regulator

The Democrats lost on every front in this Deficit Crisis but Social Security. Republicans expect to get SS in the next round. Every generation of political leaders have raided the surplus money from the Social Security Trust fund for over a half a century now. The fed even pays a 6% interest on this ‘DEBT.’ ..this money has been ‘BORROWED’ as in ‘gov’t-will-pay-it-back.’ .. Social Security has been loaning us money, not taking it. This $14 trillion deficit has nothing to do with Social Security. ..Apparently, the feds are STILL paying 6% interest on SS $4 trillion in IOU’s. That alone should come to about $350 billion a year in interest payments. And don’t forget about the years of surplus revenues still coming in from Social Security taxes.. the SS Trust fund should be closer to $25 trillion within 20 years. That is $5 trillion more than needed to cover ‘unfunded liabilities.’ In other words, SS is actually completely funded if we just stop raiding the funds from today onwards. Democrats seem to have lost the argument for the liberal agenda. This led to losing the public mandate in last Nov. elections. Today was the final act of this. Democrats therefore lost the policy initiative and naturally, the political play as well. This Republican and Democrat Deficit match is becoming the end game of the Tea Party against the entirety of the Democratic ideology. Laurels of the Democrats old moral mandates had become a powerful political machine. The power and politics have taken the focus. Their ideological fight has been almost entirely neglected. That liberal machine is now crumbling. Democrats only measure of influence is in how much was ‘not lost’ rather than gained. The remaining hold outs like Social Security are likely to be swept away during the second trial of this deficit debate. This will replay in just weeks from now. Democrats are down playing this political slap down. The President has reverted into supra-spin mode about the positives of this deal leaving him crossing over into a front man for the conservative’s view of this latest outcome. It’s all good. How did this happened? Republicans have been focused into a simple and effective public stance: cut taxes, reduce costs and scrap benefits. This commitment of purpose is credited to the Tea Party. They found more than validation. This startling victory heralds the Tea Party as the official economic policy of America. A new day has arrived in Washington. While kudos are passed around by supporters, the opposition is left snickering about an over reaching Neo-con plot that has left Democrats all but irrelevant as a political force on the economic front. This resentment personifies the problem with Democrats. The issue is not the Republicans. Democrats never made their case. Fairness is not an economic policy and therefore it cannot stand in an economic forum. As such, the only way out is to rephrase the debate. The problem is that Democrats are not sure what that would be and hence the quiet protest, but as of today, no series counter argument. What would a ‘serious’ counter argument be? This is about more than political posture. Rather, it about identifying what has been left out of debate. Re-phrasing the debate re-sets the options we have to work with in tackling the debt. There are other options out there. What are they? Here are some examples from the absurd to the simple that reveals how much is missing from today’s political debates. Remove Republicans from all federal benefits until taxes are raised. Cut off all Federal Benefits to Republicans. Once Conservatives agree to more taxes, they can be reinstated. Sound flippant? Well, yes, but it personifies how today’s ‘reforms’ sound to Democrats. When Republicans talk of cutting spending, Democrats hear them saying to dump seniors, children, students, moms, the poor and all the other social victims Democrats think we have in the US. ‘Dump Democrats’ is what liberals hear. There is truth to it, but Democrats seem to have just one response. ‘That’s not fair.’ Complaining about fairness sounds winy to conservatives. The response of course is that life is not fair. Grow up, get use to it and do something about it. From this perspective, conservatives have a point. The problem than is not Republicans, but the Democrats. They have failed to make a stronger case against budget cuts. A natural counter point: There’s plenty of revenue to cover all of America’s Democrats. We can cover all these benefits at the tax rates Republicans want. We simply don’t have enough revenue to cover Republican’s federal benefits too. If Republicans want to enjoy Social Security and all the rest, they have to raise taxes or go without these until revenues pick up. We should be generating more revenue given all the tax breaks Republicans pushed through – at least, if you believe in the tax-cut-to-growth paradigm. How this works is pretty simple. If you’re a Republican politician, you automatically lose all federal funding from office and travel, to health care and campaign tax deductibility. If you’re a Republican senior citizen, you get no Social Security check and the same again if you’re a student of a Republican household. The list goes on to include everyone from ex-Republican Presidents on down to the poor going in for medical treatments. Sound absurd? Well, yes it is by some measures. However, this better personifies the Democrats communication gap. Democrats see program cuts as a Republican move to punish Democrat constituents. Removing all the country’s Republicans from all Federal programs would demonstrate the point. And of course, cuts costs too. Yet, this does not get to the Democrats economic point about program cuts or the benefits ‘liberals’ are trying to save. Making that case is what Democrats should be doing. However, offering to removing all federal services from Republicans makes for great headlines. Lol. Democrats