Impartial_Observer

27 minutes ago, TrojanDad said:

Burden of proof isn't extended to people that could take <5 min to help themselves.  That's called lazy.  You ask questions you could easily find out for yourself if you got off the couch.

But to play games with you, some GOP mayor cites off the top of my head include Miami, San Diego, Jacksonville, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Omaha, etc.  

Did you read the article on the poorest ran cities?  Can you tell me about the party of those mayors?

 

Thank god for the leadership of Dick Lugar and Bill Hudnut back in the day. Indianapolis could certainly have gone another direction. Their vision and leadership shaped the city for years to come. 

Cities are one thing, look at the doughnut communities that make up the metro area. Right off the top of my head locally, Carmel R, Fishers R, Noblesville R, Greenwood R, Westfield R. And they're all thriving communities. Personally I wouldn't live in any of them, but they do seem to have a lot going on. 

15 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

great response to Joe’s brilliance....

Colin Noir is awesome. I love his channel. 

3 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

Ok..will do. 

Why are u avoiding this issue with Seattle? 

I’m not avoiding, frankly I don’t know what it is.....I’m not following along very closely. I’m assuming they give away free needles and have banned vaping. It’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of....

14 minutes ago, TrojanDad said:

Can you find me any GOP led cities that are finding logic in the approach that is being used by the Mayor in Seattle with e-cigs vs. heroin?  I get people want to avoid this specific issue, but can anyone find logic in this approach?

If you want some logic, look at their weed laws. There is no logic. 

On 6/29/2019 at 12:14 AM, BARRYOSAMA said:

Not sure what this means for me, since I've never seen it to begin with.

On 6/28/2019 at 10:03 PM, BARRYOSAMA said:

Winner!

Not sure what this means for me, since I've never seen it to begin with.

18 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

Registered to a party is one thing....running for office representing said party and having widely known views is another....

poor attempt....try again

now for the important question....how do you feel about her action since you skated right around the real issue to come at me?

I get what you're saying........but please find me a Republican in Washington? Because all I can find are RINO's. 

Doesn’t a felony conviction cost him his license to practice law Bob?

4 hours ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

What does NRATV have to say on the issue?

As a high ranking elite member of the media perhaps you could tell us. I’ve never seen it. 

12 minutes ago, Wabash82 said:

We will have to agree to disagree on this one.

I think there are lots of people in politics who are interested in fixing this problem, but just like you see in this forum, they have deep disagreements about what is the "right" way to do that.  And as you also see from the discussions on this topic in this forum, those disagreements are often based on people's  feelings about gut level stuff like "fairness" or "following the rules", so it is very hard to change minds or to get people to compromise (because who would compromise on "fairness"?) 

So just like on this forum, the arguments go round and round and get pretty  passionate sometimes, but no faction has the ability to impose its position on the other factions.

I agree there are some genuine folks, but they are the exception rather than the rule. And honestly I don't know how anyone who's in Washington for any length of time doesn't become corrupt. 

11 minutes ago, Wabash82 said:

Your original comment was specifically addressed to current members of Congress,  so I was responding to what the current situation is. 

Historically, the policy differences that continue to skewer immigration reform today were more intra-party policy differences, so having even a veto proof majority in both houses didn't matter in terms of the ability to actually get something passed.

 

More to my point, NO one has any interest in dealing with it. Past, present, or future. 20 years from now this conversation will still be going. 

12 minutes ago, Wabash82 said:

Maybe I misunderstood your original post, but I thought you were suggesting (based on the one example of the guy who drowned with his daughter) that the increased numbers of folks coming to the border from the Northern Triangle countries are not mostly legitimate refugees, fleeing violence, but are instead folks trying to immigrate here for economic reasons.  Obviously, if people are legitimate refugees, our laws (and international law under treaties we have signed) require that they be treated differently -- stand in a different line -- than immigrants motivated solely by economics. 

Whether we keep them on our side of the border or the Mexican side while we consider their asylum claims, we are cutting our own nose off to spite our face when we pullback on foreign aid to those countries, which could be used to improve the conditions there that have, in the last two years, caused so many more people to flee from them to the U.S.  

Bernie has it covered. Not only is he going to solve all of our problems, he's going to fix central America's problems as well. 

5 minutes ago, swordfish said:

SF didn't watch either debate, however the commentary afterwards is pretty good.

https://grabien.com/story.php?id=241359

MADDOW: “Vice president Biden, 30 seconds.”

BIDEN: “A real 30 seconds?”

MADDOW: “A real 30 seconds.”

“I’m the only person that beat the NRA nationally,” Biden boasted. “I’m the guy that got the Brady Bill passed, background checks, number one. Number two, we increased that background check during the Obama-Biden administration. I’m also the only guy that got assault weapons banned, banned, and the number of clips in a gun banned.”

