Jurgan posted:

"If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect."

Clochette posted:

"If a Republican is homosexual, he marries a woman and publicly opposes gay rights until he's caught soliciting gay sex in a public bathroom, harassing teenage boys, or maintaining an affair with a meth-addicted male prostitute."

Fixed it.

hamster_style posted:

"Could it be anymore OBVIOUS!?!?!?!?!" One was a General of the Confederacy, a regime based on preserving their "heritage" of slavery, and on the left there's Grant. I really don't know about this poo poo, but given the above posts I'm not willing to give it any benefit of the doubt.

Popular Thug Drink posted:

grant might have owned a slave - there's one document that implies he did own a single person at one point in time, but very little is known about this person or how grant may have come to own him, if he was owned. grant's wife may have owned a few slaves, but again, it's not clear at all if she did or if they were servants or what

with lee there's no uncertainty, he was a wealthy southern plantation owner. it's not clear how many slaves he personally owned, versus slaves that were part of the family wealth or the estate, but it doesn't really matter, as he was the guy in charge of anywhere from a moderate amount of slaves to a large amount of slaves during his life. he didn't really like slavery, sort of grudgingly tolerated it and wasn't frequently cruel or sadistic - he and his wife were unusually lenient and even paternalistic towards their slaves, the best example being the establishment of an illegal school for their child slaves. but he was in the "necessary evil" camp where he would prefer that slavery not exist, but didn't see all that much he could do about it, so might as well own some people i suppose. and while he could be nice, when he had to he was just as much of a disciplinarian as any other plantationeer

hamster_style posted:

Interesting. Thanks for the info!

quote:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Monday will announce his entry into the Republican presidential primary race — a move that will finally answer the question whether he can turn high expectations into top-tier status in the crowded field.

Walker’s expected entrance would make him the 15th GOP candidate, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore to follow in coming weeks, bringing the total by summer’s end to at least 17.

The two-term Wisconsin governor waited until after concluding state budget negotiations to enter the race, but he has been near the top of polls since the start of the election cycle.

Walker has nearly 11 percent of the vote, trailing front-running Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, who has roughly 16 percent, in the most recent averaging of polls by the nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.com.

quote:

Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have been ordered to give depositions in a civil case investigating the pair’s growing email scandal.

Mrs. Clinton will giver her deposition on the morning of July 28 in Washington, and Mr. Clinton will give his the following morning, according to copies of the notices of deposition reviewed by The Washington Times.

The case, filed by Freedom Watch founder and former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman, alleges the couple committed criminal violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

According to a statement from Freedom Watch, the suit alleges Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination, covered up these crimes by destroying her personal emails sent during her time as Secretary of State.

Mr. Klayman alleges in his lawsuit that the Clintons — through mail and wire fraud, and various false statements — misappropriated documents that he requested under the Freedom of Information concerning the Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in releasing Israeli war and cyber-warfare plans and practices.

quote:

Saw this idiotic meme yesterday and thought people needed to understand how completely full of Liberal bunk it was. Almost all of that is completely false.

Jesus was only “radical” to people who disagreed with Him. John the Baptist was actually much more off the beaten path, and there were various anti-government groups in Israel at the time that the current government (the Roman Empire) feared more. The truth was Jesus was criticized for being anti-establishmentarian (John 2:13-21) and for being “part of the system” (Luke 7:31-35).

He was not a revolutionary, because He never advocated overthrowing the government (what a “revolutionary” is)

He didn’t hang around with lepers, hookers or crooks. He healed lepers when He met them. Some of the women that followed him were former prostitutes. And some of the men that followed him were former thieves.

Wasn’t American and didn’t speak English is irrelevant. There were no Americans then and English had not come into existence. It would only be relevant to people who want to imply Americans are bigots or evil for being American. In other words, racists.

He wasn’t anti-wealth. He told a rich person to give up his wealth, but never advocated that as a wholesale lifestyle. He never once claimed being rich was evil, and in fact in Luke 16 warned that being ignorant of economics is foolish.

Jesus never addressed the death penalty, once. So claiming He was against it is a lie, especially since it was part of Jewish law.

He prayed publically, so saying He was against public prayer would imply He is a hypocrite.

Yes, He was against homosexuality as were all devout Jews of that day. He advocated traditional marriage.

He never mentioned birth control or abortion because they didn’t exist at the time, but again, would have sternly opposed abortion because it is murder in the most foul, evil form. As for birth control, Jesus message was to trust God. Birth Control takes a natural function out of the hands of God, so it’s a pretty good bet He would have been against it had it existed, especially since Birth Control was created as a back door to genocide as part of Margaret Sanger’s plan to eradicate non-white races (including Jews)

Claiming He never called the poor lazy is used as part of the lie Liberal Democrats tell, accusing Conservative Republicans of calling all poor people lazy (which they don’t) It pejorative, mean-spirited and ignores the truth that some poor people are in fact lazy and our social programs encourage that (intentionally)

He never fought for tax cuts because A. that wasn’t His mission and B. No one fought for tax cuts because all governments at that time were non-participatory.