look at social services the way Republicans look at tax cuts. Republicans see tax cuts as a simple and obvious upgrade to business performance. Democrats see social services as a simple and obvious upgrade to people’s economic performance. Democrats see people as something like a corporate entity that provides an economic service that can be enhanced once equipped with education, health, transportation, housing etc. Democrats see benefit cuts as an economic impairment to such performance. Oddly, Democrats rarely make the economic case for their programs and instead talk about ‘fairness’ in response to Republican calls for budgetary discipline. Talking fairness makes Democrats sound out of touch with budgetary reality. Republicans come off looking more responsible. Democrats blame over reaching conservatives, but really, they just have made a better case and hence, they are winning the mandate and power. They will continue to do so until Democrats present an economic case for their programs the way Republicans have for tax cuts for business. Republicans don’t see these stimulus measures as ‘costs’ but rather as an investment that generates more money. Democrats have to show their program costs as an investment that raises more revenue too. How? It’s easy to do. Why Democrats struggle making their case is almost plain silly. Take Social Security. It’s a great example. In the last hundred years, life spans went from 58 years to 85. We just added 30 years to the average American’s life. India is only now making it into their 60’s. The US on the other hand has expanded our American life span by 50% = three whole decades. That’s huge. It’s miraculous to me. It’s what you hear of Gods and Angels doing. Here’s what’s more interesting. Today’s seniors actually spend less ‘sick’ time incapacitated over their counter parts from a hundred years ago. Top this off with the extra 2 to 3 decades of added work we get from them. A century ago, we didn’t have lots of 60 year olds running around working. We didn’t even have that many 50 year olds. For the most part, they were all dead. Today, 70 and even 80 year olds are ‘working.’ Make that 90 in some cases. Some say it’s because of the recession. I call it a miracle. So we have doubled their working years from 30 years to 60, without adding much to their ‘sick days.’ Wow. Does this cost us more money? Of course. Are we getting a whole lot more money from today’s seniors than we did a hundred years ago? You bet we do. How much more productive are today’s seniors over their counter part of a hundred years ago? Let’s count all the economic activity we get as compared to the cost for things like Social Security. Are we getting our money’s worth? My first impression is a resounding yes. We hear conservatives complaining how Social Security was suppose to be temporary but kept getting extended. And we now have seniors living longer. They make this sound like a bad thing. It’s an odd complaint. They sound awful. Yes, ‘we’ pay more, but how much more do we get in return? This side of the equation has never been developed. This is what the Democrats are suppose to be doing. They don’t. And no, this has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with great returns for small investments. It’s great economics. Democrats have failed to make the case. That is the Democrats fault, not the Republicans. We have great returns. OK, fine. What about budgeting? Can we really afford this when we are facing such large deficits? Can we really afford Social Security? Democrats have once again dropped the ball in answering this simple question. Let’s take a look at this budgeting side. Social Security still runs a ‘surplus’ in revenue by about $75 billion a year - if I remember correctly. Social Security has no net cost to today’s budget. So why all the ruckus about Social Security? We hear the horror stories how Social Security has $20 trillion in ‘unfunded’ liabilities. The surplus tax revenue was originally projected to run for another 10 to 15 years. Social Security is going to run out of money in the next 3 to 5 years so scream the conservatives. Now for the $4 trillion dollar questions: what happened to Social Security’s $4 trillion in IOU’s? Every generation of political leaders have raided the surplus money from the Social Security Trust fund for over a half a century now. The fed even pays a 6% interest on this ‘DEBT.’ These interest payments and surplus revenues would have ballooned into $15 trillion* if it was simply allowed to sit in the ‘trust’ (as it was originally intended). Instead, this money has been ‘BORROWED’ as in ‘gov’t-will-pay-it-back.’ This is another way of saying that today’s seniors loaned us about $15 trillion from their Social Security fund. Yes, WE borrowed $15 trillion worth of money from our seniors Social Security trust fund. (*Rough estimate. Surpluses varied so requires a year by year break down of revenue to get a more accurate picture. We suspect it to be higher than these figures used here.) Well, this paints a very different picture. Social Security has been loaning us money. This $14 trillion deficit has nothing to do with Social Security. Hmmmm. Now that’s an interesting little anecdote. And of course, let’s not forget about this 6% interest. Apparently, the feds are STILL paying 6% interest on SS $4 trillion in IOU’s. That should come to about $350 billion a year in interest payments. The SS should have about $10 trillion over the next decade (at compound interest rates). And don’t forget about the years of surplus revenues we still have coming in from Social Security taxes. Throw those into the mix and the SS Trust fund should be closer to $25 trillion within 20 years. $5 trillion more than needed to cover ‘unfunded liabilities.’ In other words, SS is actually completely funded if we just stop raiding the funds from today onwards. Forget about the $15 trillion seniors already loaned us. That was free money. A donation to the younger generation. Thank you Grandma. What do seniors get for their money? BLAME. We have neo-cons pointing the finger at grandma saying she is reason for these deficits. ‘Adding insult to injury’ comes to mind here. Somehow, our seniors have never made an issue of this mugging nor even this blame game where they are held up as the scapegoat to be sacrificed in this alter of political slight of hand. They are true ladies and gentlemen. Resolution tow: Stop stealing from Grandma’s SS fund. Democrats never made this case? Why? Don’t blame the Republicans. Social Security is an easy one. How about Medicare & Medical? Both of these programs are also self sustaining. The taxes collected for these programs covers their cost and in some years even had surplus revenue as well. Once again, this $14 trillion deficit has nothing to do with these programs. Conservatives of course again talk about the ‘unfunded liabilities.’ Maybe some adjustments need to be made to the program. I got a simple and effective idea reading an article from the Wall Street Journal: ‘The Story of Dick Cheney’s Heart.’ (7/9/11) They offered a big revelation there: ‘Heart disease accounts for about a third of what Medicare spends merely on hospitals, not counting drugs or other charges.’ Heart disease also remains one of the fastest growing areas of medical inflation. The simple solution maybe to have all heart related treatment partitioned off into its own separate health insurance plan. Medicare would now cover everything but heart related disease. Those that can afford the added premium, they get the service or a separate public option is created for those that can’t. In this way, we have just shaved off more than 35% of Medicare’s cost. All of Medicare’s other services are provided in full while reducing the overall budget. Whatever reforms we do decide to chose, the point remains, ‘THIS’ deficit has nothing to do with Medicare or Medical. This brings us to the $14 trillion dollar question. We see that entitlement programs like SS and Medicare did not cause this $14 trillion in deficits. If entitlements did not cause this deficit, what did? Well, now we have a discussion. Between $2 to $4 trillion went to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another $3 to $5 trillion went to bail out banks. And the remaining $2 to $4 were in ‘tax cuts for the rich.’ Depending upon which figures you want to use, $6 to $12 trillion of this entire deficit is from war, banking and tax breaks for the rich. The conservatives are now reaching in to take money from grandma’s Social Security savings to cover banks, rich folks and oil led war games in the Middle East. The $15 trillion politicians stole from Social Security was not enough. Now we have to steal more to cover wars and banks. This time there is no more ‘surplus’ and so they are actually talking about taking Grandma’s rent, food, medicine and, well, her life and all that ‘extra’ lifespan. Remember that big complain about seniors living longer? Well, these cuts can finally begin to correct this ‘problem’ too. Let’s say America did not spend a dime on any entitlement programs over the last 10 years. We would still have a $10 trillion deficit from war, bank bailouts and tax cuts. You can hear Democrats crying foul and ‘unfair’ once more, but there’s something more important. It’s really about getting to the heart of the problem. Than we can solve the actual problem itself. These deficits were not caused by entitlement programs nor are they the answer to them. Raghu-nomics looked at this riddle and found that the war and housing crisis nullified the economic stimulus of Bush’s tax cuts. The country therefore never received the anticipated returns from these tax cuts. The war sapped a great deal of the stimulus benefits of the tax cuts while the housing collapse cut short the time needed to cash in on the benefits of these tax cuts. In other words, a couple more years and the added economic growth would have generated the kinds of new tax revenue’s projected by conservatives. It could have happened sooner without the war sucking out so much of the man and capital from the markets. Pres. Bush’s tax cut actually provided us a workable economic model, but one that could not succeed in that time frame with a war going. So conservatives were both right and wrong about their tax cuts. Unfortunately, conservatives want grandma to pay for this mistake. Yes, unfair, but more importantly, stealing even more from SS is just bad economic policy. They are taking from a great program that works wonders for a failed program of tax cuts and failing banks. This is the definition of ‘throwing good money after bad money.’ Maybe the final irony is that many Tea Party members are actually Libertarian. Some consider Libertarians to be a nice word for anarchist. Anarchist are not looking for smart gov’t or great budgeting. Nor are they after reducing gov’t. They are here to end gov’t. They want gov’t out of everything but basic national defense and domestic protection: police. In other words, they want to end Social Security, Medicare, Medical and all the rest. These programs are treated as intrusive, oppressive and everything else sinister. Well, we now have the perfect solution. We can end it for Republicans much as they demand. They even get to have all those tax cuts they insist upon. They forfeit all their federal benefits until we have the revenues to match. That would be more honest like the Republican governors returning federal stimulus money. Meanwhile, Democrats get to have all the benefits they believe in and do so within the budget confines the Tea Party demands. You see, everyone is happy. Now, that my friends, is a counter argument. Democrats should try it some time. http://www.examiner.com/republican-in-phoenix/is-the-democratic-party-dead#ixzz1U0ZnnNKp

