For a concrete example that resulted in the death of a child, we have Tamir Rice. Ohio is an open-carry state. Both of the officers stated they thought Rice was about 20 years old when they saw him. Well if a perceived 20-year old adult visibly has a gun in an open-carry state, how can the first instinct be to EXECUTE that person within 2 seconds rather than ascertain if the gun was being open-carried legally??
I just want to point out that open carry does not mean having a weapon drawn.
Ryan Zinke, Secretary of Interior, spent $139k upgrading doors in his office. What's with these Trump appointees wasting ridiculous amount of money on themselves while trying to cut services protecting the poor?
Ryan Zinke, Secretary of Interior, spent $139k upgrading doors in his office. What's with these Trump appointees wasting ridiculous amount of money on themselves while trying to cut services protecting the poor?
Well I don't think they get to keep the furniture when a new administration takes over so maybe these offices were overdue for a facelift. It's not stealing or anything. Just a thought...
Ryan Zinke, Secretary of Interior, spent $139k upgrading doors in his office. What's with these Trump appointees wasting ridiculous amount of money on themselves while trying to cut services protecting the poor?
Well I don't think they get to keep the furniture when a new administration takes over so maybe these offices were overdue for a facelift. It's not stealing or anything. Just a thought...
I guess we'll see when they actually vacate the offices.
Canada actually has the opposite problem. The official residence of the prime minister is in such disrepair that Trudeau refuses to live in it.
It got that way because the perception of upgrading the residence for the sitting PM was regarded as a frivolous waste of tax money.
All political parties believe the house should be repaired but know the first one to do so won't hear the end of it in the House of Commons.
Ryan Zinke, Secretary of Interior, spent $139k upgrading doors in his office. What's with these Trump appointees wasting ridiculous amount of money on themselves while trying to cut services protecting the poor?
Well I don't think they get to keep the furniture when a new administration takes over so maybe these offices were overdue for a facelift. It's not stealing or anything. Just a thought...
I would think they do. Government money bought the furniture, it stays with the government. This is government tax payer money and its not usual.
We got Carson spending $31k on his office.
We got Zinke spending $139k on doors.
Scott Pruitt spent $25k on a soundproof booth for his office so he could talk to businesses privately about screwing over the environment. He also only flies first class even though he's required by law to fly coach because he says he's scared someone might be mean to him for screwing over the environment. This includes spending $7k on one round-trip flight to Italy.
Tom Price, HHS secretary resigned for taking extensive charter flights costing at least $50k for his seats (more was spent on family and staff than that).
Mnuchin flew his wife around to Europe for their honeymoon in a military plane that the Air Force said costs $25k an hour to fly. Last October, the Treasury Department released a report finding that Secretary Steven Mnuchin had spent more than $800,000 on seven trips.
Probably more stuff I'm forgetting. Anyway you get the idea.
It's more a matter of principle... I am far more concerned about these officials' lack of ethics and abuse of power. Even more important is Zinke selling off public land, etc. The money itself doesn't matter much, and I always cringe when I hear the "taxpayer" money line.
Or put another way from economist Ellis Winningham:
"US military spending increases by billions each year:
Ever notice that nobody said we have to tax the rich to pay for it? Ever notice that nobody taxed the rich to pay for it? Ever notice that the spending didn’t result in inflation? Ever notice that the national debt is 180 years old, it keeps going up, and the US government is still here?
The US government spent $1.5 trillion for the F-35:
Ever notice that nobody said we have to tax the rich to pay for it? Ever notice that nobody taxed the rich to pay for it? Ever notice that the spending didn’t result in inflation? Ever notice that the national debt is 180 years old, it keeps going up, and the US government is still here?
The US government spent trillions bailing out banks:
Ever notice that nobody said we have to tax the rich to pay for it? Ever notice that nobody taxed the rich to pay for it? Ever notice that the spending didn’t result in inflation? Ever notice that the national debt is 180 years old, it keeps going up, and the US government is still here?
And you think that we must tax the rich to “pay for” universal health care?
And you think that we cannot have universal health care until the rich pay up?
And you think that if we spend for universal health care without taxing the rich, inflation will eat us alive and the national debt will cause the US to become extinct.
And the reason why you think that is because you are listening to people who know how federal spending actually works; who know that federal taxes do not pay for anything; who know that the US government doesn’t actually borrow to fund deficit spending; who know that the national debt is just a bunch of savings accounts; who do not want you to know what they know, and who do not want you to have universal health care."
