President's Mandatory Voting Speculation Sparks Debate, House GOP Stumbles Through Budget Process, Arrests Made After Tunisia Massacre: P.M. Links
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Is President Barack Obama's proposal to make voting mandatory a presumptuous violation of liberty or simply profoundly stupid? Americans debate the issue.
- House Republicans passed a budget proposal only after holding off on a contentious plan to steer more moolah toward the Pentagon. (Read more about defense-spending shenanigans).
- Not content with the shitstorm it's already brewed up with the targeting of conservative non-profit groups, the IRS wants to extend its controversial rule-making to political parties and political action committees.
- Tunisian authorities arrested nine suspected accomplices of the two gunman who perpetrated a bloody attack at the National Bardo Museum (for which ISIS claims "credit").
- "What crash?" asks Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy in an interesting response to reports that some of his agents drove a car into a White House barricade.
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel hints that the European Union is likely to keep sanctions on Russia in place so long as Ukraine is a war zone.
- Mitt Romney will not, thankfully, repeat his presidential run.
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Is President Barack Obama’s proposal to make voting mandatory a presumptuous violation of liberty or simply profoundly stupid?
Yes?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes!
I love that band!
“Is President Barack Obama’s proposal to make voting mandatory a presumptuous violation of liberty or simply profoundly stupid?”
/points to sign: Elected. Twice. Spins beanie. Winks.
Boy, the left sure likes to make things “mandatory.”
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can’t believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do,
http://www.work-cash.com
“If you like your representative, you can keep* your representative.”
* “Unless he/she/whatever doesn’t have all the features of an approved representative.”
Mitt Romney will not, thankfully, repeat his presidential run.
Seamus for President!
Some shady bagman lawyer connected to Block Yomomma just bought the “Magnum P.I.” mansion. Very interesting.
Looks like it may still has to work its way through a few more shell corporations first though before it can finally end up in the hands of The Regime.
What’s the rule on Block Yomomma?
Repeat it back to me.
You can’t use the term unless you’re a pudgy middle-aged White guy whose entire wardrobe consists of CVN 65 hats, white t-shirts with a screaming American eagle, cargo shorts, khaki photographer’s vests, and white socks?
That’s so racist. He probably has several kinds of hats.
CVN 73, for example
That’s not a very helpful rule. I’ll still be seeing the phrase here several times a day.
Those were originally fishermen’s vests and are commonly used for the concealed part of concealed carry. Next time you see someone wearing those without visible photo/fishing gear, look for a bulge under the armpit.
My cargo shorts do just fine.
Also known as “shoot me vests” for that reason…
Damn, that is funny. You, sir, have a talent.
It automatically tells you that you’re speaking to an intemperate moron.
It doesn’t mean he’s wrong; he could be making a true statement such as “The sky is blue.” or “I ate cheerios this morning”
or he could be saying something bizarre “The Illuminati use the idea of the lizard conspiracy to side-track people who get too close to figuring out their plans by sending operatives to drip LSD into the lips of their political enemies when the enemies are sleeping.”
I made a deal with the lizards,I get a daily allowance of beer to stay quite.
Quite what?
Rah-tha.
It means “I am bad at making up nicknames and should feel bad about myself.”
Irish! Post a pic of them big ol’ titties!
I’ll throw in some beads. Really nice beads.
I’m still gonna fuck ’em first. You can have the leftovers when I’m done.
Did it come with Higgins?
By the way, John Hillerman is from Texas and his natural accent is decidedly not an English one.
I’ve known that since, like, the 80s, man.
/Assumes erudite Higgins stance.
Indeed…..in fact he’d like to extend this laurel and hadry handshake to our new nig……..!
Hey…..take it up with Mel Brooks!
And he was arrested for dealing heroin!
…the IRS wants to extend its controversial rule-making to political parties and political action committees.
They barely escaped with their bonuses after the last try.
…in an interesting response to reports that some of his agents drove a car into a White House barricade.
Secret is right there in the name.
What crash?
Secret Service may have erased surveillance tapes
“an active bomb threat investigation”
Or, as the rest of us call it, a backpack.
Ladies and gentlemen, the dumbest sentence ever uttered!
