I see your point but to some degree doesn't Trump have a point here? He agreed to support the eventual R nominee so long as he was being treated fairly. Currently, he feels that he is being treated unfairly and letting them know it. They are stacking the audience with the rank and file party water-carriers who boo Trump to no end, which colors the tone of the debate. That isn't playing fairly, is it? Let's face it, Trump holds all the cards here; he will play nice if they play nice but if they don't and Trump runs third party there is no way Republicans stand a chance. I mean seriously, they may as well back out of the race at that point and hand it to the Democratic nominee. I actually hope this happens, I want to see the Republican party in it's current form dissolve and reform in the absence of a legitimate third party formation.
I think you are misunderstanding how the national debt works. If I could sum it up, the level of debt we currently have does not matter. It is mostly the money we owe to ourselves. It has no bearing on our ability to pay for our social programs. We can't go insolvent, and the only way our credit rating gets hurt is by our governing bodies doing things like threatening to not raise the debt ceiling. We've been in debt as a nation for basically our entire existence. In fact, many economists think we need even more debt. The theory is that with rates so low, now is a good time to spend more on programs that would benefit the country, thus spurring more growth and greater GDP. There was a famous study a few years back, where these two economists argued that once a country's debt exceeds 90% of GDP, economic growth suffers. Many were skeptical when this paper was initially published, and then it turned out they screwed up the math majorly. There was no evidence that 90% or even 100% of GDP was the tipping point. The sad thing is many countries in Europe (and here in America) used this faulty paper to justify crippling austerity, which didn't work, as expected, and countries plunged further into economic catastrophe. At some point, the level of debt could become an issue, but we are a long way off from then. Regarding your concerns about welfare fraud, let's forget about the true level of fraud. I disagree with your numbers but let's assume they are correct. The fact that we lost $30 billion in fraud doesn't mean we can't spend the same amount in infrastructure. If it creates jobs, it's absolutely fine to go into a deficit to do so. When growth is stagnate, that's when we need to be going into deficits to infuse money into the economy. The federal government isn't a state government. It doesn't need to balance its budget every year. The only thing stopping the government from investing in infrastructure is politics.
Not really, since that debt is not just funded through taxes, but but largely through treasury notes and bonds sold to domestic and foreign buyers. When enough of those debt instruments are bought up, that potentially gives a foreign party power over the economy. The nation has exceeded its risk tolerance and volatility thresholds a while ago. Let's hope the Chinese government doesn't have a need to cash those bonds in all at once.
I think we just have diametrically opposing views on economics/spending/welfare and, based on your comments, I don't think we will find much common ground. While you are correct that of the $19T, which is in excess of total GDP, only $13.5T is publicly held, that is still a lot. These are Treasuries, publicly traded debt instruments that are paid back with interest. I disagree with you that bond rating is the only thing that matters here, at some point, we will print enough money beyond annual GDP to where investors won't come to auction because concerns over inflation, default, mass liquidation of foreign-held treasuries and a myriad of other reasons will stop them if they are not priced according to risk. This drives the cost of borrowing by the Government higher, which is a vicious cycle that has ruined countries in the past. We are not immune from market forces.
Cute. Decorated Marine combat vet attacked and robbed by group hounding him about BLM. "He shared a picture with us that showed him help rescue a fellow marine during the Battle of Fallujah. That photo was the inspiration for the "No Man Left Behind" sculpture at two Marine bases." Man attacked over "Black Lives Matter" http://wjla.com/news/local/man-attacked-over-black-lives-matter
Yeah, that sounds like a bunch of assholes looking for a reason to beat and rob someone. I would hope that anybody reading that story would see that.
So what reason did they find? I didn't catch it in the article? Do they need a reason beyond they want to take what he has? Isn't that the usual motive?
Here's an idea, why don't we go ahead and wait for the surveillance video before we jump to any conclusions. I'm not saying it didn't happen the way the guy said it did, however, there is video, at the very least, of the inside confrontation.
So, I haven't been paying attention to the issue; is there going to be a SCOTUS nomination or not? I know there was a lot of hand-wringing and finger pointing between the two sides as to what the right thing to do was; but has there been any clarity now that Scalia's corpse is cold? Seems, unsurprisingly so, the whores in Washington are working diligently at trying to see who can out do who in the hypocrisy category. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...most-on-election-year-supreme-court-nominees/
I am curious how often the Supreme Court majority, the Senate AND the Presidency have all come up for grabs in a given year? I also think that a few of the other justices will retire once the election is settled (two are nearing 80 for Gods sakes). This is a big deal, right?
That video shows that something happened, and that something appears to be an assault, and white-tank guy looks like he kicks somebody on the way out the door. But, it doesn't have audio. Those guys acted pretty shitty, it looks like, but that doesn't mean they were shouting about Black Lives Matter. The whole thing is weird to me, that this guy on the left: who served in the Marines for 8 years, ran for Congress as a Democrat in California, and is now a college student in Washington DC, was beat up for no good reason, by a group of teenagers. That just all seems odd.
What pisses me off the most is there were plenty of people standing there watching. No one tried to intervene, no one attempted to give him aid, no one called the police, no one saw anything. Absolutely shameful.
It's pretty common in DC. This story lists several: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...sted-in-beating-of-girl-on-metros-green-line/
Watching that CCTV footage makes me wonder what level of situational awareness this guy had? From what I see here, I wouldn't have step foot in that McDonald's.
You know what? This is the perfect chance for BLM to grant legitimacy to their movement. All they would need to do is condemn this act and ask the community to turn these thugs in. After all this was a man who served our country, one of the millions of veterans who put their life on the line to protect their right to protest and speak their minds, and he gets attacked by a gang of thugs while folks just watch. But they won't. They'll continue to scream and chant "Black Lives Matter" and "Silence Is Violence". Watching members of that same community stand idly by as a person is assaulted, kicked while he's down, and robbed just tells me once again BLM is full of shit. I can also promise that if the police do catch up with these punks we'll be treated to either A) A crying mother/grandmother telling us this is a good boy, he'd give you the shirt off his back and he's never done anything wrong before/ he's turning his life around. or B) An angry mother/grandmother yelling he's a good boy, he didn't do nothing. That guy used racial slurs. Every. Fucking. Time.
But why should they condemn it when there is an entire country condemning it already. The whole point of the movement is that when this happens to black people nobody cares. Also, not sure what crying/angry mothers/grandmothers reacting when cops arrest their kids has to do with the BLM either. They are just idiots trying to take advantage of media cameras. I might have missed something, but is the BLM movement actually protesting whenever a black person is legitimately arrested in the correct procedural manner by officers? I thought it was just when a black person is either arrested for no legitimate reason or excessive force was used in the arrest.
http://deadspin.com/rio-has-given-up-on-its-goal-to-clean-up-the-water-in-t-1759894974 The U.S. will send 48 rowers to Rio, and they will be as forewarned and forearmed as the federation can make them, starting with squeeze bottles of hand sanitizer that will be distributed on the flight to Brazil. Hannafin says the athletes have been asked to get hepatitis A vaccinations and polio boosters and take the oral typhoid vaccine. Their oar handles will be bleached and their boats washed inside and out after each training session or competition. Gear will be laundered at a high enough temperature to kill microbes. “Track bites”—the nicks rowers get on the backs of their calves from their sliding seats—will be cleaned and covered to reduce the chance of infection. Probiotics screened by the USOC will be on the training table. I don't think it would be worth going to the Olympics.