Muda69
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Posts posted by Muda69
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4 minutes ago, gonzoron said:
There are a few towns in Indiana that I use JHA for, but still visit if required.
Is Elwood on the list?
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/elizabeth-warren-tax-plan-is-asset-forfeiture/
Quote...
Senator Warren apparently has found her guiding spirit and has announced along with her presidential campaign a campaign of economic terror based on force, not law. Specifically, she has proposed to begin seizing a portion of the assets of some wealthy Americans, a course of action that the federal government has no constitutional power to undertake. The seizure of assets is a fundamentally different thing from the taxation of income, which itself took a constitutional amendment to implement. What Warren is proposing is essentially a federal version of the hated asset-forfeiture programs that have been so much abused by law-enforcement agencies — minus the allegation of criminal misconduct and made universal and annual.
The senator is in a bit of a panic: She hadn’t expected to face a challenge from her left in her quest for the Democratic nomination, but as her entire party lurches in a chávista direction, she has been forced to go one step farther lest she fall into the “moderate” class, whose members almost certainly will be slaughtered in the 2020 Democratic primary. And so she proposes this ridiculous and illegal course of action.
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Funny thing about Senator Warren’s asset-forfeiture scheme. Like many similar proposals, it probably would not raise much revenue and might in fact leave the country as a whole economically worse off. And the people advising Senator Warren on that are perfectly content with that outcome, because, as Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman argue in the case of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to radically increase income taxes, this is to be understood not as an economic question but as a moral one: It is simply morally obligatory to hurt wealthy people. “The point of high top marginal income tax rates is to constrain the immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches,” they write.
And who gets to decide what’s merited and what’s unmerited? What are the chances that, say, Senator Warren’s modest millions or her multimillion-dollar home are deemed “unmerited”? What decides, of course, is “unrestricted power based on force, not law,” because the law cannot substantially answer that kind of question but can only instead encode the desires of people with power, which is what Senator Warren is seeking more of.
Again, we have been here before.
When the socialist schemes of Joseph Stalin et al. foundered, they blamed the “kulaks,” i.e. those who had enjoyed the “unmerited accumulation of riches.” There was never any real definition of a “kulak.” Basically, if you had one cow and your neighbor had two, he was a kulak. Stalin announced the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” as a necessary precondition for the progress of his program, which was, like Kamala Harris, “for the people.” Dekulakization (раскулачивание) was responsible for the deaths of about 5 million subjects of the workers’ paradise. This was necessary, the socialists argued, because the kulaks dominated the political party system (“for the rich, wealth begets power,” Zucman writes), because expropriating their wealth was necessary to fund benefits for the people (“The affluent,” Saez and Zucman write, “can contribute more to the public coffers. And given the revenue needs of the country, it is necessary”), because the kulaks were hoarders (under the headline “Elizabeth Warren is trying to save capitalism from itself,” David Atkins of Washington Monthly decries the “artificial lack of resources caused by the looting and hoarding of the obscenely wealthy”), etc.
But do our modern progressives really propose to liquidate these “hoarders” as a class?
Saez and Zucman write hopefully of the prospect that high tax rates would make the class of people with larger incomes “largely disappear.” Representative Ocasio-Cortez declares it “immoral” that we have a “system that allows billionaires to exist.” Marshall Steinbaum, the research director of the progressive Roosevelt Institute, wrote: “It’s increasingly clear that having wealthy people around is a luxury our society can no longer afford.”
And, so, here we are again: The kulaks must be liquidated as a class. But who is a kulak?
We might glean some insight into that from the progressives’ thinking in the recent free-speech debates, which goes something like this: “We’re all in favor of free speech, but Nazis should be chased from the public square, by violence if necessary, and we should harass their employers in order to ruin them financially. Also, everybody who disagrees with me is a Nazi, including children wearing hats that I don’t like.”
Indeed, who will be the kulaks if the progressive wing of the uni-party takes power? It's a scary question.
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Two Proposals To End the Government Shutdown Just Failed in the Senate: https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/24/two-proposals-to-end-the-government-shut
QuoteParts of the federal government will remain closed after two proposals to re-open the government failed on the floor of the U.S. Senate Thursday afternoon.
A plan backed by Democrats that would have funded the government for two weeks without including $5.7 billion for President Donald Trump's border wall received 51 votes—short of the 60 required in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. Even if it had passed, it may have faced a veto by Trump.
Separately, a Republican-backed proposal to fund the government and Trump's wall received just 50 votes, with several Republicans voting against the proposal. That plan would have increased borrowing by about $20 billion to find the border wall and spend $12.8 billion on disaster relief, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Even if it had passed, it would have faced an uncertain future in the Democrat-controlled House.
And so the shutdown rolls on.