For a concrete example that resulted in the death of a child, we have Tamir Rice. Ohio is an open-carry state. Both of the officers stated they thought Rice was about 20 years old when they saw him. Well if a perceived 20-year old adult visibly has a gun in an open-carry state, how can the first instinct be to EXECUTE that person within 2 seconds rather than ascertain if the gun was being open-carried legally??
I just want to point out that open carry does not mean having a weapon drawn.
You would think law enforcement would be able tell the difference between an 11 year old playing with a toy and someone firing a real gun...
This just in Trump and Kim are gonna meet face to face by May.
That should be good.
This is not a new offer. North Korea has been trying to meet with US Presidents for 2 decades. This isn't a visit that is going to end up with North Korea surrendering their nukes. It's Kim Jong Un using his nuclear tests and Trump's planet-size ego to get the United States President to treat him as an equal. Trump is getting played, and played hard. Assuming it happens at all, the moment the North Korean leader praises him, or throws a parade for him, Trump will be like putty in his hand.
Also, I'm old enough to remember when Obama shaking Raul Castro's hand at Mandela's funeral was a national scandal. Again, North Korean leaders have been trying to get this to happen for 20 years. Only Trump is dumb enough to take them up on the offer. This is not Nixon going to China. The only thing that will take place if this ACTUALLY occurs in May is that two lunatics will sit in a room together, and afterwards Trump will beam about how nice Kim Jong Un was to him and what a strong leader he is. The odds of anything good coming out of these two meeting face to face are infinitesimal. They both deal in delusions of grandeur so massive on a daily basis that the room might simply implode in on itself.
What are the odds this even takes place?? When I got home from work and saw all the cable channels leading up to Trump's "big North Korea announcement" I had the distinct feeling that they were, once again, getting played by a reality TV star. What are the odds his own State and Defense Departments knew anything about this up until maybe 3 o'clock this afternoon??
North Korea is easily the worst country on earth. It's no joke. Kim Jong Un is probably afraid, hence the reason he killed his brother living abroad, who was rejected for leadership because he wanted to liberalize, and he probably doesn't know what to make of someone like Trump.
They aren't dumb or suicidal, they've outlasted almost all other communist countries and know full well any actual attack on Seoul or some nuclear strike would be suicide for them. Their goal has always been the preservation of their own regime and hold on power.
I don't know what will come of Trump's visit, but I do know that while previous administrations have been content to kick the can down the road men, women, and children are brutalized in concentration camps and experience starvation and death on a routine basis.
North Korea is easily the worst country on earth. It's no joke. Kim Jong Un is probably afraid, hence the reason he killed his brother living abroad, who was rejected for leadership because he wanted to liberalize, and he probably doesn't know what to make of someone like Trump.
They aren't dumb or suicidal, they've outlasted almost all other communist countries and know full well any actual attack on Seoul or some nuclear strike would be suicide for them. Their goal has always been the preservation of their own regime and hold on power.
I don't know what will come of Trump's visit, but I do know that while previous administrations have been content to kick the can down the road men, women, and children are brutalized in concentration camps and experience starvation and death on a routine basis.
It really isn't kicking the can down the road. It's either tolerate and work around the regime or risk Seoul going up in flames. When Trump's visit either doesn't take place or produces no actual results, it will be the same situation, except we will have legitimized them on the biggest stage in the world. And any military strike (see Lindsey Graham's absurd statement tonight) by the US would immediately trigger an all out attack on the South as they go down in a blaze of glory. We can of course destroy North Korea at any time. It would come at the price of the destruction of one of the most important cities in the world. The major risk isn't them attacking Seoul preemptively, it's them attacking Seoul as a response to an attack from us, which is all but a guarantee.
Nobody is planning regime change in North Korea. This has been said by several key figures. A military attack is not an option. This is not a black and white scenario between "tolerating the regime" and blowing it up.
Don't forget about Marilyn Manson! And that ungodly DnD game!
So I've been meaning to respond to this part. I would say I first became keenly aware of politics and issues because of Columbine. I was fortunate enough to have cable TV in my downstairs bedroom at home, and around the time after the shooting I spent alot of time watching FOX News, which was still in it's infancy in 1998. Because I immediately caught on to what was happening. What happened with their response to Columbine, for weeks if not months after it happened, was a dry run for every conservative media culture-war that they have engaged in since.
