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and would never believe that the inheritors of the founders could possibly be that stupid. She is long gone now, but I'd be wiling to bet that she would have the budget straightened out and USA out of debt by the end of the new president's term. And so would many other new citizens appalled at the way America dissipates its wealth.
She appears, however, to have some progeny that show promise ;)
Our branch didn't do much better moving to SW Oregon whee I grew iup or as it's known Appalachia West and now is part of New Amsterdam famous for three exports. Lumber, High School Seniors, and pot. And not much else.
Dave Barry once made a similar joke in his book "Dave Barry Slept Here" when he talks about the new mandates on conserving water in flush toilets. He appropriately labels them "acts of Congress"!
On the way I listened to Rush.
Thus I learned that, after the bill was passed, Obama called Paul Ryan and said, "Thanks for making government work."
Not mentioned was how Ryan must have raced to the rest room to wash off being so pathetically slimed.
Did anyone really expect anything good out of DC? Oh wait, this is good if you are one of the elites or looters.
There was a book written about it. In one part it said something about driving the money changers out of the temple. It said nothing about re-electing criminals.
Once again, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is going to completely surrender the power of the purse and give the Democrats everything they want and more.
Later today, the Senate will begin voting on this omnibus bill and Senator McConnell, like Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) before him, will block every conservative effort to slow this bill down or amend it.
The bill was negotiated behind closed doors and now it will be rammed through the Senate with minimum debate.
This is why so many Americans dislike Washington.
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) said the process is "an affront to the Constitution – the very idea of constitutionalism – and an insult to the American people."
The omnibus bill itself not only busts the budget caps and increases deficit spending, it does nothing to defund Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, executive amnesty, or the president's reckless nuclear deal with Iran.
Instead, it fully funds the resettling of refugees from nations with large areas controlled by terrorists, it quadruples the number of visas the president wants for foreign workers, it allows the president to fund the Green Climate Fund, and it gives Obamacare cover by delaying the worst aspects of the law.
This is happening in part because Senator McConnell thought it was wise to unilaterally surrender to President Obama, vowing to never do anything that might lead to a government shutdown. As a result, Democrats can now demand whatever they want in every budget debate and they will get it.
But it's also happening because Senator McConnell believes this is good for America. He calls this "governing" and brags about how he has cut deals with the Democrats to get the Senate "working again."
If so, they will just vote no.
Anyone who votes in favor of this should be arrested, tried for economic treason, unconstitutional violation of their oath, and executed on the capitol steps.
Sorry, no funding to clean up the mess.
It's to hide his naked shame.
Why the aitch is there even a Republican party if they're not going to act to implement the policies they run on?
I heard the interview with Chucky Schumer on Rush Limbaugh, and he sounded as though he couldn't believe the deal the Dimocrats got. They got more than they expected.
1. That may be an illegal use of computers one day.
2. M2F means Major Middle Finger
is in deep trouble and the "leaders" are killing it. -- j
.
What continues to astound me is that when evaluating foreigners for entry visas, the State Department had a policy upheld by Obama and Jeh Johnson prohibiting the examination of Facebook pages of potential immigrants. This was highlighted in the recent San Bernardino shootings when it was discovered that the wife - the real jihadi - had been posting her plans to wage holy war for several years prior to her falsified entry into the US. And at the same time, the US government is busy gathering US Citizen's private information via Facebook, Twitter, etc. for political targeting.
And more on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) included in the latest "Ominous" bill of the current thread: https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/...
How the current fear over terrorism is being exploited for all of it: https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/...
Senators Cruz and (recently) Sessions have pointed this out several times. Republican voters are tired of getting left holding the bag.
You appear to have a very jaundiced view of Republicans in general - especially if you lump Rand Paul (a libertarian) in there as well. You ignore all the times they have bucked their own party to vote, such as on TPP/TPA and many others. I'd recommend a broader view and especially to take a look at the legislation Cruz offers and puts before the Senate. That's where you'll find the measure of the man - not whether or not he goes along with someone else's bill.
No one is going to claim that any politician currently in office is an Objectivist! But of all the Senators in Congress, I can only name two (Cruz and Mike Lee) who constantly cite the Constitution in their arguments before Congress against or for specific bills. I only wish more of the real RINO's like McCain and McConnell did the same.
Besides these days politician is just another word for untrustworthy and spin is another word for deceit.
Actually I'm not jaundiced at all I'm very blunt and have long ago discarded the Left's unworkable system or definition of left and right. Allthey did was move the center post to the center of the left and that makes the Republicans the right wing OF the left.
Works for me. Immediate explanation of why Reublicans cave. The other system fails credulity. You may design your own system or explanation or just follow the crowd.
