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Author
Thread: Upstate NY congressional seat battle
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
34 (
view
)
Upstate NY congressional seat battle
Posted:
11/9/2009 4:50:32 PM
UPDATED: A spokesman [...]
Correct, and the article also falsely states that the bill cuts Medicare benefits. The other two items have to do with how the bill will be paid for, and it's quite likely neither of those will be true either. Basically, the article is completely a lie.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
64 (
view
)
Is It Time to Secede Yet?
Posted:
11/6/2009 3:24:03 AM
I will say the Republicans and Dems could have passed laws to lift the laws that prevent people from buying insurance across state lines.
Care to name this supposed law that keeps insurance companies from selling across state lines?
What you're really talking about is taking away states' rights to regulate health insurance.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
15 (
view
)
Election '09 tests not boding well for Obama
Posted:
11/3/2009 7:56:38 PM
Interesting comment when you consider that the last time a Republican won the governor race was in 1997
Interesting stats on VA seems they have had only 5 Republican governors since 1886..and then now Hmmmmm
It's not my fault you have no clue about about Virginia politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VHoDmakeup.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Senate.gif
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
3 (
view
)
Election '09 tests not boding well for Obama
Posted:
11/3/2009 7:19:03 PM
Virginia is a Republican state. I lived there when the last Republican governor screwed (word I'd like to use would be censored) the state up so bad it put Democrats in control for 8 years. I was surprised when Tim Kaine got elected in 2006, but Mark Warner was so popular at the time he probably could have gotten anyone he endorsed elected.
Bush screwed the country up for 8 years, they voted for Obama. Notice the trend? They only vote Democrat after a Republican seriously screws up.
It's really a stretch to call any of these big races an indicator of Obama.
Corzine has had some minor, but significant scandals, so it's no surprise he didn't do well in an otherwise Democratic state.
The only interesting race today is that NY 23rd race, where the wingnut crazies got so bad the Republican nominee Scozzafava endorsed the Democrat. But that's just an indicator of the insane people running the asylum.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
16 (
view
)
Cash for Clunkers True Cost = 24,000 Per Vehicle.
Posted:
11/3/2009 7:15:58 AM
The new car/truck had to get better then 2 miles per gallon more then your current car/truck to qualify.
But I already stated the actual improvement was 9.1 mpg per vehicle. That is not small potatoes.
How much pollution does it take to build that truck or new car?
Roughly 20%-30% of a vehicle's lifetime CO2 is from manufacturing (obviously better mpg plays a big factor here). Steel, copper, etc. get recycled. Obviously there are other pollutants. That said, manufacturer's pollutants are regulated, while most states put few auto pollutant regulations on consumers.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
14 (
view
)
Cash for Clunkers True Cost = 24,000 Per Vehicle.
Posted:
11/3/2009 3:02:51 AM
Of course, just talking about $$$$ per vehicle ignores the fuel saved to the tune of 9.1 mpg per vehicle, and better air quality due to newer emissions systems.
I've seen estimates that range from the hundreds of millions to just over a billion gallons of gas per year saved. Plus, deadlines got those vehicles on the road quicker than if one just let the market play out. Less fuel used = lower fuel costs in the short term which can also spawn economic development.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
12 (
view
)
Is It Time to Secede Yet?
Posted:
11/1/2009 6:23:12 AM
But then what would the red states do to make up for all the money they currently take from the blue states???
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
20 (
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)
obama declares national emergency
Posted:
10/25/2009 7:56:51 AM
We've already had unusual peaks of H1N1 associated deaths in the late spring and this fall that are equivalent to the peaks we would normally get in the middle of winter from the seasonal flu. We are not technically into the normal flu season, yet the reported number of flu cases are already at levels we'd normally see in the winter (mostly being attributed to H1N1). If we follow this all through logically, the number of flu related deaths this winter will be far more than a usual winter.
Furthermore, fear in the population itself will send far more people to the hospital, which leads to risk of overwhelming health services and greater risk of infecting people at the hospitals who are there for other reasons (who might become high risk H1N1 cases, if they're in the hospital for other reasons). Hospitals need to be prepared for this, and if national emergency status helps, so be it.
There are already estimates of 30,000-90,000 dying from H1N1 this flu season, which would put us at 2-4x normal. Obviously, whatever we can do to keep that number as small as possible should be done.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
37 (
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Obama's Secret Agenda to bring about Socialism
Posted:
10/22/2009 5:42:55 AM
Lets say I have three cows...my neighbor only has one cow...A socialist government will take a cow from me that I paid for,fed and raised and give it to my neighbor. This way we both have two cows...equality...
This is the way I see the obama...taking from those who have worked and earned and giving to those who will not......
SOCIALISM ...bad.......umkay!