OK......I'm not aware of a gun that could ever hold more than one clip at a time......

I'm not aware of any increase in background checks during the BHO administration either. Aside from the Clinton era assault weapons ban, what other assault weapons bans have there been, that crazy Uncle Joe might be talking about. 

I'm all about pleasing the people SF. Here's one of the guns Biden had banned. Christmases have never been safer.

1 hour ago, Irishman said:

Is there an actual clip for this? I have my suspicions if that was even a question. I am pretty certain IO would have mentioned that in his post if it had. Plus I texted him that he had to do a shot every time the word free was mentioned. 🤣🤣 Because to speak, they had to raise their hands to reply. I was even joking with IO last night saying there were points where it reminded me of some of my class discussions...seeing the hands go up as if they could not wait to say something, and then would lose control and blurt something out. 

If we can catch a weekend debate, we should make a drinking game out of it. I ain't got @Lysander I have to get up and go to work in the morning. 

On 6/14/2019 at 2:47 PM, Impartial_Observer said:

Ehhh, we're nearly eight months from the first vote being cast......I'm sure the press will tell me everything I need to know the next day.

OK, purely for entertainment purposes I watched a little of the debate last night, and boy did it deliver. Here are a few take aways:

1. Joe Biden had one job, don't lose. He failed miserably. 

2. Mayor Pete looked good, he has two glaring issues, police in South Bend and he's gay. There are people who will vote for him because he's gay, there are people who will not vote for him because he's gay. Unfortunately the people who will vote for him because he's gay don't vote, and the ones who won't vote for him do vote. 

3. All Michael Bennett needs is a little mustache and he looks EXACTLY like Hitler, though a little taller. He's already got the haircut and eyebrows.

4. Marianne Williamson looked like she arrived in a time machine from the 70's. And I'm not going to lie, I had to look up her name this morning.

5. As entertaining as it was, it dawned on me at some point, someone with these bat$shit crazy ideas is going to get elected. 

6. There are currently seven sitting US senators, three US representatives, two former representatives, and one former senator/VP. Last night I listened to all of them rail against the way things are, and no one seems to want to take any responsibility for the way things are. They've been involved in politics at the national level in some cases since the 70's and now they're expecting me to believe that suddenly after being elected president they're going to wave a magic wand and it's all going to be fixed. They aren't the solution, they 're the problem. 

7. One more thought on Joe Biden, he pretty much single handedly was responsible for virtually every piece of legislation passes in the last 40 years, including ACA, per him last night. 

8. Kamala Harris probably raised her stock last night. Since announcing she's just been a face in the crowd, I'm sure she'll see a bump. But being a face in the crowd there's no real light shining on you. I suspect once there's a light shining on her, she's going to have some issues. 

5 hours ago, Wabash82 said:

There has been lots of proposed legislation written to address these issues over the past 30 years. The problem is that there are fundamental policy differences between the two parties that make that an exercise in futility -- writing legislation that has no chance of even getting out of committee because Nancy or Mitch don't like it, or the President has already promised he will veto it, is a waste of time.  That leaves the option of trying to nibble around the edges and figure out which hole in the dike to put a pinkie in. 

It think the idea that DACA plays a significant role here is dubious.  DACA was initally implemented back in 2012.  There was an uptick in border apprehension rates after 2012, but it was comparatively modest. The "crisis" level numbers (i.e., consistent  historical monthly highs not seen for decades) have come since mid-2017, which is post-Trump's scale back of DACA. 

As I have noted before, I tend to believe that obvious, simple explanations are usually the correct ones. The current "crisis" is due to a massive increase in asylum seekers and migrants from the three Northern Triangle countries. Political conditions in those countries have deteriorated significantly in the last couple of years. (Read about the situation in Guatemala, post it's 2016-17 elections, including the rollback of a previously-successful, internationally-supported program to fight government corruption.)

The deterioration of civil institutions in those countries has led to murder and violent crime rates there that rival levels of violence in countries at war. And as we have seen with Syria, etc., families flee from those levels of violence. 

Clinton had two years of D control and nothing. Bush had two years of R control and nothing, in fact he took a pass twice when it could have been addressed. BHO had two years of D control and nothing. Trump had two years of R control and nothing. You can wax on ever so eloquently, but the bottom line is NEITHER PARTY  has any interest in dealing with this issue. Both see it as a political chip. 

50 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

@Impartial_Observer it’ll be your daughter that suffers.

I’m not sure what you’re fixation with my daughter is, but she’s a big girl, quite capable of taking care of herself, I’m sure she’ll be just fine.

In talking to local Mexicans, this seems to be the MO. It takes them about 10 years here to save the money to return to Mexico and basically retire. 

