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PoliGAF 2013 |OT1| Never mind, Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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NYCmetsfan

Banned
speculawyer said:
What is wrong with that? Local crime story for now is right. Granted, a bomb went off and the story may develop, let's not lose our heads over this. Keep Calm and Carry On. Figure out who did this and proceed as appropriate. It could be anything . . . just some random punk, an anti-tax extremist, Al-Qeada, etc. Who knows?
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Its a reference to
washingtonpost.jpg


Its a comment about abortion.
 
Jackben

Jackben

bitch I'm taking calls.
I agree that it's local only for now because the means and methods are ambiguous, but a snarky comment like that is not necessary and shows a lack of tact imo.
 
Link

Link

The Autumn Wind
Bill Nelson sent me what is likely a stock reply to my email to him imploring him to support same-sex marriage. He has since done so. I thought I'd share it with you guys.

Thank you for contacting me regarding marriage equality.

It is generally accepted in American law and U.S. society today that, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.''
I believe that. The civil rights and responsibilities for one must pertain to all. Thus, to discriminate against one class and not another is wrong for me.
If we are endowed by our Creator with rights, then why shouldn't those be attainable by all? Simply put, if the Lord made homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, why should I discriminate against their civil marriage? I shouldn't, and I won't.
So I added my name to the petition from senators asking the Supreme Court to declare the law that prohibits same-sex marriage unconstitutional.
I appreciate your sharing your views with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future.

Sincerely,
Bill Nelson
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J

jamesinclair

Banned
Mike M said:
Fuck, I really don't want to jump to conclusions, but a boming in Boston on tax-day brings some connections to mind about the possible motivations that are incredibly hard to shake : (
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My thoughts too. Its patriots day.

Foreign terrorists dont give a shit about patriots day, boston or the marathon.

Its some white nut-job ala oklahoma id bet.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
fallagin said:
Oh yeah you guys, just saw this.. http://www.nationalmemo.com/republicans-and-dems-come-together-to-keep-irs-from-competing-with-turbotax/

Business interest has an incredible stronghold on government, its fucking sad man.
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I've never understood why the government doesn't do this already. I guess this explains it.

I love how grover hates it, wants to makes taxes as painful as possible to get his agenda through

Tamanon said:
It's a weird reference, because she is a policy reporter. I don't know what kind of policy that she would write about Gosnell.
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They want people to write that Gosnell's actions were what PP stands for.
 
Z

zero shift

Banned
empty vessel said:
You keep stating this as a fact but there is no evidence it is true. It does not at all strike me as true that the average Cuban would be better off if Cuban independence had not occurred.
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Why do you believe that Castro was a better alternative for Cuba then the alternative of Batista eventually being replaced with another (most likely democratic) revolution?

Its not a matter of Cuba's independence, but more so just how its independence occured. If Batista stayed in power it was only a matter of time until a democratic revolution came into place just as it did literally everywhere else in South America. Cuba went from having the best economy in the Carribbean to being merely in-line with the rest of the region. You can say "Well how exactly was the wealth distributed?" but a democratic revolution would have likely had that economy be more or less intact while the citizens gaining more of the fruits from the economy. You can also say "Well yeah that's because the Soviet Union fell and the embargos", but if you are going to commit to an economic ideology that radically limits your trade partners and is very new and risky, you have all the blame if it deteoriates, especially if your people can't chose at any time whether or not they want to follow that path.

Anything could happen sure. Possibly Cuba could have taken the route of Honduras in having an insanely inefficient puppet government with horrendous quality of living. But in reality Cuba seemed by far the closest to 80s Chile. It needed the people to be able to vote to gain the wealth for themselves. A dictatorship wasn't necessary, let alone a full blown Communist one which few Cubans supported (most Cubans thought that Castro was essentially Chavez).
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
Does the Boston attack show that the massive homeland security infrastructure is useless?

I would bet it was a lone (white) crazy male, some homemade bombs, a backpack and briefcase.

You can "see something say something", send TSA onto Amtrak trains, post snipers on every roof, and rapescan fliers to hell and back and it will never be possible to prevent tragedies like this.

But I bet the "cut government funding" party will be lining up to give homeland security another billion or twelve.


One thing I was impressed with: Most subway service remained operating after the attack, and all subway service (minus one station) was restored by 6pm. Nice that those in charge realized closing the system to run sweeps or whatever would have done more harm than good.


Also, Obama cancelled some gun-law rally being held tomorrow out of respect to the dead and injured.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Once more info crystallizes it'll be more deft to reckon, but yeah in general the only way to truly ward off this sort are addressing the root causes that eventually spiral out into this sad sort of madness---be they simple lack of education, mental illness, criminal enterprises, etc.

Of course, these sorts of actually deep things are taboo to tangle with outside of cuts to make things even worse on folks---they'd much rather homeland security it all up.

I really don't know what our current media would do with another even remotely OKC-like situation----as bad as it was back then, with the state of the media wanting to stir things now, yikes.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
ElectricThunder said:
Once more info crystallizes it'll be more deft to reckon, but yeah in general the only way to truly ward off this sort are addressing the root causes that eventually spiral out into this sad sort of madness---be they simple lack of education, mental illness, criminal enterprises, etc.

