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Open thread

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I’m speaking to a couple high school civics classes this morning, so expect light posting through much of the day. In the meanwhile, talk amongst yourselves.

Comments

  1. Take printed copies of the US Constitution with you, and distribute them to the kids.

    Use that, show examples of Supreme Court rulings that favored civil liberties. Show them how words can be manipulated in Court.

    Show them the ugly side of law.

  2. excellent!!

    Civics is not taught in enough schools….i’m interested where Goldy is at.

    please allow me to name drop; my friend & collegue Richard Dryfuss has pushed for the return of civics and did some teaching at Oxford on American History.

  3. Here is the true GOP agenda:

    1. Hold middle class tax cuts hostage so that their wealthy buddies get tax cuts:

    The incoming Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee said the GOP will block any proposal that extends tax cuts for the middle class for a longer period than those for the wealthy

    2. Overturn 200 years of citizenship law so that people born it the US do not autmatically have citizenship.

    3. Joe Barton (who apologized to BP for the opil spill) and is a global warming denier is possibly in line to head the energy committe. Here is what an outgoing republican congressman said to his party:

    There are people who make a lot of money on talk radio and talk TV saying a lot of things. They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and they’re experts on climate change. They substitute their judgment for people who have Ph.D.s and work tirelessly [on climate change].

    A little bit of sanity from Bob Inglis (R-SC). I would have voted for this guy – even if he is a republican. At least he is not a science denier.

  4. Have you all heard of people breaking into vacant condos and squatting up in Snohomish. They break in, and act like it’s their place. They may or may not the utilities bills, or just have a mattress and fire in the fire place. The story I heard, the property manager just ignores it, unless they are causing serious trouble or damage. Condo buildings are a mix of owners, renters, vacant units and squatters. So many people have walked away from their mortgages, there is no clear owner to contact to get the squatters cleared out. Real tenants are threatened with bodily harm if they report the squatters.
    Anyone else heard of this? I couldn’t find any news stories so it doesn’t seem to be anything people are reporting on.

  5. Goldy –

    Your post on tolls and 1053 is factually incorrect. 1053 does not require a 2/3 vote to raise fees. A simple majority vote is all that is necessary. The 2/3 provision applies to taxes. TE is arguing that tolls are fees, not taxes.

    Now whether tolls should even be counted as fees for the purposes of 1053 is something the courts will have to decide.

  6. High School was ruined when the Sandal Wearing Sandinista’s and the Hairy Armpit Girl Brigade rammed title 9 down our throats. Liberals need to to get with the program and wake up to the fact that boys and girls are not the same.

  9. In Eymanland, the entire State Legislature must vote to approve an increase in the cost of a copy on the copy machine at the state library. Bizzaro.

  10. The Washington State legislature should create a bill that requires all taxes be spent in the counties in which they were raised, unless a majority of the legislative body gives the state an exemption. Exemption votes should be held once per month.

    If we need to raise taxes and we don’t have 2/3 majorities to do so, don’t give the state an exemption to distribute taxes to Eastern Washington. Republicans in Eastern Washington need to understand that they are subsidized by liberals in King County. The only way to do this is to show them where their money comes from

  11. I want Eyman to pursue an initiative that says all car/transportation related projects in this state are now free!

  13. @10

    The Eastern half of the state would be in the fetal position sucking their thumbs within 3 months if something like that passed.

  15. @4, There’s a guy in Florida sho searches and finds abandoned apartments and condos and then rents them out. He pays the property taxes, utilities, etc with the rent money. His hope is to keep this operation functional for seven years when he’ll assume ownership via adverse possession.

  18. From yesterday on Alternet:

    http://bit.ly/990wow

    The Republican rich-people bias isn’t exactly a shocker, but finally someone’s had the gall to spell it out. In a speech to the pro-business Tax Council, House Rep. David Camp said that the Dem’s middle-class tax extensions–permanent breaks for those earning $200,000 or less, with temporary extensions on the wealthy–would be blocked during the lame-duck session unless the rich get the same permanent extensions.

    Other than scapegoating and otherwise hating on liberals, government, immigrants, minorities, etc. what keeps the working segment of the Republican party in line with the oligarchic wing?