Thursday's votes provide a nice illustration of the dilemma facing Congress as the government shutdown reached its 34th day. It's impossible for either party to get a funding bill through the Senate without bipartisan support, and there does not appear to be enough bipartisan support for much of anything at the moment. Sen. Joe Manchin (D–W.V.) was the only Democrat to cross party lines and support Trump's border wall, and the six Republicans who backed the Democratic proposal were not enough to push it over the line.
Trump's efforts at blaming House Democrats for the shutdown—a shutdown that he said last month would be his responsibility—are only going to make it more difficult to reach any compromise that could pass the Senate.
The next attempt to reach a breakthrough is expected to come from the House, where Democratic leaders are reportedly prepping a bill that would spend $5.2 billion on border security—mostly high-tech options like drones and cameras—without granting permission for Trump to build a physical wall.
Trump has rejected that idea. On Thursday, he wrote on Twitter that "very simply, without a Wall it all doesn't work."
That's the other complicating factor. Even if a compromise to reopen the government could find a path through Congress, it may face a veto from Trump—who has spent this week embarking on a misleading effort to turn his border wall proposal into a rhyming slogan. There's not much in the way of an obvious solution to all this, short of Trump backing down.
While political gridlock is almost always entertaining, the current shutdown has done nothing to actually reduce the federal government's power or cost. If anything, the shutdown is likely to swing public sentiment towards bigger government, since each passing day brings new stories of how the shutdown is creating hardships for public employees in a variety of ways.
But the ongoing shutdown does create opportunities for finding ways to get government out of areas where it really shouldn't be in the first place. Like air traffic control, for example. Or the completely unnecessary agency within the Department of Treasury that's supposed to approve the labels that go on beer bottles. Regardless of how the shutdown eventually shakes out, one can hope that the past month has at least highlighted a few ways in which government's involvement in everyday life is problematic—not just when the government is running, but when it's stopped too.
Agreed.
Who here on the GID is currently missing a government service due to the shutdown?
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https://reason.com/archives/2019/01/25/making-community-college-free-will-harm
QuoteIt took nearly a dozen years after graduating from college to pay off the student debt I accumulated to get my degree—and that was in the days when tuition to a private university was around $5,000 a year including room and board. I've been through the college-shopping process with three daughters and have looked at asking prices of nearly $50,000 a year at some universities, so I understand the importance of affordability. It's depressing thinking of kids getting their start in life with college loans the size of mortgages.
Given that reality, it's also easy to understand Gov. Gavin Newsom's budget proposal that would provide California residents with a "free" second year of community college along with the provision of additional Cal Grant funding for parents who are struggling to put their children through college. This is well intentioned, but is one of the worst ideas in the governor's new budget given the real-world effect it will have on California students.
The idea of a free college education goes back to California's earliest days. As recently as 1960, the Master Plan for Higher Education reaffirmed "the long established principle that state colleges and the University of California shall be free to all residents of the state." Shortly after that, the state university systems began charging tuition—and prices have soared as demand has outstripped supply and the legislature cut back on subsidies. As a matter of policy, it's a good idea for people to pay for the things they use. If you want an education, you need to pay for it.
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In all aspects of life, the price mechanism is the best way to assure the right balance of supply and demand. If, say, the government mandated that car dealers slash the price of new cars by 50 percent, buyers theoretically would be able to get a cheaper car—but they'd take a number and wait a long time to actually get one.
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Community college already is dirt cheap, at $46 a credit. Making it free will only assure that people who aren't particularly serious about getting an education will take up space in sought-after classes, thus making it tougher for others to get into their preferred classes. This sounds harsh, but people unwilling to invest $1,100 a year in their own education perhaps ought to find something else to do. There is nothing like spending one's own money to force people to take the coursework seriously.
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Bingo.
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15 hours ago, gonzoron said:
The odds are high. He's a white man in Florida. I won't take my family there.
? Not even Disney World? What other places won't you take your family?
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Trump ally Stone arrested on charges of false statements, witness tampering, obstruction: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/trump-ally-stone-arrested-on-charges-of-false-statements-witness-tampering-obstruction-idUSKCN1PJ16M
QuoteRoger Stone, a long-time ally of U.S. President Donald Trump who advised his 2016 presidential campaign, was arrested on Friday and charged with seven counts, according to a grand jury indictment made public by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office.
Stone, who was indicted on Thursday, faces one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of making false statements and one count of witness tampering, according to the Special Counsel’s Office.
Stone is scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, later on Friday, Mueller’s office said.
Stone has faced scrutiny for his support for Trump during the 2016 presidential election campaign, when Stone implied that he had inside knowledge of data obtained by hackers that could embarrass Democrats, including Trump’s rival for the White House, Hillary Clinton.
