The Republican Thread

[CanOfCorn]

I don't remember Moore ever telling a 17 year old muslim student to go ride a camel. Or talking about how Jews need to be perfected.

 

Not in public anyway...

[Balta1701]

I don't remember Moore ever telling a 17 year old muslim student to go ride a camel. Or talking about how Jews need to be perfected.

Shouldn't matter.

[StrangeSox]

I read this morning that Ann Coulter's appearance at the University of Ottawa had to be shut down for security reasons. I'm not really a fan of talking heads like her, but I do find it pretty funny that there's not more of an uproar about this type of thing. Imagine if Michael Moore was in the same situation.

 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...Y-kQnAD9EKVOKG1

 

And it's Canada, I know, and they have their own version of freedom of speech, but it's pretty ironic that a protest got so out of hand over a woman speaking her mind about...yep, free speech (or lack thereof).

 

Hey remember when the conservative government in Canada blocked a liberal British politician from coming? Yeah, probably not, because there wasn't some huge upraor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/ma...y-banned-canada

 

Ann Coulter is a troll irl. I don't know why anyone gives enough credence to her remarks as to be offended by them.

[Jenksismyhero]

Hey remember when the conservative government in Canada blocked a liberal British politician from coming? Yeah, probably not, because there wasn't some huge upraor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/ma...y-banned-canada

 

Ann Coulter is a troll irl. I don't know why anyone gives enough credence to her remarks as to be offended by them.

 

Alykhan Velshi, Kenney's spokesman, said that the act was designed to protect Canadians from people who fund, support or engage in terrorism.

 

"We're going to uphold the law, not give special treatment to this infandous street-corner Cromwell who actually brags about giving 'financial support' to Hamas, a terrorist organisation banned in Canada," he said. "I'm sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him. Canada, however, won't be one of them."

 

So someone who funds terrorist organizations and is deemd a national security threat (real or not) is somehow equal to a person who, at best, makes bad jokes and is pretty insensitive to groups she doesn't like?

 

I thought liberals were all about freedom of ideas/expression? I guess just ideas that they agree with?

[GoSox05]

So someone who funds terrorist organizations and is deemd a national security threat (real or not) is somehow equal to a person who, at best, makes bad jokes and is pretty insensitive to groups she doesn't like?

 

I thought liberals were all about freedom of ideas/expression? I guess just ideas that they agree with?

 

 

I think Coulter had a right to speak there, but people have a right to protest her too.

[Jenksismyhero]

I think Coulter had a right to speak there, but people have a right to protest her too.

 

Totally agree. I don't think the students did anything wrong. Sounds like they were somewhat reasonable (no arrests). But clearly the school didn't want to/failed to provide proper measures given the heated atmosphere they created.

[GoSox05]

Totally agree. I don't think the students did anything wrong. Sounds like they were somewhat reasonable (no arrests). But clearly the school didn't want to/failed to provide proper measures given the heated atmosphere they created.

 

 

Also I'm not real up to date on Canada's free speach laws. I'm guessing they are similar to the States, but i'm not sure.

[Balta1701]

Also I'm not real up to date on Canada's free speach laws. I'm guessing they are similar to the States, but i'm not sure.

No, it's not, it's similar to England's.

Legislation in Canada follows the British tradition, as do laws in Australia, New Zealand and some other former colonies. In particular, with a few exceptions, citizens are not allowed to incite or promote hatred, or advocate or promote genocide against certain specified groups.

 

Sad thing is, Wikipedia is down, so I had to take whatever source I could get. Sigh.

[GoSox05]

No, it's not, it's similar to England's.

 

 

Sad thing is, Wikipedia is down, so I had to take whatever source I could get. Sigh.

 

I was gonna look it up on Wikipedia too. Wikipedia has become an addiction of sorts.

[Cknolls]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/0...n_a_long_t.html

 

 

Senility is covered too Mr. Senator.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/0...n_a_long_t.html

 

 

Senility is covered too Mr. Senator.

