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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:02pm PT
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I question whether the number of direct federal employees really measures the effect of the federal government on day-do-day lives of residents of the United States.
This is a reasonable point, John.
So, I'm not sure what metric is then used to be able to state that the gov't is "bigger", or how it will be made better, or by what methodology. I've seen Repubs take action against agencies they didn't like, by simply cutting employees. It would appear that would be too simplistic an approach.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:06pm PT
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Saving Humanity.....
It seems through history, the tale has been of strength only. If you are stronger, you take what you want, from a country; from your family; from a woman.
But as we have gained civilization, that equation has been altered, somewhat.
No longer is the end result justified by the fact that you have more strength than the "other".
There seems a stark contrast between the two political philosophies demonstrated in the US, as to which they prefer.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:12pm PT
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Hey Ken,
Yeah, women learn at the age of about 14, that might doesn't make right, while some men don't learn until they're in their 60's or more.
Not sure the contrast between the political parties is all that stark.
FWIW: Obama's rhetoric of redlines in Syria served no purpose other than to undermine his own credibility.
I would also venture that no one on this forum hates war more than The Chief.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:18pm PT
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Shutting down the Government over ObamaCare or Planned Parenthood
Trying to incite a war with Iran, taking away voting rights, corporate welfare, subsidizing the Oil Companies, giving tax breaks for offshoring your labor, trillions wasted on the Military Industrial Complex
allowing the rich and Corporations to spend Unlimited money electing their pawns.
Keeping Gitmo open, defunding the VA, defunding education and science
These are Conservative policies that we have to endure because of our Republican Congress.
The President can't do anything about this.
The Democrat Party platform opposes these policies and wants to overturn them
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:23pm PT
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Point taken there Chief, but that was just bait to prove you're a contrarian. So it's established, Chief's are contrary.
The other thing I know- most are anal as hell about their shops and have a meltdown if you put the metrics with the standards.
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The Chief
climber
Down the hill & across the Valley from......
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:28pm PT
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There seems a stark contrast between the two political philosophies demonstrated in the US, as to which they prefer.
As there has been since the day it all began some 240 years ago... Nothing new.
So it's established, Chief's are contrary.
Actually, Black and White by the BOOK! Nothing in between allowed.
You're Pop most assuredly was/is an example of that. Otherwise he's an E7 and NOT a CHIEF.
most are anal as hell about their shops
Touch my tools, don't put em back where and how you found em directly after you use em.... you're a dead mofo!
Shetty ass tool control kills (FOD etc) ... fact. Seen several A/C incidents that were fatal directly due to that ineptness and total lack of operating by the book.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:37pm PT
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Without question. Many a highway tuff guys found that out after they flipped off the old grey guy.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:37pm PT
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Locker wrote:
Hey Ace VENTURE-a...
You're minimalizing everyone else feelings about something which you couldn't possibly have a clue...
LOL, yeah that was a leap and not my intention.
My sentiments are that those who have seen the horrors know first hand the waste.
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The Chief
climber
Down the hill & across the Valley from......
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Sep 28, 2015 - 04:40pm PT
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
Sep 28, 2015 - 04:18pm PT
Trying to incite a war with Iran,
Post a ref for this complete Liberal "Iran Deal" talking point.
WHO the fk on the currently elected conserv side EVER openly and publicly stated anything about going to WAR with Iran.. WHO! Names, Dates etc etc.
Craig Fry, you are soooooooooo full of shet once again.
EDIT:
Larry Nelson...
Can't even begin to describe the pain I live with daily.
This was the worst day of my life... as it was for so many others that were there as well. Two of which are here locally and we get together every year, alone, and share the pain.
Helplessly watching and listening to what these two incredible Human Beings did was the most powerful thing I have ever experienced.
The ROE's that were imposed on us all by the C-N-C (with his agreement with the UN on how we the US would conduct ourselves during this Resolution 794 Operation) were what killed these two incredible dudes as well as most of the other Heroes that selflessly gave their lives those two days in hell.
The anniversary is coming up this Sat and it will be as it always is... be so very fking tough.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Sep 28, 2015 - 05:46pm PT
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Hey Chief,
Sorry about your losses. You know firsthand the horrors and understand the chaos.
In those situations, the only thing that matters is your bro's, and you know you all cover each other's backs.
You have to live in the moment and split second decisions are life and death.
Tying into the rope is a similar brotherhood. Your bro has your life in his hands. The unpredictability of the weather, the rock, the snow, can come together catastrophically. The mountains are unforgiving and good experienced people die all the time.
Your political adversaries on this thread are men and women who understand those things and they are as passionate about their political views as you are about yours.
I'd say we all have more in common than we have differences.
We're all just average people...OK, maybe that's a leap, heh...trying to find meaning in it all.
OK, back to the rants, I'm out.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2015 - 06:09pm PT
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Larry..let's be grown up here, we don't have to like each other.
Chief is an attack dog...plain and simple.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Sep 28, 2015 - 06:37pm PT
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Bob D'A wrote
let's be grown up here, we don't have to like each other.
Each to his own Bob.
I had my war when I was 21 and since then I've been looking for peace.
Life is too short to make enemies, don't ya think?
Tolerance starts with ourselves.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Being In Sierra Happy Of Place
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Sep 28, 2015 - 06:56pm PT
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Is this a low T thing?
