To be fair some of those programs should be eliminated. In the big picture these table scrap spending issues.

Homeless need food and shelter more than I need PBS or GOV funded arts programs.

Americans need to work longer before opting for social security.

Our defense spending does need to be cut.

Our national debt does need to be lowered.

WE need not to be fighting if /when defenses cutting / social security adjustments issues come up.

Death panels and throwing grandma off the cliff scare tactics need to stop.

I hate to say it, but @Drachen_Jager has a point. Most countries do rely on immigrant labor, but we specifically and intentionally rely on illegal immigrant labor. Legal immigrants have the protection of labor laws, you can't work them 14 hours a day for $3 an hour with no overtime then stiff them if you feel like it, but you can do that to illegals, it's still better than what they can get at home usually.

While you haven't hired illegals, you have benefited from their cheap labor if you've bought agricultural products from America. I'm afraid we have not decided the cheap labor isn't worth the risk yet.....at best about 45% of us voted that way, which is as good a measure as any. I think if we do eliminate illegal laborers we'll see a backlash over the price hikes that must follow from many of the same people screaming for a wall today.

While some do use border jumping as an alternative to a difficult, long application process doesn't mean that most border jumpers would be accepted...criminal records, illiteracy, homelessness, and desperation can make that process impossible or many. Some have other options, many don't.

Not sure what you mean about being addicts. Addiction is not the only motivation out there, you know....nor is it the only excuse tolerated for inappropriate behavior.

I pretty much completely agree with you, but to play devil's advocate:

"Wasting resources and alienating our neighbors and allies with no tangible benefit." -- Stopping or even reducing illegal immigration would be a tangible benefit. I personally have no problems with immigrants, refugees, etc. coming in to the US, working (legally) and getting benefits like emergency and other health care, etc. But illegal / undocumented immigration can be a real problem.

I don't think the wall is a reasonable answer to that real problem, but it is part of the package that Trump sold to voters to get them to vote for him. As a result, he pretty much has to at least pretend like he's going to try to actually build it.


"I wish Republicans (since they have the purse strings) who bemoan the state of the country, would put fixing it first." -- A bunch of the people who voted for Trump consider illegal immigration to be a very important issue. Not all for racist reasons, either. Anyway, those people see the wall as Trump attempting to fix that issue -- something that other politicians haven't done.


I'd massively prefer Trump creating a giant jobs program by repairing interstates, railroads, and other transportation, building lots of solar and/or nuclear power plants to meet future demands with cleaner energy, etc. But Trump didn't run on those kinds of promises; one of the few concrete things he ran on was the border wall.


I really don't mean to defend the idea of a border wall, which I agree is extremely problematic for many many reasons. However, it wouldn't be the most egregious and pointless waste of taxpayer dollars. We spend *way* too much money on the Military-Industrial Complex, although that isn't entirely a waste (merely 75% wasteful ). And the TSA, which I mentioned in the previous post, is set to cost us $7.6 billion in 2017 alone -- half to a third of what people suggest the wall would cost to build in total. And the TSA sets the bar for pointless, in my opinion. Absolutely nothing of value would be lost if it was eliminated, and actual travel security would probably get better by simply reverting to how things worked before Bush inflicted it on us.

Thanks eric. You must have changed the embed code while I was finding a new one and didn't realize you got ahead of me. I didn't know there were backups.

I changed the code to the backup you supplied which eliminated the blurs, but now I get no title pic before pushing the play button.

He was pointing out how the digital cameras they are using tended to show everything in that flat low contrast manner, but that you could fix it in editing, but that would also mean more time and money. The newer cameras are able to film scenes with brighter colors and higher contrasts right out of the box and eliminates the need for extra editing, if that is the reason they went in that direction in the first place.

It makes me wonder if they went with the muted tones to give the films a more serious feel to them, possibly making the non nerd segment of movie going America more comfortable with them.

The Nixon-aid quote is really the only one necessary today, isn't it? Let's just agree that using the same manipulative brainwashing tactics for the "good" message completely eliminate any viable credibility.
Reefer Madness was a PSA funded by a church group. I guess its fair to label it a "movie".
Also: why's the black girl the one trying to smoke weed all the time?

