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The license plate issue is definitley weird, but I can't see any basis for forcing a state to put anything in particular on a plate. The SCV's argument seems to be entirely, "But the state does other Confederate stuff too. Therefore it has to do this." That would be the mother of all slippery slopes--give the SCV everything it ever asks for (free stuff, holidays, you name it), or they'll sue.
The best rule for natural-born citizenship would be this:
1) If the parents are citizens or legal residents of the same country (at least one of them being an actual citizen) at the time of their child's birth, then the child is a natural-born citizen of that country, regardless of where it was born.
2) If the parents are not citizens or legal residents of the same country at the time of their child's birth, and the child was born in one of those countries, then it is a natural-born citizen of the country where it was born.
3) If the parents are not citizens or legal residents of the same country at the time of their child's birth, and the child was born in a country of which neither parent is a citizen, then it is not a natural-born citizen of any country. But consideration should be made in law to deal with allowing such children to become naturalized citizens based on long-term residence, because there's nowhere to deport them to. And there's hardly going to be a flood of tri-national families immigrating anywhere.
Based on that and what I know about the individuals, Barack Hussein Obama junior (who was born in the United States to one American citizen) is a natural-born citizen of the United States of America, and Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (who was born in Canada to an American Citizen and a Cuban Citizen who resided legally in the United States) is too. If you restricted the parental conditions to just citizenship, Cruz would not be a natural-born citizen of anywhere.
That $80 Billion figure can't be right, unless you're using a very narrow definition of "compassion". Spending on school lunch programs alone spend about $9 Billion per year. Social Security payout the exceed what the person paid in, Medicaid, money for refugees, FEMA, etc...
I suspect Thom is being very selective with what is include and what isn't.
Origin of IATROGENIC (of or relating to illness caused by medical examination or treatment.):
Greek iatros physician + English -genic So by the above reasoning, iatorgenic illnesses are illnesses that CAUSE medical examinations and treatments.
"Genic" simply means relating to origins or genes. "Anthropogenic" is the term of art used, it's fine, and it means what the people who coined it and promulgated it intended it to mean.
Also, none of us focus-grouped "global warming" or "climate change" to make them more "frightening." They're descriptive terms that fell out of the data. Science is not a PR campaign or an election. The key issue with the current warming in this anthropocene era (not quite official yet) is simply the rate of change.
HAARP has shut down. It was a sequester victim. I did the first reporting from the HAARP site the day it opened. It never controlled the weather and the chemtrails story has no basis in science or evidence. Global warming is real and caused by anthropogenic carbon releases, due to industry, transportation and animal husbandry. Deal with it. God won't help us all, so we have to ignore rank idiocy like this, educate ourselves, and fix our own problems, ourselves. Accommoding absolute nonsense won't give us any leverage.
Reply to #10 Jefferson and Jackson both believed in power to the vast majority, "the working people," within the context of their times...obviously they were both slave owners who held manifest destiny ideas as the way to accommodate an ever increasing population.
They however had faith in "good government" the type of government put in place by the people and the kind that represents and responds to the will of that people....as opposed to only the desires of the super wealthy. Jefferson constantly fought this notion that only the wealthy class could determine what was best for the country, an idea guys like Adams, Hamilton, Marshall, who had little faith in the rabble clung to.
I certainly didn't intend to imply that men like Jefferson and Jackson were anti representative government, only that they were still surrounded by those who would use government as a tool for their own self enrichment at the expense of everyone else....this kind of government is the bad kind! It's always been that way.....we only have breaks when good people like FDR take on these forces of darkness and greed.
To sum up.... I believe you are convinced that government will always be bad, that is, you have zero faith in the possibility of the good kind. You accuse me of being a low info citizen when you yourself believe that a marketplace absent of government will cause everything to be wonderful. Very funny....that kind of unrestrained capitalism has been tested...it's called feudalism.
The government you're unhappy with is owned by the billionaires, which makes them our representatives for all practical purposes. Those same billionaires support FOX Teapublican propaganda, it's the tool they use to place their shills in political office. I don't see the Kochs supporting a democrat for president. For god sakes, wake up! You don't see the difference between government by and for only 100 hundred rich out of control citizens, and another one that is by and for 99.99% of us, but no longer has any power thanks to big money having its way in elections?????????
Speaking of the corpse media....I've seen two separate articles in the USA Today paper recently. Headlines read; "Winter ice in Artic close to record-low level" and "Earth endures its warmest winter on record."....not a mention of climate change in the articles...lmao! Oh well, at least Gannett published something related!
I'm sure that Jefferson and Jackson were democratic Socialists.
There is a lot better way to do things. If 60% of the people want something, they can "vote" for it in the market by spending their own money the way they see fit. It's much better than the 60% imposing their worldview on the 40%.
Fox, MSNBC, CNN are all propaganda machines. The truth is that Fox is pretty much as pro-goverment as the others.
You guys, progressives, are just as low-information as the Faux News watchers. You are both statists. You worship government.
The only person on Fox who is worth a damn is the Judge.
A referendum vote or a rigorous national poll on the two budget proposals would be a great way to measure just how much damage Fox and the corspe media have done to our democracy. I'm quite sure if the "rabble" were allowed media exposure to the content of both budget proposals the Teapublican Party would be finished....and ole bombastic 2950-10K intends that last statement to be understood with the utmost sincerity on my part.
