All_Pro_Bills

The problem everybody avoids admitting exists is American's have been conditioned to love war and violence and have been desensitized from it due to constant exposure. Add in a failing education system and broken families due to a terrible economy for working people that results in lots of dysfunction and kids turning out mentally FUBARed. We had access to guns when I went to high school and lots of gripes and grievances with lots of other students and cliques but nobody on either side of these disputes went out and shot up the town because of it all. Today, there's simply was too many people running loose out there that are a couple cans short of a 6-pack. But embrace diversity. Even if they are criminally insane. Also, there's lots of guns in Switzerland too. Mass shootings not so much. Because of the culture and not because of gun control. The geniuses in our government left billions in military grade weapons in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and outside of their governments killing lots of people there aren't a lot of mass shootings perpetrated by disgruntled civilians. For the major source of violence look no further than the consensus blood lust for war in Washington's uni-party establishment. The same dick-wads that want to arm every person on Earth in every other country want to take all the guns out of hands of civilians here. How's that reconcile?

The sad fact is guns or no guns, Americans are a very violent people and our civil and social order are breaking down as a result of all the wars and conflicts brought to us by the Washington uni-party, Hollywood & video game industry violence peddling, and a general breakdown in family and civil order along with a failing educational system. Blame who you want but that's where it stands.

I can't imagine that anyone on this message board, or Americans in general, are rooting for more mass shootings. So when it comes to mass shootings there are no sides. The problem is that when one of these events happens with all too often regularity, the conversation immediately turns to a political crusade full of the usual talking points about white supremacy ideology and the need to suppress and weed it out or the need for more stringent gun control laws. In this case we can scratch off the first one but I'm almost certain somebody, somewhere out there will attempt to make that case. And as for gun control as long as the solution is always focused on infringing on the rights law abiding citizens to legally defend themselves its just a non-starter. And that's because most gun owners and many non-gun owners conclude the purpose of activists demanding more stringent gun laws is not to stop these shootings but instead to use them as an excuse to address their long-standing desire to disarm the private citizen. Which they believe will leave them living in the same type of shooting gallery environment that exists in cities like New York and Chicago which nobody in charge in those jurisdictions appear eager to address. And at the mercy of public officials who through the pandemic have demonstrated though their zeal for authoritarian control that they can't be trusted. A good start might be identifying and getting the nuts off the streets reversing the policies of letting them run loose.

So moving on from the 2020 campaign theme of racism to the 2022 theme for the mid-terms of class warfare. Along with the DNC's top slogan, "sure food and gas costs a lot more but think how thin you'll look from dieting and how healthy you'll be from walking everywhere". These people are so clever!

The beef is the Democrats are likely to get slaughtered in the mid-terms so they need to make up a bunch of imaginary issues and bullsheet to scare voters away and keep them in control of Congress.

Can't it be both?

In a restaurant I overheard one of the campaign officials requesting Russian dressing for their salad. One of the servers mentioned they've met with Russian dressing over 140 times. Clearly a 'red flag' national security issue. I immediately contacted Adam Schiff and the FBI which respectively responded by scheduling hearings and initiating an investigation. NBC and other major networks expressed interest in exposing the story.

When the goal of the disinformation team is to protect the disinformation generated by the government from scrutiny, challenge, and inspection its hard to spin it as some kind of public service initiative. Why not just call job title as "Czar of making sure we can get away with lying to you about everything".

A flat tax absent lots of exemptions, deductions, exclusions, and schedules like depreciation and amortization would be much more convenient and simple but also hugely disruptive to the accounting and tax preparation professions. I've traditionally itemized but since Trump screwed individual payers in high tax states with SALT limitations the standard deduction has been the best option and my effective tax rate has been higher the past few years.

Is there anything in the tax code that prohibits the wealthy from voluntarily paying more? If not, then cut a check for 20% of your net worth and hand it over to the tax man. Frankly, I always find these statements made by the rich as buillsheet publicity stunts intended to curry favor and popularity with the activist mob but absent any real intent to pay "more".

Well, I agree with you completely, my back and forth with Tibs is about an unrelenting obsession that America is acting to protect democracy. I think that's an ideological fantasy. My position is the US is acting purely out of self-interest. Like it or not the US sets the rules governing the world order and whether or not a country is a democracy or not is not important. The most important fact is either they follow the rules set by the US or they do not follow the rules set by the US. Russia, and a few other countries, dangerously a growing number, do not want to or do not follow the rules. Rule breakers must be put down. So like the Romans sending a couple legions to a far away province to put down a rebellion the US deploys various State department diplomats, intelligence operatives, and scores of military advisors and boatloads of armaments and financial aid. To restore the order. In this case by intervening through proxy state Ukraine letting them do all the fighting and dying while most likely compensating their leadership very well under the table. That's all this is about. Maintaining the business arrangements and rules of the Empire. But the primary goal of supporting democracy? You can't be serious!

In my view Trump's tariffs did nothing but make consumer goods cost more and provide some "raw meat" for his base. But how many U.S. companies actually on-shored their operations? They mostly stuck to their Chinese operations or moved to someplace else in Asia. Maybe the supply chain mess will force some to evaluate their sourcing strategies now?

Self government! Ukraine is completely controlled by Washington consistent with how previous versions of Ukrainian governments were completely controlled by Moscow. You really think Zelensky is calling the shots? If he engaged in peace talks or a deal with Russia without US permission he'd be killed.