“Last year the school had the third highest number of reported sexual assaults in the nation, though as a Title IX attorney notes, “You see schools with higher rates who are doing a better job of dealing with sexual assault numbers on campus. It’s a bigger red flag to me if I see remarkably low numbers of sexual assault.””
Got that? If a school has a really low number of reported sexual assaults, that must mean there are tons of sexual assaults we simply aren’t aware of!
It’s really great logic. This way, if there are a bunch of reported sexual assaults you can say “OMG look at all those sexual assaults!” but if there are virtually no reported sexual assaults, you can simply assert that they must be occurring beneath the radar.
Your point would be more persuasive if there wasn’t evidence that Reed actually had suppressed reporting of sexual assaults.
Which has nothing to do with the general overarching point that you can’t just say ‘they have low numbers of sexual assaults, hence there is a coverup.’
The person wasn’t just talking about Reed, they were talking about college in general.
Connecticut has an ‘abnormally’ low murder rate, but it’s not because there’s a Connecticut cover up of homicides.
It suggests you can’t simply trust low numbers to be accurate, and that it’s reasonable to be suspicious of low numbers.
As it happens, when Chicago’s murder rate went down, there was good evidence that was because they were indeed covering up homicides.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree, because when someone says ‘remarkably low numbers are a red flag’ that seems like a way of discounting low numbers while inherently believing high ones. You could just as readily say that abnormally high numbers could be evidence of a moral panic resulting in false accusations, but it would be dumb for you to say ‘oh, I find it to be a red flag when there are high numbers because that implies there must be tons of people lying.’
How about: you should be suspicious of all important statistics because Campbell, Lucas, etc.
Okay, I will agree to disagree, but it’s not uncommon for people to be suspicious of very low reported rates of various things.
It makes sense particularly in how the requirements of the Clery Act work
– “incident reports” are required to be generated even if the underlying act is later determined to have *never actually happened*
– in addition, any points of contact or forms of ‘reporting’ are to be recorded as separate reports *even if they refer to the same individual allegation*
(e.g. if a student tells a RA that ‘a friend told them that something happened*…and the mother of a student calls the school to ask “if something happened”, and if the student then goes to the Dean to explain, ‘nothing actually happened’?…… thats 3 reports. Even if the end result is that there was no actual incident to “report”.)
The point is… a shortage of ‘reports’ is a sign of ‘non-compliance’ because the system *by definition* requires massive ‘reporting’ the way it is designed.
We went through this in detail (with links!) in the spring of 2014 when Gillenbrand was going full-retard on the Rape Culture thing. I can find the powerpoint slides if you want. they’re a hoot.
It’s eerily similar to the way “weather” is somehow evidence when it supports climate change but merely discrete and insular events when it runs counter to the preferred narrative.
Evolution of Concealed Carry Laws in US
Shows state-by-state evolution of CC laws from 1986 onwards.
Keep in mind what the crime rate did in the same time.
Cool, but I really hate the phrase “constitutional carry”. Word games are retarded even when I’m on the side of the people playing them.
What would you call it?
Unrestricted carry?
Apple Pie and Kittens Carry.
But who really needs to carry an apple pie and a kitten at the same time?
That brings a happy tear to my eye.
Also, fuck the Mercator projection. It’s a lie.
Mandatory
I said this in the AM lynx, but I may put “mandatory voting” up there as the worst thing he has said. Not necessarily the worst thing he has done, but the worst thing he has said.
Does he really want to fine poor people who don’t vote or send election enforcers (or whatever) into black communities to drag people to the polls?
Or did he actually learn from Obamacare and is treating this like the personal mandate (i.e., something that won’t be enforced)?
Either way it is awful, narcissistic, and moves us closer to a “ruler for life” model. Because he wouldn’t want to force people to vote if he didn’t think it would work out best for his party.
But it would be transformative! We would finally all come together and, realizing the true joys of democracy, sing kumbaya. In key!
Save the singing for the camps, will ya?
Stop breaking my concentration, JW. I need to work so I can get some free time.
No, I think “you didn’t build that” is the worst. Mandatory voting is a very bad, stupid, no good idea, but it’s within the bounds of acceptable idiocy. YDBT is a slap in the face to anyone who has ever worked hard at anything.
