Kennedy

Nah, Jeanne is a lot more human in person than here. I'd wager anyone that's met Mike would say the same thing. You need to put Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh, and a bunch of conspiracy theorists in a room, and make them listen to that 24/7. But that pesky eighth amendment gets in the way of that... witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Is the strike illegal? Should teachers claiming to be sick and going to protests be fired? If the teachers were fired, do you think they don't have enough applications on hand to fill those jobs tomorrow? Do you realize that the governor isn't taking away collective bargaining, that he is trying to move "defined benefits" packages over to "defined contributions" just like everyone other than government already has? Defined benefit is a guaranteed way to bankruptcy. It has the same fundamental flaw as our current social securty system. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Orininal text in print. Translations in bold. 1) Close the" Gun Show" Loophole: Extend Brady Background Checks to All Gun Purchases Bring government oversight into your living room. Register all sales, sellers and buyers. Make selling a gun so legally dangerous that most won't do it. 2) Close the Terror Gap: Prohibit Gun Sales to Suspected Terrorists Deny due process to anyone wishing to buy a gun. 3) Stop the Sale of Large Capacity Ammunition Magazines (aka Big Bullet-Blasting Boxes) Ban an item that has no effect on crimes or the number of victims. Because we can. 4) Restore Justice to Gun Violence Victims: Repeal the Gun Industry Legal Protection Act Go after gun makers. They haven't done anything wrong, but they make the guns. Next we'll go after Budweiser and Ford for drunk drivers. 5) Repeal Tiahrt Restrictions on Disclosure of Crime Gun Data Register every gun. Impede law enforcement investigations. Misrepresent what traces mean. 6) Require Licensing of Gun Owners and Registration of Gun Purchases Register every gun owner, seller, and buyer. Obviously this has nothing to do with confiscation. We just want to know where every gun and every gun owner are at all times. 7) Strengthen ATF Authority to Regulate Gun Dealers and Crack Down on Corrupt Dealers Right, because we can trust bureaucracy to never abuse power or overstep its bounds. Even the BATFE, that has been repeatedly scolded by congress for exceeding its legal authority and mandate. 8) Require Gun Owners to Report Lost or Stolen Guns Blame victims for crimes committed with what used to be their property. Next we'll go after car owners when their stolen vehicle is used in a crime. 9) Improve the National Violent Death Reporting System Date, and restore firearms research funding for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention So what do guns have to with disease control and prevention again? Particularly when the CDC has put out trash "research" that even they can't support. Maybe when doctors take advice from armorers and shooters, this will make sense. 10) Restrict Large-Volume Gun Sales Make it so hard to own or buy a gun that no one bothers. Maybe next we'll bring back "one gun a month" laws. 11) Require Licensed Dealers to Adopt Safeguards to Prevent Gun Thefts Put gun dealers out of business by forcing overhead through the roof. 12) Require Licensed Dealers to Perform Background Checks on Employees Actually I don't have an issue with this one, provided it's the same standard as required for ownership (pass an instant check and never look back). I doubt that's what they have in mind, though. 13) Prohibit The Transfer of Gun Inventory Without Background Checks After a Dealer's License Has Been Revoked Not even sure what they're talking about here... 14) Prohibit Gun Possession by People Convicted of Violent Misdemeanors If you've ever looked at someone funny, you can't have a gun. Unless you're a politician. Or famous. Or anyone we want to give a pass. But not the peasants. 15) Prohibit Gun Possession by Persons Convicted of Violent Acts as Juveniles See above, but include school yards scuffles and fighting with your siblings. 16) Repeal the 24-hour Brady Record Destruction Requirement Register every gun owner, seller, and buyer. Obviously this has nothing to do with confiscation. We just want to know where every gun and every gun owner are at all times. 17) Support new technologies to help law enforcement more effectively trace crime guns and supporting development of safety features to childproof guns make guns so expensive no one can afford them, and so slow to use and likely to fail that no one wants one, anyway. A good judge of this is if the police won't use it, citizens shouldn't be required to use it. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