My moms maiden name is breitkreutz...is it worse than that?

I use skype on a daily basis for my job. I would assume that they arent local to you...or perhaps the manager you would be interviewing with is not local to you. It's not a difficult application to use and I would also assume that they would use the video feature so you could see their faces...but I could be wrong. Let me know if you need any help.

Ok so you should now adopt the following motto: "It's Miller time BITCHES!!!" carry on...

Fixed it for ya

Pretty sure theres some science in making roadside bombs...just saying.

I'm going back with my original post regarding what I think about the cops attitude...and quade...where DO you buy those rose colored glasses at?

Awesome...thats exactly what I was going for... Do I win a prize?

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/26-2 So what part of this is SOO DISTURBING?? The fact that more white people are living in more stable environments?...or the fact that we arent giving all our money to those less fortunate than us? If some people want what I have then do what I did....GET A FUCKING EDUCATION and find a way to market your abilities in the workforce. Its not all that difficult...but wait that would mean there'd be no time to sling crack and wait on welfare checks.

Shah, If you have admin rights do the following: Start>run>services.msc Now verify your printer spooler service is started. If you dont have admin rights...well lets just say its beneficial to be the IT guy...

------------------------------------------------------------ Quade, You make it sound like all of these cops have been drafted by the government to be cops. THEY VOLUNTEERED TO DO THIS LINE OF WORK!!!! THEY ALSO GET PAID FOR THEIR SERVICES. If they wanted to work in a donut shop they could. Its a free country and NO ONE is forcing them to be cops.

And at what point in the video did you see any of the passengers? Just because the cop says that he's seen that person before does it make it so? Even if he hasnt? I have yet to see one way or the other what the passenger looked like that would make you think their line of work was the oldest profession known to man.

I've always found that if you smoke the joint as fast as you can you wont have the burning feeling later on. Oh you were talking about another type of joint? Oh my bad.

