sonnyblu

I don't see where he said anything about prioritizing healthcare over food and shelter, but nevertheless, his comments were incredibly dumb, and his twisting of scripture to somehow validate his baseless argument is just sickening. He said those on medicaid probably do the least in terms of preventative medicine, but doesn't provide anything to back up his claim. Even if it were true, it doesn't mean that they aren't doing anything. So what, just because they aren't maximizing the benefits to the fullest, we should just take them away altogether? I'm having a hard time understanding the relevance of his comments aside from getting attention. On another note, Rep. Jason Chaffetz has been getting a lot of negative press for his comments as well: Obama said something similar: “ if you looked at that person’s budget and you looked at their cable bill, their telephone … cell phone bill, other things that they’re spending on, it may turn out that they just haven’t prioritized health care because right now everybody is healthy, nobody actually wants to spend money on health insurance until they get sick."

There are a mix of reasons for this, some good, some bad: - "a much larger proportion of physician visits in the U.S. are to specialists who get higher fees and usually order more high-tech diagnostic and therapeutic procedures than primary care physicians." - "the U.S. delivers (population adjusted) almost three times as many mammograms, two-and-a-half times the number of MRI scans, and 31 percent more C-sections. Also, the U.S. has more stand-by equipment, for example, 1.66 MRI machines per 6,000 annual scans vs. 1.06 machines. The extra machines provide easier access for Americans, but add to cost." - "occupancy rates in U.S. acute care hospitals are much lower than in OECD countries, reducing the likelihood of delays in admissions, but building that extra capacity adds to cost." - "More amenities such as privacy and space in hospitals and more attractive clinics also add to U.S. costs." - "In the U.S. many elderly patients are treated in intensive care units (ICUs), but in other countries they would receive only palliative care." https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/why-do-other-rich-nations-spend-so-much-less-on-healthcare/374576/ Medicaid alone covers 70 million people, two times the total population of Canada. Well, I've already listed example of how it delivers more to more people. The problem is that it simply doesn't deliver it to everyone. You may be tempted to assume that our lower life expectancy is a reflection of the quality of healthcare, but it's more likely due to other social/economic factors that this country needs to address separately.

Big Deal: Why More Democrats Are Now Embracing Conspiracy Theories https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/upshot/why-more-democrats-are-now-embracing-conspiracy-theories.html?_r=0 The Rise of Progressive 'Fake News' https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/viva-la-resistance-content/515532/ "Even as Democrats decry the false claims streaming regularly from the White House, they appear to have become more vulnerable to unsupported claims and conspiracy theories that flatter their own political prejudices. "since the election, there has been a noticeable increase in the flow of dubious and unsupported claims among liberals." "Brooke Binkowski, managing editor at the rumor-tracking site Snopes, recently told The Atlantic that she has been seeing more false reports aimed at liberals or from liberal sources — “a lot of dubious news, a lot of wishful-thinking-type stuff.” "In total, the percentage of Democrats who agreed on average with the conspiracy claims in the scale increased from 27 percent before the election to 32 percent afterward. By contrast, Republicans’ willingness to endorse conspiratorial claims declined after the election over all...from 28 percent to 19 percent." "A simple explanation for this shift is that misperceptions often focus on the president and are most commonly held by members of the other party." "In other words, losing the presidential election made Democrats more likely to blame secret conspiracies for the state of the world, while making Republicans less willing to indulge these sorts of claims."

Who said that it was? What people? Only for those with 0% interest. . .

I think the message of Christ is simple enough to appeal to all walks of life whether rich, poor, retarded, genius, whatever regardless of your level of morality at any given stage of your life. Bad habits just die hard. However, it does seem that some of the most troubled souls in our society tend to have a propensity toward Christianity, at least once their lifestyle has brought then to ruin. This is inline with the following: Luke 5:32: "I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent." Mark 2:12: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Now maybe you ARE the healthy one, but wouldn't it be kinda of a dickish move to jump on your high horse and judge those that aren't? From what I can tell, Ron seems to have repented from a destructive life of drugs and alcohol. What else can you accuse Him of other than voicing his opinion on some internet forum? Are you 100% clean of drugs and alcohol? It probably helped more than you did! Here's a person that you were embarrassed for. You knew she was confused, but apparently the only option your 'righteous" atheism allowed for was to say "I told you so" and mock her religion simply because you hate christianity? Sounds like a dickish move to me. Personally, I think there is more to that story than you're telling us. Either that, or she was just merely flirting with you, and now you're blowing it out of proportion. Btw, what is it with all the atheist types trying to use religion to control the political beliefs of others. Seems kinda hypocritical. Dontcha think?