  19. I often hear from Republicans the evils of socialism (even European lite), how it is bad for people and bad for business and it is bad for debt. While Greece and Ireland are in bad shape, I think it is good to remind them of places like Denmark.

    Forbes (not exactly a communist rag) regularly ranks Denmark as the best place to do business – with their high taxes and government run healthcare and with unemployment at a staggering….. 4%.

    Also, it’s regularly the most happy: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/.....piest.html

    2010:
    http://news.xinhuanet.com/engl.....589854.htm

    2008: http://www.forbes.com/2008/06/.....tries.html

    Once again, I issue an open challenge to Republicans to name the countries they would move their family to if they were forced. How many of those have fewer taxes than the US? Zero.

  20. Ty. Nice post.
    I agree. we have tried and tried to get the conservatives to name any country where their conservative / libertarian / tea bag ideals have been successful, that they would consider moving to.

  21. Great Kunstler interview here:

    http://www.energybulletin.net/.....gger-again

    A taste:

    3. If you were President and had free reign, what would be your energy plan?
    JHK:

    •I would commence a public debate on whether we go forward with a nuclear power program, to weigh the hazards involved — but, frankly, there may be no other ways to keep the lights on in a decade or so. It may turn out that we are too short of capital to carry out such a program, or our society may be too disorderly in the years ahead to run it, or we may decide the hazards are not worth it, but the discussion must start now.
    •I would direct major capital resources to repairing the conventional passenger railroads in the US, because commercial aviation as we know it will not continue another ten years, and ditto Happy Motoring, and this is a big continent-sized nation. If we don’t get regular rail running, we may not be able to go anywhere. We should just put aside our fantasies about high-speed rail or mag-lev. We’re too broke for that, and we need to temper our techno-grandiosity. But, believe me, Americans will be deliriously happy ten years from now if they can go from Des Moines to Chicago at 80 mph on time. During the Obama years, we’ve stupidly poured our dwindling capital resources into building more highways. This foolishness has got to stop. I would promote public transit at the smaller municipal scale as well, to go with regular rail.
    •I’d begin the task of rehabilitating our inland waterways so we can move more goods around the nation by boat — and in particular the port facilities that have been mostly removed in places like St. Louis and Cincinnati and around the Great Lakes.
    •I would put an emphasis on walkable communities. I would prepare the nation for the possibility of gasoline rationing, since events could shove us into criticality at any time.
    •I would begin closing down scores of unnecessary overseas military bases, and I would terminate the nation-building project in Afghanistan since there is no possibility that we can control the terrain or the population there for anything more than the shortest run.
    •I would direct the Attorney General of the US to mount investigations of the Bank of America, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and other big banks in connection with the massive swindles and frauds in house lending and the securitization of mortgages — because the rule of law requires that somebody be held accountable for the demolition of the banking system…

    Another little taste:

    In any case, I take issue with the Tom Friedman notion that the world has become permanently flat. The world is going to get rounder and bigger again. We’ll discover — surprise! — that the global economy was a set of transient economic relations that obtained only because of a half century of cheap energy and relative peace between the big nations. Ahead now, I think you’ll see the big nations shrink back into their own corners of the world. I’m not saying we’ll see no international trade, but it will be nothing like the conveyer belt from China to Wal-Mart that we’ve known the last few decades.

  22. And kudos to the PNW, re @21:

    7. Are you able to tell (either based on your website viewership or book sales, or from any other source) in which parts of the country/population your teachings are gaining the most traction?
    JHK: My only index of that is the size and mood of audiences where I speak around the country. The Pacific Northwest is always a lively spot. The people who show up are intelligent, informed, and interested. In Southern California I seem to be utterly unknown. Parts of the Midwest, such as Wisconsin and Minnesota, seem to be organizing for a different economy, but other parts (rural Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) are sheer zombie-land…

  23. My cousin worked in the Oregon road department several years ago. Their budget cuts were so bad, they had absurd situations when it came to supplies. They couldn’t get a replacement pencil unless they brought back the whittled down stub of an used pencil. Pens had to be shown they were dry.
    They no longer stocked an expensive bulb used in some high end camera used to reproduce drawings. Rather than pay to have an extra in stock, when it burned out, THEN they ordered another. It showed up in 3-5 business days. During that time, nobody could make copies of drawings. Work flow ground to a halt.