U.S. prosecutors, in the indictment, said Stone had “sent and received numerous emails and text messages during the 2016 campaign in which he discussed Organization 1, its head, and its possession of hacked emails.”
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One step closer to Mr. Trump.
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Florida Secretary of State Michael Ertel resigns after Halloween blackface photos emerge: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2019/01/24/new-secretary-state-ertel-dressed-blackface-halloween-2005/2649161002/
QuoteMichael Ertel, the newly appointed Secretary of State of Gov. Ron DeSantis, has resigned after photos emerged of him posing as a Hurricane Katrina victim in blackface at a private Halloween party 14 years ago.
The photos obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat were shown to the Governor's Office on Thursday morning. Hours later it issued a statement.
"The governor accepted Secretary Ertel's resignation," the Governor's Office said.
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The photos are the sole blemish on a seemingly spotless public career, highlighted by a record of increasing voter registration and making the elections office more accessible to the public.
Ertel began serving as supervisor of elections for Seminole County on Feb. 5, 2005, when Gov. Jeb Bush named him to replace Dennis Joyner, who stepped down for health reasons.
He ran against Democratic Party activist Marian Williams in 2006, beating her by 59 percent. He was subsequently re-elected without opposition. That same year he participated in monitoring the New Orleans mayoral election.
Ertel has a long record of expanding voting rights and registering people to vote. The city of Longwood gave him a Martin Luther King Jr. award for registering voters. In 2012, Ertel spoke out against Scott’s purge of so-called non-citizens from the voter rolls, saying many of those who were purged were actually eligible voters.
Ertel also has won international awards for his plans to restore voter confidence and trust in the elections system.
Prior to his time in public office, Ertel was in public relations, and was the first professional public affairs spokesman for Seminole County. After the 2004 hurricanes hit Florida, Ertel provided post-disaster media relations for Visit Florida.
Before that he spent eight years in the U.S. Army, providing public relations during the 1992 L.A. riots, and in Macedonia and Bosnia.
So should this one admittedly bad decision, made 14 years ago, ruin Mr. Ertel's career? Is he a racist?
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http://reason.com/blog/2019/01/24/dont-call-congressional-interference-on
QuoteMost NFL fans wouldn't deny that the New Orleans Saints were robbed of a chance to play in Super Bowl LIII. But is the issue really worthy of congressional intervention?
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D–La.) told The Washington Post's Mike DeBonis yesterday that he has broached the possibility of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell answering questions from congressmen about the blown call at the end of Sunday's NFC championship game.
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"The Saints should be on their way to Atlanta to play in the Super Bowl," Richmond says in a statement. "Instead, they are left with the memory of officials who failed to create an equal playing field and deprived them of that opportunity. Officials should not have the ability to determine the fate of a team who rightfully earned their place in NFL championship history."
From an NFL fan's perspective, Richmond is absolutely right. But Richmond isn't just a Saints fan; he's a member of Congress. "I have since spoken with colleagues on the Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee about inviting NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to answer some important questions about the unfair call against the Saints; a call that he has the jurisdiction to overturn," his statement says.
Richmond was likely referring to a section of the NFL rulebook giving the commissioner "the sole authority to investigate and take appropriate disciplinary and/or corrective measures" in the event of an "extraordinarily unfair" occurrence that "has a major effect on the result of the game." But the rules also state that this authority will not be applied "in cases of complaints by clubs concerning judgmental errors or routine errors of omission by game officials."
Richmond was not the only elected official to complain about the call. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has written a letter to Goodell expressing his "deep disappointment" with the game's outcome. Edwards calls on Goodell to make changes so that something similar never happens again, though he stops short of suggesting the government might take official action.
Both Richmond and Edwards are clearly pandering to the Saints' rabid fan base. But Richmond's statement, if taken seriously, raises concerns. Yes, Saints fans want answers, but it's not Congress' job provide them.
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If this comes to pass, it's yet another waste of Congresses time and taxpayers money.
Why must government be the default answer to virtually every circumstance when someone of some group feels they were wronged?
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32 minutes ago, foxbat said:
Actually, it's nobody's words. The article that you provided doesn't show a quote and also doesn't show an official statement or document, which would be nice to have in a situation like this.
Here are a few pictures of official DoD documents regarding Mr. Phillips's service record, obtained via a FOIA request. I haven't watched the actually video from this link yet though:
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So what special goodies do veterans who have a <insert wartime period here> designation receive that "peacetime" veterans do not?
And this is frankly asinine:
Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – through a future date to be set by law or Presidential Proclamation)
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http://reason.com/blog/2019/01/24/new-poll-shows-medicare-for-all-is-popul
QuoteA new poll shows that a clear majority of Americans support Medicare for All—until they are told what it is and how it would work.