A large difference between gun-rights and gun-control people is whether or not you approve of prior restraint. The fact is that everything you can do to affect another person with a gun is already covered under some sort of criminal law/code/statute. So if bad things happen with guns, there are laws and systems in place to address those wrongs. If we needs harsher sentences, or better investigations, or better police response, we can push for those, but they are not evidence that we need more laws to control guns. Look at the ideas John posted. Most of them cover sales, registration, dealers, and record keeping. One covers barring citizens from ownership after crimes not related to guns (that could include an affray charge for defending yourself from assault, or simple misdemeanors from thirty years ago). Not a single one of them addresses "gun crime" that they are supposed to fight. I don't see anything in there about armed robbery, shootings, homicide, suicide, brandishing, or even concealed carry. These laws are not meant to address gun violence. They are meant to address gun ownership. If you think gun ownership is a terrible thing, supporting them makes sense. If you think gun violence is a terrible thing, then you alreaady know that there are laws against that, and we need to focus our efforts elsewhere. NOT on legislation. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

He hasn't shown in his own thread since I pointed out the same thing. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

It's a rah-rah speech. It contains no specifics. it says he is confident in the American economy and the "American spirit." Whoop-dee-freakin-doo. If I could see what he was actually doing (and didn't think he was simply manipulating the market for his own benefit), I might put more stock in this. He also put out that he's looking to acquire more assets. All that sauys to me is he thinks we've hit rock bottom and are on teh way up. (oddly enough, we've been on the way up since two years ago, so his crystal ball seems a bit behind the times) witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Obviously, they should demand higher taxes on anyone with more money that union members, so the government can pay their unions more money and provide better benefits. Then the govt should raises taxes again to give money to private sector union members. Obviously. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

c'mon dude...seriously? Yes, seriously - there is a measurable decrease in coordination. agreed...but "fucked up" is a pretty serious charge. Yes, seriously. Yes, it's a serious charge. And yes, it's true. Anyone with a .08 BAC has no business doing anything that requires the exercise good judgment, perception, or reaction time. Driving, shooting, jumping, administering medical care, operating machinery, etc. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with a person drinking themselves into a stupor, but they need to avoid doing things that put others' lives at risk while impaired. A person who does not drink regularly is three sheets to the wind, stumbling around, insensate at .08 BAC. In other words, they are fucked up. A person who drinks everyday may show fewer signs of their impairment at .08, but that doesn't change how impaired they are. They suffer all the same effects. They may be able to pretend they are not drunk, but they are just as fucked up as the first time drinker at .08 BAC. Have you ever been tested for BAC while consuming alcohol? Have you ever read the scientific journals or been involved in studies? If not then you are guessing and have nothing to refute my statement beyond your "feelings." witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Here's a really good example. Not only did he say something goat-fick stupid, he out it in a bill. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Uh huh, and wait parts of those programs are you looking to cut? Yep, you're pretty clear on that one. So tell us where you stand on individual gun rights. And since you're going to use the word "loonies," tell us how you define that word. Tell us how you feel about Gitmo or the Patriot Act. What are your thoughts on the US presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan? I'm not really clear. You've either changed views when the resident of 1600 PA Ave, you dropped off the radar, or you commented on other posters without contributing, depending on the thread. Really? So you answered this somewhere and I missed it? You, Marc, airdvr, gravitymaster and turtle already do such a great job of that, any effort I made would be redundant. Uh huh, I expected that cop out. But between Jeanne, Paul, Bill, and dreamdancer (Tony, Troy, whatever), your one sided efforts are redundant, so why bother? Or do you just prefer one over the other and are for some reason unwilling to admit it? Nope. Didn't think so. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