Uh yeah. There are a bunch of flaws here. In socialism, you would not own the cows. Either you AND your neighbors would own the cows (collective ownership) or the government would own them.
Furthermore, you're implying something about people who work and people who do not. Socialists actually believe in the "value of labor", so the only way you and your neighbor would each have two cows is if you both worked equally hard (assuming you're both in the business of raising cows). They also wouldn't believe that one person doing hard work 40 hours/week in a stock room should be making minimum wage while a CEO doing the same amount of labor 40 hours/week is making $10,000/hour.
If you're really concerned about "taking from those who work", socialism would be great for you!
I assume what you're actually trying to make an analogy to is the progressive tax system. While a progressive tax system has weak ties to socialism in my last point above (min wage vs. CEO salaries ... e.g. income taxes), it really has little to do with socialism. It has more to with what the "value of money" is. But, the value of money isn't just income taxes, it's the sin taxes, it's what the Federal Reserve does, it's the tax credits to promote business growth in various areas, etc.
In a socialist system, you would not personally own cows, and you would not be able to compete for different wages for your labor. Last I checked, the only thing keeping me from owning cows is a local zoning ordinance, and I don't think the Obamas have any problem with them making more in wages than you do.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
7 (
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)
Sin Tax to help fund Healthcare costs?
Posted:
10/14/2009 2:55:02 PM
What happens when sin tax revenues fall due to less consumer demand on sin taxed products?
Then the population will be healthier and our healthcare costs will be considerably less. Then the revenues will be unnecessary.
Have any more difficult questions?
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
264 (
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What is happening with ACORN?
Posted:
10/14/2009 3:59:24 AM
ACCCE (American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity) was caught sending at least 13 forged letters (another 45 are under investigation) to Congressmen purporting to be opposed to clean energy/cap-and-trade legislation. This included forging letters claiming to be from the NAACP and Hispanic organizations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/us/politics/05charity.html
Meanwhile this group continues to pump tens of millions of dollars/year into lobbying and "clean coal" promotion.
When are we going to investigate these corrupt lobbyists and corporations? I'm sure they wouldn't want us looking at their tax practices.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
9 (
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)
CONGRESS
Posted:
10/6/2009 5:59:21 PM
WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
Last I checked, we have deflation and lower taxes compared to the rest of the world.
Congress [blah, blah, blah] These are the tax, we, the working poeple, have to pay...
A number of these taxes are STATE taxes, not federal ones.
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes
existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in
the world.
Our nation was the most prosperous in the world when the tax rates were far, far higher than they are today.
I could make an argument for Congress lowering US corporate tax rates and simplifying corporate tax code, and exchanging lowered capital gains taxes for a tiny tax on stock trades. But given that you can't get basic facts straight, I don't see any place to start a discussion.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
55 (
view
)
What is happening with ACORN?
Posted:
9/18/2009 5:11:46 AM
This is what investigative journalism is all about!
NO. It isn't.
If I post an ad online, pretend to be a prostitute, and a John chooses to answer the add and show up at my door, that's investigative.
If I make an appointment with someone, go to their office, pretend to be a criminal, and repeatedly ask someone to engage in criminal behavior, that's ENTRAPMENT. Do you want someone to come to your office and do this?
The mainstream media is avoiding this like a hot potato because this is way out of bounds of both legal and journalistic behavior. A number of ACORN workers are now coming forward to show police reports they filed after these people showed up. The wingnuts may be enjoying this, but a judge will not.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
47 (
view
)
What is happening with ACORN?
Posted:
9/17/2009 6:32:34 PM
I think I'm going to take my camera, and go around to tax advisors posing as a Fox News anchor looking for tax advice on how to hide the income I'm paying my illegal immigrant gardener, housekeeper and nanny.
I'm sure it'll go viral on YouTube.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
40 (
view
)
What is happening with ACORN?
Posted:
9/16/2009 8:48:40 PM
Actually it's really a embarrassing humiliation that we don't really have any of the main media anchor men even saying "boo' about this.
Probably because the mainstream media has some level of journalistic integrity.
It's starting to sound like Fox News was building up toward the idea that this California ACORN worker murdered her husband, and James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles caught her on tape saying it.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200909160023
Except that the police investigated and no murder took place.
And CNN interviewed the California worker today who said these people (apparently O'Keefe and Giles pretending to be a pimp and ho) showed up in her office. She told them she couldn't do what they wanted and initially thought it was a joke. But they insisted about it and since her office was not in a nice part of town, she started to get scared. She made up stuff.
Apparently these two scared a woman to the point that she lied about a murder she did not commit.
I can easily see O'Keefe and Giles going to jail, and Fox News getting sued for a lot of money.
It's no wonder the mainstream media doesn't want to touch a hot potato like this. It has lawsuit written all over it, and what O'Keefe and Giles did was likely criminal in at least some states.
