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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 19, 2011 - 12:08am PT
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 19, 2011 - 02:31am PT
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The bus that Obama did his recent tour of the midwest in - the Darth Vader thing - was bought by the Secret Service, not Obama or his campaign. In fact, they bought two of them, from a US company - although they're made in Canada. (Memo to bluering: US & Canada allies.) They bought two of them so that the president has one when a bus is needed, there's a backup, and so that during a presidential campaign, the nominee for the other party has the same thing. And because it's Secret Service/government, political advertising on the buses isn't permitted.
In other words, a complete non-story.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Aug 19, 2011 - 08:47am PT
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Pay up bitches but keep voting for the republicans who want to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy...The brainwashing continues..
The richest Americans have always been in the highest tax brackets, so this notion of tax cuts for the wealthy is lame. Usually a tax cut for them means they still pay a higher rate than you and me.
But closing loopholes is another key. Pay the rate!
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Aug 19, 2011 - 09:04am PT
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Usually a tax cut for them means they still pay a higher rate than you and me.
LOL!!!!!!!!! Bluey, Archie Bunker was a parody, NOT a role model!!!!!!!!!!
But please, point out which one of his policies is anti-Capitalist and Leninist. Was it when he bailed out the capitalists on Wall Street? Was that Leninist?
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Dave Davis
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Aug 19, 2011 - 09:18pm PT
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The idea that the uber-wealthy pay a higher tax rate than the rest of us is utter nonsense, since generally a large portion of their income is from capital-gains, not wages. Add to that the fact that they pay little proportionately in payroll taxes I think they get off the hook quite handily.I find it ironic that in the 1950's when the U.S. was arguably at the zenith of its economic power the highest marginal income tax rates were at 90%(we were actually paying off our war debts). When tax-rates were high people tended to reinvest in their businesses. When tax rates on the wealthy were slashed it unleashed a shitload of capital for speculation, mergers and acquisitions and the series of bubble-economies we've experienced over the past several decades.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 19, 2011 - 11:23pm PT
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Entertaining?maybe in the way the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was entertaining.
Didn't think I'd see someone pushing even more idiotic Ideas than shrub .. but these guys always seem to have more insanity in reserve.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 19, 2011 - 11:40pm PT
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Bush also was accused of relying on cornpone Texas-isms, though he sometimes expressed them imperfectly given his education at Andover, Yale and Harvard.
Put down of the week.
And then the article revealed that Bush had a friend who was a Democrat.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 20, 2011 - 12:57pm PT
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Add Rick Perry to the LONG list of Republicans who are just plain STUPID:
God this is nauseating.
Rick Perry continued to voice skepticism about evolution during a campaign stop in South Carolina Friday, telling a supporter "God is how we got here."
On Thursday, in New Hampshire, Perry told a woman and her son that he regarded evolution as "a theory that's out there" and one that's "got some gaps in it.”
When a woman in South Carolina congratulated him for his remarks Friday, Perry replied “Well, God is how we got here. God may have done it in the blink of the eye or he may have done it over this long period of time, I don't know. But I know how it got started."
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 20, 2011 - 01:07pm PT
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When it comes to evidence this moron concludes there are gaps in the support for evolution or human accelerated global warming. He should consider the evidence for the existence of the god he so passionately believes in- there is none.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Aug 20, 2011 - 01:26pm PT
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It's very simple like the black and white thinking that goes along with being a neo-conservative...If you don't believe in climate change it allows you to drive a huge truck , with oversize tires and shitty gas mileage..These trucks are mandatory if you are going to belong to the Republican neandrathal party...The sad reality though is that these tea baggers no longer can afford to drive these gas guzzlers because they lost their low paying construction jobs when the housing bubble burst...Now they want government and union workers to lose their jobs...This is what evolution is really all about..
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 20, 2011 - 01:40pm PT
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Charles Darwin would puke if he met any modern day Republicans.
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Gilroy
Social climber
Boulderado
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Aug 20, 2011 - 02:04pm PT
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While I too am flummoxed by Perry's appeal to the sheeple, I am even more amused by donini's participation in a Taco politard thread.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Aug 20, 2011 - 03:15pm PT
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I'm amused because Donnini has the wisdom and industrial memory from his around the world perspective...Without playing the role of Donnini suck up , Jim nails it pretty much every time...His put-down on bluering was precise and similar to Lloyd Benson telling Dan Quayle he was no John Kennedy...The truth is sometimes hilarious...RJ
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S.Leeper
Sport climber
Pflugerville, Texas
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Aug 29, 2011 - 07:45pm PT
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good article on slate.com
Rick Perry's God
Does the Texas governor believe his idiotic religious rhetoric, or is he just pandering for votes?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 29, 2011, at 11:19 AM ET
I happened to spend several weeks in Texas earlier this year, while the Lone Star State lay under the pitiless glare of an unremitting drought. After a protracted arid interval, the state's immodest governor, Rick Perry, announced that he was using the authority vested in him to call for prayers for rain. These incantations and beseechments, carrying the imprimatur of government, were duly offered to the heavens. The heavens responded by remaining, along with the parched lands below, obstinately dry.
Perry did not, of course, suffer politically for making an idiot of himself in this way. Not even the true believers really expect that prayers for precipitation will be answered, or believe that a failed rainmaker is a false prophet. And, had Perry's entreaties actually been followed by a moistening of the clouds and the coming of the healing showers, it is unlikely that anybody would really have claimed a connection between post hoc and propter hoc. No, religion in politics is more like an insurance policy than a true act of faith. Professing allegiance to it seldom does you any harm, at least in Republican primary season, and can do you some good. It's a question of prudence.