Do I? I had absolutely zero input into the decisions that moved critical production over to Taiwan while becoming totally dependent on that island nation for our supply of necessary components. Nor did I have a hand in granting China favorable trade status or encouraging US companies to move their operations to China, allow the CCP to steal proprietary technology as part of the arrangement, or allow the US mainland to become dependent on Chinese imports. Lots of US companies and their executives got rich, lots of US workers lost their jobs, lots of US cities and towns turned into welfare centers. Meanwhile, Chinese oligarchs and the CC party got rich too. So here we are on the verge of more war threats which could have been avoiding with a little forward thinking. But today's corporate leaders believe 3 months ahead is long term planning and politicians only worry about the next election. China plays the long game of boiling the frog over 40 plus years and the dumb-dumbs running US policy wake up one day to realize we're painted into a corner. So now we've got the choice of giving in to China or sending our sons and daughters to die in order to defend an island some 8 to 10 thousand miles away? Who could have seen this coming when dealing with an authoritarian communist dictatorship while being armed with a nonsensical theory that through "engagement" they'd become "more like us"?

Your mindset of thinking about warfare only in terms of territorial conquest is limiting your assessment of the situation and you're either not comprehending or willing to understanding the "big picture" of what's going on here.

Yes, our government has an outstanding track record of getting involved in all kinds of foreign adventures in the past 20 plus years without being held to any standard of accountability or providing clear and measurable objectives and they've all worked out great. I'm sure this one will too. What could go wrong? Economically things couldn't have worked out better for Russia or worse for the US and Western Europe to this point. Ukrainians are being killed and the country being destroyed, a worldwide food crisis is coming, prices of all kinds of commodities and energy are through the roof, and while they've suffered an unexpectedly high level of casualties and setbacks militarily, the Russian Ruble is worth more now than it was before the war started and Putin's foreign trade income is double. Great work.

I senior alert was sent out to all cell phones about a lost old guy, who escaped from the basement of an estate house in Delaware after the November 2020 election, that's been wandering around South Korea making incoherent statements about US Asia policy while claiming to be the President. The message requested if you see him please call the White House hotline (1-800-find-joe) and they will send out a team to retrieve him. By order of acting US President Obama.

I disagree, specifically because if there was indeed provable collusion with a foreign government in violation of campaign or criminal codes and law, there should have been a multitude of other campaign and administration officials besides the President that could have been indicted and brought to trial through the judicial process and not through impeachment. But legal action through the Federal Courts was not taken. And my expectation is the results of the Durham investigation, where I expect multiple indictments of familiar names, will provide clear evidence that all things Russia point to the fabricated contents of the Steele dossier and the Clinton campaign.

Yet, given all the said "evidence" Mueller accumulated on collusion with a foreign government the entire investigation went nowhere after the release of the report. What happened?

Sure those people are wealthy. And your fathers experience is what it is. But once again you're committed to viewing the current time in the context of past social conditions. I'm talking the present, today in 2022. Those past conditions no longer exist. The facts are, in 2022, there are lots of issues impacting poverty. Income, education, family structure, crime, access to transportation & proximity to employment opportunities, drug and alcohol addiction, fatherless households, teenage girls with children with no education, no job living with relatives. Generational poverty. Law, social customs, all conditions have changed and improved over the last 60+ years but surrounded by all that generational poverty continues on without much impact. The MAJOR factor is there are cultural norms and customs governing the lives of the poor that inhibit them from functioning in society at-large. Much different culturally from the middle class social context where most of us exist. And the wealthy you cite? I'd have no more chance of navigating the culture of the wealthy than a person in poverty has navigating the culture of the middle class. And unfortunately, almost all institutions, companies, organizations, and social situations and social support systems are designed and focused on the middle class social norms and existence. A major reason why people in poverty have difficulty dealing with "life". This is the reality of the challenges they face. Do you have any experience interacting with poor people about their situation? Or personally know people or some relatives that are poor? Does your job bring you into contact with people in poverty? Do you understand their thought processes, what they face, how they view the world, the social context of their lives? I'd be curious how anyone that understands the behaviors and conditions of people in generational poverty can conclude that racism is the thing keeping them poor. Because it isn't.

So the basis of your entire opinion is we all live in a model of 1950's rural Alabama and absolutely nothings changed in 72 years. Our entire society is frozen in that time. The Civil Rights act was never signed into law and anti-discrimination laws & regulations and affirmative action initiatives and other legislation and economic and social programs to assist the poor don't exist and blacks have made no social or economic progress since the Civil War ended. Sound right?

I'm asking you for some hard figures to back up a premise that you're peddling here as fact that is actually nothing more than your opinion. I'll ask again. How are you measuring the impact of racism on keeping poor blacks poor?

You originally said it was "the reason". So what is you definition of racism and how are you measuring it? And as a result of your calculations what percentage of poor blacks are kept poor by racism?

I'm saying there's no demonstrable evidence that racism is the sole cause of black poverty. Its a belief. A false belief. There are other factors. And ignoring these other factors inhibits addressing the problem.

If racism is the determining factor of black poverty then why aren't all white people rich? And absent your ability to articulate that why are there numerically more poor white people than poor black people? You're missing something. Want to know what that is?