The survey was conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which regularly asks Americans about health policy issues as part of its Health Tracking Poll series. It finds that 56 percent of the country supports a "national health plan, sometimes called Medicare for All" and an even larger percentage—71 percent—supports the idea when told that it would "guarantee health insurance as a right for all Americans." When told that such a plan would eliminate health insurance premiums, 67 percent say they're in favor.
One way to look at these numbers is as strong public approval for the broad outlines of a single-payer health care system, which would create a single national health insurance plan run by the federal government and financed through taxes. That public is support is why so many 2020 Democratic presidential contenders have been warming up to the idea.
But the more revealing part of the survey, I think, comes from the questions focused on the costs of single payer, all of which caused support for Medicare for All to drop below 40 percent. Told that it would eliminate private health insurance and require people to pay more in taxes, for example, support fell to 37 percent. Told that it would cause some medical treatments and tests to be delayed, support dropped even further, to 26 percent.
Medicare for All supporters might complain that these are loaded descriptions that don't accurately capture the reality of single payer, which they say is about freeing people from premiums while offering a guarantee of access. But these are, at a very basic level, just descriptions of what an American single-payer system would do. The most prominent such plan is the one put forth by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), which would eliminate all existing private health insurance plans in a four-year period. Although it allows for some secondary private coverage once the system is in place, it requires most everyone in the U.S. to enroll in a new, government-run plan. Arguably the whole point of the most ambitious single-payer schemes is to move everyone off private insurance and onto a single federally managed plan; that's not possible unless people who currently have private insurance get new coverage. Some single-payer proposal would make the transition more slowly, but coverage disruption is not incidental; it's the point.
Financing that plan would require a massive increase in federal spending—about $32 trillion over a decade, according to estimates from think tanks across the political spectrum. Even with the most carefree attitude toward debt and deficits, it is nearly unthinkable that an increase in government spending of that size would not come with higher taxes, probably much higher taxes, which would likely affect the middle class.
The contention that waiting times for health care services would be longer is the most debatable of the bunch, but given the experience of other countries and the probable design of a full-scale single-payer plan, it's a more than plausible outcome. Government-run health care systems like the ones in the United Kingdom (which is fully socialized) and Canada (a territorial single-payer system) are notorious for having long wait times for services such as cancer treatment.
Furthermore, the Sanders plan calls for significant reductions to reimbursements for health care providers, which, if implemented, would almost certainly put some health care centers out of business, reducing the number of doctors and other medical professionals. And although it's possible, in theory, to imagine a system that doesn't cut provider rates, that would be far, far more expensive, and would require even higher taxes while robbing supporters of one of their favorite talking points—that Medicare for All is much cheaper, overall, than the current system.
Medicare for All proponents might be pleased with the show of support found in the survey, but what those questions mostly revealed was that people say yes when you ask them if they favor a health care system that is essentially cost-free. Clear public support, in other words, only materializes when you ignore the practical reality of making a transition from a mixed public/private system to single payer—higher taxes, longer waits, and the loss of existing private insurance arrangements.
So it's not surprising that Medicare for All backers are remaining relatively vague about the particulars of their plans—especially when it comes to financing—and that the phrase's popularity has coincided with its transformation into a non-specific catchall for additional government intervention in the provision of health care, whether or not that intervention amounts to a single-payer system. Vagueness serves the cause here. The imaginary version of Medicare for All that entails no disruption or tradeoffs is popular; the reality is not.
As usual, "the devil is in the details". And socialist programs like "Medicare For All" reveals itself as being bad for Americans who value small government and individual liberty.
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A superintendent of an Indiana school district faces fraud charges for using her insurance to obtain $233 in medical care for a sick student.
Elwood Community Schools Superintendent Casey Smitherman was charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor in an insurance fraud case after she allegedly used her son's insurance to get treatment for a sick student.
"I am committed to this community and our students and I regret if this action has undermined your trust in me," Smitherman said in a statement to Fox 59. "From the beginning, my ultimate goal has been to provide the best environment for Elwood students’ growth physically, mentally and academically and I remain focused on that purpose."
According to a probable cause affidavit, Smitherman was worried about the 15-year-old boy when he did not come to school on Jan. 9. She contacted him and he told her he was sick and had a sore throat.
Smitherman, documents said, picked the boy up and took him to St. Vincent Immediate Care in Elwood. She admitted to using her son's insurance card's to pay for the care, documents said.
The boy, using the name of Smitherman's son, was prescribed the antibiotic Amoxicillin. Smitherman, documents said, filled that prescription at a CVS in Elwood.
The total bill was $233, documents said.
