1. completely, utterly vague. Chances are, Exxon will still receive their subsidy.

2. mostly unrealistic. america is #1 energy hog and neither technology advancements nor more drilling here will solve that or feed that gluttonous thirst. we are dependent on foreign energy, which is partly why we have 450 military bases around the world. We need to reduce need, and to do that, we need to re-examine our role in the world as pure consumers.

3. Vague. While education is of the highest necessity, throwing a job training program at it ain't gonna help. The system, which is based on the idea of an assembly line, needs to be revised, and teaching needs to be valued as a higher profession.

4. Pay a little more? The rich need to pay a whole fuckload more. A thriving economy is based on a fluid, interdependent economic web, not a trickle down hierarchy.

>> ^notarobot:

I applied for a job outside of my field with decent pay that needed no education beyond high school, but did ask for a little experience, which I did not have. I approached it with the attitude that I had lots of education and even more enthusiasm. I did not hear back from the company. Later, they brought in a hundred workers from the Philippines. There were no domestic hires.


And this reply is to what @Edgeman2112 said as well.

It's yet another logical disconnect in our society. Where they expect you to be able to buy their goods, but they will not employ the people they want to buy them for a myriad of reasons. Some of them might even be legitimate, as in having a lot of education for a job might mean you end up going to something new when it's presented. But the flipside of that argument is that they are hiring un-educated workers simply because they know it's unlikely they will ever have the ability to leave........which is worker exploitation. Not because they are most qualified, but because they are least likely to be able to leave.

And more specifically to edgeman2112, two parents working is fine if both want to work and can make a good wage. Specifically being able to afford childcare or have parents who willing and able to watch their kids. The point is that when one is unable to draw a wage high enough to make it feasible to work and still earn beyond the costs of child care, etc....you are stuck with choices of education costs. And higher education often makes it harder to find work because your education works against you when it comes to getting any job like above...and you are stuck in the "need to know someone" zone to get anywhere in a reasonable time frame. Which likely if you knew someone, you probably would have taken advantage of that relationship if it was going to provide you with a overall beneficial and financially productive job.

There are lots of financially unproductive jobs... like one's that require you to travel longer and longer distances for work...eventually you make less at the job than you would minimum wage flipping burgers if they don't comp your travel or fuel costs to make up for vehicle wear, etc. And this goes back to them picking worker's that are unlikely to be able to hop to another job due to some circumstances, not the best qualified candidates...because they need to be able to exploit them for lucrative contracts that require them to drive nearly as much as they work or rent elsewhere to cut drive times.

Work and employment overall is becoming a dishonest or "cover-your-ass" practice more than just honest employment. "An honest day's work" seems less likely to happen now than 40 years ago. There's just too much bullshit associated with employment now, mostly in office politics and trying to peer beyond the language of your employee contract to decipher how they are going to fuck you in the future. Just look at non-rolling vacation days where they are all too happy to not inform you or suggest you take a vacation day if you need to do something instead of taking an unpaid day........it happens a lot. They use their organization to actively work against you, and use their bureaucracy to make it hard to invoke your rights in the contract.


Personally in my region, I see a lot of businesses and government agencies going out of their way to list their job postings in weird locations or for like 3-5 day windows. The only good reason I can come up for this is that they already know who they want to hire, but they post it publicly to reduce the chance of someone crying foul when they just hire the guy they wanted all along. Keep in mind that if they end up hiring at all, it comes 2-3 months minimum after the listing...especially for government. You'll also notice a lot of fathers and sons, wife and husband, or other nepotism rich hiring practices in these places. Should not be taking place in any business that accepts government money or any government facilities. It's rampant on military bases, and not just for active duty couples which I understand the need for.

>> ^bobknight33:

Jon rips the RIGHT all the time and you just laugh and have a good time nodding you heads saying yes John yes you are right.
Now on this piece he does the same but to a socialist type movement that you are for and you get all pissed about it . How two-faced.