Of course, these sorts of actually deep things are taboo to tangle with outside of cuts to make things even worse on folks---they'd much rather homeland security it all up.

I really don't know what our current media would do with another even remotely OKC-like situation----as bad as it was back then, with the state of the media wanting to stir things now, yikes.
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We definitely need more money in mental health services. I wonder why, the pharmaceutical industry being so powerful, they dont lobby for that?
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Btw, this morning Scarborough compared pro-choice advocates to NRA members, saying that they're equally extreme in regards to lack of regulation, and thus are responsible for that abortion guy doing what he did.

Also, Marsha Blackburn said that this'll finally cause the elimination of federal funding for abortion.
 
empty vessel

empty vessel

Member
zero shift said:
Why do you believe that Castro was a better alternative for Cuba then the alternative of Batista eventually being replaced with another (most likely democratic) revolution?
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That's just a fantasy. Batista was overthrown in a grassroots revolution. Such revolutions themselves necessarily have a kind of democratic character, in that they must have a substantial level of popular support to succeed. That doesn't mean the resulting form of new government will be democratic, and in Cuba's case it obviously wasn't, but the reality of the situation was the revolution and independence that happened or a revolution and independence that didn't happen. In which case it's a choice between an independent Cuba and a puppet Cuba that operates at the command of US business interests. Much of the blame for the lack of democracy in Cuba after independence lies squarely with the US, given that it placed Cuba under siege--a constant state of war readiness--from that point forward.

zero shift said:
Its not a matter of Cuba's independence, but more so just how its independence occured. If Batista stayed in power it was only a matter of time until a democratic revolution came into place just as it did literally everywhere else in South America.
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There are still plenty of US client states in Central American and the Carribean, and even South America. Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia.

zero shift said:
Cuba went from having the best economy in the Carribbean to being merely in-line with the rest of the region. You can say "Well how exactly was the wealth distributed?" but a democratic revolution would have likely had that economy be more or less intact while the citizens gaining more of the fruits from the economy. You can also say "Well yeah that's because the Soviet Union fell and the embargos", but if you are going to commit to an economic ideology that radically limits your trade partners and is very new and risky, you have all the blame if it deteoriates, especially if your people can't chose at any time whether or not they want to follow that path.
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You are just imagining a fantasy to compare to the Castro regime. The reality is we can't know the answer whether average Cubans would be better or worse off without Cuban independence at the time it occurred. But at least they have their independence, which I at least would personally prefer to a puppet government of a foreign country's business sector, because I would rather take on an independent domestic autocrat than the business sector of the world's only super power. Independence is a prerequisite for democracy.
 
Z

zero shift

Banned
The flaw in your argument was that Cuba was doing much better than most of South America to begin with. If we were talking about the Dominican Republic than I could see where you are coming from. But being that Cuba had the second best economy in the South American region, now its not even in the top ten. The nations you listed were poor from the get go, and the fact that Cuba is even comparable to them today speaks a lot of where the country went.
 
A

Aaron

Member
zero_suit said:
So, what's the point of the bill at this point?
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A bandaid until the next shooting, when the NRA can again use their influence to divert the issue, and water down the bill to the point of uselessness. They know the general public loses interest in issues quickly. So they can repeat this over and over so nothing ever gets done.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
TacticalFox88 said:
I'm at the point where I honestly don't give a shit about gun control anymore. America made this bed. Time for it to lay in it. The amount of stupidity is fucking ridiculous. We either go all the way or not at all.
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This attitude I don't think is helpful, ANYTHING is better than nothing. This bill will probably at least save one persons life I'd imagine. Thats worth it.

Its disappointing but giving up is what the right wants. People that would like stricter gun laws need to realize this country doesn't work like that, change doesn't happen overnight. But on the state and local level things are changing, we push for candidates with better views, as time goes on the more outreach that is done to remind the public the NRA is blocking common sense reform will pay off in the future. This isn't an issue that is just fixed with one piece of legislation. The NRA has been steadily weakening laws for a long time, decades. Slowly but surely. We need to do the same. Any restriction keeping even one gun out of the hands of a criminal is a success.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
PhoenixPause said:
Why not increase federal licensees so they can be placed in rural areas.

Fuck this. I hope Obama doesn't sign this nonsense. What's the point? The next time there's a shooting we'll hear "I guess gun control didn't work" snark from all angles.
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This will happen even if a million laws are passed.
 
J

Jooney

Member
On gun control and on the budget, I hope it’s clear to the American people who it is that is willing to make concessions and meet the other party halfway, and take that with them to the polling booth in 2014.

By willingly specifying the concessions upfront (such as the chained CPI cuts), Obama’s play seems to be to meet Republican demands knowing full well that they will run away. Then he can turn to the American people and say “I tried to meet them halfway and they didn’t budge. If you want action in Congress then you have to vote these guys out”.

APKmetsfan said:
This attitude I don't think is helpful, ANYTHING is better than nothing. This bill will probably at least save one persons life I'd imagine. Thats worth it.
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True, but we haven’t even got to the point where the bill reaches the House. In its current form the bill would require a united democratic front (uncertain) and almost 20 republican votes (unlikely). If something passes the House it will almost certainly be further watered down.
 
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