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Sep 28, 2015 - 07:06pm PT
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The Blackmail Caucus, a.k.a. the Republican Party
Paul Krugman
SEPT. 28, 2015
John Boehner was a terrible, very bad, no good speaker of the House. Under his leadership, Republicans pursued an unprecedented strategy of scorched-earth obstructionism, which did immense damage to the economy and undermined America’s credibility around the world.
Still, things could have been worse. And under his successor they almost surely will be worse. Bad as Mr. Boehner was, he was just a symptom of the underlying malady, the madness that has consumed his party.
For me, Mr. Boehner’s defining moment remains what he said and did as House minority leader in early 2009, when a newly inaugurated President Obama was trying to cope with the disastrous recession that began under his predecessor.
There was and is a strong consensus among economists that a temporary period of deficit spending can help mitigate an economic slump. In 2008 a stimulus plan passed Congress with bipartisan support, and the case for a further stimulus in 2009 was overwhelming. But with a Democrat in the White House, Mr. Boehner demanded that policy go in the opposite direction, declaring that “American families are tightening their belts. But they don’t see government tightening its belt.” And he called for government to “go on a diet.”
This was know-nothing economics, and incredibly irresponsible at a time of crisis; not long ago it would have been hard to imagine a major political figure making such a statement. Did Mr. Boehner actually believe what he was saying? Was he just against anything Mr. Obama was for? Or was he engaged in deliberate sabotage, trying to block measures that would help the economy because a bad economy would be good for Republican electoral prospects?
We’ll probably never know for sure, but those remarks set the tone for everything that followed. The Boehner era has been one in which Republicans have accepted no responsibility for helping to govern the country, in which they have opposed anything and everything the president proposes.
What’s more, it has been an era of budget blackmail, in which threats that Republicans will shut down the government or push it into default unless they get their way have become standard operating procedure.
All in all, Republicans during the Boehner era fully justified the characterization offered by the political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, in their book “It’s Even Worse Than You Think.” Yes, the G.O.P. has become an “insurgent outlier” that is “ideologically extreme” and “unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science.” And Mr. Boehner did nothing to fight these tendencies. On the contrary, he catered to and fed the extremism.
So why is he out? Basically because the obstructionism failed.
Republicans did manage to put a severe crimp on federal spending, which has grown much more slowly under Mr. Obama than it did under George W. Bush, or for that matter Ronald Reagan. The weakness of spending has, in turn, been a major headwind delaying recovery, probably the single biggest reason it has taken so long to bounce back from the 2007-2009 recession.
But the economy nonetheless did well enough for Mr. Obama to win re-election with a solid majority in 2012, and his victory ensured that his signature policy initiative, health-care reform — enacted before Republicans took control of the House — went into effect on schedule, despite the dozens of votes Mr. Boehner held calling for its repeal. Furthermore, Obamacare is working: the number of uninsured Americans has dropped sharply even as health-care costs seem to have come under control.
In other words, despite all Mr. Boehner’s efforts to bring him down, Mr. Obama is looking more and more like a highly successful president. For the base, which has never considered Mr. Obama legitimate — polling suggests that many Republicans believe that he wasn’t even born here — this is a nightmare. And all too many ambitious Republican politicians are willing to tell the base that it’s Mr. Boehner’s fault, that he just didn’t try blackmail hard enough.
This is nonsense, of course. In fact, the controversy over Planned Parenthood that probably triggered the Boehner exit — shut down the government in response to obviously doctored videos? — might have been custom-designed to illustrate just how crazy the G.O.P.’s extremists have become, how unrealistic they are about what confrontational politics can accomplish.
But Republican leaders who have encouraged the base to believe all kinds of untrue things are in no position to start preaching political rationality.
Mr. Boehner is quitting because he found himself caught between the limits of the politically possible and a base that lives in its own reality. But don’t cry for (or with) Mr. Boehner; cry for America, which must find a way to live with a G.O.P. gone mad.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Shetville , North of Los Angeles
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Sep 28, 2015 - 07:13pm PT
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Wondering where America would be now if Obama hadn't been elected...? Where would McCain and Palin taken the country and where would we be if Romney had won...?
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2015 - 07:39pm PT
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Larry wrote: I had my war when I was 21 and since then I've been looking for peace.
Life is too short to make enemies, don't ya think?
Hope you find Larry, I have mine.
Chief isn't my enemy. This is a internet forum. I don't agree with him on so many levels. That is about as far as it goes with me.
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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Sep 28, 2015 - 07:42pm PT
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I saw a complete garbanzo bean in my turd today. It was cooler than this sh#t.
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The Chief
climber
Down the hill & across the Valley from......
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Sep 28, 2015 - 07:49pm PT
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YO... Craig FRY!!!
Where's ALL them Repugs that were screaming for WAR with IRAN... Names & Dates??
Oh, forgot, just more of your insistent politard leftwing Bullshet.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Sep 28, 2015 - 07:56pm PT
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Cowboy- Poommus...
Craig Fry- I'm a Democrat to the core but the absolute denial of our national debt by Paul Krugman and our leadership pisses me off!
Equally, the claim that raising taxes on the wealthy will damage our economy has been proven wrong- as long as the revenue is diverted to the middle class and or poor.
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