It's not the right, it's money hungry lunatics backed by corporations attempting to destroy the country (and many others) so a few can profit. Saying you are pro-gun, anti-choice and pro-christian does not make you right-wing when your intent is to siphon tens of millions of dollars in corporate donations and public money so you can afford a jet for your niece to get to preschool. Personally I'm sick of the clips ragging on GOP as well, it's just picking low hanging fruit. With few exceptions, the Dems are just as bad, and in some cases worse (Obama).

As an example, your president just flew to our country (Australia) to tell us we're going to be getting a bunch of troops permanently stationed in Darwin, he said that America is "a Pacific power and we are here to stay"

Our Prime Minister lapped it all up, so we'll apparently be getting two and a half thousand more permanent US troops soon. At a time when your school systems are crumbling, your $14 trillion + in debt and your plan of action is to spend millions on new military bases and personnel in a foreign country?

Really?

I don't see how this double standard exists. At some point in history there was an agreement that these people would get their pensions due to their employment with the government entities.

The same goes for companies like GM, they made agreements to pay their employees.

It's not as if these two entities are some old senile man someone took advantage of, they are made up of many people who at the time thought it was a fair deal.

Now, we have discussions about how it's unfair to expect these companies to pay for agreements they made and are trying to pass things that not only absolve them of what they owe, but then also try to make it so in the future they don't have to negotiate.

On the other side of the coin, we have individuals who have lost their ability to pay and no one is saying that they shouldn't have to pay what they owe whether it's their fault or not they are in that circumstance. The vast majority of them are people who had no hand in creating the financial mess we are in except for maybe buying a house at a vastly inflated price.

So the individual is supposed to pay back their debts, but with companies and governments it's cool if we just vote away their obligations or bail them out.


And then we have the other hypocrisy where the guys elected into government, who are making good money with benefits and pretty much have job security for their term unless they really screw the pooch. They want to tell people who are hired and have to perform their job based on some sort of testing, performance, and other criteria that they can't negotiate. These same people are also held back in their pay rate by time served instead of performance based in some areas of government employment. For this they used to gain some job security (not really true anymore due to cost cutting), good benefits packages, and some retirement security.

We have these discussions about taking their benefits or making them pay more, removing retirement benefits for current and past employees (I don't agree with retro-active cancellation at all, they should pay retired employees, pay partially to current employed based on length of employment, and anyone with very short employment spans or signing on after the passing don't get anything), and keeping them on these neutered advancement ideas they have. There's also massive nepotism in government, which they are not trying to fix..because it allows them to influence business opportunities in their favor during and after their employment whether elected or hired.

Try any civilian work at a military base whether contracted or employed directly by the government, it's full of nepotism. New hires who know someone will hire in on unrelated departments and shoot right past you whether you're a long time employee or know more than them...because they know a guy. They are really blatant with the nepotism.

It's wrong how government operates, especially the higher you go. Negotiation makes it possible for the lower level guys to at least attempt to keep them honest. Instead of making deals and then retroactively changing the terms once they've also gotten rid of the ability to negotiate.

It's not the individuals fault that the government can no longer meet the obligations they made because they removed too many regulations and let the banks and lenders go hog wild for almost a decade. I'm sure if they looked around a bit, they might find some government officials who had a massively growing net worth to accompany that decade of uncontrolled growth. Excusing debts to fix problems they created should not even be up for discussion, it sets a precedent to make bad faith deals to get what they want. And would create the next "exploitable" avenue for all these nepotism filled departments.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Thanks to this vote, Ohioan taxpayers are now BACK on the hook for 66 billion dollars in government union pensions. That's JUST the pensions, nothing else.
Times will be tough, but it will be tougher on those who choose to take advantage of the working class.
This is how the people who control the emotional state of left-wingers fool you.
"We're losing a hand, but that's OK, because the Rich Guy is losing an arm!"

>> ^Boise_Lib:

With Obama's record of broken promises you should probably put the date of this speech in the description.
This may not be the last time we hear it.


February 27, 2009 -- President Obama said Friday he would withdraw combat forces from Iraq by August 2010 and all remaining troops by December 2011. ... The deadline set under an agreement the Bush administration signed with the Iraqi government last year.



Here is what I am wondering... Didn't we spend like $3 BILLION building like the world's largest military base in Iraq? And now we are going to leave the country with not even enough people to run it?