Useful tricks though. Most people look in the mirror and see reversed reflection. Socialists look in the mirror and see Republicans.
Up to you. I'm willing to give anyone - even a politician - a chance to show me their mettle.
What gives you that idea? It's not like there has been a big change in the GOP recently. They have been doing the same thing for 50 years: lying to get elected and voting like leftists after the election.
"Republican voters" will show they are fed up when they stop being "Republican" voters, and not one second before. You vote for evil, you must take responsibility for it. Especially when you have done it over and over again against all rationality.
"Republican" voters are insane. "Democrat" voters are insane.
If insane people can't be trusted with firearms, why trust them with a more powerful weapon?
If you're willing to run for office, you can criticize the choices available and those who vote for them. Complaining for the sake of complaining, however, gets us nowhere.
Since clearly it doesn't matter what I write, why ask me again?
You are a smart person. Look at the results of the past 50 years. Figure it out for yourself.
It is becoming pretty clear that talking to "Republican" voters is futile. They have doomed America and will never take responsibility for their actions. .
"Viable" third party candidate? What makes one "viable"? As long as everyone who votes continues to vote without rational thought to the consequences, no rational candidate will be viable. You decide who is viable with your vote. You decide who is not viable by voting for evil instead of voting for principle.
Your real argument is that you are sick of not having an option you like to vote FOR. I can understand and sympathize with that. It is the secondary conclusion that by virtue of that decision, any vote will be a vote for "evil" where you lose me.
"It is becoming pretty clear that talking to "Republican" voters is futile."
And you think you'll have better success with Democrat voters? Or even the Independents?
"[Republican voters] have doomed America and will never take responsibility for their actions."
Why do you think Cruz and Trump (and earlier Ben Carson) are leading the polls? It's because they buck the establishment Republicans like Bush and Christie and the voters see that. I see the current trends and conclude the opposite of your assertion. The voters I openly criticize are the ones who vote for a Democrat.
I would ask you to please correct me if I am misinterpreting you, but you seem to advocate that no one should vote at all because there aren't any perfect candidates. Inaction to me, however, is far from a solution to the problem, which is why I ask for solutions, not merely discontent for the status quo.
The ONLY peaceful way for a liberty minded ethical candidate to be viable is if Republicans recognize the GOP as a lying fraud and abandon the GOP en mass. Democrat voters aren't worth the time to even discuss politics; the party gave up rational thought a century ago. I consider Independents as supporters of liberty until they prove otherwise, as the GOP and Dems have done.
My approach is simple, "don't vote for evil." The Dems and GOP have proven they are evil. Use your brain rationally and pick someone outside the statist party. They won't be perfect, but if they have proven a committment to oppose the state with their life, fortune, and sacred honor then they might be good enough. Yes, they might not be perfect, but we have a better chance of defending liberty by rational thinking than by repeating mistakes of the past. The GOP and Dems are mistakes of the past, and they deserve extinction.
Strike them from the list and look hard at the others. As it is the Democrats have done all the picking and choosing for both parties or more properly for both candidates allowd for the party they do control.
If a third party is polling high enough that it isn't squirrel then by all means support it. I thought Perot had made it to that point in 1992 -- I accept my share of the responsibility for Bill Clinton.
"I am not altogether on anyone’s side because nobody is altogether on my side"
To characterize someone who doesn't altogether agree with you as 'evil' creates a world of only evil. Even on this self-selecting site there are wide ranges of opinion. Are we all 'evil'?
Socialism is evil etc. John A is a Socialist. John B there fore must be Socialist doesn't work for me.
Socialism is Evil John A. IS a Socialist. John B maybe uninformed, misguided, hasn't been offered any other alternatives or acceptable alternatives, or any other number of reasons including doesn't think of the lesser evil as evil. Which seems to fit Treebird. Some are in no way on my side... flush the toilet, turn your back and walk away while checking the rear view mirror.
On my side has room to host a great number of disagreements. But no room for violating core values unless I make that change. Objectively.
If John A is not a perfect example of a Socialist then there must be some aspects of him that are not Socialist. It is possible to consider John A and John B and determine which of them are to a lesser degree adherents of Socialism and vote on the basis of that, voting for their non Socialist portion and accepting that some degree of Socialism will be elected since A or B is going to be elected. Accepting that reality is part of the process.