These sorts of stories in my opinion the real tragedy on the border. Forget the ramifications of illegals on the US, what about the untold horror stories like this. Our southern border is a humanitarian crisis, that needs to be stopped. In my opinion there's plenty of blame to go around with our immigration issues. I believe it was greatly exacerbated under the BHO administration with DACA. I'm sure it was mentioned last night in the debate, as I'm sure it will be mentioned tonight. But to the current members of congress who are clamoring for action, what have you done to address the issue? Can you point us to the legislation you've written to deal with this situation? Or is it easier to just say it's Bush's fault, it's BHO's fault, it's Trump's fault?

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

Reverse angle of AOC’s pictures where she was overcome with emotion because of children in cages shows she’s crying over a caged Ford truck....

@Irishman?????

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVGXUrKJVCU

You would think with the resources of the Catholic Church they could hire a decent PR firm and quit stepping on their own di...s

On 6/25/2019 at 5:41 PM, Wabash82 said:

Lots to address in an internet forum.

Slavery was not lawful in the sense I am talking about AT ANY TIME.

 King George III was the "lawful" ruler of the American colonists in 1776 under English law, but he was not the lawful ruler of them under natural law, the law that creates the "inalienable rights" to which Thomas Jefferson referred in the Declaration of Independence. The mere fact that many human beings for thousands of years thought it was okay to deprive fellow humans of their liberty and property based on their skin color, and promulgated human laws to allow that, did not render those things lawful under natural law (or God's law, or however you wish to characterize it).

The fact that duly-elected representatives of the German people in the 1930s passed laws allowing handicapped children to be euthanized by the State didn't somehow deprive those children of their (human) right to life and make the State's killing of them "lawful" in any meaningful sense. 

Perhaps you believe that your right to life, right to liberty, right to self-defense, right to own property, right to pursue your own happiness all exist only because a human government has by law "created" them for you -- and therefore, by the jot of a pen, can also lawfully take them away from you.  But I doubt very many other Americans believe that is the true source of those rights. Those rights have existed under law that has existed from the begining of time. 

So in regard to deprivation of human rights we are talking about here, no, this is not imposing today's laws on prior generations. It is acknowledging that we now understand that prior generations of Americans, (whether in ignorance or even misguided good intent) used the power of government to deprive certain of their fellow men of the natural law rights that our nation's founders had readily acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence.  

As for the taxpayer thing -- you and other current taxpayers fund all sorts of federal government obligations that were incurred by our nation's government long  before you were born, by virtue the actions and decisions of prior generations. This is not about "punishing" you or holding you accountable for your personal ancestor's deeds; it is about the U.S. government taking responsibility for addressing injuries that the United States government inflicted in the past.  Again, I think  this focus on the accountability of particular individual's ancestors, instead of the accountability of the nation, is odd.

The other situations you mention -- women and voting; drinkers and prohibition; military draftees; gays and marriage -- do not in my mind necessarily involve deprivation of basic human rights, and I think the "damages" argument could be tougher to make.  I'd still certainly look at a couple of them. But I don't see how the possibility of other comparable situations existing affects the validity of this one? 

The four issues you list are what the hearings are designed to explore. It seems to me that logical answers would include: 

1) folks who are the ancestors of slaves. 

2) the U.S. government.

3) Needs analysis -- the actual damages are probably too high to realistically consider paying -- the present value of the labor that was taken without compensation for over 300 years? The overall wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans? Maybe the present value of the 40 acres and a mule promised in 1865? (That's facetious.) 

4) It could do many things, but the main thing it would do, like a posthumous pardon of a wrongfully convicted man, is do justice. 

5) all ready addressed.

W82, I see why you're a lawyer. Once again, our "inalienable rights" are abridged EVERY DAY. You among others have been in favor of that via "jot of the pen" for the greater good. 

For the purpose of my original post in this thread, lets focus on slavery, which you seem to be focused on.

1. From what I can see there were around 4 million slaves in 1860. I'm guess birth records are somewhat difficult to find for slaves and their offspring. This will most certainly be a boon for your profession.

2. The US government produces nothing, it's sole source of income is the US taxpayer.....well that and the fact they can just print money.

3. The devil is always in the details isn't it.

4. So in other words it changes NOTHING, but we can all feel better because we did "something". 

5. So if my dad got popped for murder, receives a 60 year sentence, dies 10 years in, I should go serve the rest of his sentence for him. 

59 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

Meijer in my case. I can't remember the last time I was in a Wal Mart.

No Meijer, no Target, so......I'm pretty much screwed. 

30 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

The Constitution has been law since the federal government began. It's a timeless document and applies to all, past and present.

Valid point, yet it is abridged constantly even today, mostly for the "common good". So at some point in the future do we have more added to the list of reparations?