The main focus was on two things. Doom and Marilyn Manson. But mostly Marilyn Manson. To this day, I have never seen a entertainment figure blamed more for something than Manson was for Columbine. Of course, the reality was that Eric Harris and Dylan Kleebold didn't even listen to Marilyn Manson (they were fans of the German band Rammstein). Marilyn Manson was simply the easiest target, as was every goth kid in high schools across America. Already outcasts in a certain sense, anyone with an Antichrist Superstar t-shirt was labeled as a potential school shooter.
Of course, Marilyn Manson was nothing but the logical progression of rockers who had come before him. In the 90s, it was Manson. In the 80s, it was Ozzy Osbourne. The 70s, Alice Cooper. The 60s, Jim Morrison, all the way back to Elvis, and the way he scared adults in the country by appropriating African-American blues and R&B. The stunning ease with which Marilyn Manson became the scapegoat for Columbine when he literally had NOTHING to do with it, even in the tangential sense of the killers liking his music (because they didn't) was stunning. It was, in a sense, the ultimate proto-type of fake news. Because it was made up out of whole cloth.
Pretty sure Trump will come out of the NKorea meeting saying Kim Jong Un is a swell guy who has great solution to drugs and refugee problems and he's impressed that he is president for life.
Pretty sure Trump will come out of the NKorea meeting saying Kim Jong Un is a swell guy who has great solution to drugs and refugee problems and he's impressed that he is president for life.
Kim's solution to the "refugee problem" is doing the opposite of what most nations do: instead of not letting them in he doesn't let them out
South Korea has been pretty good to NK citizens so far. Every NK resident is automatically a SK citizen and they've even gone as far as pardoning NK operatives from crimes due to Kim's brainwashing.
I recommend "Nothing to Envy" to anyone who wants to get more info on the inner life of NK. It's truly an abysmal place and I doubt i'll be able to resist bursting into tears if ever the population was freed from under the thumb of this regime.
I don't know what will come of Trump's visit, but I do know that while previous administrations have been content to kick the can down the road men, women, and children are brutalized in concentration camps and experience starvation and death on a routine basis.
Agreed. If I were US President I would take the meeting. Not because I think it's likely to be successful, but because it's more likely to be successful than doing nothing. Even if the North Korean regime goes into the talks with the deliberate intention of sabotaging them, there's always the possibility they might change their mind once they talk about the options. The piece on Ireland @Mantis37 posted above is a timely illustration of how talking can lead to change in what had seemed entrenched positions.
On a lighter note there are other reasons for wanting an agreement to come out of this. Any agreement is likely to come with a heavy price tag and it would be entertaining to see how Trump would defend that after the way he's castigated Obama over the Iran deal .
One of interesting parts of that article for me was the assertion that the representatives we elect in representative democracies are not typically representative. We may therefore wish to sometimes make use of other sorts of selection to broaden the basis of how we legislate & govern. The tl;dr quote:
"Proponents of citizens’ assemblies highlight their use of random selection to create representative samples of any given society. That contrasts with narrower, more elite gatherings of elected representatives. Supporters also vaunt the deliberative process that is cultivated, with members responding to what is presented and listening to others’ responses. That diversity of views, so often missing in elected parliaments, helps deepen collective understanding. Participants feel less pressure as there are no elections, and this in turn improves the quality of their decisions."
One of interesting parts of that article for me was the assertion that the representatives we elect in representative democracies are not typically representative. We may therefore wish to sometimes make use of other sorts of selection to broaden the basis of how we legislate & govern. The tl;dr quote:
"Proponents of citizens’ assemblies highlight their use of random selection to create representative samples of any given society. That contrasts with narrower, more elite gatherings of elected representatives. Supporters also vaunt the deliberative process that is cultivated, with members responding to what is presented and listening to others’ responses. That diversity of views, so often missing in elected parliaments, helps deepen collective understanding. Participants feel less pressure as there are no elections, and this in turn improves the quality of their decisions."
That's great if an Albert Einstein or Martin Luther King is 'randomly selected', but I'm fairly sure we're more likely to get Cletus from the trailer park, Elrod the drug dealer or Barb the soccer-mom making important decisions for us. Sounds great out on the commune but in real life it's a disaster waiting to happen!