When you start with a definition that "Republicans (voters and candidates alike) are evil", you're creating your own straw man. I'm not saying that everyone in the Republican Party should be voted for, but you seem to take the other extreme and equate them all with Democrats. I'm not willing to go down that road with you. There are some for whom there is little distinction (McConnell, McCain, and others), but there are others who stand out as noted exceptions to such an overly-broad categorization (Paul, Cruz, Lee, Gowdy, Sessions, and others). I would also point out that the Media is in the bag for the Democrats, but hardly for the Republicans. NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS? They're all biased toward the Dems. Rush, Hannity, and Beck have all voiced their outright displeasure/disgust for the existing Republican Party. Rush even went so far today as to tell the Republican Party that they were on the verge of total collapse due to this Omnibus bill. So I'd definitely make a distinction between how the media treats Democrats vs Republicans.
"I consider Independents as supporters of liberty until they prove otherwise, as the GOP and Dems have done."
One minor question regarding the thought process here, however: even the Independents (like me FYI) still only have have two choices in most elections. "Registering" for one party or the other merely means getting to vote in the Primaries as well as in the Generals. Ultimately, however, there is no "Independent" Party providing candidates for us to pick from :S The Green Party is a bunch of hippies. The Libertarian Party is a one-issue party centered on drugs. The Constitution Party has a great name, but no financial support, let alone a candidate with any cache. The Tea Party is an idea more than a formal organization (except those front groups set up by the Democrats). There is no Objectivist Party. I'm looking around and ... still looking around...
"The ONLY peaceful way for a liberty minded ethical candidate to be viable is if Republicans recognize the GOP as a lying fraud and abandon the GOP en mass. "
I don't disagree that the GOP establishment needs to die. That was the whole purpose of forcing out Boehner. But there is no such thing as a void of power - it transfers somewhere.
You said this. I did not. Your straw man, not mine.
The GOP is controlled. You continue to believe that will change if you can change a few elected officials who have no power over the party. You refuse to recognize that any position of power is appointed and voters have no voice whatsoever in that process. Any and all efforts to change this have been failures because they don't get close to the power and they never will. The GOP is corrupted. (The Democratic party is corrupted, too, but supporters of it are getting what they ask for, socialism. They are beyond listening to reason.) Republican voters are living in a dream world, indoctrinated by the system to believe that their votes matter. That just isn't so as long as you continue to waste them on the GOP. You respond to my posts but you aren't seeing reality. You continue to make excuses for your actions supporting the GOP. There is no excuse for supporting evil. Until you recognize this you are enslaved. I have explained this several times and you aren't listening, so I am not going to explain it again. Republican voters have the fate of American liberty in their hands and they are chosing to be slaves.
I think that true evil would welcome a collapse and all the chaos that would result: the looting, the violence, the raping and pillaging - the complete abandonment of law and natural rights. The Constitution wasn't born of such and I don't believe it would be re-born of such. The Constitution was built from a time where the people were sufficiently organized and self-sufficient that they could turn their attentions to weighty intellectual matters. I look to Maslow's Hierarchy and how it would apply in a time of upheaval and know that reforming a "more perfect Union" would be the last thing on my mind. The recent riots and such underscore my apprehension. The mobs aren't calling for more reason or a redress of grievances, but for vengeance out of bloodlust and mindlessness.
"I have explained this several times and you aren't listening."
I'm not agreeing. There is a huge difference.
You are welcome to come to your own conclusions on the matter, but you are not welcome to deride me for coming to my own conclusions - even if they differ from yours. Freedom means the power to disagree and someone who is for freedom is willing to allow disagreement graciously. Neither ad hominem, ridicule, nor derision by implication of superior intelligence is all that persuasive to me. If there is a logical fallacy in my argument, point it out. Reiterating your points, however, without addressing my counter-arguments tells me I'm talking to a broken record player - not another person.
Adieu.
I think we both agree that the leadership of the Republican Party has thrown in with the Democrats and is not furthering the cause of liberty. McConnell and Boehner were certainly of that mold, and disappointingly it appears that Paul Ryan is slipping into the same folly. I do not support any such. My support falls to individual candidates, which is why I never have and never will donate to any party apparatus. There are specific office holders currently in government with an (R) next to their name whom I hold in high regard: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Jeff Sessions, Trey Gowdy, Raul Labrador, and about a dozen more. I would vote for any of them if they were in my voting district. There are others such as the aforementioned McConnell, John McCain, and others whom I consider the very traitors you (justly IMO) hold contempt for.
I am like Hannity, Rush, and Beck: very disappointed in the current path of the Republican Party. The part where you and I differ, I think, is that I still believe there are some with an (R) who are honorable men. Not perfect men, but honorable (the Freedom Caucus comes to mind). I would love to see the rise of a group of leaders who have an affinity for liberty. So far, however, I haven't seen anything come from any of the supposed third party routes that leads me to hope in that direction. And there has been a marked rise in so-called Tea Party candidates within the Republican Party - especially in the last ten years - which leads me to hope that there is still a possibility for redemption there.
