@worm
you do realize that you literally just made @Januari 's point...right?

and i get it...government spending BAD.
government can't do anything blah blah blah...gotcha.

but instead of using the VA as an example of government malfeasance and incompetence,why not use medicare/medicaid?

the VA is run by the DoD and considering that during rumsfelds tenure they lost over a trillion american dollars..POOF..where is that money? nope..can't find it.the pentagon is a mess.

medicare/medicaid is run by the dept of health,which runs on a 3% overhead,has the ability to negotiate with pharmacuticals,and is a system that is already in place AND we all already pay in to.

see,
i am not a fan of obamacare.
i think single payer is the way to go,and the only way to go.
people like to make the comparison of obamacare insurance with car insurance.
forgetting that driving is a privilege...
breathing is not.

so if we take the "profit motive" out of health care.then the majority of people NOT covered would not wait until something dire or life threatening was going down with them to head to the doctor.preventive care has been shown to reduce medical costs dramatically.
see:norway
see:denmark
see:france
see:britain

while i understand many liberals defense of obamacare,i see it only a half measure that can easily be remanded and/or gotten rid of all together.however unlikely that may be.the threat will be enough.

people forget that obamacare was basically written by the heritage foundation in 1992.a right wing think tank and not much was changed (though the pre-existing clause was a positive).

they forget that then Governor mitt romney implemented a similar health care system in massechusetts.which saw steady increases in premiums yearly.

and here is the thing that really eats at me.
it is mandatory.

so here is my prediction:
obamacare is not going anywhere.
while it may be used as apolitical football and health insurance companies will use (and already HAVE used) the threat of leaving due to little or no money (this is a lie) in order to force the government to raise their subsidies.

this is corporate welfare on a scale that over-shadows the bank bailouts of 2007.which at final tally was over 17 trillion.

so obamacare is going nowhere because it is the goose that lays the golden egg,and the gift that keeps on giving.

oh there will threats,and over-politicizing,and wringing of hands,and committee meetings.

but that will be just for show.
we put the fox in charge of the henhouse,and the fox is gonna make damn sure it is going nowhere.

Viva la France!

(Also: Ok Florida, it's your move!)

I do agree that unilateral disarmament is a difficult thing to achieve, but there are other arguments as to why it should be pursued. I am sure we agree on a lot of things on this subject, but let me at least put the other side out there:

1. America as the over achieving nation in the world has a duty to lead by example. How can the country with the largest nuclear arsenal expect other countries to start the process that we all signed up to? Hey France, why didn't you get rid of your 87 nukes? Well America, why haven't you touched that pile of 500? (making up numbers here to illustrate the point)

2. The US isn't worried about Best Korea nuking them because they would need a staging platform and a functional ballistic missile. They can be launched from subs, but NK isn't really your worry there. The most developed nations are the concern, and if you could get an agreement it could happen, with peacekeepers and mutually open inspections, and pressure on smaller countries to abide or be trade embargoed to stop them (which the west does/has done already). Unlikely as things are right now, i agree.

3. We have ageing equipment housing extremely dangerous explosives. They require a huge amount of maintenance and whatnot, costing billions. The UK has to replace their system soon to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds. Imagine what kind of alternative modern anti-nuclear defence system we could develop using all that money and all our technology? That way we could be safe from nukes without using nukes and it would cost less in the long run.

Also if you claim your weapons as part of a defence, it's a bit of a giveaway that you're bullshitting if you then go off around the world antagonising other countries, knowing that they can't really fight back. So i think in fairness we should crack open that self-defence argument and see what percentage of it is referring to "a good offence".

Having said all that, binning all the US nukes overnight wouldn't be a great idea. The UK would be less of a target and safer without nukes imo, but the US would probably make the world a lot safer just by having less.

Let's be honest here, the amount of nukes we have is preposterous. No one could possibly have any reason to use that many, the potential for absolute worldwide devastation is far too high to need that many - you could potentially finish the world off in a nuclear winter, according to the average figures given, in about 100 'small' nukes. Not 100 each per country, but 100 total worldwide.

And remember, that doesn't mean you can use 90 and be safe. The figure 100 was enough to likely cause a global famine by causing temperature drops leading to crop failures. That doesn't account for extinction of animals and the devastation of the natural balance (which would lead to our eventual extinction) which can be wildly unpredictable. You could shoot 40 at a country, win the conflict, and cause the starvation of millions+ in your own (and other) countries for the next 20 odd years..... or worse.

Here is the problem, Mr. Schlosser is a journalist, not a Nuclear Scientist. He does not understand, or has chosen to ignore for propaganda reasons, that an unarmed warhead is EXTREMELY unlikely to perform the exact sequence of events that need to take place to have a nuclear reaction happen.

Yes, he is fully correct in that we have had numerous 'butt-clenching' moments in which we could have started WW3 due to a malfunction or human error. But in the other cases he mentions, such as the bombs that landed on Spain, the lightning bolt on the tower, and the wrench on the rocket, the chance of the warhead going up while being unarmed is infinitesimal. They simply don't go 'boom' because of a collision or explosion. Now you could have a 'dirty bomb' type incident where the radioactive materials could be spread and come into contact with humans, but that is about it.