YOU’RE TAKING HIM OUT OF CONTEXT YOU EXTREME RACIST.
Same thing with mandatory voting! He was talking about AUSTRALIA!!
“Bitter clingers”?
Ugh, I’d rather not have to choose.
Actually, if you think about it, that’s more of an indictment of government than a slap in the face to hard workers.
I mean, if Steve Jobs “didn’t build that”, and credit belongs to the government, why didn’t I get a multinational corporation to run? Or you? Or the entire Reason commentariat? Is the government playing favorites?
If Obama really believes that, he’s got lots of splainin’ to do?.
Calm down, LP. It’s just his little way of “sticking it to The Man”.
I doubt he thinks mandatory voting is something he could actually make happen, hell, I doubt if he even cares about making it happen at all. The simplest explanation is that he wants to throw some red meat to the progressives so he can enjoy reading a few more op-eds from Salon and the NYT praising his inestimable wisdom and courage.
“Does he really want to fine poor people who don’t vote or send election enforcers (or whatever) into black communities to drag people to the polls?”
Yes, because Obama thinks no matter how much the Democrats bully them, blacks will hold their noses and vote D.
I would *love* to see a scenario where, after the Dems pressure their base voters to come to the polls by threats of doxing, fines and imprisonment, the response will be, “OK, we’ll come to the polls…to vote against you!”
Spot the Not: Sheila Jackson Lee
1. I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen.
2. I happen to represent Enron here in Houston. We have many good corporate citizens here in Houston.
3. That’s what I do. It’s what I live for, to help unfortunate folk, like yourself, poor souls with no one else to turn to.
4. Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working.
5. Don’t condemn the gangbangers, they’ve got guns that are trafficked, that are not enforced, that are straw purchased
and they come into places even that have strong gun laws. Why? Because we don’t have sensible gun legislation.
6. I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together.
7. Don’t you know who I am? I’m Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Where is my seafood meal? I know it was ordered.
8. Maybe the word welfare should be changed to something of, ‘a transitional living fund.’
Im going with #3. The rest are all dumb enough to be from Lee.
That’s actually a better guess than mine.
Congrats, dude, but u wuz robbed (swidt, lulz). At least I got a picture of a fat chick in a bikini last time scored with Derpy.
Wow, that’s tough. Ima guess #6.
I’m guessing #7. That quote is from a dolphin doing a SJL impression.
No, that one is real. She is an entitled bitch who treats her staff and everyone around her like shit. If anyone ever genuinely challenged her I’d consider voting the Dem primary.
Dude, that’s why the impression is so funny. It’s spot on.
7 sounds like something a tone-deaf politician utters. But I’ll still go with it.
3
6 – please let it be 6
#3 is the Not. It is from Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid.
I did change “merfolk” to “folk” though.
Wow. She is more awful than I thought.
It is a trick, there is no “not”. That idiot said them all.
Despite Hillary Clinton promise, charity did not disclose donors
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
/Gomer Pyle
Artist Connie Watts says public art regulations stifle creativity
You don’t say?
Spot the Not: Orrin Hatch
1. Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life.
2. I do know dumb-ass questions when I see dumb-ass questions.
3. Our heroes are fighting to bring stability to the Middle East, and they have put pressure on all of the tyrannies of the Middle East.
4. We cannot let our respect for the FBI blind us from the fact the FBI has sometimes come up short of our expectations.
5. The First Amendment is not an altar on which we must sacrifice our children, families, and community standards.
6. I need your support, I need your expertise, I need your input, and most importantly, I need your money.
Close between 2 and 6. Im going with #6.
Bravo.
#6
4
agreed
6
#6 is the not. It is from presidential candidate Greg Stillson from The Dead Zone.
Nice, I remember that now.
only 16% of whites agree that there is “a lot” of discrimination in the U.S., compared to 56% of blacks. This isn’t the fault of whites.
Sheesh, I didn’t know what an Uncle Tom Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was.
Does affirmative action count?
Yesterday I was at a lunch where former L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley was speaking. Naturally, there were many questions about his opinion about drug laws, and being a good warrior, he ran down the usual odd rationales for keeping prohibition.