 

Luckily he comes from a place that is in pretty good shape...

[StrangeSox]

So someone who funds terrorist organizations and is deemd a national security threat (real or not) is somehow equal to a person who, at best, makes bad jokes and is pretty insensitive to groups she doesn't like?

 

Shifting goalposts.

 

I thought liberals were all about freedom of ideas/expression? I guess just ideas that they agree with?

strawman/ hasty generalization

[lostfan]

I don't know where this puts me in relation to others on this board, but hate speech laws are kind of dumb. Why would you give the government authority to make a subjective decision to criminalize political views they don't like? What happens when someone new is elected and YOUR views become hate speech?

 

Oh, btw StrangeSox I think those are 2 different laws they were enforcing, the liberal politician didn't have anything to do with hate speech.

Edited March 25, 2010 by lostfan

[Jenksismyhero]

Shifting goalposts.

 

How exactly? My argument was that if this happened to a liberal talking head it would get more publicity. You countered with an example of the opposite. I'm distinguishing the two. How is a guy who allegedly funds a terrorist group and is held out of the country (by its government) the same as a blow hard who gets denied the opportunity to speak because she makes offensive comments? If you have a more comparable example, give it.

 

strawman/ hasty generalization

 

or a joke

[KipWellsFan]

How exactly? My argument was that if this happened to a liberal talking head it would get more publicity. You countered with an example of the opposite. I'm distinguishing the two. How is a guy who allegedly funds a terrorist group and is held out of the country (by its government) the same as a blow hard who gets denied the opportunity to speak because she makes offensive comments? If you have a more comparable example, give it.

 

 

 

or a joke

 

 

For the record Canada's media is to the left of America's and this was top news everywhere. And the Galloway story was pretty big too, but Coulter's story is bigger. Particularly because of her camel comment the day before.

[mr_genius]

For the record Canada's media is to the left of America's and this was top news everywhere. And the Galloway story was pretty big too, but Coulter's story is bigger. Particularly because of her camel comment the day before.

 

anyone that gets worked up over Ann Coulter comments is a retard.

[StrangeSox]

anyone that gets worked up over Ann Coulter comments is a retard.

 

yeah that

[kapkomet]

anyone that gets worked up over Ann Coulter comments is a retard.

 

 

a "f***ing retard". Come on... get it right.

[CrimsonWeltall]

I'm distinguishing the two. How is a guy who allegedly funds a terrorist group and is held out of the country (by its government) the same as a blow hard who gets denied the opportunity to speak because she makes offensive comments? If you have a more comparable example, give it.

 

She wasn't denied an opportunity to speak. She and her organizers were the ones who backed out.

 

[Balta1701]

I don't know where this puts me in relation to others on this board, but hate speech laws are kind of dumb. Why would you give the government authority to make a subjective decision to criminalize political views they don't like? What happens when someone new is elected and YOUR views become hate speech?

I can at least acknowledge there's some logic behind some of it. I hate to do the Godwin's law violation, but Hell, Germany's probably the best example in the world out there of a country with legitimate motivation for trying to decide what hate speech is and regulate it.

 

However, even if I'll acknowledge there's some historical logic behind those laws, freedom of speech is one I think we genuinely do better than anywhere else in the world.

[Controlled Chaos]

Bond Markets Reflect the True Cost of Obamacare

Michael Barone

Thursday, March 25, 2010

 

Not many people noticed amid the Democrats' struggle to jam their health care bill through the House, but in recent weeks U.S. Treasury bonds have lost their status as the world's safest investment.

 

The numbers are pretty clear. In February, Bloomberg News reports, Berkshire Hathaway sold two-year bonds with an interest rate lower than that on two-year Treasuries. A company run by a 79-year-old investor is a better credit risk, the markets are telling us, than the U.S. government.

 

Buffett's firm isn't the only one. Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Lowe's have been borrowing money at cheaper rates than Uncle Sam.