"Mrs Smitherman stated she realized (the boy) did not go to school and was worried about him," Elwood Police Officer Ben Gosnell wrote in the document. "Mrs. Smitherman (has) helped him by purchasing clothes and trying to give (the boy) a decent way of living by also helping clean his house."
Smitherman told police she didn't call the Department of Child Services for fear the boy might be placed in foster care. DCS has since opened an investigation, documents said.
Smitherman was booked Wednesday into the Madison County Jail on felony charges of insurance fraud, identity deception and official misconduct and another misdemeanor count of insurance fraud.
She was later freed on $5,000 bond, records show.
No court date has been scheduled.
Hmm. Something seems to be missing regarding Ms. Smitherman's motives and actions here. The Elwood Community School Corporation has over 1,500 students. Exactly why was this teenage boy singled out by her?
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7 minutes ago, swordfish said:
Why is there not a greater focus on the Black Hebrew Israelites who were mocking Mr. Phillips and the Catholic kid?
Because they can't be effectively criticized for their part in the confrontation without the "that's racist!" label being thrown about. Kind of like any criticism of an individuals of Jewish ancestry runs of the risk of "anti-Semite!" being applied.
Also other comments I have read concerning the BLI's is that they are kind of like the "neighborhood kooks" that have been wandering around Washington D.C. and proselytizing for years, and therefore are basically just "part of the fabric' of the city.
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Don't go DT! This forum desperately needs individuals like yourself who are not afraid to express non-popular opinions and ideas.
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It’s becoming clear that nothing could even partially excuse the Covington kids in the eyes of some, because wearing that hat and smirking are now crimes.: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/covington-catholic-maga-hatcrime-facecrime/
QuoteOrwell in 1984:
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (incredulity when a victory was announced, for instance) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.
Mulling over what Orwell got right and wrong will be the work of decades to come. The video screens he envisioned are indeed ubiquitous, but they’re in our pockets, not run by a central authority. Orwell got one purpose of incessant video monitoring right, though: to identify and punish those whose facial expressions don’t conform to the cultural orthodoxy.
The Covington Catholic High School boys, it is now obvious, were initially charged with facecrime. Regardless of everything else we know now about the Lincoln Memorial incident, they remain guilty of that. And also hatcrime, the newest hate crime. I initially thought the bizarre reluctance to let go of the original, false narrative was due to people’s stubbornness about admitting their first impression was incorrect. Now it’s becoming clearer that in the eyes of some, nothing could even partially excuse the Covington kids.
Ruth Graham of Slate, on the boy we now know to be Nick Sandmann, was one of many who rushed to put down thoughts like these:
But I think the real reason the clip has spread is simpler: It’s the kid’s face. The face of self-satisfaction and certitude, of edginess expressed as cruelty. The face remains almost completely still as his peers hoot in awed delight at his bravado. The face is both punchable and untouchable. The face is in this photo of a clutch of white young men crowding around a single black man at a lunch counter sit-in in Virginia in the 1960s, and in many other images of jeering white men from that era. . . .Anyone who knew the popular white boys in high school recognized it: the confident gaze, the eyes twinkling with menace, the smirk. The face of a boy who is not as smart as he thinks he is, but is exactly as powerful. The face that sneers, “What? I’m just standing here,” if you flinch or cry or lash out. The face knows that no matter how you react, it wins. [Emphasis mine.]
On Twitter, Jessica Valenti wrote, “I’m willing to bet that fifty years from now, a defining image of this political era will be that smug white MAGA teen disrespecting a Native elder and veteran. It just captures so much.” It’s 49 years and 361 days short of 50 years, Jessica, how do you feel about that bet now? Valenti also wrote, “I think so many of us have been on the receiving end of the face he was making: a smug, untouchable, entitled f*** you.” A Saturday Night Live writer offered via Twitter oral sex to anyone “who manages to punch that maga kid in the face.” Former CNN contributor Reza Aslan wrote on the same platform, “Honest question. Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid’s?”
A day after the initial story of what happened with the Covington kids fell apart, and after Nathan Phillips was exposed as having told a number of lies about it, TMZ was still offering headlines like, “MAGA hat smirking teen offers no apology to Nathan Phillips.” Why a teen must offer an apology to a purposefully annoying adult who walks into his group banging a drum inches from his face is unclear — unless you understand that wearing that hat and smirking are the crimes here.
Until the day before yesterday, I don’t think I would have had to say something this obvious, but: Let’s not leap to condemn people based on their facial expressions. Let’s not be an army of facecops making cultural arrests for facecrime.
When you hear Sandmann’s account of what happened — he was confused by Phillips’ act of aggression but thought the best way to defuse the situation was simply to smile and look non-threatening — it makes a lot more sense than Phillips’ blend of lies and distortions. At worst, a child was responding to a supposedly wise adult’s bizarre act of aggression with the visual equivalent of saying, “Bless your heart.”