@booinyoureyes the assembly wasn't about legislating, but about trying to get a better feel for the viewpoints of citizens and provide a forum for discussion that didn't operate strictly on party lines. That gave a means to inform the possibility of future legislation and helped balance the tendency for 'representatives' in a long-established democracy not to represent the views of their community. To some extent I think that tendency is healthy as it allows government to speed up progress towards views that societies are in the process of moving towards anyway (such as drink-driving, gay marriage, forbidding capital punishment or corporal punishment of children), but if there's too great a disconnect between government and people then democracy starts to get a bad name.
@Balrog99 given that this assembly was purely advisory, presumably you wouldn't be happy for ordinary people to be involved in something that really counts (like jury service for instance - or even voting ).
@Balrog99 given that this assembly was purely advisory, presumably you wouldn't be happy for ordinary people to be involved in something that really counts (like jury service for instance - or even voting ).
Ideally I do believe just that for voting. I know that wouldn't work in a true democracy, however. Juries are a little different in that there are 12 people 'not' randomly selected and that seems to work fairly well most of the time.
I think uneducated people are far too easily led by their immediate needs, emotion and group think. I realize educated people aren't always better in those regards but I think they're far less likely to be hoodwinked.
As an aside, if this an 'advisory assembly' you're only going to get people showing up who want something out of it. In other words, agitated people are more likely to appear, and satisfied or uninterested people won't be there. That would make these meetings also 'non-representative' by nature (think local PTA meetings, most people couldn't care less, so don't go). The only way this might work if you could get everybody in the community to show up for the meeting. How to do that without infringing on people's right to not give a Damn is the rub...
@booinyoureyes the assembly wasn't about legislating, but about trying to get a better feel for the viewpoints of citizens and provide a forum for discussion that didn't operate strictly on party lines. That gave a means to inform the possibility of future legislation and helped balance the tendency for 'representatives' in a long-established democracy not to represent the views of their community. To some extent I think that tendency is healthy as it allows government to speed up progress towards views that societies are in the process of moving towards anyway (such as drink-driving, gay marriage, forbidding capital punishment or corporal punishment of children), but if there's too great a disconnect between government and people then democracy starts to get a bad name.
Ah, I misunderstood the purpose of the gathering. Thanks @Grond0 !
Comments
Canada is the U.S.'s #1 supplier of both steel and aluminum so if should effect prices in the US too much.
Pundits think this is just a bargaining tactic for NAFTA though, a way to bully Canada into the U.S. demands.
The worst people.
Canada actually has the opposite problem. The official residence of the prime minister is in such disrepair that Trudeau refuses to live in it.
It got that way because the perception of upgrading the residence for the sitting PM was regarded as a frivolous waste of tax money.
All political parties believe the house should be repaired but know the first one to do so won't hear the end of it in the House of Commons.
We got Carson spending $31k on his office.
We got Zinke spending $139k on doors.
Scott Pruitt spent $25k on a soundproof booth for his office so he could talk to businesses privately about screwing over the environment. He also only flies first class even though he's required by law to fly coach because he says he's scared someone might be mean to him for screwing over the environment. This includes spending $7k on one round-trip flight to Italy.
Tom Price, HHS secretary resigned for taking extensive charter flights costing at least $50k for his seats (more was spent on family and staff than that).
Mnuchin flew his wife around to Europe for their honeymoon in a military plane that the Air Force said costs $25k an hour to fly. Last October, the Treasury Department released a report finding that Secretary Steven Mnuchin had spent more than $800,000 on seven trips.
Probably more stuff I'm forgetting. Anyway you get the idea.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics/trump-administration-expensive-travel/index.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-trump-administration-officials-drawn-scrutiny-travel/story?id=50152711
That should be good.
https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902
Or put another way from economist Ellis Winningham:
"US military spending increases by billions each year:
Ever notice that nobody said we have to tax the rich to pay for it?
Ever notice that nobody taxed the rich to pay for it?
Ever notice that the spending didn’t result in inflation?
Ever notice that the national debt is 180 years old, it keeps going up, and the US government is still here?
The US government spent $1.5 trillion for the F-35:
Ever notice that nobody said we have to tax the rich to pay for it?
Ever notice that nobody taxed the rich to pay for it?
Ever notice that the spending didn’t result in inflation?
Ever notice that the national debt is 180 years old, it keeps going up, and the US government is still here?
The US government spent trillions bailing out banks:
Ever notice that nobody said we have to tax the rich to pay for it?
Ever notice that nobody taxed the rich to pay for it?
Ever notice that the spending didn’t result in inflation?
Ever notice that the national debt is 180 years old, it keeps going up, and the US government is still here?