 

Democrats wary of voting for the health care bill may have been soothed by the Congressional Budget Office's report that it would reduce federal deficits over the next 10 years. But bond buyers know that the Democrats gamed the CBO system to get a good score.

 

The realities, as former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin pointed out in The New York Times, are different. The real cost is disguised by the fact that the bill includes 10 years of revenue but only six years of spending. It includes $70 billion in premiums for long-term care that will have to be paid out later. It excludes $114 billion in discretionary spending needed to run the program. It includes nearly half a trillion dollars in unrealistic Medicare savings.

 

Holtz-Eakins's bottom line: The bill will not lower deficits, but will raise them by $562 billion over 10 years. Treasury will have to borrow that money -- and probably pay much higher interest than it's paying now.

 

Moreover, once the bill is fully in effect, the Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds points out, its expenses are likely to grow at least 7 percent a year -- significantly faster than revenues. At that rate, spending doubles every 10 years.

 

No wonder that Moody's declared last week that the Treasury is "substantially" closer to losing its AAA bond rating.

 

It's not only the federal government that is heading toward insolvency. State governments will have to spend more under the health care bill -- $735 million in Tennessee alone, according to Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen.

 

And state governments are already facing a huge problem called pensions. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that state government pensions are underfunded by $450 billion. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Andrew Biggs argues in The Wall Street Journal that the real figure is over $3 trillion.

 

The reason: State governments set aside cash to invest in pensions, but they typically assume that their investments will rise 8 percent a year indefinitely. They haven't been getting such high returns and are not likely to do so in the future. But they are under legal obligations, which courts won't allow them to escape, to pay the pensions. Retirees get paid off before bondholders, which means that states are going to have to pay more interest when they borrow.

 

Back in the 1990s, Clinton adviser James Carville said that if he was reincarnated he would like to come back as the bond market -- "because you can intimidate everybody." Governments, like all organizations, need to borrow routinely. But investors won't lend unless they think they will be paid back. And they will demand higher interest rates as their loans become riskier.

 

On Sunday, 219 House Democrats, soothed by their leaders' gaming of the CBO scoring process, voted in reckless disregard of what the bond market has been telling them. Some may share Speaker Nancy Pelosi's optimism that the government's looming fiscal disaster can be avoided by imposing a value-added tax -- in effect, a national sales tax.

 

But, as we know from the experience of high-tax Western Europe and relatively low-tax America over the last three decades, higher taxes tend to retard economic growth. Lower economic growth means less revenue for government than in CBO projections. Less revenue means more borrowing -- and at some point lenders are going to call a halt.

 

Barack Obama's project of transforming the United States into something like Western Europe is, according to the CBO, raising the national debt burden on the economy to World War II levels. I see train wrecks ahead -- as the bond market forces huge spending cuts or tax increases first on states and then on the federal government. It will make what happened in the House Sunday look pretty.

 

Copyright © 2010 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

tea bagger!

[Balta1701]

You'll note that all this author says is that the bond rates offered by the private company are "lower". The author does not take into account the actual number or take the time to put into it a historic reference point...considering how close we are to historic lows, for example, would be an appropriate touch, but it would undermine the entire argument.

[NorthSideSox72]

No idea where to put this, just thought it was interesting. Russian bombers and fighters have become increasingly active near (or in) western countries' airspace in the past couple years, remeniscent of the Cold War days, and in one case it resulted in some cool pics published by the RAF of a Britsh Tornado tracking a Russian Blackjack bomber.

 

[Cknolls]

You'll note that all this author says is that the bond rates offered by the private company are "lower". The author does not take into account the actual number or take the time to put into it a historic reference point...considering how close we are to historic lows, for example, would be an appropriate touch, but it would undermine the entire argument.

 

 

We all better hope that the 30 yr yield does not break through 4.80% area. If it does it will be a pretty straight shot up to 7%, putting more pressure on our debt. And the stock market.