The Goat Pen

Jungle Rat wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opini ... d=fb-share

...and yet a whole host of people are ready to stand up and demand their freedom from tyranny when the government wants to put a ban on weapons whose sole purpose is to maximize its killing power of humans, but will keep it moving pass issues like these.

Shameful shit.

Yep.

Romney says Ryan's plan to supply vouchers for Medicaid/Medicare is dead

freeing him up to attack Obama for taking money away to pay for Obamacare.

interesting tactic. I would assume his plan is to capitalize on the popularity of Ryan as a VP pick (and now I realize the timing of picking Ryan might just have been sped up to derail the pressure to show his tax returns) without actually doing anything Ryan wants.

This week talking points put out by the GOP is to not use words like Entitlement Reform or Vouchers, and use words like strengthen, preserve, protect in regards to Medicare/Medicaid which is exactly the words Ryan is now using.

The American people are sheep.

Yep...and that won't change.

"health care and its rise and our refusal to cap helath care spending fo 90 yo grandma is our major problem"

If we cut defense spending by, IMO, a very reasonable 50% (at least), we'd have plenty of money for health care and anything else. Of course, I'm against simply transferring that money from defense to any other government program, which is likely what would happen, but I'd rather it be spent on human needs at home than another $200 billion worth of planes and shit that will be obsolete by the time they get around to making them. Also, if you cut defense spending that much, alot of it would undoubtedly come from laying off employees (soldiers, contractors, desk jockeys and paper pushers of every stripe), and then they'd have to find real jobs which aren't there, so then you've got a spike in unemployment. Basically, you can't win when it comes to the federal government. Which is exactly how they've designed it...

the issue is there are too many people that have grown dependent on government.

You can just yank the rug out from under those people and to fundamentally change the system to wean people off is going to take 30 years.

That is why I've been a Ron Paul fan. Right off the bat he shuts down every military base we have overseas and takes that money to shore up entitlements. Then he wipes out every government program that is well intentioned but ultimately done more harm in the long run - the Dept of Education for example in an effort to get our spending dramatically down. Finally he implements a plan where younger Americans look to other sources for income security and health in their retirement years - such as the return of private pensions as perks,huge tax breaks in an effort to save (elimination of the IRS for one), and a more streamlined independently run health care system where small clinics like the ones you see popping up at Wal-Marts and local CVS pharmacy's provide affordable alternatives for the uninsured.

While Ron Paul isn't too far off from Ryan's plan, he makes no bones about realizing the dependency Americans have on the system and takes a more rational approach of recognizing that the money has to come from defense, but not at the expense of our national security on our own borders.

The border of other countries, not so much.

There are way too many foreign bases and most of them are cold war hangovers that need to go, but I don't think eliminating all foreign bases is in the best interest of our national security. We need to go to Germany and Japan and say you need to start paying for your own defense, you are both G7 economies for God's sake. I can see having one base in Eastern Mediterranean, one base in mid-Atlantic, one base South Pacific, and one in North Pacific

Our borders end at the Atlantic and Pacific

Japan is in the Pacific

I love how we just decided to take Hawaii and make it a part of the US. Nice, tropical islands for our well-heeled vacationers and, oh yeah, none of you asian types better fuck around over there, b/c then you're fucking with "us"! That's the United States right there, boy! LMAO...

Someone wrote a constitution for Japan that limits their ability to defend themselves...

Even against insults?

Romney says Ryan's plan to supply vouchers for Medicaid/Medicare is dead

I don't get this. The advantage of Ryan is that he actually has a plan which is the accepted plan of the House Republicans. To say otherwise doesn't make any sense. Last night, Romney said that his plan on Medicare and Paul Ryan's plan were the same, if not identical. He keeps going back and forth.

surprise

I heard him say it - "that part of the plan is dead"

so technically their plans are the same....after he told Ryan to get rid of all the shit that would keep people voting for him away in droves.

We need bases in places like Afghanistan in Iraq.

We do not need to occupy entire nations.

And let's not forget that we should not put one on Guam...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs23CjIWMgA

police shooting

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/vi ... chigan.cnn

Soledad is letting her mother's side of the family show up a bit lately.

[crazy on the shooting. Cops will always get a pass on force when a weapon held by a perp is involved, though]

Owlman wrote:police shooting

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/vi ... chigan.cnn

I don't see how the police can in anyway justify that amount of force used there. I know he had a weapon, but a knife is no way as threatening as a gun. Just shoot him in the leg first, or something.