But my favorite was that he claimed that the system “saved” Winona Ryder. That because she was caught shoplifting and on drugs, she was given a chance to redeem herself with “just” a felony conviction and a diversion program, with the felonies later reduced to misdemeanors, and now her life is so much better.
Never mind the tens of thousands of poor and minority people who can’t find a multimillion dollar movie production to give them a job with even a misdemeanor on their records, let alone a felony. Ryder apparently shows how the system works.
I would have argued with him, but it’s perfectly clear that this is a generational thing more than a right/left issue. Better to let him and his kind fade away then even bother with pointing out the stupidity.
it’s perfectly clear that this is a generational thing
Probably, but how many generations will it take?
It’s already happened. The split seems to me to be that generally anyone over 60 is against legalization, anyone under 40 is for it, and the 40-60 generation is quickly moving from prohibition to legalization. It will be on the ballot again in 2016, and it will pass.
Wake me up when you can grow as much weed as you care to.
Wake and Bake. Got it. Will do.
Cooley sounds like a champ.
Did they serve poutine?
They wouldn’t dare. Construction is moving apace for me however. Shooting for end of April/early May.
From the Christian Science Monitor article:
I love that old woman’s reasoning.
‘Them’ meaning ‘niggers’, right?
No?
/sulks.
Don’t vote. It just encourages the b******s?
I said it in another thread, but it is on topic here, the Big12 is sucking it up today.
Someone is sucking 12 dicks? Do tell.
So Jesus decided to do something “special” for the last supper…
Good grief, Rufus. What *has* gotten into you today?
He’s in heat. This is the season when Canadians spawn.
Ah. Thanks.
It’s the mint julep.
blech.
I will usually drink one on derby day just to remind myself how much they suck.
blech.
Never been a fan either, although making a mint simple syrup is the way to go. It cuts down on the unstrained vegetation and undissolved sugar slurry in the bottom of the cup.
You can also pre-mix it, so people won’t try to ruin any of your good bourbon on Derby Day.
Its not my bourbon on derby day, so not my problem.
Are you both done?
Are you both done?
Don’t you have a species to propagate?
I had a mother joke lined up…but I decided to be MATURE.
I’ve never had one, but a buddy of mine went through a mojito phase years ago, and that was close enough for me. That said, this ridiculous old mint julep recipe almost makes me want to try one.
“Pluck the mint gently from its bed, just as the dew of the evening is about to form on it. Select the choicer sprigs only, but do not rinse them. Prepare the simple syrup and measure out a half-tumbler of whiskey. Pour the whiskey into a well-frosted silver cup, throw the other ingredients away, and drink the whiskey.” — Henry Watterson
That recipe is adorable.
Mojitos are NOT close enough. Mojitos suck. They should be good–mint=good, lime=good, rum=good–but they’re just weak and fizzy and you get leaves in your teeth.
I will admit to adoring mint juleps. I have the fancy cup and everything. I just can’t get the ice right. I agree with SF that mint simple syrup is the way to go. It’s very easy to make.
Im the other way around. I like Mojitos but cant stand Juleps.
I think its because I like bourbon solo and dont drink rum that way.
Laconic, do you have a multi-blade blender? Mine makes snowy crushed ice easily.
Mojitos don’t have to be fizzy and weak. I make mine with just the mint, lime, rum, and ice. And I use dark rum that tastes good straight. Too much of a pain to make though, rather just have a dark and stormy.
Well okay, but only if you wear the monocle to bed.
“Mint Julep.” Also known as “an abuse of perfectly good bourbon.”
I believe it coincides with the smelt running.
Some scientists believe that competition for spawning grounds with smelt may explain the declining population of native Canadian stocks.
But have you ever had smelt pudding?
Shockingly, it appears Rick Barnes won’t be saving the day.
I was going to include SMU for proximity and history, but apparently UCLA quit.
Did you see the end? That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.
SMU choked that one.
Thanksgiving World Cup 2022!
And we should boycott it!