An update on this story: The Los Angeles Police Academy adopted the motto "to protect and serve" in 1955. Eight years later, it was adopted by the entire department. As time went by, so many police departments followed suit that it became, in the eyes of much of the public, the motto (at least unofficially) of police in general. Cops were often called "peace officers" in those days. That's a term rarely used over the last 10 or 15 years, maybe longer. Now, they're "law enforcement officers." Keeping the peace has been replaced with keeping the great unwashed masses in line. At some point during that transition, police became the "Only Ones" who could be trusted to carry a gun in public (especially in Starbucks), or to own "assault weapons" (oops--I mean "patrol rifles," when in the hands of "Only Ones"), or 11-round magazines (which "Only Ones" would still qualify for even after retirement), etc. Some of us have noted with alarm the increasing "militarization" of our nation's police departments, although others don't think it's a problem. Josh Horwitz, of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV), for example once claimed in this 37-second video that we shouldn't "pile too much on the militarization of law enforcement" Yesterday, National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman (with more here), and Cheyenne Gun Rights Examiner Anthony Bouchard all wrote about a recent and chilling (chilling in the "inspires a cold rage" sense) example of the "Only Ones" attitude taken to its logical extreme. This video shows Canton, Ohio police officer Daniel Harless flying into a rage when he discovered that the motorist he was bullying was legally carrying a concealed firearm. Whenever Officer Harless managed in his tirade to interrupt his strings of obscenities long enough to articulate something approaching a coherent thought, that thought tended to be a death threat. Jalopnik transcribed a couple choice quotes, which will be sanitized a bit here, for purposes of family-friendliness: Right now, the [stuff] that you just pulled, I could blast you right in the mouth...I am so close to caving in you're [gosh darn] head...you're just a stupid human being...People like you don't deserve to move throughout public. Stupid idiot. Keep in mind that the motorist's "crime" here was being slow to inform officer Harless about his firearm--something he had been trying to do from the beginning, but was repeatedly told to "shut up." I swear to God man this little bull crap you just pulled right now has got me so hot. You know what I should have done? I'll tell you what I should have done. As soon as I saw your gun, I should have taken two steps back, pulled my Glock 40 and just put ten bullets in your ass and let you drop. And I wouldn'tve lost any sleep. And he would have been a nice witness as I executed you because you're stupid. The Canton Police Department's Facebook page says that Harless has been "relieved of all duty" (with pay, or without?) while an Internal Affairs investigation is conducted. That's not enough--not nearly enough. What that thug did, on camera, is a felony, and any non-"Only One" who had so provably behaved so vilely would be rotting in jail as he awaited trial. And why was his partner, who did nothing to rein in the rabid dog, not suspended? And about that "on camera" part. That was the squad car's dash cam. Officer Harless, in other words, knew about it--he wasn't being surreptitiously recorded, like the not-quite-equally-thuggish police officers in Philadelphia. If he knew about the camera, but behaved that way regardless, he apparently didn't expect to get in trouble over it. It turns out he was wrong (although not wrong enough), but what does it say about more general attitudes in that department, that he could be anything less than positive that such behavior is utterly unacceptable? Also, what do incidents like this one (and the Philadelphia one) say about some jurisdictions' laws against making audio/video recordings of police officers? What are they trying to hide? One more question. Do the police really want those who peaceably carry a defensive firearm to perceive a need to use that firearm defensively, when some raging, badged and armed goon screams that he's "so close to caving in your . . . head"? http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-st-louis/to-protect-and-serve-not-canton-ohio-or-many-other-places

QUADE!!...sorry I was just having a flashback from total recall.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MRRMgeOZqs Ok so how do YOU know he was trolling for hookers...the chances are relative to say the probability for him to be engaging in such activities would be high, but to say FOR SURE...that would fall into the category of speculation.