On Monday, Molly Roberts of the Washington Post offered the following take: “Everyone is still wrong about the Covington kids.” Roberts re-introduces the idea that the teens shouted “Build the wall,” although her own paper has reported that there seems to be no video evidence of this. She castigates the many centrist and left-of-center commentators who have backed down from their initial take on the story because they’re just playing into the hands of a “fancy PR firm with Republican links.” (Do Washington Post editorial writers receive elementary instruction in the ad hominem fallacy?) She blasts the Covington kid who “ripped his shirt off in a gesture of self-assured dominance” (shirtcrime!) when in fact this “gesture of self-assured dominance” is better understood as a high-school sports cheer. We must re-condemn the Covington kids, Roberts scolds us, because “a smirk is a smirk” and because “Anyone who wears a Make America Great Again hat knows what it stands for, and who it stands against.”
Also on Monday, Laura Wagner of Deadspin made essentially the same argument. “Don’t Doubt What You Saw With Your Own Eyes,” runs her headline. Well, quite. She reminded us all not to cede any ground to “Right-wing trolls,” “gibbering masturbators” or “random MAGA chuds and Pepes” (ad hominem again) and charges the kids with being “draped in the symbols of white nationalism and misogyny,” by which she means the hats. Can you drape yourself in a hat? I don’t think so. Anyway, just to make sure we get the point, in the very next paragraph she informs us that the boys were “draped in racist, misogynist paraphernalia.” By which she again means the hats. Wagner mentions “MAGA” eight times in her piece. She just can’t let go of the fact that some people like the hats. She can’t believe anyone would side with “some s***head MAGA teens.” That’s question-begging unless you understand that to her it’s just a pair of synonymous terms.
I don’t doubt that people like Molly Roberts and Laura Wagner hate Donald Trump so much that they think the 63 million Americans who voted for him, and the many more who didn’t vote then but support him, are by definition racist, misogynist, and white nationalist. I feel bad for those who think nearly half of their own countrymen are evil. But the Covington kids simply got caught in the middle of all the fire progressives are raining on Trump. The Left started out incensed that the Covington kids were wearing hats and smiles, and now that we know those kids didn’t “mob” or “surround” a Native American but simply jeered a bit in response to an obnoxious activist who entered their group and pounded a drum in their faces, we’re back to the original charges: hatcrime and facecrime.
As I stated near the beginning of this thread, it's about the hats.
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http://reason.com/archives/2019/01/23/what-we-dont-know-about-us-airstrikes-in
QuoteLast weekend, the U.S. military killed what they reported as 52 militants from Somalia's al-Shabab. Taking its current form in 2006, the group started crossing borders for their violence in 2012 after allying themselves with al-Qaida. Their most recent attack took place on January 15 in Kenya––gun- and explosives-wielding men killed 22 people at a hotel. Their most successful was a bomb that killed a staggering 500 people in Mogadishu in October 2017.
The U.S. has been in Somalia since 2003, and currently has about 500 troops on the ground. A drone strike killed al-Shabab's leader in 2014, hower Trump has increased airstrikes against the group along with his attacks in Afghanistan and Syria.
Somalia might bring up strong associations with Black Hawk Down and the mess of Mogadishu in 1993, but it's a conflict generally lost among more prominent debates about the legality of U.S. presence in Syria, or whether 18 years in Afghanistan might just be long enough.
President Donald Trump's regime has loosened restrictions on airstrikes, and Trump has subsequently been looser with his use of bombs. That meant a supposed removal of an alleged rule of "near-certainty" that no civilians would be killed in an attack before the US proceeded (most likely barring ones on proper battlefields like Afghanistan and Iraq), and letting military leaders especially in Afghanistan, make decisions on the ground without White House oversight. However, with the constant domestic distractions sucking up even more attention, and his abrupt threats to end wars, Trump's reputation as an actual warmonger––or at least someone happy to keep the war on terror running as briskly as ever––is underrated. Not since Obama's first years in office (who, if you can recall, was big on continuing to fight in Afghanistan) has the U.S. dropped so many bombs on Afghanistan––10,000 in the last two years, including the most powerful non-nuclear bomb.
There's nothing ambiguous about the terribleness of al-Shabab. However, experts at the Council of Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies attribute their more aggressive rebirth to Ethiopia's 2006 invasion of the country, which raised the terrorist group's numbers from hundreds to what is now reportedly nearing 7,000. The Somali government and the UN Security Council-backed African Union Mission in Africa have been fighting al-Shabab since 2007. Fighting them is an understandable goal, but these recent acts of violence smell like blowback and could be a teachable moment if anyone wanted to learn.