If two people showed up in my office and claimed to be engaged in criminal behavior, I don't know what I'd give them for tax advice either.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
31 (
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)
Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade
Posted:
9/16/2009 2:53:11 PM
The Middle east wars were off budget until Obama's 2010 Budget...
That was over $1 BILLION a week... is that in your 20% number?
Her numbers are based on Republican math where Social Security and Medicare are part of the general budget. Social Security is not, and I believe most of Medicare is not. You can give another kudos for Reagan for that one.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
27 (
view
)
Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade
Posted:
9/16/2009 10:54:08 AM
Can anyone please explain to me how this is good news? Trillions in debt and 10% unemployment? How can the obama admin tout free health care with a tab of TRILLIONS when we are already in bad shape. He has outspent EVERY admin since this nations birth...how can it be justified? Are we going to blame Bush for what the obama has now done?
This was all Reagan's fault, and Republicans continuing to push his approaches in the decades since. Unfortunately far too many have put him on a pedestal for his leadership and foreign policy successes. His economic polices were a disaster, and have destroyed both our manufacturing base and our tax base, yet Republicans continue to push them even further. Too bad he isn't alive today, he'd probably tell Republicans how badly they've screwed up his intentions. "Winning" the Cold War was an opportunity to get this country back on the right financial track, not to spend even more ... only Clinton figured that one out.
Anyhow, Reagan, Bush, the Gingrich Congress, and Bush created $10 trillion in national debt through handouts to the wealthiest while allowing our nation's infrastructure to crumble. Obama is just trying to fix 28 years of disastrous policies that have led us to the brink of the Second Great Depression.
BTW, health care is not "free", and the current bill's cost is less than one trillion over 10 years, not "TRILLIONS". Imagine how many trillions we could save if we could cut our costs to half of what they are today ... like they are in every other industrialized nation in the world.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
15 (
view
)
What is happening with ACORN?
Posted:
9/15/2009 4:33:35 PM
Where's Fox News to do some investigative reporting on the wingnuts and corporations cheating on their taxes?!?!
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
92 (
view
)
White House wants you to be a snitch ….
Posted:
8/12/2009 6:18:05 AM
What does ACORN have to do with a bunch of Corp TOOLS stopping insurance reform?
Because the Republicans have nothing to offer on healthcare reform. Their options are:
1. distract - talk about euthanasia, death panels, socialism ... and apparently ACORN.
2. propose alternatives - sadly the Republican alternatives (via their corporate tools) are
-tort reform - ah, yes, further restricting people's right to sue as quality of care declines and hand more money to the healthcare industry, brilliant!
-allow people to shop in other states for insurance - ah, yes, another brilliant idea where they take away state's rights to regulate healthcare!
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
65 (
view
)
White House wants you to be a snitch ….
Posted:
8/11/2009 2:24:13 PM
Eleanor Nordyke says her twins were born the day after Obama in the same hospital as Obama was. Here is the certificate of live birth she has and received later from Hawaii...This is what many are asking for.
http://nativeborncitizen.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/m1139416728.gif
[...]
It is quite obvious from Eleanor Nordyke's twins' birth certificates that one can get a copy of their original long form birth certificate from Hawaii.
Well, if you build a time machine and go back to 1966 you can order up a copy that looks like that.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
49 (
view
)
White House wants you to be a snitch ….
Posted:
8/11/2009 10:27:37 AM
Just out of curiosity I looked up the state of Pennsylvania and it doesn't seem too difficult in that state at least.
http://birth-certificates.net/pennsylvania.htm
It's right here:
http://www.dsf.health.state.pa.us/health/cwp/view.asp?a=168&Q=202219
http://www.dsf.health.state.pa.us/health/cwp/view.asp?a=168&Q=202191
I've done it. What you get is exactly like what Obama has already produced.
I'd be really shocked if anyone over 15-20 years of age was able to walk up to a desk and walk out with a copy of their original birth certificate (unless someone's state has gotten really good at digitally archiving old documents). There wouldn't be room in the building (and not most county offices) to archive all those documents. Our counties stopped archiving vital records documents and handed that responsibility over to the state of Pennsylvania a century ago.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
47 (
view
)
White House wants you to be a snitch ….
Posted:
8/11/2009 9:59:21 AM
In the news today …. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002743_pf.html
The Obama administration is proposing to scale back a long-standing ban on tracking how people use government Internet sites with "cookies" and other technologies, raising alarms among privacy groups.
"Snip"
Some privacy groups say the proposal amounts to a "massive" and unexplained shift in government policy. In a statement Monday, American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Michael Macleod-Ball said the move could "allow the mass collection of personal information of every user of a federal government website."
Hold on folks, this ride is getting more interesting everyday ….
Good find. But most web browsers today have fairly easy settings to say: block cookies to *.gov sites or something like that.