The proposal you give to just collapse the entire system is one which I view with serious and grave reservations. The notion of the phoenix of the Constitution rising from the ashes of a nation in turmoil is in my mind a plot from a movie far more than the likely outcome in reality. The reality I see would be far darker as those who would rise to power would subject this nation to a tyranny akin to that of the Soviet Union - with all its gulags and secret police. It took sixty years to overthrow that government even partially, and the current system is more one of oligarchical tyrants than anything resembling a true democratic republic. And I do not wish to live the remainder of my life in such circumstances, nor would I wish that upon my children or children's children.
Further, if the great light of the United States is to dim to the level of the rest of the socialist world, I do not see what other power on earth is going to encourage the fledgling nations of the world to choose a society that celebrates freedom and equality. There are a plethora of nations who would immediately fall to the tyrant if the US were unable to defend them. The East China Sea has been claimed by the Chinese to the detriment of Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan and the Phillippines. Ukraine has fallen to Russia. More will continue to fall if the US is not present to defend them (Israel being first and foremost).
No, I never said that and it can't be logically deduced from what I did say about Republican voters.
"I think we both agree that the leadership of the Republican Party has thrown in with the Democrats and is not furthering the cause of liberty. "
Absolutely. They have done exactly what I repeatedly warned everyone in the Gulch they would do. That prediction did not take any genius to make; it was obvious from the GOP's history of betrayal. Republican voters ignore the obvious historical record repeatedly and doom the liberty of Americans.
"The proposal you give to just collapse the entire system"
I repeat: stop trying to make me responsible for your conclusions. Nothing I have written says that I favor collapse as a solution. As previously stated, I favor republican voters rationally concluding that the GOP will betray them as in the past and leaving the GOP en mass to vote for a candidate that will more likely defend liberty and reduce government power. Vote for principle. Don't vote for evil.
My apologies if I misunderstood. Your statements were fairly concise and explicit, which is why I used quotes when citing them. I am always open to a restatement for clarification.
"Nothing I have written says that I favor collapse"
So far, the slate of alternatives (i.e. non-Republicans) stands decidedly and disappointingly empty. You seem to hold that anyone with an (R) on their name is establishment and should under no circumstances be voted for. That leaves me few (read: zero) alternatives which would be acceptable under such criteria. This lack leaves me rather frustrated with your line of reasoning.
The history of voting in this nation favors Democratic victory when third party candidates run. The history of Democratic control has been decidedly anti-liberty and non-sustainable, and these policies have only accelerated under this President. So every seat which falls to a Democrat necessarily accelerates policies which advance collapse. Thus if a Democrat ends up in a seat, we know they will vote for collapse.
Yes, I agree that there are some Republicans who go along with the Democrats, but there are also many who do not. I don't see any recognition of these objectors by you. You tend to speak in broad brush strokes, openly equating every single member of either party as being an active proponent of bad policy. When I look at the voting records, I see the objectors.
"Vote for principle. Don't vote for evil."
I agree we should vote for principle. I reserve the right to judge candidates individually rather than collectively, however, as to their fitness for office.
Skipping all the rest of it.....I'll make it simple enough for anyone to understand once last time and cut out everything but the end..
I'm in favor of the military upholding their oath of office.
People want to burn down their neighborhoods let them sleep in the snow.
Personally I see t it as a 24 hour over the weekend turnover with violence provided only by the looney tunes looking for free booze and tv sets. Fueled by Maslov's Theory no doubt.
"Mine is General and his/her name is Martial Law."
Thanks for being so explicit. (That's not sarcasm by the way. I sincerely appreciate a forthright statement.) Just a question, but who is going to lead this military revolution you desire? Do you have fantasies of "Red Dawn", "Hunger Games", or "Star Wars", forgetting that none of those was an overnight affair? The type of general civil unrest you're talking about doesn't accomplish regime change. And it isn't as if those who have manipulated themselves into power aren't going to be prepared to hold onto it. We have plenty of modern-day examples of dictators and the lengths they will go to (Mao, Stalin, Castro, Assad, etc.) to maintain power.
"People want to burn down their neighborhoods let them sleep in the snow."
Yep, but what about when the fires spread to consume not only their houses, but yours as well? I'm all for supporting personal responsibility, but unfortunately, some others' bad choices also affect me.
If you think the opposite prove it. Even in an election year the arrogant bastards give us nothing. That's the reality just spin, yes men, cheerleaders and clown show.
Same old tired crap. Save it for Mother Jones.
The GOP did die. They have a new face now. Socialist lickspittles.