Ohhhh, so you just reassert your point about Democrats never backing down, but Republicans do without any factual basis whatsoever! What a novel losing debate strategy!

Obamacare isn't perfect and needs to be fixed or replaced with something better. Not the Trumpian "something great" if it should be replaced, but something that is well thought out and addresses what Obamacare couldn't accomplish if the entire premise is systemically not going to work.

Did you see what I did there? I *gasp* recognize that sometimes things don't work! OMG! IT'S AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also didn't say it's a "fucking disaster", because it isn't. If it were that, explain how the uninsured rate has dropped very significantly. It was never going to achieve 100% insurance rate. The only way that happens is with single payer.

Here's how stupid you are. You don't seem to understand that if Obamacare isn't the answer, you're just making single payer universal health care more likely to be enacted. The American people are not going to go back to being denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. They're just not gonna. Obamacare is the least left policy you could possibly enact that would help control costs and decrease the number of people who are uninsured.

You can scream to the top of your lungs, but Obamacare was enacted to remedy real problems. I'm even sympathetic to the argument that those were real problems, but Obamacare isn't the answer, but if you're going to make that argument, you have to propose something that has historical precedent and rationale to solve those problems. And you simply don't have one.

So again, keep struggling in the quicksand until it swallows you whole, and single payer is enacted.

Your evidence about health insurance premiums is anecdotal, and quite frankly, you don't seem to understand that your numbers and description of what happened to her is absolutely ridiculous. You don't get on medicaid because your insurance premiums go up under Obamacare. You qualify for Medicaid because of a lack of income.

Secondly, the claim is absolutely ridiculous that her premiums went up that much. For data we have available, *unsubsidized* premiums for the lowest cost silver plans for data we have in the Obamacare exchanges was $257 a month for a single person.

http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/analysis-of-2017-premium-changes-and-insurer-participation-in-the-affordable-care-acts-health-insurance-marke
tplaces/

If she qualifies for Medicaid, then surely she could go on a silver plan in the Obamacare exchanges and come out likely paying less. Oh, and, on top of that, she would EASILY qualify for federal subsidies if she qualified for medicaid.

Oh, and btw, without Obamacare, if health care companies decided to raise those premiums just to price gouge, what protection would she have? Not much. Obamacare insures that you can only take in so much that isn't spent on health care.

Your story is completely utterly full of crap on so many levels, it's clear you made it up.

I'm dismissing all your numbers are being unsubstantiated bullshit. Have premiums gone up? Sure have. Were they going up before Obamacare? Yep! There's a healthy debate about how much Obamacare is contributing to premium increases. Obamacare isn't perfect. I'm happy to discuss rationally what could be done to improve Obamacare, or another plausible alternative. But not with you, since you pull numbers out of your ass that easily are completely debunked.

BTW, FYI, Obamacare was not intended to lower premiums nor to completely eliminate the number of uninsured. It was to control costs in all forms and reduce the amount of uninsured, as well as reform the health care system to eliminate problems like being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, people having to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills, etc.

Some of its goals it succeeded in, and some not so much. That's a fair assessment at this point. Medical related bankruptcies have not declined. Being denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition has been eliminated. Premiums have gone up, but we simply don't have enough data to determine if they've slowed or accelerated since Obamacare was implemented. If you go by the immediate years after Obamacare was fully implemented, they slowed.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/Adler_Exhibit1.png

More recently, they've accelerated. It's important to note that health care costs are not solely determined by premiums alone. It's interesting you cherry picked premiums only to prove costs haven't been controlled because premiums are your best case to make that point. Copays, coinsurance, deductibles, prescription drugs, all those play a role. IE, if the average American pays more in premiums but less everywhere else, it's possible the net average is lower for total costs paid for health care.

These are complex topics that have no room for bringing in rose colored ideologically tinted lenses to force the outcome to be "a fucking disaster", where you'll bring in anecdotal evidence, some of which is completely utterly made up.

Just how far are you willing to make stuff up? Hillary Clinton, according to you, has never in the last 40 years done anything substantially positive.