You're concerned about the adverb? Who the fuck uses the word "sacred?"

What's that? Well...that would be up to TK to decide, now wouldn't it? I was referring to the misuse of the idiom - it doesn't seem to make any implicit sense. Who knows, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe subconsciously, in some slipped-up Freudian way, you don't really think things are as bad as everyone's making them out to be? As for this TK guy, it seems as tho he's already made his decision. He said it's up to the republicans to fix this. There seems to be a subset of educated liberals, many of which are immigrants that have made a good life for themselves here in the U.S. They don't want to jeopardize that, so they don't fight for it. They sense an injustice, but aren't willing to get their hands dirty. So instead, they just write a few letters, send some checks and piss people off on the internet thinking that they've done their part - Nothing wrong with that. It certainly beats addiction to benzodiazepines just to treat a mild case of insomnia. There's another subset of less successful liberals that apparently feel the effects of an injustice - or at least fear the impact of a perceived injustice. They take to the streets in violent protest, but they're so disorganized. "Anger aimed in no particular direction, just sprays and spays straight through your radio waves till its stuck in your head for days and days." I can't blame successful liberals for distancing themselves from that. As if any notion of a successful revolt could come by way of such a convoluted mess of ideology and values. If things were flipped, I think conservatives would fare much better. They have the guns and have demonstrated unity, even at the expense of compromising their own christian beliefs. If their backs were against the wall, a conservative revolution wouldn't be far from feasible. But lets face it, things really weren't that bad, which is why they chose to vote for Trump rather than revolt. I smell Oprah, 2020.

What's that?

He contains multitudes. . .

Big deal, Trump's Bacon Number is only 2.

Exactly. It appears you're having trouble answering the question. Why is that?

didn't what?

Me thinks you lack any foresight whatsoever. . .

I'm sorry but this view is what's kept us from doing what's necessary to bring our troops home. Islam had hated the West since forever...nothing new there. Probably because we've been fucking their shit up since forever. Nothing new with our current military occupation of their sovereign soil. Stop defending these religious fucks. It needs to end. We both know there is only one way.

If Obama had banned Fox from the White House you'd have screamed louder than a toddler who lost his mom in a supermarket, and you know it. According to his posting history, he did seem to have a problem when the obama admin subpoenaed records of 20 AP reporters and labeled Rosen as a "criminal co-conspirator" in order to obtain his personal phone calls and emails. What A hypocrite! Lets see what he says if Trump does anything even remotely similar in response to the WH leaks. . .

He'll play an alien in MIB IV

I see what you did there. Well played, sir.

I didn't say he was a disaster...I said he was average. You said to Bill: "In your world, Obama was an average POTUS". Words have meaning. And I was fixing the statement he made to Chan. You should first fix your own statements. Matthew 7: 3-5 Dammit John...now you've got me reading th bible And Melania got him speaking in tongues.

. I knew this Amazon drone thing wasn't gonna workout. I was thinking they should pull sales records at Acme to see if any large, heavy objects were recently purchased by Wile E. Coyote. Check the FAA drone registry under that name as well.

. I knew this Amazon drone thing wasn't gonna workout.