I'd be more concerned about the part of the article where they were willing to make exceptions to hand your data off to Google.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
44 (
view
)
White House wants you to be a snitch ….
Posted:
8/11/2009 9:33:35 AM
It is strange that Obama has not presented a long form hospital birth certificate.
Why? In many (most?) states, it is next to impossible to get access to your original birth certificate. That is simply not how access to those records works. I certainly cannot access mine.
To me it seems that since McCain was able to so easily produce a copy of his original birth certificate why not Obama.
Does it make you feel better knowing that McCain was NOT BORN IN THE UNITED STATES?
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
24 (
view
)
Palin says Obama's health care plan is 'evil'
Posted:
8/11/2009 4:25:15 AM
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," the former Republican vice presidential candidate wrote.
Palin is already a burden on American society, between her teenage parent daughter, ethics violations (which include numerous questionable charges on Alaskan taxpayers), $150,000 wardrobe bill to the RNC, $200+ million taken for the "bridge to nowhere" but was never built, $500 million to TransCanada, costs of quitting her office early, etc. She doesn't need to bring her baby into it.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
6 (
view
)
Noticeable SEIU Union People Heckle and Attack Town Hall Attendees.
Posted:
8/9/2009 10:31:37 AM
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/union-thugs-attack-protester-in-tampa http://sweetness-light.com/archive/seiu-thugs-beat-up-town-hall-protester
Why are health care supporters vocally and physically attacking citizens as noted at Kathy Castor’s townhall meeting in Tampa.
Why are Reps barring voters of their district admittance to their town hall meetings.
I watched the videos. The room was clearly full and the session had started. Instead of accepting that fact, people in the doorway apparently decided to chant and create a raucous in the entryway when the speaker started to talk. They were asked to be quiet, and when they refused to do so, they were forced into the entryway room and the doors were closed. The so-called victim admitted on the video to purposely holding the door open while others were trying to close it. And while he claimed it took the police officer to get the guys trying to shut the door "off him", it should be noted from the video that it also clearly took the police officer to get him to stop holding the door open.
I did not see any voters barred admittance before the room was full, and I did not see anyone vocally or physically attacked.
There is some comment in the blogger's post about "union" members being given seats that had been reserved, but if you watch the video, somebody is asked about this on the video and the answer was that they were saved for people who had set up the room.
The real question is why do people who behave like children not expect to be treated as such?
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
26 (
view
)
White House wants you to be a snitch ….
Posted:
8/6/2009 9:55:51 AM
If something like this had come out of the Bush Whitehouse, folks in here would have gone absolutely into ORIBIT over it!
Bush didn't care what anyone was saying on the Internets, he was "the decider". If he wanted this info, he'd have just electronic eavesdropped it, rather than asked for it.
Kevin McCullough
- FOXNews.com
In short, when free speech is threatened [...]
Must be a really slow "news" day at FOX, when they have to make up this garbage.
Free speech? LOL! FOX is free to spew garbage, I'm free to report it to the government, and the government is free to refute what others say. The boob who wrote this needs to move to Iran, Cuba, North Korea or a few other select countries for a while.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
13 (
view
)
Gates vs Officer Crowley: What do you think?
Posted:
7/27/2009 5:33:52 AM
If I had a dollar for every redneck right-winger with a "stupid police" story I've heard, I'd be a rich man. The only national news here is the typical Republican hypocrisy who will throw away personal property rights and the taxpayer costs involved in arresting somebody in their own home, to make some kind of vague political point against the president.
I also don't get how if this guy supposedly took it out onto the street, the only picture I've seen of what happened appears to show him being led out of his home in handcuffs.
In the end, the officer gets an "F" for failing to de-escalate a situation where no crime would have occurred if the officer had not showed up in the first place. While the citizen did not make it easy on him, the officer was able to access the home, determined that the occupants were safe, and should have left. He really needs to re-think how he teaches that racial profiling class.
All that said, politicians usually know better than to use words like "stupid" without more carefully calculating the consequences.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
27 (
view
)
Public Health Care ABC News
Posted:
7/20/2009 3:26:35 PM
OBAMA'S GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE IN 3 WEEKS
Obama Rushing to Take Away Your Health Care Choices. Immediate Action Needed!
http://grassfire.org/
ROTFLMAO! "Take away your healthcare choices"?!?!?!?
More than 28% of the population under 65 (75 million people) have lost their healthcare choices since the Republicans blocked healthcare reform in 1994, and that number is growing fast. Immediate action is needed!
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
34 (
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)
Palin resigns! Do you think she will run for President!
Posted:
7/6/2009 4:12:20 AM
And apparently she quit her last public service job too.
"Frustrated, Palin to quit oil panel job"
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/background/story/513761.html
I still don't get why the media is not all over her for saying she's fighting for our "energy independence" when her only supposed big energy victory was a pipeline to send our natural gas to Canada?