I left for greener pastures. Well, if not greener, at least ones where the shepherd isn't as much a bastard, the sheep don't bleat so bitter, and sheepdogs are treated no worse. I wasn't denied the right to improve my situation. My employer wasn't interested in workin with me, so I left. In my opinion, I have bettered my situation. As a bonus, in doing so I moved from a mediocre city to a place other have to vacation and visit temporarily. I had several reasons. Without collective bargaining, they were no effective. Along with tr PBA, they'd done nothing for officers in more than twenty years. The local in charge of the FOP was a putz, and I didn try's him with my money. And we had a local group that, while they couldn't bargain, they could bring our concerns to the administration. Part of the reason I left was tht the administration didn't care to address out concerns, and took actions that brought on more concerns. I'm not on the "right" and I don't see why folks here keep saying that. You make me doubt my eloquence and writing ability. No one that knows menor that intake to thinks I'm some rightwing uber conservative holy warrior. I believe in limited government according to the constitution at the federal level. I believe states should be able to decide what laws are best for their residents, limited by their constitution and the US constitution. I'm not against a number of ideas people on the "right" would call liberal or socialist. But I happen to think that tyranny from the left is as bad as tyranny from the right. And seeing how poorly government housing works outside the military and the whitehouse, I'm not really interested in Washington DC controlling any other areas of our life that states, the private sector, or citizens themselves can handle without interference. I don't want a Christian government anymore than I want to swear allegiance to a caliph. I don't want the government to impose my morals on others anymore than I want theirs imposed on me. Part of why I support decentralized government on domestic issues is that old saying: a government strong enough to give you everything you want is stein enough to take everything you have. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Nor for the smart of head. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Looks to me like he told the audience what he thought was the right way to get the president out of office. So the congresscritter didn't think he was a threat, and neither did the secret service. But with Tuscon in mind, I can understand why he might not want to shout down the moron in a crowd. So why exactly are you so annoyed with said congresscritter? ps - please work on your formatting. For the children. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

A .10 bac is not an accident. Take it from someone who was involved in a controlled drinking exercise to assist law enforcement training to operate breathalyzers: a .08 is no accident. The trainer measured the alcohol intake, and stopped each of us at a certain level. BAC of .04 is feeling buzzed to where a reasonable person won't drive. A.08 is fucked up. Alcoholics may feel it less, but their perception judgment and reaction time is just as affected as someone who's never consumed alcohol before. Like you said though, non-alcoholics can't even get to a .24 without endangering their lives, or function enough to walk to the car, let alone drive it. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

With everything video'd and recorded nowadays, they're not exactly hard to find. ''I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go.'' —Barack Obama, at a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon, May 9, 2008 ''Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.'' —Marion Barry, mayor of Washington, D.C. ''I'm the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can't.'' —Sarah Palin ''I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence.'' —Rep. Michele Bachmann , on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford was president, April 28, 2009 ''The Cambridge police acted stupidly.'' —President Barack Obama ''I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.'' —Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate who won the Republican nomination in Nevada's Senate primary, floating the possibility of armed insurrection, interview with right-wing talk radio host Lars Larson in Portland, OR, January 2010 ''It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.'' —Barack Obama, explaining his troubles winning over some working-class voters witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Not at all. I don't have a problem with party affiliations, even though I font subscribe to them. I don't have a political party. I despise idiocy, hypocrasy, incompetence, and corruption at all levels and from all sides. My problem is that kallend refuses to state his views on any issue not related to global warming. Then he gets pissy when others infer his position based on a clear pattern of prior posts. Even in this thread he tries to dance around the fact that he only seems to post about, or get upset about, misdeeds of republicans even when democrats are guilty of equal actions. If he could admit that he hates one party and excuses the other, I wouldn't worry about him anymore than others with that viewpoint. But he acts like he is above it all while lying in the gutter. I agree. Good and bad ideas can come from both parties. There is also more overlap then either side wants to admit. My biggest problem with both parties tight now is that they think their good ideas should be implemented regardless of what the constitution says and regardless of what people want. I happen to supper limited federal government. Neither republicans nor democrats have a lot to say about that right now, except maybe some of the fresh faces associated with the tea party. Of course to many just wan to take advantage of the movement rather than support any of its goals. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