Trump's desire to kill the families of terrorists, which, if done deliberately, would likely be a violation of the Geneva Convention, was memorable, but still doesn't have the reputation of a bomb-dropping kind of guy. In part because he likes to keep enemies guessing, but also because of policy in-fighting and indecision.
Realistically, however, Barack Obama's inclination toward tying his own hands in his final years in office came after he became notorious for pioneering a drone assassination program that he refused to admit existed for years. By the time he was a lame duck, and therefore suddenly aware that someone else was going to take the reins of death soon, he decided to take control over drone strikes away from the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon. He also issued a 2016 executive order to try and catalog civilian death from drones.
Not only were Obama's lame duck attacks to clean up his own mess generally infuriating––since he set the world's precedent for drone warfare and all––but the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies under Obama were not exactly trustworthy in their civilian casualty counting skills either.
Officially, any male of military age killed in a strike counted as a terrorist until proven otherwise. Males who survive an attack are assumed to be terrorist sympathizers. Fundamentally, there has never been a reason to trust that the U.S. will tell––or even knows, or wants to know––how many civilians it kills. Yes, terrorists and locals have an incentive to claim excessive death tolls, but equally, estimates offered by the U.S. government, such as nearly 1,000 innocent people killed in three years of fighting the Islamic State (IS), will be extremely low. The nonprofit Airwars, which tracks deaths in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, frequently estimates five to six times greater numbers of civilian deaths than official U.S. accounts suggest.
Perhaps all 52 militants killed in Somalia were as bad as could be, and nobody innocent suffered. Maybe that's true, but there's hardly enough evidence to prove that the U.S. will treat gatherings of people, or cars moving towards an area deemed suspicious, or even people's homes as legitimate targets.
But again, why is the U.S. involved at all? Our military is in 170 countries around the world including 20 African countriessuch as Uganda, Niger, and Djibouti. Blame Trump, blame Obama, blame Bush, but that kind of presence appears to be a permanent effect of the war on terror. (Call Bill Clinton's dabbling a prequel.)
Ending wars require hard decisions and will always involve imperfect timing––it's apparently easier to continue a war than to end one. Besides, Lockheed Martin has half a billion dollars to make. We're stuck, and it's costing people's lives––sometimes soldiers, sometimes terrorists, and sometimes just terrorized civilians.
Endless "war". Endless death. Endless suffering. All at the hands of a U.S. Military whose Congress has never expressly declared war. Unconstitutional.
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15 hours ago, foxbat said:
Are you implying that Mr. Phillips isn't a Vietnam vet?
That's because he isn't, according to the Marine Corp. And Mr. Phillips has never expressly claimed to have served in Vietnam: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-nathan-phillips-veteran-vietnam-marines-covington-20190123-story.html
QuoteNative American activist Nathan Phillips has never said he served in combat in Vietnam, though he has often referred to his service in the U.S. Marine Corps as the “Vietnam times.”
On Wednesday the Marines clarified this, telling The Washington Post and other media outlets that Phillips had served from June 1972 to May 1976 in the Marine Corps Reserve, serving first as an infantryman and then a refrigerator technician.
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11 hours ago, foxbat said:
A specific look at TSA employees, among others impacted by the shutdown:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/politics/the-shutdown-is-hurting-some-federal-workers/index.html
Just goes to highlight how much of the federal government could be effectively privatized.
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Pay for Federal Government Workers: https://www.cato.org/blog/pay-federal-government-workers
QuoteWith the backdrop of the shutdown and federal workers going unpaid, the New York Times published a backgrounder last week on federal compensation. It was a fair and balanced piece and highlighted themes discussed in this study on government workers.
The NYT charts government and private sector wage growth. Average federal wages soared during the 1990s and 2000s but have grown more slowly this decade. However, overall federal compensation including benefits has grown briskly in recent years, as I chart below.
Here are highlights from the NYT story:
Verla Bloomfield has the kind of workplace that seems plucked from a different era. She has a pension, a union, several weeks of vacation and a paycheck that has nearly doubled in 14 years. Her employer? The United States government.
… Since 2000, average pay has grown twice as fast for federal employees as it has in the private sector. That’s partly because the federal work force has become more educated and specialized. It is also built into the job. Even without the salaries that top performers can command in the corporate world, government workers who do well are entitled by law to regular pay increases, an increasingly rare guarantee elsewhere.
… As globalization has shuttered factories and decimated entire industries, federal employment has been a bastion of stability.
… But the reality is that people who have held onto their government jobs for many years have not languished in the same role at the same pay grade. They have progressed up the ladder and benefited from regular raises at least every few years. They all have pensions and almost all have health insurance, perks that are harder to come by as an employee in corporate America.