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
27 (
view
)
Seriously, is this administration crazy??
Posted:
7/5/2009 5:32:18 AM
Now let me ask you. In an economy where the consumer accounts for a little more than 2/3 of GDP, does it make sense to restrict the availibility of credit, if your goal is to promote recovery?
Wasn't your first post complaining about the administration making too much credit available? Now you're complaining about them restricting it? Talk about "lacking a basic understanding", you can't even keep your point straight.
I'd much rather offer credit to the people with collateral, even if the collateral's value has fallen.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
19 (
view
)
Palin resigns! Do you think she will run for President!
Posted:
7/5/2009 5:07:34 AM
If her writing is anything like her speeches, she'd better get a really, really, REALLY good editor for that book deal.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
57 (
view
)
Obama Matures and Moves towards Bush
Posted:
6/8/2009 5:52:52 AM
Here are a list of issues Obama has changed course on that align him with George Bush.
1. Not releasing the EIT photos after partially releasing them.
2. The Surge in Afghanistan. It worked in Iraq so why not Afghanistan.
3. No independent commission to hold top-ranking officials politically accountable.
4. The resumption of Military Tribunals.
5. He spent most of the campaign promising to bring combat troops home from Iraq 16 months after taking office, though he left himself wiggle room. President Obama adjusted that timeline to 19 months and said 50,000 troops, about one-third of the current force, would remain.
There are many campaign promises broken [...]
??? Obama promised to increase the troops and effort in Afghanistan. That's a campaign promise kept. I believe he's been consistent on 3 as well. He never made a statement specific to Military Tribunals, but this was unsurprising. I'm not sure how else you'd expect people captured on the battlefield to be tried? The main difference is that Obama wants them tried in Military Tribunals that effectively the same as any other Military Tribunals, Bush wanted to make up special rules to deny rights.
I don't think he made a statement with respect to the EIT photos during his campaign either. I don't even think this existed as a topic.
I'll give you that he's changed his schedule with respect to Iraq.
Judge Revisits Warrantless Eavesdropping
[...]
A federal judge yesterday declined to penalize Justice Department lawyers for flouting his orders in a sensitive electronic surveillance case where the Obama administration sided with its predecessors to the alarm of civil liberties groups.
But U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker did not give the government what it wanted, either. The San Francisco-based judge batted away fresh Justice Department attempts to appeal his rulings, which have been critical of President Obama's approach to protecting state secrets.
Barack Dubya Obama!
Last year, Obama voted FOR the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 which allows the executive branch to continue unfettered warrantless eavesdropping. Once again, no change in his course here.
I'm not sure what the point of you post is. Outside of his change on the Iraq timeline, he has not "changed course" on issues "that align him with George Bush" from anything he promised during his campaign. These all seem to be statements about what the left wishes Obama would do differently than Bush and nothing about what Obama promised he would do.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
7 (
view
)
New Bill Proposes to Federalize Computer Security
Posted:
4/27/2009 2:55:41 PM
3. it doesn't say anything about "illegal" wiretaps (which weren't illegal, btw either, since there was a bill passed called patriot act that made them legal. it should be noted that the nice thing about the patriot act is that it had a sunset clause, not only that that bill was approved and re-approved by both parties. it was kinda like NCLB, it had bi-partisan support. also, what changed about the wiretaps that differed from previous law is that they were applied to individuals instead of just the actual phone numbers. the reason they changed it is due to modern technology such as the cell phone. the laws needed to be updated to be current with technological advances. if you read lawrence wright's book, "the looming tower," you will find a detailed description of how they mapped out al qaeda just after 9/11. it was through one guy placing phone calls to yemen. funny how that works.)
Federal agencies continue to wiretap, monitor and collect at least some Internet traffic between American citizens with neither warrant nor any other judicial oversight today (which is illegal). The Patriot Act really has little to do with this (though it did amend FISA, which is designed to provide mechanisms for judicial oversight) other than timing. This could/should have been clarified with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, as lawsuits had already been filed, but most of Congress has little clue as to what is going on, and those who do choose to turn a blind eye. No act of Congress (Patriot Act or other) has made it legal to wiretap Americans without judicial oversight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_v._AT&T
http://www.eff.org/cases/hepting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Klein
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
4 (
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It's Offical! President Obama has lost my 2012 vote.
Posted:
4/17/2009 2:14:14 AM
What did you expect? Obama also voted for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 last year. Based on that, is this such a surprise? What's the alternative? All the Republicans (except one House member) voted for it; the Democrats split with the majority voting against. You'd expect more from someone with a constitutional law background.
But, at least Obama has people in his administration with different opinions.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
11 (
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North Korea fueling rocket for impending launch ... So what's the big deal?
