Friday 14 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
I am shocked to hear that the FBI has used the PATRIOT Act vastly more under Obama when looking in to things that have dick with terror.
Shocked, I tell you.
Comments Off on Shocked! :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-14 :: madlibertarianguy
Thursday 13 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
It’s okay to foist Obamacare and its many added costs on to the private sector, but not on to those who brought it about? Politico:
Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.
The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect — a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.
If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.
The problem is far more acute in the House, where lawmakers and aides are generally younger and less wealthy. Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice that they’ll be leaving over concerns about Obamacare. Republican and Democratic lawmakers said the chatter about retiring now, to remain on the current health care plan, is constant.
Rep. John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat in leadership when the law passed, said he thinks the problem will be resolved.
“If not, I think we should begin an immediate amicus brief to say, ‘Listen this is simply not fair to these employees,’” Larson told POLITICO. “They are federal employees.”
Fuck you, John Larson. If it’s okay for the rest of America to burden the exorbitant cost rises for health insurance due solely to a bill that you fucking approved, you and your aides can do it too. Eat your own fucking dog food, asshole.
Comments Off on Wait a Second . . . :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-13 :: madlibertarianguy
Friday 7 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian concerning a functioning, democratic society:
The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals.
This dynamic – the hallmark of a healthy and free society – has been radically reversed. Now, they know everything about what we do, and are constantly building systems to know more. Meanwhile, we know less and less about what they do, as they build walls of secrecy behind which they function. That’s the imbalance that needs to come to an end. No democracy can be healthy and functional if the most consequential acts of those who wield political power are completely unknown to those to whom they are supposed to be accountable.
This is exactly right. I should know virtually everything that government is doing, and the government should know virtually nothing about what I am doing. It is my job to judge them. And I can’t do that if everything they do is shrouded in secrecy. The only way to return to the default is to radically diminish the scope and size of the federal government. The goliath is unaccountable, and that unaccountability is being used against us. It time for it to end.
Comments Off on The Way Things Are Supposed to Work :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-07 :: madlibertarianguy
Friday 7 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
GMO Crops: shown to make poor people not poor and not hungry.
Controlling for other factors, the adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food insecurity by 15–20% among cotton-producing households.
So GMO crops help people have more income and eat better, raising their overall quality of life significantly. Opposition is immoral.
Comments Off on GMO Crops :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-07 :: madlibertarianguy
Thursday 6 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
The mass corruption and continuous shredding of our rights isn’t the perceived problem, but the leaks which expose them. If you’re so worried about leaks, perhaps you ought not engage in tactics that repulse those who have knowledge of said tactics that they feel it their moral obligation to leak it.
Comments Off on The Problem :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-06 :: madlibertarianguy
Thursday 6 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Kristen Breitweiser at Huffington Post:
For years during the Bush administration, many groups fought against the Patriot Act and its illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens. They screamed about pre-emptive war based on lies. They questioned illegal “detainment” of “enemy combatants.” They were horrified by torture and extraordinary renditions. They fought for the sanctity and protection of whistleblowers. They spoke out against Cheney and Rumsfeld and their evil Executive Branch power-grab that threatened the very principles of democracy, our Constitution and our precious balance of powers.
And yet, where are these people now?
Where are their eyes, their ears, and their screaming voices?
Why aren’t their fists in the air and their passions emboldened?
Where is our collective conscience?
Because at this point, our Constitutional rights and privileges — our national security — are once again under attack.
We all need to pull ourselves out of our collective morass of self-absorption and myopic disconnect and start paying better attention — hell, ANY attention — to exactly what is going on in our country at large.
We need to start asking questions and demanding answers.
We need to rein in Obama’s power. And the power of the Executive Branch.
Because at this point, given the boundless parameters now put in place by our Nobel Peace Prize-winning-former-community-organizer-of-a-President, none of us can afford to be innocent, benign bystanders.
Of course when I said that government encroachment was a problem and that we have real cause to fear our government, I was called a loonie who ought put my tinfoil hat back on. Neocons brought us the total surveillance state; liberals ensured that it would stay forever. For that they can go fuck themselves.
Government is the problem, not who’s running it.