>> ^hpqp:

It's no secret that OBL was trained by the CIA during Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, as a part of the proxy wars between USSR and USA during the cold war.
As for the evidence, you might like to start with the links I've already provided you with. Twice. Oh well, "Third time's the charm" for you superstitious types: http://www.debunking911.com/

_{(Btw, if you're going to defend your questionable beliefs, try linking articles that are a tad more convincing than the conjecturing ramblings filled with leading questions of a Srebrenica-massacre-denialist and defender of a renowned war criminal.)}>> ^marbles:
>> ^hpqp:
Yes, why do truthers keep avoiding the evidence and logic?

I'm not avoiding anything. Please share all credible evidence backing the official theory. No such evidence exists.
And logic? Maybe you should do some research on who Osama bin Laden aka Tim Osman really was.
Osama bin Laden: Made in USA



And it's no secret that al-Qaeda was a database of "freedom fighters" of a CIA proxy army. It's also no secret they were given 6+ billion dollars in the 80s by the CIA and Saudi Intelligence to fight the Soviets over Afghanistan under the invented threat of Communism. Now here's where that "logic" comes in.

When did OBL stop working for the CIA?
OBL was immediately blamed for 9/11 (within a few hours after the attacks) and now we are fighting wars under the invented threat of Muslim jihadists.

Why were some of the alleged hijackers living with CIA and FBI informants?

Why were some of the alleged hijackers training at US military bases?

Why did Anwar al-Awlaki dine at the Pentagon just months after 9/11?

What was ISI Chief Mahmud Ahmad (who wired $100,00 to Mohammed Atta) doing at the Pentagon the week leading up to and morning of 9/11?

Oh, I'm looking for "logical" answers here.

And for "evidence" supporting the official story, don't be a chicken shit. List your best supporting evidence. Of course, I know this is impossible for you. For it would require you to actually construct a coherent argument.
Maybe instead of letting debunking.com do your thinking for you, you should try getting all the facts and confirm them for yourself.

And my "questionable beliefs" are grounded solidly on credible evidence and sound logic, so question away. The link was to an article, not a guy. I'm glad you can google, but if you want to refute the article, try to avoid using logical fallacies (after all).

_{(Btw, "conjecturing" isn't an adjective. You can google that too! It's funny, you keep accusing me of "conjecturing", but you're too much of a chicken shit to demonstrate it!)}

For better or worse, finally a republican candidate who wants to challenge the status quo.

It's amazing he's even allowed to be nominated.

Let me get this straight, Dr. Paul.

You want to close all the military bases, end the wars, hobble the defense contractors, slash the budget to nothing, fire all the federal employees nation wide, then hold to a sort of good neighbor policy in terms of pollution and regulatory abuse in the Laissez faire right wing utopia you unleash on the world for four or more years.

A crack-pot Texas gynecologist who isn't Ivy League, and doesn't carry a Skull and Bones card in his wallet.

I was thinking that said something positive about America until I remember the last Republican vice presidential nomination.

Anyone who is a member the Republican party for any semblance of ideals and philosophy will vote for Ron Paul. The rest of them just like country music, kevin costner movies, flashy advertisements and anything else that doesn't require their concentration for more than five minutes.

Susan Lindauer:
...
I got indicted for protesting the War in Iraq. My crime was delivering a warm-hearted letter to my second cousin White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, which correctly outlined the consequences of War. Suspiciously, I had been one of the very few Assets covering the Iraqi Embassy at the United Nations for seven years. Thus, I was personally acquainted with the truth about Pre-War Intelligence, which differs remarkably from the story invented by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

More dangerously still, my team gave advance warnings about the 9/11 attack and solicited Iraq’s cooperation after 9/11. In August 2001, at the urging of my CIA handler, I phoned Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and the Office of Counter-Terrorism to ask for an “emergency broadcast alert” across all federal agencies, seeking any fragment of intelligence on airplane hijackings. My warning cited the World Trade Center as the identified target. Highly credible independent sources have confirmed that in August, 2001 I described the strike on the World Trade Center as “imminent,” with the potential for “mass casualties, possibly using a miniature thermonuclear device.”

