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Bob D'A

Trad climber
Taos, NM
Sep 30, 2011 - 03:53pm PT
But Lois...there seems to be a lot of Twinkies for military, red states and the republicans went it suits their needs.
Bob D'A

Trad climber
Taos, NM
Sep 30, 2011 - 03:58pm PT
Lois wrote: We need to ferret them out where ever they are - blue, red, purple.

But some states would cease to exist without them Twinkies, especially them poor red ones.
HighTraverse

Trad climber
Bay Area
Sep 30, 2011 - 03:59pm PT
For anyone who's interested in the al-Awlaki story from a reasonably unbiased source
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11658920
HighTraverse

Trad climber
Bay Area
Sep 30, 2011 - 04:11pm PT
there is a whole lot of twinkies everywhere. We need to ferret them out where ever they are - blue, red, purple. Gotta cut out some of the twinkies. And understand, it is not necessarily because twinkies are necessarily bad, per se. It is more because we can't afford them.
at last we discover LEB's mission in life. mmmmm....sounds something like a final solution. "we can't afford them" was pretty much Hitler's argument for sterilizing and euthanizing (a polite word) the cripples and mentally ill. Then, soon after, the Jews on the pretext they were scabs on society, consuming too many resources during the Depression.
Aryan Supremacy, White Supremacy, Christian Supremacy?
Presumably she meant to add a dozen "wink wink nod nods" after that. Or did she?
.
.
.
Oh, I get it now, LEB's going on a diet and "twinkies" is a metaphor for synthetic imitation food substitutes.
And terrible grammar for a native English speaker: "there is a whole lot"
Too bad she's not an immigrant, we can't send her back where she belongs.
<<end of rant>>
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Sep 30, 2011 - 04:28pm PT
Kinda Ironic that over 100 people have been arrested so far protesting Wall Street, but the Banksters brought down the whole economy in 2008, and there was plenty of outright fraud, but none of them were arrested, none pepper sprayed, the police didn't rough any of them up.

That should tell you who runs the government

Peace

Karl
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Sep 30, 2011 - 04:38pm PT
Read and educate yourself Gary.

The President makes a "budget request" It carries no legal weight at all.
Congress generally ignores it when they are not of the same party as the President. Both parties have done it often.

The House produces the "budget resolution". It has the sole legal authority to spend or raise money.

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270DP%2BPL%5F%3C%23%40%20%20%0A

You might try reading the Constitution as well, Article 1 Sections 7 and 8
Ksolem

Trad climber
Monrovia, California
Sep 30, 2011 - 04:49pm PT
The Republkicans refuse to Vote on Obama's job bill because they know it would work

Yesterday Dick Durban announced that the Democrat leadership in the Senate will not bring the so called jobs bill to the floor because they cannot muster enough votes to pass it.

Enough Democrats know its a turkey that they won't get on board.

The Repubs would love to see a vote. The bill will fail, President Obama will lose face and the Democrats will be divided.
Gary

climber
Desolation Row, Calif.
Sep 30, 2011 - 05:13pm PT
You might try reading the Constitution as well, Article 1 Sections 7 and 8

I read the part where the president has a veto over congress. Might that have some part in the budget process perhaps?
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Sep 30, 2011 - 05:25pm PT
I read the part where the president has a veto over congress. Might that have some part in the budget process perhaps?

That's happened. Clinton vetoed a budget bill in 95 and shut the government down.
Ksolem

Trad climber
Monrovia, California
Sep 30, 2011 - 05:26pm PT
The way the play was supposed to go, the bill would pass the Senate with foreknowledge that the Reps in the House would stop it. Then the Democrats and The President could accuse those lousy House Republicans of obstructing jobs.

It appears however that enough Senate Democrats have decided that they will disingratiate themselves with their voters by supporting this very unpopular bill. Our government actually begins to become representative when elections are approaching.

All it will take is 4 out of 53 Dems to hold out and this thing is toast. Let the arm twisting begin.
CrackAddict

Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:14pm PT
Kinda Ironic that over 100 people have been arrested so far protesting Wall Street, but the Banksters brought down the whole economy in 2008, and there was plenty of outright fraud, but none of them were arrested, none pepper sprayed, the police didn't rough any of them up.

The "whole economy" was and continues to be a house of cards. Blaming "Banksters" is very simplistic and only emboldens the Government to keep avoiding the structural changes the economy needs. We can execute all the Bankers in the Country, it will not solve any of our problems. Do you think every time a drug dealer in Mexico is killed or arrested we are stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S.? There is just too much incentive to move these drugs, and the incentive increases every time a drug dealer is taken down because drug prices rise.

Our incentive problems begin with the Federal Reserve system - if these protesters wanted to make a real difference they would be protesting the Fed.
CrackAddict

Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:15pm PT
WSJ article on the Flat tax:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204138204576600760327683564.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

"You know it ends all this crony capitalism in Washington. From now on, if Obama invites you to the White House, you'd know it's because he really loves you." -Steve Forbes
CrackAddict

Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:16pm PT
Had to post a couple things just to be off of that page... hideous.
Ksolem

Trad climber
Monrovia, California
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:31pm PT
Yeah it amazes me when someone sits down and decides it's cool to post an image like that. Absolutely vile. But what it shows is that he has no respect whatsoever for real dialogue.