Posted:
4/2/2009 3:48:47 PM
what's the big deal?
You mean that country with nearly a million man military mostly pointed almost entirely at South Korea who we're still technically at war with?
I suspect the fact their so-called Chinese allies don't even trust them to not do something stupid makes it a big deal for everyone. Think about it: if the Chinese trusted them to have missiles, North Korea would have had them decades ago.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
20 (
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How do you really feel about this large stimulus package?
Posted:
2/6/2009 11:26:12 AM
What do I think? A few Republicans are creating a media circus out of a few minor items. Someone put it correctly last week on one of the cable shows, the Democrats should've dropped all the tax cuts from the bill and then asked the Republicans if they wanted to negotiate.
Most of the items in the bill are fairly obvious. They're either 1) a safety net for the few million who already have or are about to lose their jobs, 2) items that will get jobs/money back into the economy quickly (the "shovel ready" programs), or 3) tax cuts. Of course, none of 1 & 2 are pretty, it's a bunch of social spending, and planned projects that were previously put on the back burner. It's very easy for Republicans to criticize money to prevent STDs (already dropped from the bill) until you realize that more and more women are already going into prostitution due to the economy and STD rates are rising evenly with the unemployment rate. Or heaven forbid we provide low income people with contraceptives during an economic downturn (also dropped) ... instead, we'll give them a tax cut to have more children (just brilliant!). The Republicans, as usual, turned anything sex or science related into a point of attack, and turned irrelevant and more costly tax cuts into a "solution".
The nice thing about infrastructure, health and energy related projects is that they have some potential to pay for themselves in the long run.
If anything, the dumbest parts of the bill are the tax cuts for individuals and first time home buyers, but good luck getting rid of those. Money to people who have jobs, but are worried about losing them, is not going to go back into the economy in any useful way. Handing out money to encourage more people who might not otherwise have money to buy homes to buy one is just going to add to the problem. Both sound great to voters though.
Then you get the talking heads saying we should be doing some mega-project with the money like a new energy grid (Joe Scarborough was blabbering about this all week). Great idea, but such projects are not "shovel ready". They would take a year or more to plan (I think there already is a small amount of money in the bill to start this planning). We'd already be well into a serious depression before any noticeable money on such a project would be spent.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
125 (
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Medical Insurance for all
Posted:
2/3/2009 5:19:25 PM
It costs $1,200 per year in taxes for each Quebec citizen to have access to the public health system. This means that the average two-child family pays close to $5,000 per year in public health insurance. This is much more expensive than the most comprehensive private health insurance plan.
On what planet? If that's Canadian dollars, that's ~$4,050 US. Individual health insurance plans in the US run around $5,000-$6,000/year, and family plans are more in the $11,000-$12,000/year range, if you're lucky ... that's the low end. If you're not getting it through an employer or other group, you'd better not have any pre-conditions, and hope you're young. Oh, and the plans at that price in the US are not that "comprehensive", particularly if purchased by an individual they'd be bare bones.
Much more? Try less than half as much.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
26 (
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Stimulus bill would give payments to illegal aliens
Posted:
2/3/2009 4:55:53 PM
If an illegal alien has a fake or stolen social security number or an individual taxpayer identification number, they can get stimulus checks.
Wow, are people still responding to this red herring thread? If an illegal alien has a fake or stolen social security number or an individual taxpayer identification number, they can take advantage of plenty of government programs. WTF does that have to do with the stimulus bill? A stimulus bill is not going to magically take away their fraudulent identity documentation.
Where's the delete option when you need it?
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
11 (
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What is the job of the Government?
Posted:
1/9/2009 6:40:58 AM
The very constitution is written as a limit on the power of government, therefor, if you need more support that the founders were for a limited governement let me know.
The Constitution was written to expand the power of government. In particular, the Articles of Confederation did not allow for the federal government to tax, draft an army, or regulate interstate trade. I'd suggest a history lesson if you think otherwise.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
7 (
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What is the job of the Government?
Posted:
1/8/2009 4:00:44 AM
Just to clarify, the reason why I posted that "government exists [...] to force people to do things they disagree with", was because another poster said that "government should not be able to force me to support something I disagree with" (where "support" really meant "pay for").
I think this is a wonderful topic, and there are already some good posts. I was listening to a talk radio show on Friday where improving education about our government and how it works was a topic. It's important to think about history and why we have the government and laws that we have (or don't have). Do think about the alternative.
anarchy:
1 a: absence of government b: a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority c: a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchy
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
26 (
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Forced Insurance
Posted:
1/7/2009 8:10:45 AM
With respect to auto insurance: 1. despite most people's belief, you don't have the *right* to drive on publicly funded roads, it's a privilege; 2. if you cause an accident, die, and cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage in the process there is absolutely no way you are going to "pay for it yourself". If you don't like paying for auto insurance, DON'T DRIVE, period. You do have an option.