Thanks to the Patriot Act, Americans have zero knowledge of those truths, though the 9/11 Community has zoomed close for years. Republican leaders invoked the Patriot Act to take me down 30 days after I approached the offices of Senator John McCain and Trent Lott, requesting to testify about Iraq’s cooperation with the 9/11 investigation and a comprehensive peace framework that would have achieved every U.S. and British objective without firing a shot. Ironically, because of the Patriot Act, my conversations with Senator Trent Lott’s staff got captured on wire taps, proving my story.

You see, contrary to rhetoric on Capitol Hill, the Patriot Act is first and foremost a weapon to bludgeon whistleblowers and political dissidents. Indeed, it has been singularly crafted for that purpose.

The American people are not nearly as frightened as they should be. Many Americans expect the Patriot Act to limit its surveillance to overseas communications. Yet while I was under indictment, Maryland State Police invoked the Patriot Act to wire tap activists tied to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group dedicated to wind power, solar energy and recycling. The DC Anti-War Network was targeted as a “white supremacist group.” Amnesty International and anti-death penalty activists got targeted for alleged “civil rights violations.”
...
I cannot forget. I cannot forget how I was subjected to secret charges, secret evidence and secret grand jury testimony that denied my right to face my accusers or their accusations in open court, throughout five years of indictment. I cannot forget my imprisonment on a Texas military base for a year without a trial or evidentiary hearing.

I cannot forget how the FBI, the US Attorneys Office, the Bureau of Prisons and the main Justice office in Washington — independently and collectively verified my story— then falsified testimony to Chief Justice Michael Mukasey, denying our 9/11 warnings and my long-time status as a U.S. intelligence Asset, though my witnesses had aggressively confronted them. Apparently the Patriot Act allows the Justice Department to withhold corroborating evidence and testimony from the Court, if it is deemed “classified.”

I cannot forget threats of forcible drugging and indefinite detention up to 10 years, until I could be “cured” of believing what everybody wanted to deny— because it was damn inconvenient to politicians in Washington anxious to hold onto power.
...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

But why is it that always seems to be way down on the list. Taken from This site:

III. The Global Deployment of US Military Personnel

There are 6000 military bases and/ or military warehouses located in the U.S. (See Wikipedia, February 2007).

Total Military Personnel is of the order of 1,4 million of which 1,168,195 are in the U.S and US overseas territories.

Taking figures from the same source, there are 325,000 US military personnel in foreign countries:

800 in Africa,
97,000 in Asia (excluding the Middle East and Central Asia),
40,258 in South Korea,
40,045 in Japan,
491 at the Diego Garcia Base in the Indian Ocean,
100 in the Philippines, 196 in Singapore,
113 in Thailand,
200 in Australia,
and 16,601 Afloat.

In Europe, there are 116,000 US military personnel including 75,603 who are stationed in Germany.

In Central Asia about 1,000 are stationed at the Ganci (Manas) Air Base in Kyrgyzstan and 38 are located at Kritsanisi, in Georgia, with a mission to train Georgian soldiers.

In the Middle East (excludng the Iraq war theater) there are 6,000 US military personnel, 3,432 of whom are in Qatar and 1,496 in Bahrain.

In the Western Hemisphere, excluding the U.S. and US territories, there are 700 military personnel in Guantanamo, 413 in Honduras and 147 in Canada.

This guy spends the whole video telling us what the symptoms are but ignores what got us here and how to fix it. No surprise the anti-free market (anti-freedom) people are oblivious to it.

Government and bankers have been running a ponzi scheme for most of the last century: Economic central planning and fractional reserve banking. Bankers have been stealing more and more from us every year through money manipulation and taxes.

Inflation is not some magical or natural occurrence. It is baked into the system. It is direct theft. A gallon of milk has pretty much the same value as it did 50 years ago, yet the price has changed, why? And for those that say, well prices have gone up but so have wages so it evens out. Not true. In the arbitrage between the two, you're always going to be on the losing side. And that ignores the theft of savings, and ignores how bankers exploit that arbitrage. That is why we have booms and busts. Bubbles are purposely induced through collusion and fraud to financially rape the people.

