. Nothing in the constitution makes the government to be bound to the people. In fact, there is quite a bit about what the government can do independently of the people and what the government is expressly forbidden to do to the people. Again, one is bound by law, the other is implied. That makes a big difference.
Nice debating tactic there. I mean attempting to show you addressed the subject without ever doing so and then comparing it with something else as an attempt to retort it without ever addressing it is slick- if we were in third grade. In any real debate, it's a sign of a losing argument. Perhaps you should take a deeper breath this time.
Microsoft wasn't pardoned period. And the court punished Microsoft, not Bush or the DOJ under his direction. The courts are a separate branch of the government entirely.
And no, that's not being a pedant. What you suggest is completely a different issue then you are portraying it to be. Even if the DOJ asked the court to go soft on MS, it was still up to the independent branch of government known as the court to make that decision and Bush couldn't have done fuck all about it.
dude, read your fucking constitution and learn how the government operate. Halliburton is not part of the administration's staff and does not need congressional approval. Congress cannot mandate that the president uses a particular company for any particular task. The closest they can come is to prescribe an open bidding process and refuse to allow any government funds to be used for a specific purpose. That hasn't happened with Halliburton.
And here is where you fail. The problem is not with my reading comprehension, it's with you attempting to claim an inanimate object is not a person then anthropomorphizing it when it suits you needs. And if we took your definition of sociopath at the face value you wish us to, then we would have sociopath cars and trees. Actually cars are a better consideration because it clearly is at the direction of the drive or some outside force.
And your point is what? I mean seriously, are you attempting to get around the first amendment by controlling the medium in which the speech is being made?
And here is the difference between them. A corporation has a legally bound fiduciary duty where the government is only theoretically bound. Further more, the government government over all within it's realm which can and does include plants, animals and corporations too. And without either, the people wouldn't last too long at all. So it is a necessity to encourage the growth and population of them in order to benefit the people being governed. Without that, you nothing but a bunch of citizens starving and/or freezing to death.
Well first of all, Evil is a subjective term. What you think is evil might not be evil to other and vice versa (think premarital sex, abortion, praying to other gods or refusing to accept a god are just a few). Second, corporations do not absolve someone's liability for their own actions. At best, they allow the actions to be confused and hidden making it difficult to hold them accountable but there are plenty of people who end up going to jail for their actions within a corporation.
Actually, the CEO lost his job and was replaced. The share holders did nothing to cause the spill or complicate the cleanup so they shouldn't be penalized at all in the first place. The CEO isn't escaping any legal trouble if there is anyways. However, regulations generally are written to punish companies on the whole so unless a specific law was broken, you couldn't punish the CEO for his actions anyways. Do you know of a specific law that he broke? And remember there is often a difference between a regulation and a law. A law is made by congress and has the full force and constitutionality of the government behind it. A regulation is made by a governing comity and typically sidesteps the constitutional requirements for making a law. A regulation has a law backing it, but isn't directly enforceable as a law is.
Bush never pardoned Microsoft. What the hell are you talking about? Come on man, keep living in reality with the rest of us.
Is it illigitimate or is your view completely confused? I mean you seem to think Bush pardoned MS or something and it would be the first I ever heard of it. Oh yea, just because it exists in your mind, it doesn't mean it's the truth. You should make a mental note of that.
Not really. The senate bounced back and forth. However, this is pretty much pointless because the executive branch is what controls the executive, not congress.
Neither Cheney nor Bush held large amounts of stocks in halliburton that would benefit them. Your claim otherwise here is either made out of ignorance or complete malice.
You must have a selective memory or are making statements out of malice again.
And as far as I know of, there weren't any fundraisers hosted by Microsoft or it's CEOs in the weeks leading up to the Bush administrations relaxation of antitrust prosecution on Microsoft. Something else you are leaving out of this is that the court ultimately approves of and made the ruling in the MS antitrust case. A court is a separate body from the administration entirely. This is notable here because it wasn't a court, it was a department under the administration that directly regulates the perceived actions. This is before another branch of the government (the courts) even begins to take it up. So no, it's not like the Bush ties to Microsoft that don't exist outside of your head.
Ah.. So here is the truth. Your just a complete and total tool, a useful idiot who can't tell the difference between lying under oath and what the lie was about. This makes much more sense now. First you make shit up, take it out of context, then attempt to bury it in someone else that's completely out of context. Well, good for you, you are probably one of the most useful idiots out there.