With respect to health insurance, while I suppose one could come up with a policy where people could choose to not have insurance and die if they couldn't afford to pay for needed care (doctors/hospitals would have to have considerable power to refuse care if they didn't think they'd be paid), the general population has decided that they'd prefer to not have people dying in the streets due to unforeseen medical costs. Do realize though that if young, healthier people opted out of health insurance today the costs would go up drastically for everyone else (with all kinds of other implications). When those young, healthier people get older, less healthy, have families, and suddenly realized maybe insurance isn't such a bad idea, they'd be paying many, many times more than what the current costs are. In the end, the costs are really a wash. You either pay for it now, or you'll pay even more for it later (unless you really *never* want to be insured).
The people in this thread whining about "forced" insurance are really no different than the people bought into ARM mortgages and are whining, getting foreclosed on, going into bankruptcy, etc. because the ADJUSTABLE RATE went UP.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
18 (
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Forced Insurance
Posted:
1/4/2009 10:34:49 AM
The government should not be able to force me to support something I disagree with.
What an ignorant statement. The ONLY reason governments exist at the most fundamental level is to force people to do things they disagree with.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
5 (
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US taxpayers bail out Terrorist?
Posted:
1/2/2009 8:38:58 AM
Have any unbiased sources? Isn't tithing a "requirement" for Christians as well? Sounds like you're just trying to associate Muslims with terrorism. The connection you quoted between Shariah-Compliant Finance and "a number" of people "embrace" jihad is rather weak.
I know squat about Islamic law and financial transactions. But for example, I don't think they believe in loaning money where you pay interest. So, to buy a home, you would not get a mortgage and pay principal and interest on the loan to the bank. Instead, I think they do something like the bank buys and owns the home, and you lease it on a lease-to-own basis (you pay some other fees in there for the bank's services, but they aren't "interest" and you don't "own" the home till you've paid for it).
The next clue is how Shariah-Compliant Finance works. Like subprime, it is a black-box, in which management and investors alike are told to trust in the experts. In this case, the experts are Shariah authorities who are accorded exclusive responsibility for determining whether investments are "pure" (halal) and therefore acceptable, or "impure" (haram) and not.
What I described above doesn't sound very "black box" to me. It makes sense. I'm not sure what it means for investors, because I'm not sure if it allows for "investment". I think the point is that you're not supposed to be able to make a profit just from the sake of having money. The financial institution, I assume, would charge you the actual cost involved in servicing a transaction.
You might want to follow up with a source mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Sharia. There it says, "In the English-speaking world and in Islamic countries with a history of British rule, for example, Islamic finance has been relatively successful due to the common-law nature of Islamic jurisprudence being compatible with English common law. On the other hand, Islamic finance has been relatively unsuccessful in certain regimes such as Iran, Pakistan and Sudan which, according to Lawrence Rosen and Mahmoud A. El-Gamal, have diverged from the common-law nature of Islamic jurisprudence and instead interpret 'a common-law variant as if it were a civil law system.'"
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
3 (
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US taxpayers bail out Terrorist?
Posted:
1/2/2009 6:19:08 AM
US taxpayers have bailed out Sharia Law companies ….."Shariah-Compliant Finance (SCF)"
I would assume that means financial institutions which are either compliant with Islamic religious law or have financial packages that are compliant with Islamic law. It doesn't allow for things such as charging or receiving interest. I don't see what that has to do with terrorism, unless you have more info.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
56 (
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The Fairness Doctrine vs.Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2007
Posted:
12/22/2008 9:51:52 AM
The problem is not who owns the airwaves (the FCC regules them which is a government entity), but who owns the stations that supply the generators that broadcast programs. They decide, based on advertisting revenue what shows to put on or take off the airwaves.
If the left wing could come up with an entertaining show with charismatic hosts that would create a revenue stream, then stations would carry them. Problem is they don't. They tried Air America, and it tanked. Why? Not enough people listened, the hosts were not popular, and they couldn't find ad revenue. Money talks. It's a real bummer ain't it?
This is really an overgeneralization, which I explained on the first page of this thread.
If these decisions were based purely on advertising revenue, which then basically comes down to ratings, I already explained that once you get past the top two, Limbaugh and Hannity, the talk shows that rate best in local markets actually varies significantly. For that matter, Hannity even gets beaten out in some markets (in some cases by liberal/progressive programming). With media consolidation, when a company like Clear Channel owns ~30% of the high power AM stations (keeps buying more) and has programming rights on a few more in the US, plus they own a large number of low power stations. They syndicate their own programming and buy syndication rights to others (at a steep discount because of the volume). Syndication costs/profits can easily trump potential advertising revenue in what gets airtime.