I used the word "rabble" for citizens because throughout our history , Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, to now, those with money and power have justified their complete control over our economy with the idea that ordinary working class citizens, the "rabble", which is how they have referred to us, are incapable of making the right choice. In reality the Fascists are simply afraid the rabble will make the right choice for the vast majority, but the wrong choice for the relative few Fascists....that right choice would be unions, fair pay, single payer healthcare, basically the progressive budget and Democratic Socialism.
I for one am a proud member of the Rabble Party!
If allowed to vote directly on the Progressive's budget, I suspect somewhere upwards of 60% of the people would approve. Just like most people who reject "Obamacare" will overwhelmingly approve the policies included in the AFA. Our problem is that 20 or 30% of the same group that will vote for the policies will also vote for the same congress people who will make sure that the Progressive budget doesn't see the light of day.
For years, I have been trying to figure out how Republicans can get so many people to vote against their own best interests. To me it comes down to two things:
1) we are saddled with a large number of low infomation voters who don't really think much about the consequences of their vote and
2) a very effective right wing education machine - Fox So-Called News and all the rest who use misinformation and scare tactics to convine people that their way is the best.
I would like to see our media (you know, the good guys) unite to spread the word that you want to vote for people who will support policies that are good for you ("you" includes about 90% of the people voting).
Why can't we have a positive education policy that is just as strong as their negative version? We should not allow any candidate to run for office who runs away from their President and their party as many did in 2014. Let's sing out of the same hymnal like the Republicans - just sing a positive song.
Loren Bliss, China remains a nominally Leninist state, i.e., it remains a nominally benevolent dictatorship and this newest autocrat could actually BELIEVE all that political theory.
Under him this embrace of capitalism could be a Chinese version of Lenin's N.E.P..
I give you two quotes. The first is from Xi's predecessor, Zhang Zhemin, "To get rich is glorious."
The other is from Lenin, "We're going to hang the capitalists and they're going to sell us the rope."
ChicagoTim, willful obtuseness? Did you bother reading the research paper? It's pretty broad in scope and not very controverted - or controvertible, I'd say - i.e., has pretty apparently withstood peer review and is therefore pretty definitive on the subject.
Walmart is the largest employer in the U.S. and one of the very largest - if not THE very largest - retailer in the United States and it is precisely because of its low wage and aggressively anti union business model that so many less unethical and more scrupulous retailers are forced out of business by Walmart as they can't compete with that roguish model. Thus it is also very definitive of the subject.
I lived in Western European socialist democracies in the 70's and felt freer there than I ever felt here in the U.S.. Things like national, absolutely cost free, assured healthcare and education, virtally assured, secure, living wage employment, assured affordable housing sure make an ordinary, not-rich person pretty darn free.
What Stossel means is RICH people are free wherever there's inequality, free to enslave everybody else.
That choice of Dickensian nightmare or Soviet gulag is an old, old false dichotomy.
The Progressive Caucus Budget is far from perfect, but that's to be expected. However, it appears that it may be a close as we can get to what ordinary individuals can live with. Nevertheless, we know Congress, as well as the Presidency, isn't in business to cater to the ordinary citizentry. Their real job these is to bow and scrap to the 1%---the oligarcy---which controls this country.The wheeling and dealing is about the difference the factions between the 1% elites. The remaining fight is over any crumbs that's left over like licking the bottom of the sauce pan.
You voted for Obama twice! You truly are blind. It's like the Faux News watchers who voted for W twice.
This and much worse have been commonplace for at least fifty years, ever since Richard Nixon started the Culture War.
Roland
We don't need no stinking accountability or sense of reality, we're the exceptional US.
Roland
In the US news is entertainment for the semi-conscious.
Roland
And Congress cannot be allowed to take our Social Security funds for their pet projects, i.e.: more wars.
Roland
Dane, I agree!
I am completely in favor of a "people's budget." It is sad that we have to refer to it as that. All budgets should address the needs of the people these so-called representatives are elected to serve.
PSYCHOPATHS, ALL OF THEM!!
When we don't vote, that's what we get. But sometimes when we do vote, we get it anyway. And I voted for Obama twice.
Hillary Clinton will not be getting my vote. I'll vote for one of those so-called "unelectable", marginablized candidates before I vote for her.
Gr8macaw, excellent post.
Re: tottcatering
#5
Concerning your quote: "I do believe that Global Warming is destroying the planet and everything else that is trying to survive, but what amazes me why most folks and my dear friend Thom don't see the big elephant in the room that is causing the marjority of Global Warming."
The "big elephant in the room" is Human Overpopulation and our inability to accept that we must stop overbreeding as a species. There is no solution to our propensity to "be like fruitflies and multiply" - except for us to voluntarily stop overbreeding and using all the "nutrients" in our "petri dish," our one and only planet Earth. We can try using alternative energy sources, stop eating meat, attempt geoengineering, (and other stop-gap "fingers in the dam" attempts to slow global warming), but if we don't stop our need/right for human multiplication, one day (most likely sooner rather than later) we'll use up too much of the earth's resources and poison ourselves just like any other organism(s) habitating a closed system. Unlike the rest of animals on our planet, humans are capable of understanding the future possibilities of our actions ...we just don't seem capable of actually acting like the evolved, sentient beings that we are. It is Humans who are "destroying the planet and everything else that is trying to survive!"