Tag: Politics

Fixing Our Budget

It appears as through we face the happy situation of our federal government shutting down for a while because they can’t agree if we should have a $1.23 trillion deficit or only a $1.21 trillion deficit:

US President Barack Obama has said it would be “inexcusable” for lawmakers to fail to reach a budget that would fund the government to September.

Mr Obama spoke after he and Congressional leaders were unable to reach a budget deal on Tuesday.

Without a new budget, the US government will shut down on Friday.

Ironically if our federal government were to shutdown they couldn’t spend any money and the deficit problem would be a non-issue. I think it would be smart to lobby the “representatives” to support shutting down the government as a means to fix the deficit problem this country is facing.

Fixing Bribery

What’s one way to fix the problem of bribery that has run rampant throughout… well everywhere? A policy pointed out by Bruce Schneier’s blog looks to be effective and simple, legalize the giving of bribes:

Under the current law, discussed in some detail in the next section, once a bribe is given, the bribe giver and the bribe taker become partners in crime. It is in their joint interest to keep this fact hidden from the authorities and to be fugitives from the law, because, if caught, both expect to be punished. Under the kind of revised law that I am proposing here, once a bribe is given and the bribe giver collects whatever she is trying to acquire by giving the money, the interests of the bribe taker and bribe giver become completely orthogonal to each other. If caught, the bribe giver will go scot free and will be able to collect his bribe money back. The bribe taker, on the other hand, loses the booty of bribe and faces a hefty punishment.

Not only does this policy take away the incentive of covering up the fact a bribe was accepted but it also tosses in motivation to rat the bribe taker out. I like it. Obviously such a proposal will never likely be passed into law anywhere as that would go against the self-interest of those creating laws but it’s still a nice proposal.

They Were Just Joking About Fixing the Deficit

Remember all that talk about reducing the deficit made by many of the Republicans during campaign season? Much like Obama these clowns were just kidding:

Republicans on Monday night introduced a measure to fund the military through September and government operations for one more week.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his conference about the legislation — which contains $12 billion in spending cuts — during a Monday night meeting, his office said. The move is intended to prevent a government shutdown that would start after Friday unless Congress approves another measure to fund the government.

So we’re going to continue funding the military at our current levels until September? The Department of Offense Defense is one of our largest money sinks. Also you know how much $12 billions is to our $1.27 trillion deficit (not to be mistaken with our $15.1 trillion debt)? 0.9%. Yes that $12 billion cut is less than one percent of the yearly deficit. How the fuck can they justify that as cutting the deficit? I also absolutely love this quote:

“We’re serious about trying to prevent a government shutdown. We’re also serious about cutting spending,” he told reporters after the GOP meeting.

Shutting down the government would actually save us tons of money. Hell I’m going to go so far as to say shutting down the government would be the most effective plan for slashing our deficit. I think I’m going to start a “Shutdown the Government” campaign.

The Real Reason Behind United Nations Involvement in Libya

Prepare yourself to have your personal beliefs rocked to the core forcing you to question all you know about reality. It seems the real reason the United Nations has gotten involved in helping the Libyan rebels has finally been unveiled:

The first export of oil from rebel-held areas of eastern Libya for almost three weeks is due to begin later.

Libya’s opposition groups are making plans to load a tanker believed to have now docked at a terminal near Tobruk.

Oil. Are you surprised? I didn’t think so. Nobody in the United Nations gave two shits about the rebels. If that were the case they would also have forces entering Syria now that the government is killing protesters.

Using Obama’s Words Against Him

Remember when Obama was talking about the two wars Bush involved us in? If not he said, “The President does not have the power to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Of course this was before he decided to drag our force over to Libya to bomb targets in support of rebeles we know nothing about.