That has to end. I am a sports fan, which means that I am willing to put up with a lot of corrupt jackassery from my owners and commissioners and college presidents. It’s baked right into the system. But come the fuck on. This is insane. I don’t expect much of America, but if Dan Snyder had thousands of people die to build him a new stadium (don’t think he wouldn’t), I honestly believe that people here wouldn’t tolerate it. We shouldn’t tolerate what’s going on over in Qatar. We should pull out, and we should do it now.
Yeah I saw that on Deadspin. Problem is, FIFA would pull MLS’ license as soon as the US boycott happens, meaning all the players in the league would have to leave MLS or else be persona non grata with their own national teams or any FIFA-approved league in the future.
Not to mention Sunil Gulati is on the Exec Committee of FIFA and he ain’t giving up that perk for all the dead Bangladeshis in Qatar.
The US could find some other country/ies with a conscience and band together… oh who am I kidding.
Ha! Yeah, like the US has a conscience.
It’s soccer so Americans don’t care. If there is one country in the world I could see doing this, it’s the US.
Is that official?
I like that they arent going to kill the players, but scheduling it in Qatar in the first place was the mistake. Or, you know, require domed stadiums and air conditioning.
Yeah, final will be December 18th.
FUCKING RETARDED.
FIFA IS FILLED WITH RETARDED IDIOTS.
Corrupt, I get. Retarded?
They had to have been retarded to accept bribes to put the WC there.
So…retarded = corrupt in this case.
Retarded all the way to the bank…
Sounds about right. Libertarian wing has enough votes to block defense spending increases in the Budget Committee at least. Interesting to see if they have it on the floor of the whole House. (Also, how votes on pot, etc. go.)
Feeling stressed? Spend $1000 to attend an adult preschool.
“Adult preschool — not unlike New York City’s preschool’s for children, doesn’t come cheap. Payment for the class is on a sliding scale ranging from $333 to $999. Joni said that “preschool is all about choice. I want them [the students] to feel good about the choice they’re making.”
“Next week there’s a field trip. Then the last week of class is “parent day” when the students bring two adults of their choice to class. One woman is actually bringing her parents.”
Hillary’s camp idea doesn’t sound so ridiculous now, does it?
*facepalm*
Don’t make me defend Brooklyn AGAIN. Most of us are NOT LIKE THIS.
Everyone in Brooklyn is exactly the same. Isnt that how collectivism works?
Around here, sometimes I wonder o_O
Finding your Inner Child is so 1980s. Brooklyn missed that decade?
Misleading headline, they’re only physically adults but mentally children and would probably would have been in mental asylums just a few decades ago. Actually that’s a great way to bring back asylums, just call them something that overgrown hipster children would find whimsically ironic.
“Here’s a little dixie cup with your “snack”, then it’s time for your “nap”.
If they did institute mandatory voting would burning my ballot be a free speech or too much of a fire hazard?
Few things are more annoying than trying to chat with someone who starts with the premise that having water is a “right” and that the only thing keeping people everywhere from having free drinking water is capitalistic greed.
That water costs money to get, treat, transport, and deliver costs lots of money and capital doesn’t matter because “water shouldn’t be treated like a commodity.”
Then we move on to how capitalism is the source of all of the world’s ills and shortages.
Mandatory voting?
Sure, make sure there is a spot that has the option to opt out of gov’t altogether.
I like the sound of what you say.
You wouldn’t, by any chance, have a newsletter to which I could subscribe?
We Canadians are still mired in the dark, unfortunately.
A handjob?
lol, unless you live in CA, NY, NJ, HI, MD where you’re apparently stuck in time…
But no French!
According to my math, you’re a couple of provinces short.
NO CANADIANS!
Well, maybe if you bring beer and poutine and maple syrup.
But NO WHORE queen!
You laugh but you’d find more pro-Americans among French-Canadians than English-Canadians.
It’s just that they get all squirly with their own linguistic and nationalistic nonsense.
The maritimes only get to be one state.
Well, we don’t want ALL of them. Fuck Prince Edward Island, yo.
Now, now, we’ll have Nunavut petty bickering here.
Uh huh.
That was cool.
But. The beer we tend to refer to are major companies. When it comes to smaller breweries, there’s no such thing as ‘stronger beer’ on either side.
Where you gonna get potatoes?
And you won’t get Anne of Green Gables and all that red sand.