It seems Al-Harith was surrounded by plenty of bad company even prior to his detention at Gitmo. This guy was either an extremist or one of the unluckiest guys on the planet, consistently making poor decisions and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. - According to leaked Gitmo documents, he accompanied Abu bakr, a well known Al Qaeda operative to Sudan in 1992. We don't know where they got that info, nor the reason for the trip. - However in 1992 he converted to Islam, changed his name and moved from the U.K to study Arabic at the University of Khartoum in Sudan - about the same time Bin Laden started setting up his headquarters in Khartoum along with a sting of businesses to cover for the procurement of weapons, travel and training of Al Qaeda operatives. - About 4 years later Clinton pressured the Sudanese government to expel Bin Laden from the region, which they did. This just happens to be around the same time Al-Harith decides to leave as well. His family just said he seemed happy enough to return home. I couldn't find info on whether or not he graduated, just that he attended the university. - He goes back to the UK, gets married and starts an internet business with his wife. Apparently he was devastated when the marriage broke down. This had to happen sometime between 1996 and 2000 as he started a new relationship with Samantha Cook in 2000 that quickly ended in July of that year. He goes back to Manchester to resume his internet business. - In September of 2001 after 911, he just so happens to go on a trip to Quetta, Pakistan for a "religious retreat" on a "religious holiday" at the same time droves of jihadis are flocking to the area to fight the good fight with Al Qaeda/Taliban. Wait, or maybe it was just a backpacking trip in Iran like he did 25 years ago, but this time, instead of backpacking he'll just hitch a ride from some lorry driver across Pakistan. - He said he was fleeing Pakistan when the US started to invade Afghanistan, but he was arrested by afghans on October 3rd - the US didn't invade until the 7th. - He was supposedly held at Sarposa for about 3 months with other prisoners where he was interrogated and tortured by the Taliban until the northern Alliance took control of the prison. - After being liberated he was offered free transport to Pakistan, but refused stating that it would be easier to contact the British Embassy in Kabul. (not sure if that is of any significance.) - According to British Embassy he appeared to be the "leader" of the 5 prisoners. (The Sarposa 5) He was cocky and evasive stating that he had provided all that he was going to provide the British Embassy personnel. - He was then detained at Gitmo. There are some conflicting sources. Some say that he converted in 1994. His family says that he also taught English at Khartoum, but there doesn't appear to be a record of him as a faculty member there. It seems hard to get a straight answer. Officials at Gitmo also had difficulty developing a timeline. Al-Harith mentioned attending another school in Sudan, but such school didn't exist. He appears to have lied about his travels to Saudi Arabia. In a polygraph, he was found to be deceptive about his connections with extremist groups and going to Afghanistan for Jihad. It's clear officials felt he was lying, but I don't think they knew what to make of his story. Everyone was desperate for answers back then. I don't agree with his treatment, and we may never know his intentions. Either way, it's a sad story as war always is, and I feel for his family. You have to wonder what will become of his children.

I think their response would be more of an indication as to the type of person they already were prior to their incarceration. And being locked up, tortured, beaten and generally mistreated with the goal of causing extreme psychological stress, for years, by a western government, while also in the company of real extremists who do preach about the evil of the west and the importance of taking action against it.... could feasibly cause someone to become an unstable extremist. Don't you think? In general I'd say that's plausible, but in this case I think he was already a "real extremist." His treatment may have certainly contributed to his instability, but that's not the whole story. And if this was about revenge or taking hostile action against the US, why didn't he attack the US, or at least the UK that was complicit in his treatment? Instead, he gets married, builds a family of 7 and then goes off to fight with his brethren just like he always wanted to - and in their eyes, he does it in the most honorable way - hence the smile. This wasn't a vindictive act. I can't even say that this was an act of terrorism since his intention was to attack Iraqi troops in an ongoing war.

I think most people would take action if they were falsely imprisoned regardless of how they were treated. This guy received a share of a mulit-million doallar lawsuit. A normal person might move on and set up their family for life. An unstable extremist however might still blow things up regardless of how he was treated. Besides, this wasn't even an attack against the U.S, right? I agree

There have been plenty of people falsely imprisoned for 5,10, 20+ years, some even on death row. When they are finally released, I'm sure they're are relieved and cherish time with their family. They may be angry at the system and even file lawsuits like normal people. How many were systematically tortured and beaten? Is waterboarding common in US prisons? Ok, so being waterboarded and not having your day in court are the basis for becoming a suicide bomber?

While those sort of things do happen, and are a travesty of justice, at least those defendants had their "day in court." They also had the right of appeal and humane treatment (well, mostly anyway). Gitmo detainees have none of these. I understand that. The issue I take exception with is the idea that his treatment at Gitmo was what caused him to commit this attack 15 years later. Isn't it more likely that this guy was just an extremist all along - that those involved with his capture and initial detention had him pegged right the first time? His treatment thereafter is another issue.