REALLY?! Look, I understand not necessarily wanting her to be President. OK, fine. But that claim is absolutely ridiculous. Over $2 billion has been raised by the Clinton Foundation, and over 90% of that has gone to charitable work according to independent studies. Before you go down the path of "paid access", blah blah blah, even if that were true, the reality is $1.8 billion went to charitable works around the world through the Clinton Foundation Hillary Clinton helped to create and run.

That's not substantial?!?!

Dude, just stop. The only people who believe that BS are people within your bubble. You're not convincing anyone else who didn't already think Hillary Clinton personally killed Vince Foster. You're just making people like me think you're a complete loon.

As great as John Oliver is, he spent more time there mocking them over petty things as opposed to really concentrating on the (admittedly real) flaws in their platforms.

OK, Stein's "music" is cringeworthy. And Johnson's "skirt" comment is creepy and ill advised, but clearly meant in a metaphorical way.

It kinda bothers me when people (not just Oliver) do it to Trump and Clinton also. Like Trump having "tiny hands", or bringing up cankles or pantsuits for Clinton.

All of those things can be funny, a few times. But bringing them up constantly makes it seem like we have nothing of actual substance to criticize them for -- which is clearly not the case.


He did bring up legitimate concerns for some of Stein and Johnson's signature platforms. In both cases, that criticism boiled down to "you can't actually do that", as in the president doesn't actually have the power to implement the policy that they want. That's fair ... BUT, pretty much every single politician ever makes campaign promises that they don't actually have the power to implement. You pretty much have to if you want to get elected.

That doesn't mean that setting those policies as goals can't have value. Obama wanted a much more thorough overhaul of healthcare and insurance, but he didn't have the power to make it happen unilaterally. So we ended up with a watered-down version of Obamacare after the Republicans in the legislature did everything they could to obstruct it. But still, even though it isn't exactly what Obama originally had in mind, there are plenty of people now with some health coverage who had none before. That's a tangible positive result.

Trump will never build his wall, even if he ends up in the White House (not likely). I offer no defense for this idiotic idea, but it is at least possible for massive public works projects to be used to create jobs, improve infrastructure, and have other tangible positive effects; like FDR's New Deal.

Hillary would face lots of obstruction if she attempts to implement her plan to let people attend public universities for free. Probably more than Obama did on Obamacare. But trying to do something to make post-secondary education more available to everyone is a good goal. Even if the cynic in me thinks she only produced this "plan" as a way to try to win support of Sanders voters.

Johnson couldn't eliminate income tax, or abolish all those departments he mentioned. But he could rein in a lot of spending that the Executive branch does have power over. That could be a good thing in many cases (I'd be happy to see the TSA eliminated and military spending drastically reduced), but there are also a lot of potential problems. See Kansas transformation to "Brownbackistan" as a result of Sam Brownback's drastic tax cuts.

And Stein couldn't forgive student loan debt for this "entire generation". But just like Clinton's proposal to make public universities free, there is potential value to be found in just trying to do something about the insane problems with our university system. Hillary is a savvy enough politician to know not to say too much about her plan, which would open it up to scrutiny and criticism. Stein stepped into that by revealing her political inexperience, but I tend to trust that she does actually want to do something as opposed to Hillary just saying what she needs to say to get more votes.

Love Trump, we need to eliminate political correctness

The National Farmers Federation says that “mulesing remains the most effective practical way to eliminate the risk of ‘flystrike’ in sheep” and that “without mulesing up to 3,000,000 sheep a year could die a slow and agonising death from flystrike”.

A fiber farmer is heavily invested in the health and well being of their animals for the simple reason that an animal that isn’t happy and healthy can’t produce a sell-able product. An animal going through a period of stress of any kind produces a fiber that breaks.

Wool fiber has properties that make it unequaled by many other natural fibers/ Lanolin is also a critical oil that cannot be replaced with other oils. Lanolin and its many derivatives are used extensively in both the personal care (e.g., high value cosmetics, facial cosmetics, lip products) and health care sectors. Lanolin is also found in “lubricants, rust-preventative coatings, shoe polish, and other commercial products”

In some cases, the products derived from sheep make up a very large portion of a country's GDP. Banning sheep farming could cripple a country like New Zealand economically.