Allright Ive been pretty biased so far but how do YOU AND the cop know he was trying to pick up hookers....and the cop tells the guy he's lying at least 15 times. When if the cop had shut his mouth for a second and looked IN HIS DAMN HAND at the CHL license then this could have turned out differently. I'm not saying the driver was doing absolutely NO HARM...but with the cop just saying YOURE LYING after every sentence the driver says...it leads me to think the cop is trying to pin something on him. My father is a police office for over 30 years and after he transferred to the GCRS (gulf coast rescue squad) I've personally (I'm a licensed scuba diver and have assisted with some body searches in the past) and I can say I've never seen him become irate like this douchebag cop. Always professional no matter what the complaintant is saying or doing. Perhaps we live in a different time now.

what I had a refreshing beverage was pull out my glock 40 and pumped 10 rounds into your ass'...if thats not being a threat... Awesome...I hope everyone has a safe weekend

And actually he DID threaten him...(basically) 'what I SHOULD have done was pull out my glock 40 and pumped 10 rounds into your ass'...if thats not being a threat...what is? And like he gets extra credit or something because he can recite the model number of his pistol to a civilian. In the end he just looks like a guy that has taken his job way to seriouisly.

The thread might be misleading but if you pull up the URL you'd know that I just cut/pasted the title from the article. I didnt edit it.

Personally I think there is a great responsibility when having a concealed weapon permit, but this cops attitude was most likely directly proportionate to him being born with a 2 inch penis.

Among the pressures facing police officiers working the streets of America is the rising number of people legally carrying concealed guns. But when one such licensee was pulled over in Canton, Ohio, an officer threatened to shoot him on the spot. Here's the chilling video. The arrest took place in early June, but the video only came to light today from a group called Ohioans for Concealed Carry. They had been working on behalf of the driver of the Pontiac Grand Prix, known so far only as William, who was arrested and charged in the stop. As the 17-minute dashcam video shows, the two Canton police officers see the car pulled over in a neighborhood and detain a male passenger and a woman standing outside, whom the officers quickly identify as a prostitute. After telling the driver to stay put, they detain the male passenger and search the back of the car for a few minutes. Only after that search does Officer Daniel Harless start questioning William, some seven minutes into the video — who then admits, when he can get a word in, that he has a concealed weapon, and tries to show Harless his permit. When he discovers William's gun in his belt, Harless instead becomes enraged: "You are supposed to say that right off the goddamned bat!" Right now, the shit that you just pulled, I could blast you right in the mouth...I am so close to caving in you're goddamn head...you're just a stupid human being...People like you don't deserve to move throughout public. Stupid idiot." After searching the car, getting worked up with his partner, and hearing from police dispatch that William does indeed have a legal permit to carry a concealed weapon, Harless comes back to the cruiser where William has been detained: I swear to God man this little bull crap you just pulled right now has got me so hot. You know what I should have done? I'll tell you what I should have done. As soon as I saw your gun, I should have taken two steps back, pulled my Glock 40 and just put ten bullets in your ass and let you drop. And I wouldn'tve lost any sleep. And he would have been a nice witness as I executed you because you're stupid. William was charged with two misdemeanor counts; one for stopping in the roadway, and another for failing to inform officers of his weapons. After the video surfaced, the Canton police announced that Harless had been put on indefinite suspension last month, and the case forwarded to Internal Affairs. Ohio gun activists are raising money for William's defense. And the rest of us get to hope the next misunderstanding ends more amicably, rather than less. http://jalopnik.com/5823543/cop-threatens-to-execute-driver-over-concealed-weapon-permit

---------------------------------------------------------- Since you seem to be pretty far up the OP's ass can you tell me what he had for lunch?

I drive 50 miles each way for over two hours total each day. I get pissed when someone slow gets in the left lane and stays there without moving over or even looking in their rearview mirrors. But I've been behind all kinds of cars thinking...oh this has got to be a ...oh lets just say "mexican' they usually drive pretty damn slow...then I get up next to them and its a white dude. No matter how many times I think..oh it'll be...this...its something I dont expect. All kinds of people drive slow...its how you creatively pass them up that sets you apart.

Look the one thing you need to know is that every period of say 3 months or so added to the hair folicle test will increase the price for them to pay. So for instance the company my wife works for...they give a folicle test, but it only goes back 3 months. Some do 6 months...but if they opt for more than a year then it'll be massive bill for them to pay that they mostly likely wont deem necessary. What kind of work will you be doing?

---------------------------------------------------------- Ok fine I'll help Shah out...I think old people suck...they cant drive for SHIT.