And DR F pretty much had an orgasm over it. Probably made it his desktop image.

Hey Dr F, how about those three Josh 11's in a day? You sprayed so I gotta ask again, did you "do" them or did they "do" you? Names?
CrackAddict

Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:32pm PT
Moral to the Solyndra Story

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44669683

Some people on here just don't get it. I see all these postings along the lines of "Companies fail all the time", etc.

So imagine you are sitting next to a drunk guy at the slot machine who is pulling down the handle for $1000 a go and he hasn't won yet. Pretty entertaining, right? But if he turns and tells you he has your credit card in the machine, you should probably be a bit more concerned, right?

Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:34pm PT
Personally I condemn this: killing two American citizens with no due process and 4 other people in a country we are not at war with. I call Obama wrong on this.

He may have advocated violence (but didn't personally do any) but that's no reason to throw out the constitution. This isn't about protecting "terrorists" If they can do it to him with no due process, they can do it to anyone

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/30/awlaki/index.html


It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki. No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was "considering" indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt. When Awlaki's father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were "state secrets" and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts. He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner. When Awlaki's inclusion on President Obama's hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that "it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing."

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.). It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its. The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world. The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

What's most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar ("No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law"), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What's most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government's new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President's ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki -- including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry's execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists -- criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.

From an authoritarian perspective, that's the genius of America's political culture. It not only finds way to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process). It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.
HighTraverse

Trad climber
Bay Area
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:35pm PT
What do you expect from Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal? The article is written by a member of the Editorial Board and sounds like it was written by a campaign consultant.
Flat Tax? Next they'll be demanding a Flat Earth.
He sounds like Milton Friedman there and he proposes to reduce "tax expenditures" by 17%.
Why stop there? Republicans should counter-offer: We see your 17% and raise it to 100%.
Sure, I'd love to pay no tax, who'll pay the troops?
The near 100-year history of the tax code teaches this inviolable law of politics: The higher the tax rate, the more tax carve-outs there will be for yacht owners. That is why the rich paid a smaller share of the income tax in the early 1960s when the top tax rate was 91%, and in the 1970s with a 70% rate, than they do today with a 35% rate.
What nonsense. The rich paid a smaller share of income tax in the 1960s because the had a significantly lower portion of total wealth than they do now. And anyway, isn't the mantra today "close the loopholes"?
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:38pm PT
Moral to the Solyndra Story

If you put that same moral into Obama's bailout of the Auto Industry, there would be many thousands more unemployed long term right now. You lose sometimes but some things have to be done for the greater good

karl
HighTraverse

Trad climber
Bay Area
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:42pm PT
He may have advocated violence (but didn't personally do any)
Karl, please don't diminish this man's danger to society worldwide (US, GB, Yemen). He recruited, organized, and directed. You could argue that Bin Laden never pulled a trigger either.
In general I agree with you about the danger of circumventing the legal process. There are exceptional cases, particularly when the miscreant is beyond the reach of the law and presents a clear and present danger to a large number of people. It's only by screwups that his agents failed to kill hundreds. There is a legal process for these cases and it was followed.
I still agree that it must be exceptional, that it could be used against you and me and that it needs close scrutiny. It would have been much better to bring him to justice in open court.
Jingy

climber
Somewhere out there
Sep 30, 2011 - 06:44pm PT
Obama Plan=Class Warfare? NBC Asks a Billionaire
09/26/2011 by Peter Hart
At the top of Meet the Press yesterday (9/25/11), NBC anchor David Gregory announced one of the topics to come:

Is the president's plan basic fairness or class warfare?

As with too many other media debates, an absurd proposition--that returning tax rates for certain wealthy people to levels seen in the 1980s and 1990s is a declaration of war--is treated as one of the two possible answers to a question. Gregory manages to make things worse by getting the only answer on the show from billionaire New York mayor (and media tycoon) Michael Bloomberg:

GREGORY: Does that trouble you?

BLOOMBERG: It does trouble me. You can't define what's middle class, what is wealthy, what is poor. Every time you have a jump, people play games to get on one side or another. And I think it's not fair to say that wealthy people don't pay their fair share. They pay a much higher percentage of their income. They have a higher rate than people who make less. The Buffett thing is just theatrics. If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher than his secretary's. And, in fact, a very small percentage of people in this country pay a big chunk on their taxes.

Bloomberg's response is incoherent. Of course definitions of what makes someone "wealthy" or "poor" differ, but there's no reason people can't make such distinctions.
And Buffett's tax burden has nothing to do with "theatrics." Bloomberg says, "If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher."

Well, yeah. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT of Buffett's argument.

If Meet the Press is going to actually engage this discussion, it might make sense to invite some guests who know something about the issue--perhaps even a non-billionaire.



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