This loss of local programming is not exclusive to talk radio programming. You'll see equal complaints with respect to music programming, news programming, etc. (and newspapers, TV). I've even been trying to explain to people in our community how our franchised cable company is doing this by making us pay for channels owned by that company on "basic" service while forcing people to pay extra for more locally oriented channels by putting them under more premium services. That way we are always forced to subsidize their owned programming before we can buy the more local content (you have to buy the basic service before you can add other content). For better or worse, communities probably have more control over their franchised cable content, than federally controlled radio.
Anyhow, it's far too trivial to claim that the left wing can't "come up with an entertaining show with charismatic hosts that would create a revenue stream". They do, and have, but they're competitive ratings-wise on a more local scale. It's the cost competition due to media consolidation that's pushing these competitive programs to the fringes or off the air.
The real question is if radio stations have an obligation to the communities they are housed in for content they'd prefer to hear vs. the pure profit motivation of national media conglomerates. I am not convinced we've found the right balance.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
123 (
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Solutions to illegal immigration?
Posted:
12/12/2008 6:33:05 PM
that's it! I don't know what is going on there in the East side
but
95% of people is SoCal are going to jail, including but not limited those who hire an "illegal" gardener, "illegal" handyman who is fixing their bathroom, "illegal" mechanic who opened his shop and is fixing cars etc etc etc
That's the point. They would have some fixed period 3-12 months after the law is passed to register their need to hire guest worker(s). If you're caught after that ... jail.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
116 (
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)
Solutions to illegal immigration?
Posted:
12/12/2008 10:29:14 AM
Well, here's a proposal. That said, I don't know the laws that are already on the books.
1. Mandatory jail time for people who hire illegals.
2. Guest worker program for "seasonal" work (do we even have one right now? other countries do) - government comes up with numbers for this.
3. Current illegals (assuming no criminal record) are given a period when they can join the guest worker program under what would probably be their current job (we'd probably have to be pretty loose with employers requesting guest workers during this period as well). They need to pay some (to be determined) percentage of back taxes for prior earnings in the US (probably on some no-interest plan from the IRS).
4. Anybody who wants to become a citizen needs to get in line with everyone else.
I just want to get everyone who is in this country documented and whoever is working paying taxes. We can't afford to arrest 10+ million people and ship them out of the US (only to come back again anyhow), and if we're too harsh on them, they're just going to hide and keep doing what they're doing. If we don't want people sneaking across the border, then we need a guest worker program that's more appealing than sneaking in (or one heck of a wall).
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
12 (
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The Fairness Doctrine vs.Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2007
Posted:
11/24/2008 4:32:03 AM
The real problem is media consolidation. For example, a company like Clear Channel owns ~30% of the high power AM stations (keeps buying more) and has programming rights on a few more in the US, plus owns a large number of low power stations. They syndicate their own programming and buy syndication rights to others (at a steep discount because of the volume). Then they blast that content out over all their channels regardless of what an individual market's preferences may be. Once you get past the top two Limbaugh and Hannity, the talk shows that rate best in local markets actually varies significantly. Plus consolidation causes well rated local talk hosts to get pushed out over cheaper nationally syndicated programs.
I understand why they do it; it's mostly profit driven. But, we own the airwaves and they provide limited bandwidth (the number of stations available is relatively fixed). I'm not sure what the solution is, but it is definitely not one company growing a larger and larger monopoly of radio stations.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
50 (
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Consumption Tax/ Fair Tax
Posted:
11/6/2008 5:56:08 AM
only one of those came to pass because of federal income tax dollars.
which one?
Mississippi River - look up the history of US Army Corps of Engineers
interstate highway system - National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956
modern air transportation - pretty much every major airliner improvement has been based on military technology
need to defend ourselves from nuclear attack - hmmm, did we get to ONE yet?
I might give you the modern power grid, but I suspect if I had the time to go through the history of/around WWI, that'd be debatable too.
trailviews
Joined:
8/14/2006
Msg:
5 (
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Funny radio prank
Posted:
11/4/2008 12:12:19 AM
Sadly, this prank just reminded me of the REAL radio interview McCain did with Spanish media. At first McCain appeared to be confused as he stated that he would not meet with the Prime Minister of Spain, a NATO ally. The interviewer, thinking McCain was confusing this question with earlier questions about Latin American bad guys like Castro and Chavez, clarified, "Okay, but I'm talking about Europe - the president of Spain, would you meet with him?" McCain's response was a bizarre, "I will reunite with any leader that has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty. And I will confront those that don't."
As far as I know, to date, McCain has not resolved this diplomatic row. The Spanish are still very concerned about it.
Sorry but for people who are supposedly running for President and Vice President, they really know nothing about diplomacy. Pranks like this are scary, because if Palin had said something wrong, it still could have international repercussions.
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