From the library of congress. We can go this route, or wait for challenges to every gun control law to go through the courts. Personally I prefer taking both tracks. The first problem with this law is that there is no penalty written into it for states not honoring it (and states are ignoring federal law more and more often). Plus, apparently the current president has decided that he can just not enforce any law he doesn't like, so there will be no other repercussions. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Oh this one was too good to pass up. And it even comes from wikileaks. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Well, while I don't listen to him, I doubt he is referring to the body of teachings of the Bahá'í Faith, the WCW, books or albums by nobodies. He might be talking about this. Just a thought. And since the phrase has grown beyond its initial definition, it generally refers to either a huge "one-world" government of totalitarian control, or it is just used to mention a time of significant changes to the world political landscape. Used by someone like Beck, I'm sure it means getting to a world totalitarian regime through socialism. Used by people who hate Beck, I'm sure it means getting to a world totalitarian regime through fascism. Funny how both routes get to the same end. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Goons of the world unite! witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Summary According to recent press reports -- such as Fox News -- the ATF has enabled gun smuggling by telling gun dealers in the southwest to sell weapons to known straw purchasers (people who buy guns for others). Even worse, one of those guns became the murder weapon in a tragic case where a Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, was gunned down on December 14th, 2010. This ATF operation is called Project Gunrunner and its purpose was to monitor illicit gun sales in the southwest in order to track down the smuggling rings delivering guns to the drug cartels. But, now, it’s beginning to look like the biggest arms supplier is the ATF itself for having allowed more than 3000 weapons to be smuggled under its Gunrunner program. While Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has demanded answers from the ATF, he has been blown off -- not only by agency superiors, but by officials as high up as Attorney General Eric Holder. Given the fact that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is likely to drag his feet in order to protect Attorney General Eric Holder, we believe that hearings should begin in the U.S. House of Representatives. Thus, Gun Owners of America is now calling for both the Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Oversight and Reform in the U.S. House of Representatives to initiate hearings into Project Gunrunner -- and presents the following information to help in their investigations. History “The gun used to kill Agent Brian Terry has been sourced, not to Mexico, but to a gun store in Phoenix that was actually part -- and cooperating -- with a federal investigation into arms trafficking. However, US agents did not stop the sale or the transfer of that gun to the cartels that killed Terry.” -- William Lajeunesse, Fox News broadcast (February 22, 2011) Around 11:00 pm on the night of December 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot and mortally wounded near Peck Canyon, Rio Rico, north of Nogales in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, approximately 10 miles north of the U.S.-Mexican border. Agent Terry, aged 40, a Marine Corps veteran and a “cop’s cop,” died shortly afterward. Four suspects were taken into custody, including one who was shot and transported to the hospital. Two months after the murder, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix announced that three of the four, Jesus Soria-Ruiz, Jose Angel-Camacho, and Francisco Rosario Camacho-Alameda would be deported to Mexico after pleading guilty to charges of illegal entry. As of this writing (February 23, 2011), they have been released for deportation. Despite being arrested at the scene, it was announced that no evidence tied the three to the shooting of Agent Terry. This is amazing. Should not these illegal aliens be kept in custody as witnesses? At best, they are material witnesses … at worst, they are perpetrators who assisted in the murder of Agent Terry. To date no one has been charged with the murder and the FBI has been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the investigation, except to assure that Terry was not killed by friendly fire from fellow agents. (It is the opinion of many -- not only those here at GOA, but also the whistleblowers -- that because these Mexican citizens have potential knowledge as material witnesses in the case, they should not be deported and, instead, should be kept in protective custody until they can be made available to independent Congressional investigators.) Two semi-automatic Kalashnikov-pattern rifles were found at the scene. When traced, it was discovered that these had been purchased from an American gun shop which had been cooperating with agents of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (commonly referred to as the ATF) in an investigation of gun smuggling known as Project Gunrunner. It was also learned that these weapons had been traced by the ATF at least once before, and that the agency had extensive knowledge of the person who bought them. Almost immediately, rumors began to circulate within the agency that the Phoenix office of ATF had botched the oversight and execution of Project Gunrunner, and that the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was an unintended but foreseeable consequence of poor planning, sloppy field craft and even sloppier management. Such a tragedy, it was said, had even been predicted by some agents beforehand. Worse, both street agents and responsible supervisors within the agency had tried to prevent such an outcome and were overruled by higher management. In the case of one, Darren Gil, the ATF attaché in Mexico City who went over the head of Phoenix Special Agent in Charge, William Newell, to ATF headquarters, such fidelity to duty was a career-ending act. Gil was forced into early retirement on December 31, 2010, two and a half weeks after the murder of Brian Terry. Gil was removed, at least in part, because he insisted that pursuant to treaty and established protocol, the Mexican government should be notified of the operation. It was not. The decision to remove Darren Gil and keep the Mexican government in the dark was approved, it is said, at least at the highest levels of the Justice Department. There are now five separate but connected accusations leveled by current or former employees of the ATF against ATF and DOJ officials in what has been dubbed the “Project Gunwalker“ Scandal: First, that they intentionally allowed perhaps as many as 3,000 firearms to "walk" across the U.S. border into Mexico with the purpose of boosting the statistics of seized firearms with American commercial provenance from Mexican crime scenes. Second, that they instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners. Third, that they intentionally withheld information about U.S.-sanctioned gun smuggling from the Mexican government. Fourth, that one of the rifles ATF allowed to be smuggled into Mexico was involved in the death of CBP Agent Brian Terry. (See the link to Grassley’s February 9 letter in the footnotes below.) Fifth, that high-level managers of ATF and DOJ are now, in tandem with the FBI, involved in covering up ATF and DOJ culpability in items One through Four, by various means including the unlawful threatening of current-serving ATF agents with personal knowledge of the case. Eventually, these charges came to the attention of U.S. Senators Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Chuck Grassley of Iowa through the new media which learned of the existence of potential whistleblowers from its own sources within ATF. The Senators then got in touch with the whistleblowers, so that they could be afforded some protection from the threats of their managers and so that the truth of the circumstances of the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry could be discovered. The story is starting to get out. As stated on February 22 by William Lajeunesse of Fox News: “The slug that killed Terry came from an AK-47 dropped at the scene. The weapon was traced to a Phoenix gun store, which had reported the sale to ATF's ‘Project Gunrunner.’” At present, many other revelations are expected. snip witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Am I to assume that you calculated that republicans outnumber democrats of all political office by 28%? (hence all politicians are stupid assholes?) And you lost me with the Italians comment. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