Your use of the word immoral should be amoral and calling them sociopaths is sort of completely conflicts with your dead entity machine speech.
Do you find yourself fighting to get your message out? It's probably because you can't even get a sentence out that makes sense, analytically or when viewed in reality. You see, corporations are conglomerations of people. More appropriately, they are conglomerations of people who step back from running the business and hire third parties to direct the corporation in their best interests. If someone is separated from the company, then it makes sense to have their advisers operate on their behalf. When a corporation donates to a political group, works to enable or defeat a law, it's little more then those third parties working on someone's behalf with respect to the business they were hired to run. A corporation makes not decisions, does no actions, neither hire or fires anyone. People within that corporation do all that. Any morality of social mentality you want to assign to it must be accurately assigned to the people running it else you appear as nothing more then a confused little boy full of hate. And since not all corporations are run by the same people, assigning the acts of a few to the whole is completely futile. It's like saying all blacks are drug users who want to rob and mug you because you saw one of them like that in a movie.
Reality simply isn't the way you think it is.
What mistakes were made under Bush that need fixing now? I bet you can't think of one that didn't have a bunch of democrats behind or involved with, and there aren't many made that is directly related to the economy and jobs. SO please enlighten us on your mysterious insights that aren't just blind followings of a certain party.
So which is it that you are so vehemently protection? Is it Google, the Obama administration or what? I mean you openly admitted that you derailed a legitimate conversation into corporatism and political favors. It seems that you know a connection exists and want to dissolve it. Well, that or you are trolling which isn't out of the question.
Hell, I bet you secretly love Google for all it's might and worth and only threw the corporate scumbags line in there to prop your street cred as an ignorant anti capitalist so you can protect both Obama and Google. It's the old, look at me, I support X even though I hate X, Y, and Z, so my opinion must be correct and I'll call you the liar if it isn't. That seems to be the mode of operation for you doesn't it?
Dude, give it up. we are in an age when Science can be debunked or ignored or even left standing unchallenged after someone questions the claim because someone worked for an oil company, or some company that worked for an oil company 20 years ago.
You won't be able to convince people that others are just like them and act in their own interests. Everything has to be associated with the evil of the day (for or against) and nothing can be further from their own truth. Perhpas this is because they operate on an agenda too, perhaps it's because they haven't grown up and gotten off the third grade detective show investigative reporter kick. I don't know but it's a sign that the entire world is becoming increasingly paranoid and it mostly exists within their own heads. Attempts to change that is pretty much futile. You just have to ignore the idiots, pay attention to the seemingly innocent, and investigate the claim independently of the favorite agenda driven party of the time.
It's not outside of the FAA setting requirements that are supposed to be followed to enter our airspace which the FAA/TSA has authority to verify.
So you see, there are checks in place in that scenario- however small they might be.
And what with all this is evidence that the politicians are bought and paid for? I mean seriously, if you spend money promoting a politicians does that mean you paid for him? If you supported stronger sentencing, does that mean you paid for them? Crap, you are doing nothing but taking A,B, and C and adding them up to justify your own made up scenario.
No it can't. At least not in most jurisdictions. This is because court challenges found the disproportional penalties to be racially motivated. Anyways, I'm not smoking crack. So perhaps you should stop too and we can have an intelligent conversation.
Nonsense. Our politicians are no more bought and paid for then you are. Stop assuming that someone who has money wanting to do something that other with money benefit from means they are on the take.
And your completely full of it on the pharmaceutical company thing. I'm assuming that you are talking about the seniors and drugs. The public was clamoring for drugs for seniors to be paid for by Medicare, when it happened, now all the sudden you think it's because drug companies paid for politicians. This is little more then attempting to keep a bitter face. So what if it wasn't the absolutely best deal possible. It's not like the feds could just take the drugs (constitutionally they are required to pay a fair prices for it if they did), and seeing how it's the first time it's happened, I don't expect the idiots would have gotten it perfect.
You mean in our republic right?
OF course you didn't pay attention to what was said. That or simple math escapes you. Paying 10% is paying more if you earn more. If you all the sudden have to pay 15%, then you should get 1.5 votes as you are paying your share plus half of someone else.
It's not exactly black and white as you pretend to put it. The so called attempts at bipartisanship in the last few years consisted specifically of This is what we are going to do, either do it with us or not at all. Hell, even the so called concessions were little more then what they wanted to do claiming that the republicans should agree to it.