    Because we are unwilling to pay for services, wou watch, in a couple of years, the “people” will be screaming that government takes to long, that’s too slow and unresponsive.

  24. @4 I haven’t heard of that happening in Snohomish, but there have been articles describing that sort of thing happening in “slumburbia” all over the country. There are enormous housing tracts built near the end of the bubble that are now empty except for a smattering of renters and squatters.

    You have to ask why a little hick town like Snohomish would have a bunch of condos in the first place–what would be the point of packing people together like sardines all the way out there but for the artificial pumping up of prices to the point where most people couldn’t afford to buy much more than a walk-in closet with a micro-kitchen and a Murphy bed, even with a “creative” mortgage.

    It’s also worth pointing out that those folks had better be damned careful. The cops up that way have a reputation for rather harsh treatment of people who look “out of place”.

  27. Wonder if MISTER Cynical-ASS-Klown bought into the GM IPO?

  28. Print media used to be assiduous guardians of spelling and grammar. Not anymore. I saw an online news article this morning about a little girl rescued from a well in Argentina that contained the following phrase:

    “Argentina waited with baited breath …”

    Someone needs a copy editor. Know what’s wrong with that? Anyone? (Not you, trolls, only people who can read and write.)

  30. I feel we should all pump a few hundred pellets into our tv’s—just on general principles. The wasteland has only gotten vaster since Newt Minnow first uttered the term.

  34. Zotz @ 21
    Good post. The Rs, however, do not engage in planning or discussion because the path has always been clear and all the answers have long been apparent.

  36. My gawd! I hope I have enough time to pull my kids outta class before this Demonkrat gets to the young skulls full of mush. No wonder public school education is in the toilet with hooligan’s like Goldy allowed to address the class.

  37. @36: Right you are. Only Bible literalist, evolution denying, global warming denying, homophobic, war mongering, torture defending, habeas corpus denying, Islamphobic, abortion equals murder types should be allowed to educate our kids.

  38. Mr. Rabbit, you do know that puns and fascination with the spelling of obscure words are a sign of advancing age?

    (;-p)

  40. @31

    My Republican alter ego sneaks in a post or two every now and then. I heard lots of grousing about Title 9 when I was in school.

  41. They say you can’t legislate morality and the way people feel — and I agree.

    But you can legislate people’s behavior.

  42. re 36: Maybe one of your teabagger goons can curb his noggin for you — but I doubt it since he isn’t a 120 woman.

  45. Ran across this, thought it was worth repeating…

    ILLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS…

    – Unregulated capitalism crashed the economy. BLAME SOCIALISM
    – The rich are getting richer while the middle class is being decimated. BLAME THE POOR
    – Jobs sent overseas to fatten_ the paychecks of unscrupulous CEOs BLAME THE UNIONS
    – Wall Street’s “creative financing” steals_ trillions and taxpayers pay the bill. FREE MARKETS
    – Two wars of choice kill_ thousands of Americans while making us no safer. INVADE IRAN
    – Unnecessary wars and Wall Street scams drain the economy. BLAME THE IMMIGRANTS
    – The disparity of wealth has never been higher -TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH

    – Fix the problems. TEA PARTY

    That about sums up Conservative thought.

  47. @2
    please allow me to name drop; my friend & collegue Richard Dryfuss has pushed for the return of civics and did some teaching at Oxford on American History.

    so he can teach the kids to believe its ok to hate christians? thats the only reason kikes want to stck their big noses in schools. tell dryfuss to go fuck himself and just go back to hollywood and snort cocaine and commit adultery everyday.

  48. pieceofshit @ 47
    It’s after 8 p.m. on the East Coast. Haven’t you yet reached your quota of hate for the day?

  49. @48
    It’s after 8 p.m. on the East Coast. Haven’t you yet reached your quota of hate for the day?

    i’m not on the east coast today. i’m visiting an extremist millitia camp in texas.