Without the fraud and collusion, there wouldn't be trillions of debt. And tax rates would probably be at the highest 10%. Income tax needs to eventually be abolished. In a free world, you trade your labor for wages. The government has no claim to your labor, so why does it have a claim to the wages you traded it for? Taxing consumption above the poverty level makes the most sense. But that can never be implemented without first eliminating the tax on income. You tax things you want less of, you bailout things you more of. The government taxes productivity (income), and rewards fraud (bank bailouts).

How do we fix this:
1. Eliminate the cancer: The Federal Reserve. Eliminate the whole concept of a central bank deciding monetary policy in general. Allow free choice and freedom of currency. Force banks to disclose their reserve ratio to issue loans. The free market will probably force banks to hold close to 100% of reserves. And banking would also become more of a co-op system like credit unions.
2. Cram down all the toxic loans on the Fed's balance sheet to the fair market value of the home and renegotiate the terms for the home owner.
3. Close down the Military Industrial Complex. End all wars. Close down all foreign military bases. Focus Department of Defense on actually defending threats instead of creating them. Abolish the CIA.
4. Break the global oil cartel.
5. Probably have to break up the big banks and pass regulations similar to Glass-Steagall to keep them from getting "too big to fail". Separate banks from investment firms, insurance firms etc. Enforce real regulations that protect consumers, not the parasitic speculators. If a hedge fund makes bad bets and loses, then they lose. No bailouts.
6. Eliminate the false free trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT. Stop incentivising global companies to outsource production oversees.
7. Eliminate tax on production. (Income tax)
8. Ban health insurance. (The middle man) We would probably have to fully nationalize health care. (It is anyway really) And then work towards a system of free choice and volunteerism.

Probably more solutions, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. And yes, I'm a free market idealist.

@bmacs27

There's nothing to reconcile.

How would you reconcile laws against homicide, and the right to self-defense?
How would you reconcile laws against school prayer, and the right to freely worship?

Just because an individual has a right to something, doesn't give them the authority to infringe on someone else's rights. (Again) That's the whole purpose of laws... to protect rights.

If the people have a legal right to set up functions of government like court houses, military bases, schools, etc., then individuals don't have the right to infringe on that government function.

Making the interior of the JM a non-public forum is horseshit. There is no government function to protect. Furthermore, there should be no burden to prove that a public place is a public forum, the burden of proof should always be to make it a non-public forum. You should've have to prove that you have the right to free speech. It undermines the Constitution and the entire purpose of government.

You may know the true cost of war, but war =/= freedom. A thousand military bases around the world, a million civilian deaths, drones leveling buildings with a 90% civilian death rate, military check points for lawful citizens, house to house searches for resistance fighters--none of this protects freedom.

War protects freedom from enemies whose only solution is violence, and who recognize no one's rights but their own. Thanks to wars promoting and defending Western Civ, this matter at the JM was partially settled by civil disobedience, with the rest settled by trying a stupid, micromanaging law in the court of public opinion. It was not settled by gunfights between roving gangs or SS thugs.

The only way to protect freedom is to fight those that encroach on the natural rights of individuals.

Such as jihadist a$$hole$.

War works.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Beautifully stated.
>> ^marbles:

>> ^MarineGunrock:
Someone tell me to STFU if I'm being a d-bag by saying this, but I think that more than (most) people here, I know what freedom really costs, and this isn't taking it away.
The original group was simply broken up. No arrest made. They caused enough of a disturbance there that other citizens were ...disturbed. They were asked to leave and they did. Then there was a law passed that said "No dancing within the memorial" - is this a violation of the first amendment? No. The first amendment protects written and verbal speech. There's nothing in there about dancing.
Was the law stupid? Sure it was. Was it chipping away at our freedoms? No. If you think it is, then why aren't you walking around inside the capitol building with a gun to protest your inability to lawfully carry there? There's a difference between taking away our freedoms and laws designed to bring civility to society. You want the right to dance there? What about the right to contemplate the inscriptions inside the memorial in peace without being disturbed?

This isn't taking away freedoms, it's just making sure that the majority of people (note: democracy works in favor of the majority) won't have to be disturbed.