I see a difference between using legislative tactics to fight against a bill becoming law and fleeing your state to avoid government functioning. If they have to run away, they've lost. You'll also notice I didn't make this a left vs right, R vs D, or even good bill vs bad bill issue. My issue is with running away to stop government. Run a filibuster, tack on poison pill amendments, call sponsors unkind names, even mischaracterize the bill is newsy soundbytes; I don't care. That's politics, and until they change the system both parties can use the tactics. Running and hiding, and hiding from the law, is a whole other ball game. It also frees up the opposition to do anything they want on issues that aren't budget related. Congratulations cowards, you avoided a vote, stood by your biggest donors, and abandoned any chance of representing everyone else that voted for you. I hope the politicians still doing their jobs pass every bill the deserters hate while they're gone. That's what you get for giving up the gates. As for amazon's bit about up or down votes, I only want them/ask for them when the issue is clear and one side refuses to admit their position and instead tries to hide behind procedure. I don't mind pols on both side using tactics that are approved by both side for both sides, but I can't stand it when the won't even admit what they think about a bill. Makes it hard to vote for a pol to represent you when they won't say what they want, doesn't it? witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Still waiting. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

...for a nice little revolution? North Korea. That's right boys and girls, best Korea may go the way of the populist "jasmine revolution." Asia Times: Scent of Freedom in NK It'd be nice to see hope for Iran or China, but that's probably too much to hope for (and a lot more dangerous for anti-government types). witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*