Comments Off on When I Said It :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-06 :: madlibertarianguy
Thursday 6 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS targeting of opposition political groups, spying on journalists in the AP and Fox News (and surely others), murder drones, killing American citizens without a semblance of due process, mass spying by attaining broad phone records of millions of Americans for years.
It seems to me that it’s about time time someone bring it up.
Comments Off on Impeachment :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-06 :: madlibertarianguy
Tuesday 4 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Punished. For protecting a fellow student from a knife-wielding bully. Wait, what? Yes, you read that right. A bully was in an altercation with a kid in middle school. A third student stepped in and assisted by pushing the bully out of the way. He was called in to the principal’s office and . . .
That’s when Leah O’Donnell, Briar’s mother, received a call from the vice-principal.
“They phoned me and said, ‘Briar was involved in an incident today,’” she said. “That he decided to ‘play hero’ and jump in.”
Ms. O’Donnell was politely informed the school did not “condone heroics,” she said. Instead, Briar should have found a teacher to handle the situation.
“I asked: ‘In the time it would have taken him to go get a teacher, could that kid’s throat have been slit?’ She said yes, but that’s beside the point. That we ‘don’t condone heroics in this school.’ ”
Instead of getting a pat on the back for his bravery, Briar was made to feel as if he had done something terribly wrong. The police were called, the teen filed a statement and his locker was searched.
A child was punished for helping another, perhaps saving him from grave injury, because they don’t condone his heroics not using the official, state sanctioned authority. They openly admit that it’s better to risk injury and use the official apparatus than to protect oneself. I hope these people are attacked one day, and suffer painfully as they await the police. We wouldn’t want them being a hero or anything.
1 comment :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-04 :: madlibertarianguy
Monday 3 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
It’s as if the words “Congress shall make no law” have some room for interpretation or something. The New Yorker:
In the long run, to rebalance the national-security state and to otherwise revitalize American democracy, the United States requires a Supreme Court willing to deepen protections for investigative reporters, as the majority in Branzburg would not. In response to criticism about the A.P. case, Obama has reintroduced federal legislation that would clarify journalists’ rights. Such a federal “shield law” might be constructive, but new legislation with overly broad national-security exceptions would be even worse than the status quo.
The Supreme Court’s ONLY responsibility in this matter is to say “look, government; this shit isn’t that hard. “Congress shall make no law” means Congress shall make no fucking law, goddammit.” And yes, carving out “special circumstances” which recognize “national security” in any shape is a really bad fucking idea.
Comments Off on As If :: Share or discuss :: 2013-06-03 :: madlibertarianguy
Tuesday 28 May 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
I’m really fucking glad to know that the tax dollars that are stolen from my income are used to subsidize rich people driving fancy cars.
First, there’s the $7500 taxback bonus that every buyer gets and every taxpayer pays. Then there are generous state subsidies ($2500 in California, $4000 in Illinois—the bluer the state, the more the taxpayers get gouged), all paid to people forking out $63K (plus taxes) for the base version, to roughly $100K for the really quick one.
“But Tesla made a profit!” says people who advocate for using tax dollars on greendoggles. Oh really?
The latest round of Tesla wonderment came when it reported its first quarterly profit earlier this month. TSLA stock darned near doubled in a week. Musk then borrowed $150 million from Goldman Sachs (shocking!) and floated a cool billion in new stock and long-term debt. That’s how we—the taxpayers—were repaid.
[. . .]
Tesla didn’t generate a profit by selling sexy cars, but rather by selling sleazy emissions “credits,” mandated by the state of California’s electric vehicle requirements. The competition, like Honda, doesn’t have a mass market plug-in to meet the mandate and therefore must buy the credits from Tesla, the only company that does. The bill for last quarter was $68 million. Absent this shakedown of potential car buyers, Tesla would have lost $57 million, or $11,400 per car. As the company sold 5,000 cars in the quarter, though, $13,600 per car was paid by other manufacturers, who are going to pass at least some of that cost on to buyers of their products. Folks in the new car market are likely paying a bit more than simply the direct tax subsidy.
So Tesla didn’t make a profit from selling their automobiles, presumably what they’re in business to sell, but from laws that take advantage of people who buy other cars. Fucking great.
Comments Off on Glad to Know :: Share or discuss :: 2013-05-28 :: madlibertarianguy