That said, obviously there are some horrible scenes in the video. Obviously there needs to be more oversight to control abuse to the animals. However, I would like to point out that the video did cherry pick a couple of companies that had egregious policies. Also, if the mulesing that was shown was part of the PETA video, it was staged with a fake lamb. PETA even admitted they staged that video for 'educational' purposes. I don't know if it was the same clip, but just putting that out there.

Nazi's were a militant political movement that had an agenda for genocide.
Islam is a religion that includes people who are acting militantly and citing their beliefs.

Islam != Nazi's
Islam = Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, et al

This would be a lot easier if we could just eliminate all religion.

I agree that 'writing off' a huge, near majority of the population is disastrous....but it's pretty damn close as it stands, with neither party doing much to improve things. It's already not a great time to be Mexican, black, or a woman in America today.

I, also, am at a loss on what to do. Southpark said, and I agreed, that 1/4 of Americans are mentally defective. I'm seeing now that that number is probably closer to 3/4, making meaningful, helpful change impossible. (Trump will be 'meaningful' change, but there's a >99% chance it won't be helpful to anyone not named Trump.)
A constitutional amendment declaring politics off limits for businesses and/or large groups, and making lobbying completely illegal, and funding elections rather than making them 'pay for play' would be a great start...but since the people who benefit from the current system are the same one's charged with making those changes, it's a non starter with no legal solution beyond voting every incumbent out of office...and that's not a good solution either.

Trump is likely not the answer if America is to continue as a united country.

It depends on the level of rot. If every load bearing beam in your home is infested with termites and rotten to the core....burning it down just might be the only way to save your neighbors homes, yours is already gone. We are at best on that knife edge where it's a toss up which is better, repair or replacement...but we aren't doing either, which is making the decision for us as the rot gets worse and less repairable. Perhaps a new structure is needed, one built to eliminate the rot from the get go. Of course....I see that leaves us all homeless in the interim, and many won't survive that, and in that circumstance it will be MUCH worse before it's better....most people advocating the dismantling of the government don't see that. I'm not advocating it, but I am considering it as a possibility.

Absolutely the officer should be charged. I think it's a huge disservice to everybody that these things are so often dealt with behind closed doors. It breeds contempt and distrust, and it eliminates an important opportunity for the public to understand some of the issues inherent in policing, and it seems to let horrible crimes go largely unaddressed.

But 'triple cuffed' can only mean a daisy chain of cuffs. Nothing else makes any sense, and to do so means that they are making some kind of attempt to accommodate the comfort of the individual during the cuffing. Or do you think it means having 3 sets of hand cuffs individually applied to your wrists? Come on... Doesn't excuse the cuffing of the guy, obviously, but thinking that triple cuffing is some heinous extreme version of cuffing is absurd.

You acknowledge that he had bad aim, and that the majority of shots missed the intended target, whichever target that was. You acknowledge that poor leadership, training, and protocol may have contributed to this outcome, but then you make the leap that because these this incompetency, it must have been intentional. It simply doesn't follow. You might ask them to be held responsible, but it doesn't mean it was the intent.

Saying 'I don't know' in the immediate aftermath of a charged situation where you are just coming to realize you made a huge mistake and nearly killed an innocent seems reasonable. It does not mean 'I meant to kill you and missed." It seems to indicate a state of confusion or shock.

I heard absolutely no reference to any time frame, or them preventing medical assistance for more than 15 minutes. I'll just remain agnostic on that angle.

I'm no lawyer, but I would have thought that intent combined with action was the very core of attempted murder. Murder is all about intent, and attempted is all about action. Attempted manslaughter of some degree seems the most realistic charge to make, but that's up to people that better know the law, and are willing to spend hundreds of hours analyzing the situation.

A huge problem with the system is the way that justice is delayed for so long (assuming it is ever meted out). People want instant karma, immediate redress for wrongs committed. People see something, get heated, and feel that a strong reaction is called for in the moment. The system on the other hand is meant to be about dispassionate discussion of the details of the situation, and can take a long time to play out. This is a big part of why it seems so reprehensible when it's carried out behind closed doors; it looks like it's being swept under the carpet. Similarly this is why media coverage over sensationalizes crime. But that's a discussion for another day.