If you think they move in lockstep, then you simply haven't been paying attention much over the last decade or so. IF they had been moving in lockstep, they never would have lost the government in the first place.
Cap and trade as well as the 250k removal of the Bush tax cuts, health car requirements places on by Obamacare and so on. They also talked about moving capitol gains back to match the income rates and there was plenty of talk about business not paying it's fair share which only means some intended to raise their shares.
Here is my take on it. Suppose your right and we cannot continue to pump crap loads of Co2 and other GHGs into the atmosphere. There is no practical replacement to doing that as of now and there won't be within the next decade or two. The supposed idea behind taxing is that it will raise the cost of normal energy to make alternatives more attractive. Ok, so they are more attractive, they still aren't as prevalent, reliable, or as dependable as traditional energy sources. So all that happens is that it costs us more to produce things and provide goods and services. But wait, China and India aren't involves in it so they now have an advantage. So some suggest that we put tariffs in place to protect American industry. Now if the WTO and the trade agreements we have in place allow that to happen in the first place, then all the sudden they are collecting a tax on imports too. But does the cap and tax plans attempt to use this extra money to offset the t
And neither have you. Except perhaps how one sided and irrational you are. In fact, if you think either of us was going to prove something, perhaps you are a bit stupid to boot. This is because we aren't arguing facts, we are arguing opinions which very much isn't facts.
If anyone should be playing the what if game, it should be you anyways. You are the one trying to argue that something should be a way it isn't today and you have failed. The closest you came was stating that I have proved nothing and attempting to walk away from debate.
Convince me that it doesn't. convince me that there is no way for you to shoot through the fuel tanks, shoot through instrument panels or wiring connecting them, convince me that there is no way for you to miss your target and hit me or my family or the only people remaining who could fly the damn thing. You can't prove any of that to be impossible unless you do not fire your weapon. In that case, what's the use of it anyways?
And yes, I do have a problem with untrained civilians carrying a firearm on airplanes when they don't know where the fuel tanks are, where the electrical subsystems or hydraulic lines that control the flight of the plane are. Yes I have a problem with any tom dick or harry carrying a firearm on a plane with the intent of using it when innocent people are in a confined space that has paper thin walls compared to any other wall structure that you would find on the street or in a ground based building. And no, I don't have a problem with LEOs carrying a firearm with the intent of using it if necessary on a plane because they would have been trained on all that shit. And yes, if you want to go through all that training and show that you are qualified to take all the necessary consideration into play if and when you need to use the weapon, I don't have a problem with it. However, I doubt anyone would be willing to go through all that just to CC on a plane once or twice a year- especially when it may be illegal for them to CC at their destination.
The problem is that coming from another country or countries, only a certain few will have them. Those few are the people who come from, or pretend to come from countries that allow the possession of a firearm.
And yes, it doesn't really matter how quick of a draw or straight of a shot you are. If they kill you first, there is nothing you can do to them. It's not like you will respawn and be able to continue fighting. Basically, all the terrorist would need to do is camp on you so when their time comes, they simply sneak up behind and kill everyone not in their band who comes from a gun toting country.
Them not getting into the US is not the problem. Them taking control of a plane and using it as a missile is. You getting into a close quarter shoot out with crap loads of innocent civilians around in a confined area, highly flammable fuel tanks, wiring and hydraulic lines as well as instruments necessary to keep the 300 plus ton vehicle floating gracefully in the air that could all be taken out with a stray bullet from you or the terrorist who won't be making sure they do little damage, is the problem.
And for every 10 people like you, there are a few that simply abuse the system or was the product of a parent who did the same. When you have 3rd and 4th generation welfare recipients, the need starts becoming self inflicted and we need to take a deep look at policy.
We also need to change the welfare system so people can take the lower paying jobs and work up instead of being thrown off and expected to live at 2/3rd the equivalent income levels or less. And yes, I know people who had to go on various welfare programs that basically took a life pay cut if they got a job making less then $12 per hour. This was back when minimum wage was still as $4.95 or $5.25 an hour. This made it damn near impossible for them to get a hand up instead of a hand out.
It should be the exact opposite, if your not working, you should be making less then a working person. The help should continue and graduate off gracefully over time after the person has established themselves somewhat instead of making it near impossible to support their illegitimate children on the only jobs hiring in the area.
I'm not even sure why the emphasis is completely on foreign oil. Our largest oil imports come from Canada- a somewhat friendly country to out north that we share common defense goals with.
Importing oil isn't really the problem. Importing it from places that aren't stable seems to be.