Or is it? Since his faintly absurd excursion into inspirational meteorology back in the spring, Perry has begun to show signs of starting a religious auction on the right, with himself as the highest bidder. His "Day of Prayer and Fasting" on Aug. 6 took the form of a rally of the faithful assembled under the big tent of "The Response." It featured traditional groups like the American Family Association and also less familiar and even more consecrated outfits such as the "New Apostolic Reformation." More interestingly, it was the near-equivalent, in time and space, of Perry's announcement of his intention to run for the presidency. We are therefore justified in saying that religious rhetoric is not merely decorative or incidental to his campaign.
As usual, though, there is some built-in wiggle room. In 2006 he said that he believed the Bible to be inerrant. He also said that those who did not accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior would be going to hell. Pressed a little on the sheer wickedness and stupidity of that last claim, the governor did allow that he himself wasn't omniscient enough to be sure on such doctrinal matters. He tells us that he is a "firm believer" in the "intelligent design" formulation that is creationism's latest rhetorical disguise, adding that the "design" could be biblical or could have involved something more complex, but is attributable to the same divine author in any event. Whether he chooses to avail himself of the wiggles or not, Perry can be reasonably sure that the voting base of the theocratic right has picked up his intended message.
In this same auction, his chief conservative rivals are somewhat disabled. Mitt Romney is in no position, and shows no inclination, to campaign on matters spiritual. His own bizarre religion is regarded as just that by much of the mainstream and as heretical at best by the evangelical Christian rank and file. Advantage Perry—at least among Republican voters. Rep. Michele Bachmann, if she is still seriously considered as being in the race, can also only lose from the comparison: Her religious positions are so weird, and so weirdly held, that they have already made her look like a crackpot. (Or revealed her as such: the distinction is a negligible one.) And Perry, no matter what his other faults, does not look like a fringe or crackpot character. He has enough chops as a vote-getter and—whatever you think of the Texas "economic miracle"—as a "job-creator," that even his decision to outbid all comers on questions of the sacred and the profane can be made to seem like the action of a rational calculator.
And this is what one always wants to know about candidates who flourish the Good Book or who presume to talk about hell and damnation. Do they, themselves, in their heart of hearts, truly believe it? Is there any evidence, if it comes to that, that Perry has ever studied the theory of evolution for long enough to be able to state roughly what it says? And how much textual and hermeneutic work did he do before deciding on the "inerrancy" of Jewish and Christian scripture? It should, of course, be the sincere believers and devout faithful who ask him, and themselves, these questions. But somehow, it never is. The risks of hypocrisy seem forever invisible to the politicized Christians, for whom sufficient proof of faith consists of loud and unambiguous declarations. I am always surprised that more is not heard from sincere religious believers, who have the most to lose if faith becomes a matter of poll-time dogma and lung power.
My bet would be that, just as Perry probably wouldn't have tried to take credit if there had been rain after his ostentatious intercessions, so he doesn't lose much actual sleep over doctrinal matters, personal saviorhood, and the rest of it. As with his crass saber-rattling about Texan secession a season or so back, or his more recent semitough talk about apparently riding Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke out of town on a rail, it is probably largely boilerplate, and mainly for the rubes.
Which leads one to slightly rephrase the question above: Is it better to have a candidate who actually believes in biblical inerrancy and the extreme youthfulness and recency of the Grand Canyon, or a candidate who half-affects such convictions in the hope of political gain? Either would be depressing. A mixture of the two—not excluded in Perry's case—would lower the tone nicely.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Aug 29, 2011 - 07:49pm PT
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By Christopher Hitchens
Sorry, Zzzzzzzz.......
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 29, 2011 - 08:17pm PT
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Anyone here believe in the efficacy of prayer?
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Aug 29, 2011 - 08:46pm PT
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The usual prayer.... "Dear Lord, Etc. Etc. You are mighty, I am nothing. Give me what I want. ...Amen
I'd say not very effective.
Deciding that something could happen. Then make it happen. This seems a better way to give The Lord a hand. (or whomever is in charge around here, presuming it's someone good who wants good things done)
PS. I'm kind of a Republican in that I like small government that doesn't spend a lot of money. Rick Perry scares me.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Aug 29, 2011 - 10:07pm PT
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Perry entertaining......
Like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre
the existence of the god he so passionately believes in- there is none. donini
Perry sees the existence of God every time he sees a burning creosote bush in Texas.
Cheerleader.....great.....one more idiotic thing he has in common with Shrub.
I wish Rove all the nightmares the rest of us have had since he crawled out of his crack in the earth at my High School in 1965
In 1965, his family moved to Salt Lake City, where Rove entered high school, becoming a skilled debater.[4] Rove described his high school years as "I was the complete nerd. I had the briefcase. I had the pocket protector. I wore Hush Puppies when they were not cool. I was the thin, scrawny little guy. I was definitely uncool." Encouraged by a teacher to run for class senate, Rove won the election. As part of his campaign strategy he rode in the back of a convertible inside the school gymnasium sitting between two attractive girls before his election speech.[5] While at Olympus High School,[6] he was elected student council president his junior and senior years. So how did I turn out so differently than he did? Oh, yeah, I didn't win any school elections.
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Jorroh
climber
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Aug 29, 2011 - 10:31pm PT
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"The richest Americans have always been in the highest tax brackets, so this notion of tax cuts for the wealthy is lame. Usually a tax cut for them means they still pay a higher rate than you and me."
Yup, complete rubbish.
And this is just Federal income tax, if you look at Total Tax Burden the figures are much, much worse. Add to that the fact that it is so much easier to legally dodge taxes if you have the resources, a great example being Bush senior who lived in Maine but maintained an apartment in Texas.
In America we have a total tax system that is deeply regressive, its not even remotely close to being progressive.
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