And you think that we must tax the rich to “pay for” universal health care?
And you think that we cannot have universal health care until the rich pay up?
And you think that if we spend for universal health care without taxing the rich, inflation will eat us alive and the national debt will cause the US to become extinct.
And the reason why you think that is because you are listening to people who know how federal spending actually works; who know that federal taxes do not pay for anything; who know that the US government doesn’t actually borrow to fund deficit spending; who know that the national debt is just a bunch of savings accounts; who do not want you to know what they know, and who do not want you to have universal health care."
Also, I'm old enough to remember when Obama shaking Raul Castro's hand at Mandela's funeral was a national scandal. Again, North Korean leaders have been trying to get this to happen for 20 years. Only Trump is dumb enough to take them up on the offer. This is not Nixon going to China. The only thing that will take place if this ACTUALLY occurs in May is that two lunatics will sit in a room together, and afterwards Trump will beam about how nice Kim Jong Un was to him and what a strong leader he is. The odds of anything good coming out of these two meeting face to face are infinitesimal. They both deal in delusions of grandeur so massive on a daily basis that the room might simply implode in on itself.
They aren't dumb or suicidal, they've outlasted almost all other communist countries and know full well any actual attack on Seoul or some nuclear strike would be suicide for them. Their goal has always been the preservation of their own regime and hold on power.
I don't know what will come of Trump's visit, but I do know that while previous administrations have been content to kick the can down the road men, women, and children are brutalized in concentration camps and experience starvation and death on a routine basis.
The main focus was on two things. Doom and Marilyn Manson. But mostly Marilyn Manson. To this day, I have never seen a entertainment figure blamed more for something than Manson was for Columbine. Of course, the reality was that Eric Harris and Dylan Kleebold didn't even listen to Marilyn Manson (they were fans of the German band Rammstein). Marilyn Manson was simply the easiest target, as was every goth kid in high schools across America. Already outcasts in a certain sense, anyone with an Antichrist Superstar t-shirt was labeled as a potential school shooter.
Of course, Marilyn Manson was nothing but the logical progression of rockers who had come before him. In the 90s, it was Manson. In the 80s, it was Ozzy Osbourne. The 70s, Alice Cooper. The 60s, Jim Morrison, all the way back to Elvis, and the way he scared adults in the country by appropriating African-American blues and R&B. The stunning ease with which Marilyn Manson became the scapegoat for Columbine when he literally had NOTHING to do with it, even in the tangential sense of the killers liking his music (because they didn't) was stunning. It was, in a sense, the ultimate proto-type of fake news. Because it was made up out of whole cloth.
An interesting article on how randomised selection of representatives altered the abortion situation in Ireland:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/how-99-strangers-in-a-dublin-hotel-broke-irelands-abortion-deadlock
I recommend "Nothing to Envy" to anyone who wants to get more info on the inner life of NK. It's truly an abysmal place and I doubt i'll be able to resist bursting into tears if ever the population was freed from under the thumb of this regime.
On a lighter note there are other reasons for wanting an agreement to come out of this. Any agreement is likely to come with a heavy price tag and it would be entertaining to see how Trump would defend that after the way he's castigated Obama over the Iran deal
"Proponents of citizens’ assemblies highlight their use of random selection to create representative samples of any given society. That contrasts with narrower, more elite gatherings of elected representatives. Supporters also vaunt the deliberative process that is cultivated, with members responding to what is presented and listening to others’ responses. That diversity of views, so often missing in elected parliaments, helps deepen collective understanding. Participants feel less pressure as there are no elections, and this in turn improves the quality of their decisions."
This seems particularly undemocratic and unrepresentative to me. Not sure that its a feature rather than a bug.
@Balrog99 given that this assembly was purely advisory, presumably you wouldn't be happy for ordinary people to be involved in something that really counts (like jury service for instance - or even voting
I think uneducated people are far too easily led by their immediate needs, emotion and group think. I realize educated people aren't always better in those regards but I think they're far less likely to be hoodwinked.
As an aside, if this an 'advisory assembly' you're only going to get people showing up who want something out of it. In other words, agitated people are more likely to appear, and satisfied or uninterested people won't be there. That would make these meetings also 'non-representative' by nature (think local PTA meetings, most people couldn't care less, so don't go). The only way this might work if you could get everybody in the community to show up for the meeting. How to do that without infringing on people's right to not give a Damn is the rub...