  50. 44. Mr. Cynical spews:

    Teach ‘em to say f*ck every other sentence Goldy!
    Just like you.

    11/18/2010 at 4:09 pm

    MISTER Cynical-ASS-Klown feels like a REAL BIG MAN putting a Dad down for supporting kids at school.

    Good goin’ by the hateful hater.

  51. @44

    Have you listened to a teenager lately? Those cocksuckers swear all the mother fucking time. ;-)

  52. and on top of it, the kikes in hollywood make a movie about valerie plane!!fucking amazing. ya think they’d ever make a movie about the assasinations comitted by the mossad? oh wait, the mossad never killed anyone, at least the ones who didnt have it coming.

  53. 51
    I know. The little fucking bastards don’t seem to know anything about goddamned decorum. I fucking worry about their generation.

  54. @51 and 53: And they’re getting a lot more fucking (than us) too.

    Come to think of it, the little fuckers fuck like Rabbits!

    Fortunately they can’t have fucking litters — Or we’d be fucked!

  56. @55
    54
    Indeed, on all counts. The fuckers. BTW, Zotz, I appreciate the name change.

    jeepers, you say fuck almost as much as i say kike.

  58. it kind of reminds me of some of the degenerate, vulgar young hollywood actors like
    seth rogan, adam sandler, seth green, ben stiller, jack black….oh yeah, i should have realized that.

  59. “My name is David Goldstein class. I got fired from my job at KIRO radio, The Seattle Times round-filled my application, my Mom sends me money and plane tickets a lot, I’ve been chronically unemployed for years now, I hate Christianity, my wife wisely left me, I haven’t had a love life in as many years as I haven’t worked, and I beg for money and handouts under a guise I like to call a “fund drive” so I can continue to not work and pretend that I am a real member of the press. Please, please, listen to what I have to screech!”

    (Bell rings….laughter ensues….Goldy blushes and scratches bald head)

    Thanks for the hearty laugh Goldy, I can always count on you! ;)

    Good evening all.

  62. Mark1
    You’ve been appearing here for years, despite your protestations about Goldy. No one would miss you if you disappeared, given that you’ve never added a damned word of value. You are kind of a laughable human being, an insignificant juvenile.

  63. Hey, all you wingnuts out there, all of whom opposed bailing out GM, could you share your thoughts about GM’s stock offering today? Your thoughts about the taxpayers’ money coming back? A million jobs saved? Any of you? Cynny? Puddy? lost? C’mon, boys, I’d like to know your thoughts.

  65. 13,743 trillion and counting. 150 Billion in new debt last month alone, when both wars cost 6 Billion per month.

    Gold and Silver sailing higher

    Bonds caving in

    State broke from wages and benefits double the private sector

    Fed broke from wages and benefits double the private sector

    Abama, Pelosi, and Reid still have no budget, and think this whole landslide was due to them being so successful in blowing trillion dollar deficits and debasing the US currency by 50%.

    This guy makes Carter look Good!

  66. Glenn Beck says buy gold. When Glenn started telling people to buy gold it was ~$700/ounce. Leftists tried to attack GoldLine using the well known WeinerAttack. It failed. Now that it’s proven George Soros listened to Glenn and bought large amounts of gold, that makes some HA poopie headed arguments very mute. Now gold is over $1300/ounce.

    ylb is pizzed. He couldn’t get in on the ground floor and now as it skyrockets he can’t emulate his hero George Soros!

    Tooooooooooooooooooooo

    Damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

    Funnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnny

  67. 51. Michael spews:

    @44

    Have you listened to a teenager lately? Those cocksuckers swear all the mother fucking time.

    So Goldy speaks their lingo…shouldn’t be a communication gap. My kids are older and don’t do that.

  68. 59. Mark1 spews:

    “My name is David Goldstein class. I got fired from my job at KIRO radio, The Seattle Times round-filled my application, my Mom sends me money and plane tickets a lot, I’ve been chronically unemployed for years now, I hate Christianity, my wife wisely left me, I haven’t had a love life in as many years as I haven’t worked, and I beg for money and handouts under a guise I like to call a “fund drive” so I can continue to not work and pretend that I am a real member of the press. Please, please, listen to what I have to screech!”