… [Federal worker] Ms. Bloomfield would take stability over a six-figure salary in the private sector any day. Her brother earns much more than she does in technical support in Austin, Tex. But he’s had to switch employers multiple times in the last 20 years because of corporate restructuring and layoffs. “Even though he makes a high wage, he has to live with this uncertainty,” she said. “We don’t have that stress.”
Steve Fosse, a revenue agent with the I.R.S., isn’t sure whether that trade-off is worth it anymore. The first person in his family to graduate from college, Mr. Fosse, 39, took a job with the government because it offered reliability. “I wanted the benefits and the guaranteed paychecks,” he said. For the most part, that dream panned out. Mr. Fosse earns $90,000 a year…
The NYT uses data from the Bureau of Economic (BEA) for its pay comparisons. Federal worker wages averaged $90,794 in 2017, which was 48 percent higher than the private sector average of $61,311. But as the NYT article indicates, gold-plated benefits are a key advantage that federal workers enjoy over private-sector workers.
The chart below shows BEA data on total compensation, wages plus benefits. Compensation averaged $130,429 for federal workers in 2017, which was 79 percent higher than the private-sector average of $72,992.
The comments by Bloomfield and Fosse in the article illustrate another point. As I discuss here, high job security is an additional government benefit that should be considered when comparing federal to private compensation levels.
The shutdown has disrupted the lives of federal workers, but generally they have a good thing going with pay, benefits, and job security. If Congress ever gets around to tackling bloat in the federal budget, excessive federal benefits would be a good place to find savings.
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Quote
US cable Internet customers are using an average of 268.7GB per month, and 4.1 percent of households use at least 1TB, according to new research by the vendor OpenVault.
Households that use at least 1TB a month are at risk of paying overage fees because of the 1TB data caps imposed by Comcast and other ISPs. Terabyte users nearly doubled year over year, as just 2.1 percent of households hit the 1TB mark last year, according to OpenVault.
Cable Internet providers use OpenVault products to track "broadband data usage consumption levels for millions of subscribers," the company says. This gives OpenVault visibility into how much data broadband customers use each month.
OpenVault found that households that face data caps use 8.5-percent less data than un-capped users, suggesting that cable customers limit their Internet usage when they face the prospect of overage fees. According to OpenVault, the caps can help cable companies avoid major network upgrades.
For cable Internet users, the need to limit usage to avoid overage fees isn't a selling point. But for OpenVault's cable industry customers, the ability to impose caps is a plus because it helps cable companies delay network upgrades.
"Our analysis makes it clear that usage-based billing is among the most effective tools the industry has in managing consumption and reducing the need for massive capital expenditures," OpenVault Executive VP Josh Barstow said in the OpenVault announcement.
...
OpenVault's new report is based on household usage in December 2018. The data comes entirely from cable networks, so it does not include any fiber, DSL, or wireless Internet services, an OpenVault spokesperson told Ars. OpenVault declined to say how many households were included in the data, and it's not clear which cable provider networks were studied.
The 268.7GB average household data used in December 2018 was "up from 226.4GB/HH [household] at the end of June 2018 and a 33.3 percent increase over the YE 2017 average of 201.6GB/HH," OpenVault said.
Median usage was 145.2GB in December 2018, "up from 116.4GB/HH in June 2018 and a 40 percent increase over the YE 2017 median of 103.6GB/HH," the company also said.
These numbers are in the general ballpark of what Comcast reports. Comcast says that "[a]s of June 2018, Xfinity Internet customers' median monthly data usage was 151GB per month during the past six months."
But while Comcast says that "more than 99 percent of our customers do not use 1 terabyte of data," OpenVault's research found a much higher percentage of customers exceeding 1TB. (Again, we don't know which cable networks were included in OpenVault's measurements.)
"The percentage of power users—defined as those households using 1TB or more—almost doubled in 2018, rising to 4.12 percent of all households from 2.11 percent in 2017, while the percentage of households exceeding 250GB rose to 36.4 percent from 28.4 percent during the same time span," OpenVault said.
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We began regularly exceeding the 1TB in data usage a month almost a year ago. And haven't looked back.
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News to me on 1/23/2019, Fox:
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6 minutes ago, TrojanDad said:
I don't think sitting on the couch playing games helps solve that dilemma.
https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/could-video-gamers-make-better-drone-pilots-180964653/
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/study-finds-video-gamers-better-ga-pilots-uav-operators/
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The Media Wildly Mischaracterized That Video of Covington Catholic Students Confronting a Native American Veteran
in Out of Bound Forum
Posted
Nathan Phillips rally protesters attempted to disrupt Mass at DC’s National Shrine: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/nathan-phillips-rally-attempted-to-disrupt-mass-at-dcs-national-shrine-91038