You may know the true cost of war, but war =/= freedom. A thousand military bases around the world, a million civilian deaths, drones leveling buildings with a 90% civilian death rate, military check points for lawful citizens, house to house searches for resistance fighters--none of this protects freedom.
The only way to protect freedom is to fight those that encroach on the natural rights of individuals.
What if the new law was "No smiling" or "No laughing" or "No shaking hands with other visitors" or "No walking too fast" or "No picking your nose" or "No standing still for more than 5 seconds" or "No looking directly at Jefferson's backside", etc...
Would these laws violate the first amendment? Would they be ok with you too? You may think it's a trivial and insignificant law, but that's not the point. It's a clear violation of your natural rights.
The Supreme Court has held that dancing is a means of non-violent expression. The first amendment does protect freedom of expression. It's not explicitly written because it's implied and assumed. How can you have freedom of speech without freedom of expression? How can you be free to speak, but not free to smile or laugh or express your message through some other gesture... like dancing?

>> ^MarineGunrock:

Someone tell me to STFU if I'm being a d-bag by saying this, but I think that more than (most) people here, I know what freedom really costs, and this isn't taking it away.
The original group was simply broken up. No arrest made. They caused enough of a disturbance there that other citizens were ...disturbed. They were asked to leave and they did. Then there was a law passed that said "No dancing within the memorial" - is this a violation of the first amendment? No. The first amendment protects written and verbal speech. There's nothing in there about dancing.
Was the law stupid? Sure it was. Was it chipping away at our freedoms? No. If you think it is, then why aren't you walking around inside the capitol building with a gun to protest your inability to lawfully carry there? There's a difference between taking away our freedoms and laws designed to bring civility to society. You want the right to dance there? What about the right to contemplate the inscriptions inside the memorial in peace without being disturbed?

This isn't taking away freedoms, it's just making sure that the majority of people (note: democracy works in favor of the majority) won't have to be disturbed.

You may know the true cost of war, but war =/= freedom. A thousand military bases around the world, a million civilian deaths, drones leveling buildings with a 90% civilian death rate, military check points for lawful citizens, house to house searches for resistance fighters--none of this protects freedom.


The only way to protect freedom is to fight those that encroach on the natural rights of individuals.

What if the new law was "No smiling" or "No laughing" or "No shaking hands with other visitors" or "No walking too fast" or "No picking your nose" or "No standing still for more than 5 seconds" or "No looking directly at Jefferson's backside", etc...
Would these laws violate the first amendment? Would they be ok with you too? You may think it's a trivial and insignificant law, but that's not the point. It's a clear violation of your natural rights.

The Supreme Court has upheld that dancing is a means of non-violent expression. The first amendment does protect freedom of expression. It's not explicitly written because it's implied and assumed. How can you have freedom of speech without freedom of expression? How can you be free to speak, but not free to smile or laugh or express your message through some other gesture... like dancing?

A smart, funny, memorable, and engaging way to present a story, making it probably one of the best ways to ask a good question. Not to mention a killer beat. This guy just got a new fan.

As to the question:
Since we are not bound by Godwin's Law I can (,I hope,) use WWII analogies.

I would argue that during a war, the number one priority is to kill your enemy. No one would argue that the assassination plots against Hitler (well over a dozen) should not have been attempted just so that he could be brought to trial to stand for his crimes. If you have the chance to kill a hostile target, you take it.

The Nuremberg Trials were for Nazis who deliberately surrendered. Since they were no longer enemy combatants they had the right to a trial to determine their guilt or innocence. If Osama had deliberately surrendered then he would have had the same benefit. I would only be outraged if he had been killed at the US military base right after his surrender. That is the scenario that would truly have me in fear of my civil liberties.

Would I have preferred that they took him alive? Absolutely, if it were possible with no risk. But you cannot place unreasonable constraints upon the men who are already risking their lives to bring Osama to justice. Having just one dead soldier who takes a bullet while trying to subdue someone who actively wants to kill you is not worth it.

This does not set a dangerous precedent of where we will no longer accept surrenders and bring people to justice in trials for war crimes. This was a military engagement, where two sides met in combat. Just because we were lucky enough to apprehend their leader does not negate the fact it was combat.