Anyways, I've already typed too much about this I think.

Here's a breakdown that shows my train of thought :



The 2nd amendment limits the authority of 'specifically the government'.

It is not an affirmative right to individuals, it is a denial of rights to the government.
It in theory prevents the government from taking any actions that would infringe on bearing arms.




So, let's look at scope.


If bearing arms is for government regulated militias :

Let's assume that 'well regulated' means 'well government regulated'. (i.e. Merely government regulated in practice.)

- A militia that uses arms as per the government's regulation, would be operating as the government wishes - it would *be* an extension of the government, and the government would not need to seize its arms. The 2nd amendment is moot.

- A militia that doesn't use arms as per the government's regulation, is not government regulated, and has no protection from government arms seizure. The government is free to deny this militia arms at the government's discretion. The 2nd amendment is moot.


In order for the 2nd amendment to not be moot, you would need to protect an entity that the government would *not* wish to be armed.

Since we're still talking militias, that leaves only "non-government-regulated militias" as a protected class of entities.
Hence, this would preclude "government regulated" as a possible definition of "well regulated", in regards to "well regulated militia".

So, we've established that for the 2nd to not be moot, only "non-government-regulated militias" can be in the set of 'well regulated militia'.




So, following on the idea of the 2nd amendment scope being for "well [non-government] regulated militias".

The government can then circumvent 2nd amendment protection by making illegal any 'non-government-regulated militias'. This would eliminate the entire category of arms protected entities. The 2nd amendment is moot.

Hence, for the 2nd amendment to not be moot via this path, that means that "well [non-government] regulated militias" must also be protected under the 2nd amendment.




So, without government regulation, a well regulated militia is subject to the regulation of its members.

As there is no government regulation on militia, there is also no government regulation regarding the quantity of militia members. You are then left with the ability of a single individual to incorporate a militia, and decide on his own regulations.

Which decomposes into de-facto individual rights





This is why the only consequential meaning of the 2nd amendment is one which includes these aspects :
A) Does not define 'well regulated" as "government regulated".
B) Does not restrict the individual.
C) Protects militias.

Any other meaning for the 2nd amendment would result in an emergent status quo that would produce the same circumstances as if there was no 2nd amendment in the first place. This would erase any purpose in having a 2nd amendment.





But sure, maybe the 2nd amendment is moot.
Maybe it was written out of sheer boredom, just to have something inconsequential to do with one's time.
Maybe it was a farce designed to fool people into thinking that it means something, while it is actually pointless and ineffectual - like saying the sky is up.




In any case, I think we can agree that, if the 2nd means anything, it is intended for facilitating the defense of the state against invading armies.

The fallout of that is that if the 2nd particularly protects any given category of arms, it protects specifically those that are meant for use in military combat. Not hunting, not self defense, etc.

A pistol ban would be of little military detriment for open combat, but would be the greatest harm to people's capacity for insurgency (because pistols can be hidden on a person).

A hunting rifle ban would also be of modest military detriment for open combat (can serve DMR role), but probably the least meaningful.

Arms with particular military applicability would be large capacity+select fire (prototypical infantry arms), or accurized of any capacity (dmr/sniper).
Basically, the arms of greatest consequence to the 2nd amendment are precisely the ones most targeted for regulation.

-scheherazade

Well, they aren't loud enough about it to be heard outside their insulated circle. Usually something like that would make national news and/or have commercials deriding it and protests against it sprout up any place it's an issue. That I haven't heard about it makes me believe it's as I described and not JUST about financial insolvency, but is about true mental incapacity. EDIT: If you have an instance where pure financial issues caused someone to have their firearms removed that you can point me to, I'll certainly read it.

Proper training would certainly eliminate people shooting themselves with an 'unloaded' gun, because proper training teaches you to consider ANY gun loaded at all times.

I eliminated the possibility of my kids getting hold of my guns by not having any. Problem solved! As long as my doors are locked (which they nearly always are), my firearms are under lock and key. ;-)