    (Bell rings….laughter ensues….Goldy blushes and scratches bald head)

    And then says…”hey you f*cking bastards, I’m not done yet. I’m never f*cking done. Conservatives are sick f*cks. Hey wait..F*CK YOU ALL!

  69. Puddy @ 66–
    Roger Rabbit was the lead KLOWN who said buying Gold was a horrible investment made by stupid people.
    Investment Strategy 101–
    Do your research.
    Get the Rabbit’s advice.
    Do the opposite of the Rabbit.

    The key to a prosperous retirement.

  70. @67: You have kids? Wow, that is scary – are they schizophrenic like you? Are they also incapable of thinking or logical thought?

    Or were your defective genes recessive?

    I guess even stoopid people can have kids, though.

  71. @65 Id
    I love it when the morons from the right start talking about the “budget deficit”. Of course, they forget a few fact along the way. They forget that Bush turned the largest budget surplus in history into the largest budget deficit. That Bush also presided over the worst economic srisis since the great depression. that bush refused to actually put the two wars (included the war of choice in Iraq) IN the budget (Obama did that) and that Bush started the TARP program.

    Now, the largest chunk of the budget is the Defense budget. We spend almost twice as much as The next highest country (China). Republicans won’t touch that (see, McCain and others). The other main cause for the deficit is the Bush tax cuts – republicans want to keep the tax cuts for the rich who don’t need them and it has been shown that those tax cuts will not help the economy (in fact, the economy has gotten worse during the entire time of the tax cuts).

    The simplistic third-grade argument of Id just shows that rightwingnuts are stoopid and don’t understand economics.

  72. Heh. There’s goes that fool Puddybud doing everything Beck tells him.

    Fine. It’s his money. Out of his pocket and into Beck and Goldline’s.

    What’s that old saw about a fool and his money?

  73. @37 and 42:
    I’m sorry your feeling got hurt. you dope smoking, berkenstox n sox, buffalo sweater wearing, hairy legs and arm pit members of NAGS
    (National Association of Gals) keep sending your union dues to your teacher’s union to keep your jobs safe. Oh, and remember to teach to the test;
    don’t want anyone thinking outside the box.

  76. 75. proud leftist spews:

    Anyone who would follow investment advice from Glenn Beck is a complete idiot.

    Albeit wealthier you envious KLOWN!

  77. @63
    Hey, all you wingnuts out there, all of whom opposed bailing out GM, could you share your thoughts about GM’s stock offering today? Your thoughts about the taxpayers’ money coming back? A million jobs saved? Any of you? Cynny? Puddy? lost? C’mon, boys, I’d like to know your thoughts.

    ok, the first thing that comes to mind is, what do you say to all the suppliers who lost money because the government voided their contracts and to all the previous shareholders whose stock became worthless in bankruptcy. now you asked, so dont be evasive.

  78. 77: If the government hadn’t agreed to provide post-bankruptcy financing, GM would have simply ceased operations and disolved under Chapter 7 proceedings. The shareholders would have lost their value, the suppliers would have lost their contracts, and in addition they wouldn’t have any future business as well, resulting in a ripple affect as banruptcies flow through the suppliers.

    In other words, everything you blame on the government had already happened. The government simply provided a lifeline out of the hole, providing guaranteed financing which allowed G.M. to continue operating under Chapter 11 and re-emerge in a form where it could issue it’s I.P.O. and pay off all obligations to the government.

    A win-win for all involved.

  79. What’s that old saw about a fool and his money?

    Yes Soros must be a fool cuz he bought gold!

  80. 79 – Keep following that creepy carnival freak show performer Beck fool! He’s tailor made for the likes of you!

    As always, LMAO at your idiocy!

  81. Oh the pain of the useless ylb attacks against the facts. Reread #66 moron!

  82. @78
    even though i believe that the obama crowd wants to socialize everything, including the auto industry, you’re correct that if a company went bankrupt, eveyone would lose.
    so you’re right….i just dont trust obama, and dont forget the first car czar was rattner, (rattner, of course),who had to resign for corruption, so i dont trust them.

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