The cases that have been officially listed as Broken Arrows were because they involved an active bomb, like the one in Florida. Everything else he mentions in this video is his 'belief' and is conjecture.

Now, before I get unloaded on, I wish we didn't have nuclear weapons. I don't agree with Trump that we should renew the arms race, I think he is nuts since we have more than enough weapons to blanket the cities of the world more than a couple of times. If you add all the nukes from the Big 3 (USA/Russia/France...yes, France) there are enough to cover every single inch of the world.

The problem is, who bells the cat? If we give up all of our weapons, we are at risk. I wish we weren't, but we would be. If we bring down our numbers gradually, there are still other countries that may not, like North Korea. How do we trust the other country is actually following through? In a perfect world, we would all lay down our weapons and sing kumbaya, but as Heinlein wrote: "...Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."

PS...Yes, I know Starship Troopers is a controversial novel with overtones of Militarism and Fascism. However, there are quotes that ring true no matter what 'ism' people attach to the overall story. If you doubt that, look at the utter disbelief and depression that overcame liberals when Trump won. "He simply was supposed to, it was impossible, not like this, we have no hope, etc" were the feelings of the people who gave him no hope of winning. I, having lived and read enough to get a fair picture of how fucked up we are as a species, had little doubt he could pull it off. We elected a former Wrestler as governor, a former actor as governor, and a former actor as President. We overlook mass genocide in other countries. We ignore climate change. We spend hundreds of billions on defense and less than 10 on space exploration, all the while living on a planet that is already critically overpopulated (and is growing almost exponentially).

The Dreadful Chronology of Gaddafi’s Murder

"Much has been written about the catastrophe visited upon Libya following the murderous attack by France and the US—400,000 people driven from their homes, an endless cycle of terror and reprisal, the creation of yet another failed state in the wake of a US foreign policy initiative. But the real damage was done to Africa itself, for had Gaddafi’s proposal for a trans-African banking system reached fruition, that unhappy continent for the first time in centuries would have had true freedom and real independence within its grasp, a circumstance the Western powers could not abide. Freedom and justice were never part of the West’s agenda."

That was amazing! *doublepromote

Locations in order of appearance:

1:15 Pont de Bir-Hakeim, Paris, France
1:30 Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin, Germany
1:43 La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
1:56 Hoxton Alley, London, UK
2:11 Regents Park, London, UK
2:33 Calle Traghetto Vecchio, Venice, Italy
2:49 St. Pauls Cathedral, London, UK
3:08 Rooftop Terrace, Copenhagen, Denmark
3:25 Sand Dunes, Dubai, UAE
3:33 Red Square, Moscow, Russia
3:45 Gulfoss and Gljúfurárfoss Waterfalls, Iceland
4:01 Mrs. Macqauries Point, Sydney, Australia
4:19 Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, Japan
4:36 Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, United States of America

Muslims are already killing Americas on our soil while the Japanese interned were not killing Americans on our soil.

Why do we need 15 gov agencies ?

France keeps letting these not compatible citizens into its own country at its own peril.

Just say no to Muslims!

Switzerland? France? Looks like Raclette, but I'm not certain.

New wall to be contructed on the border with Mex... France?!

*ban
HappyMusic France
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=111y4-NOFTk

passport...when I studied architecture in France, and cuz I let my hair grow this long again. (now where did I leave that arrogance?)

When I went to bed, the word was that Hollande is about to end the state of emergency in France. About time.

When I got up, the first item in the news: 80 dead in Nice, state of emergency extended...

Your video, The Amazing Dragon Horse Of France, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Good article, but Greenwald is missing one key point:
it's not just the "media elite" who can't understand the Leave vote. Most "normal" people outside England and Wales are perplexed by this too.

Talk to the average person on the street in Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, etc. and they'll tell you the same things:
a) the leave vote was the wrong decision
b) it was brought about through fear mongering and lies

So that leaves two possibilities:

1. the rest of the EU are media-brainwashed idiots and the people who saw the light were Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson and the kind of people now screaming racist abuse at "foreigners" (aka anyone non-white or with a foreign ancestry even if they were born in the UK).

or

2. it really was a dumb idea.

My comment was rather egocentric in nature. Few countries have the means to upset the balance of power within the EU and a (vote for) Brexit might just be the least horrific way of poking the EU. Next down the line would be a Le Pen-administration in France, which most people would rather avoid. Or some unforseen poltical kerfuffle in Italy.

Bad options, all of them. But austerity will lead to even worse outcomes, so German hegemony must be curbed and broken -- or the EU as a whole must be reduced to countries whose economies work the same parasitic way.

The best of all options, of course, would be political change in Germany, away from this anal fixation on austerity. But looking at our parliament, I see 630 seats, 566 of which belong to parties in support of austerity. So no, not gonna happen.

My hopes, as always, are on the French people. Recent actions have made me hopeful that they will once again come to our rescue.