Thankfully Rand Paul is calling Obama on this:

The Rand Paul resolution, co-sponsored by fellow Senate Tea Party Caucus member Mike Lee (R-Utah), says: “The President does not have the power to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Senator Obama used precisely that language in a December 20, 2007 interview with the Boston Globe when he was campaigning for the presidency. President Obama neglected to mention any actual or imminent threat to the nation in his address to the American people on Libya March 18.

It should come as no surprise that various members in Congress aren’t happy with somebody calling out their leader on this. After all it was only bad to engage our forces in military action without Congressional approval when Bush did it. To this end Congress appears to be refusing to vote. According to Rand Paul:

Right now, my resolution has been basically taken off the table. For three days now, we’ve had no votes. And they’re not going to vote again today, maybe because I think they don’t want to vote on whether or not Congress should have this authority. They’re embarrassed that the President took them to war precisely with the same kind of reasoning that they’ve always criticized up here.

It is my belief that a majority of Congress is more than happy to let the President engage our forces without any overhead. This is a cowards move on their behalf as it is simply a way of avoiding blame when popular opinion moves against any of these engagements. Giving the President this kind of authority allows Congress to effectively say, “Don’t blame us we didn’t approve this engagement.” I also really like this quote by Rand:

There are some of us who have a respect for the Constitution who are worried about the precedent that is set by allowing a President to go to war with no debate, no discussion. He had time to go to the UN. He had time to go to the Arab League. He had the time to go just about everywhere in the world to ask for permission, except for down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Congress which the Constitution says he has to come here. And he went everywhere else but here.

Zing! So Obama went to everybody but Congress to get approval for this war? If nothing else I have to say I’m really liking the fact that Rand is willing to call the President on these types of things. For too long it seems members of Congress were unwilling to call the President on actions that shouldn’t have been taken or were embarrassing when taken.

Placing Blame at the Right People

I think the title of this story is rather interesting. The title is Brazil banks sued for Amazon deforestation. Obviously reading this has brought to light more evils committed by those terrible bankers who are slowly ruining our planet through their insatiable greed. Well that is until you actually read the story:

Brazil’s biggest bank – the state-run Banco do Brasil – is being sued for allegedly funding deforestation in the Amazon.

For those of you who have a lapse in reading comprehension the emphasis I’m trying to point out is the fact that one of the banks being sued is actually owned and run by the government of Brazil. Of course it’s unfair to blame the state when multiple banks are being sued and the other one is a privately held institution:

The smaller state-owned Banco da Amazonia is also being sued.

Unless it isn’t that is. So why am I bringing this story up? Because I’m sure there will be people spouting on about how the evil banks of Brazil are causing deforestation and that the only solution is for the Brazilian government to step in and reprimand these horrible banks. Those who actually read and understood the article though will realize that these banks are state property and thus the previously mentioned actions would require the Brazilian government to reprimand itself which creates an interesting conflict of interest.

Basically I’m trying to point out the fact that the blame shouldn’t be put on “evil bankers” in this case but on evil government.

Texas Campus Carry

I find Texas to be an interesting state when it comes to gun laws. On one hand the people of that state are pretty pro-gun but on the other hand they have some strange restrictions in their carry laws. Of these restrictions I find the prohibition against carrying on college campuses to be truly idiotic. Thankfully the Texas legislature seems to be well on their way to fixing it and the National Rifle Association (NRA) is asking Texans to call their state senators and urge them to pass the bill.

Obviously people in opposition to this bill will call these same senators and make claims on “blood in the streets” and claim firearms are too dangerous to have near “irresponsible college students.” Yes the anti-gunners main arguments have been the fact that colleges are a place for debate and any debate involving a person with a firearm will absolutely turn into a shooting war. As a libertarian who has many debates with socialists while I’m carrying a gun I would like to point out how fallacious this argument is.

The other point anti-gunners try to make is college campuses are sources of heavy binge drinking and having firearms near such an environment means shooting wars will develop. What the anti-gunners don’t realize is once somebody has a carry permit a firearm doesn’t magically manifest itself on the permit holder’s hip. Those of us who carry can take the gun off when we decide to do something that doesn’t mix well with weaponry. I know this because I have removed my firearm when I’ve gone to parties and gotten shit faced drunk.

