BrentWil
BrentWil's JournalWhy not start a discharge petition for both the CR and debt ceiling?
If a clean CR and raising the debt ceiling were brought to the house floor, it would pass with democratic votes and sane republicans. While I know there are certain waiting periods with a discharge petition, why not get one started for both the CR and debt ceiling. This would at least start to put pressure on the Speaker to bring up the votes.
Why does the far right dominate the GOP while the far left doesn't dominate the democratic party?
Many structural factors have allowed the far right to dominate the GOP. The weakening of the party system and the primary system have allowed people who are, in my view, detached from reality to dominate the GOP. That said, why haven't the same factors been at play for the democratic party. I am not suggesting that it would be a good thing. I am fundamentally a moderate and I see no other choice but to be a democrat, at this point. However, one would think that very liberal voters would be the most likely to vote in a democratic primary and one would think that you would see a similar effect in the democratic party. Not that it doesn't happen (ie. Alan Spector), but it seems much less likely in the democratic party.
The basic question of the thread is: Why?
The Argument for Action in Syria is Simple: The World can no longer allow the use of WMD
It seems to me the argument for action in Syria is rather simple. In an age when violence is democratized, the world cannot allow the use of WMD. To allow Syria to use the weapon, sets a global standard. Namely, you can use the weapons. In a world in which more states and non-state are getting WMD, the world must respond to any use of WMD. A punitive action against that use is something that is a must to enforce a global standard of not using these weapons.
What type of intelligence operations should the government be allowed to use for national security?
Recent events have shown that many on the board have a problem with the government use of phone data (phone calls, lengths of time of calls, etc) used for national security reasons. This is despite the fact that the data was attained by a warrant and any other use of the data would require further court approval. To me, that seems like a pretty good balance, at least when it comes to National security.
So the question is,if this is a problem, what should the government be allowed to do when it comes to national security?
PRISM was an effective program and a good balance with civil liberties. Snowden should go to jail.
It always strikes me as an interesting PR position the government is in when stuff like this brakes. If you believe that talking about something actually puts people in danger, how do you defend a program like PRiSM when they are leaked? Not that too many will take too much pity on the PR for the government, but it is an interesting point of view to take in mind. This story somewhat reminds me of the AP leak story. Yes the government seized records of journalist. However, it was in response to a leak on human intelligence in terrorist organizations. In other words, we had real people, with real families, that were inside terrorist organizations. Talented people with real families. If you were the President and in charge of protecting those people, how far would you go? And once the story is leaked, how do you protect yourself without further undermining those people's safety. We often think of these problems from the side of the civil libertarian. However, it is an interesting perspective and one every President has to deal with.
That brings us to PRiSM. From what I can gather from the news sources, this was basically a program used data from various sources (cell phone companies, internet companies) to look for connections to known terrorist sources. In other words, they were mining the data to see if a certain number called someone. If they wanted to go further and listen, they had to attain a further warrant. Moreover, the program itself was covered by a warrant and legal. The program apparently had pervious success. There are very few things that Saxby Chambliss and Dianne Feinstein agree on. The effectiveness of the program seems to be one.
Given that a majority of internet traffic passes within the United States, there are both legitimate privacy and security concerns. What the program was designed to stop are not just crime. They are events that could undermine our civilization. However, this also has to be weighted against privacy concerns. With that being the case, I don't see anything particularly wrong the arrangement that a democratically elected government came to. Moreover, there was oversight from both the Congress and the courts.
What Snowden did is throw out all these considerations and decide he had the right to make these judgements, not the lawfully elected representatives of the people. I am for more transparency in government. One of the reasons we have problems keeping secrets is because we over classify. That said, he had no right to undermine what was the will of a democratically elected government that was reviewed by the courts. There are actual security concerns and he could have very well undermined those concerns.
Senior Citizens Voted for Romney in large number... Why not let them have GOP-lite?
Just a question. If the question is between dealing with student debt or building a modern infrastructure for the future, why sacrifice that for a group that said in the voting booth they want these policies?
Edit: Exit Poll to show the data of Senior Citizens voting for Obama. http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls
How does the Democratic Party win back the votes of poor white males?
If the GOP has a source of strength for resources, it is the two percent. Those votes actual votes, however, come from an educated minority. In other words, those votes know who and what they are voting for.
That said, if it has a source of strength for voters, it is poor white males. They are voting against their interests for a party that does not serve them. How does does the democratic party get this group, along with other groups that are voting against their interests, and finally kill the GOP for good?
The case for preemptive war: The United States should be willing to aid South Korea in going North
Iraq was a dumb war fought for dumb rational. It was extremely wasteful and we have no guarantee that the new Iraqi State will be more beneficial to the United States then Saddam's Iraq. Iraq could take many paths in the future. Many of those paths are not helpful for the United States.
That said, Iraq is a sunk cost and should not determine future decision making. This is especially true of decision making that has no relationship with Iraq. In the case of North Korea, we have an agent that is a destabilizing agent that we can not continue to buy off with food and money. Moreover, unlike Iraq, there is a clear state (South Korea), that could administrative a post war state and integrate the North into a democratic united Korea.
The cost of North Korea starting a war are extreme. Millions of people live within the artillery range of North Korea. This could be mitigated if South Korea (and the United States) struck first. Moreover, there are cost to continued existence of North Korea. They have demonstrated a willingness to export missile and WMD technology. The cost of the North Korea state is not only in millions of aid to provide ransom for their consent threats, but to the North Korean people. The North Korean people deserve a government who follows policies that do not produce starvation and an existence that is barely survivable. Political integration of Korea into a democratic state that represents all of Korea is possible and would be a huge benefit to the North Korean people.
China and Russia are growing tired of the game North Korea is playing. Ensuring that they remain neutral in a military conflict which South Korea (and us) start is essential. However, if that condition is achieved, we shouldn't exclude the idea of South Korea going north, with our aid. A united Korea would require economic and humanitarian aid. However, in the long run, South Korea is a society that is fully capable of integrating the North. That would be good for us, South Korea, the Region, and (most importantly) the North Korean people.
North Korea attacks South Korea in a full scale attack meant to unite Korea under North Korean rule
You are President Obama. What do you do?
Wikipedia: Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012
You know, I was looking at election articles on Wikipedia. I came across, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_and_pregnancy_controversies_in_United_States_elections,_2012 . If you would like a reminder of why to vote, that article is an excellent reminder.
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Member since: Sun Apr 25, 2010, 10:54 PMNumber of posts: 2,384