I’m also going to point out the fact that Minnesota allows the carrying of firearms on college campuses (colleges can make restrictions against students and faculty carrying on their campus but no law exists preventing it thus anybody not involved with a college can carry on the campus without any worry or expulsion or being fired). Do you know how many shootings we’ve had on college campuses due to allowing people to legally carry firearms there? Zero. For you anti-gunners who don’t know how to count that means we’ve never had an incident.

This is usually when are anti-gunner will claim that it’s only a matter of time. Truth be told it’s only a matter of time before most scenarios eventually unfold. What I can tell you though is prohibition of having firearms on college campuses hasn’t prevented shootings on said campuses. All these prohibitions have done is effectively disarmed both the student body and faculty meaning any asshole with malicious intent can have his pick of defenseless victims. Although I realize no matter what I say or what evidence I prevent to those who are against removing prohibitions against people arming themselves the anti-gunner’s won’t change their rhetoric. Anti-gunners are irrationally scared of firearms and like all irrational fears this fear has lead them to hold irrational beliefs.

Another Bad Idea by Obama

Obama is full of bad ideas and has a long history of broken promises (remember we were supposed to be out of Iraq and Gitmo was going to be closed by now?). I’m guessing these reasons are why his approval rating is so abysmal. Facing such a situation I’d avoid another run but Obama isn’t happy until he’s proven himself to be a complete moron who doesn’t have any comprehension of reality. This this end he’s announced his run for the next presidential race.

It’s it kind of early? I really don’t want to listen to presidential debates and ads from now until the elections in 2012. Oh well I’m sure the Republicans will put somebody equally stupid up and thus ensure no matter who wins we the people will lose for another four years. I know both political parties seems to be in a race to hit the bottom of the gene pool for their presidential candidates but in my eyes that’s not a race they should want to win.

The Government’s Attempt at April Fool’s

Must like everything the government tries they fucked up their April Fool’s gag as well. The United States government tried to get people to believe unemployment is at a two year low of 8.8%. That’s a good one! Wait… they’re serious? Oh, I thought they were trying to be funny.

The sad fact is unemployment isn’t nearly that low once you don’t use the government’s rigged scale that attempts to make them look better.

Oklahoma Fighting Back Against Bloomberg

New York King Mayor Bloomberg has been funding so-called “string” operations where he attempts to demonstrate how easy it is for criminals to purchase guns. Bloomberg’s agents find private sellers, claim they can’t pass a background check, and then try to purchase the firearm. The problem of course is the seller has committed a felony act but selling to somebody he or she can be reasonably sure is a felon. Thus the acts being performed are already illegal yet Bloomberg wants yet more laws on the books to make this more illegal.

Well Oklahoma appears to be sick of Bloomberg’s shit and are looking to pass legislation (it only awaits the governor’s signature) making such operations illegal. The bill is SB 856, the Fraudulent Firearms Purchase Prevention Act. It already passed both the House and Senate unanimously so it’s likely to get the required governor’s signature.

I think this paragraph sums up the problem with Bloomberg’s actions:

SB 856 would protect lawful firearm retailers from illegal gun sting operations such as those by Bloomberg who has sent hired agents into other states to attempt illegal firearm purchases in an effort to blame federally licensed firearm retailers for gun crime in New York City and around the country.

Bloomberg is trying to blame the violent crime problem of New York on everybody besides the criminals of New York. Although New York has draconian gun laws Bloomberg is claiming all the illegal guns (which due to New York laws is most guns) come from other states and therefore those states need to pass stronger gun control laws even though they don’t have any problem with crime. I guess we’re supposed to believe that Minnesota has a low violent crime rate because all of our guns are flowing to New York to fuel their violence. Somehow I doubt that’s the problem.