He never “asked for a copay” but ironically He also never asked for socialized medicine. Funny how that wasn’t mentioned.

Odds are Jesus didn’t have long hair. The idea that He did came from confusion over a Nazarene (someone from Nazareth) and a Nazarite (someone who took a Nazarite vow to not cut their hair). But since Paul re-iterated the practice of men not having long hair, (1 Corinthians 11:14) it would make sense that Jesus didn’t actually have long hair.

Jesus lived a migrant lifestyle, by choice. That doesn’t mean He was homeless. He could have had a home any time He wanted one. For example a modern day, professional photographer who travels so much, he has no need for an actual home. Would he be considered homeless? Only if someone wanted to stretch the truth to “prove” a weak political point.

Jesus was not a community organizer. He actually taught people to not be burdened by the trappings of society and He didn’t try to change society or their community, He tried to change individuals.

Actually He was a “slut shamer” since he confronted more than one woman (John 8:3-11, John 4:7-26) with the reality of her promiscuity.

quote:

Top reasons women gave for having abortions (women could pick more than one) according to the most recent info:

74% said that the baby would change their life too much

73% said that babies were too expensive

48% didn’t want to raise the child alone

32% did not want another child

Less than 1% for rape or incest

Finer LP et al., “Reasons US Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005 37 (3): 10 – 118

I will leave it to the reader to decide whether these are sufficient reasons or not.

quote:

It has been more than a week since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states, and already those with religious objections to same-sex marriage are facing punishment.

Aaron and Melissa Klein, an Oregon Christian couple who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2013 (before gay marriage was legal in Oregon) were ordered Thursday to pay $135,000 by a state labor commissioner because of their refusal.

Just days after the Supreme Court decision on June 26, New York Times columnist Mark Oppenheimer wrote a piece for Time magazine suggesting that all non-profits, both religious and secular, lose their tax-exempt status “rather than try to rescue [it] for organizations that dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality.”

Among those who back gay marriage, there has been almost complete silence on religious liberty. Few politicians or pundits have said that we need a society that respects all consciences, both those who support same-sex marriage and those who don’t. Legislation introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, to protect religious organizations who oppose same-sex marriage has been met with silence from those who support gay marriage.

When love wins, it doesn’t do so by crushing people’s consciences, by forcing them to adhere to what their beliefs tell them is wrong.

quote:

In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling (5-4) that homosexual “marriage” is a civil right, the Catholic bishop for the diocese of Tyler, Texas said it was an “unjust” law “contrary to the moral order” and “not binding in conscience,” adding that Christians “must now exercise our right to conscientious objection.”

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, who oversees the diocese, also ordered that no Catholic facility or employee of the church would participate “in any way” in gay “marriages,” and that the church’s pastoral care of homosexual persons “cannot and will not “ lead to condoning homosexual behavior or the “acceptance of the legal recognition of same-sex unions.”

“We know that unjust laws and other measures contrary to the moral order are not binding in conscience, thus we must now exercise our right to conscientious objection against this interpretation of our law which is contrary to the common good and the true understanding of marriage,” said Bishop Strickland in his statement, which was read in every Catholic church in the Tyler diocese over the July 3-4 weekend.

The Supreme Court “has acted in contradiction to their duty to promote the common good, especially what is good for families,” said the bishop. “I join with the Bishops of the United States in calling this decision a ‘tragic error.’”

“[T]his extremely unfortunate decision by our government is unjust and immoral, and it is our duty to clearly and emphatically oppose it,” said Bishop Strickland.

quote:

The fundamental problem with energy-efficiency mandates and subsidies is that they are based on two absurd premises. First, they assume that consumers are not fully interested in saving money—hence, government intervention is required. Second, they expect a bureaucracy that has served up an $18 trillion national debt to transform into Scrooge McDuck when it is time to count energy pennies.

Exhibit A: A federal rule to cut energy use of microwave ovens when they are off (this is not a joke). To reduce energy use by two watts per oven (also not a joke) the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office pushed manufacturers to adopt a technology that caused the ovens to fail 50 percent of the time in the Department of Energy’s own tests.

Exhibit B: Dishwashers with interminable cycle times. To save eight cents of hot water, federal mandates led to wash cycles taking much longer to complete. Two- and three-hour cycles, virtually unheard of 20 years ago, are commonplace today.

The bureaucrats-know-better-than-consumers mindset is especially nonsensical when it is applied to businesses that relentlessly monitor energy use. Such is the case with the trucking industry, which employs GPS and a host of driver and truck monitoring technologies to shave fuel use to the minimum. A 10th of a mile per gallon is a big deal. Operators do not need federal mandates to spur cost cuts.

That isn’t stopping the federal government from pushing costly new efficiency rules on the trucking industry. Regulatory proponents, of course, claim it won’t cost a thing. The director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies said, “The beauty of the proposal is that the cost of the necessary improvements will be paid for by the savings associated with the increased fuel efficiency.” This association of regulators either believes in free lunches or stupid executives.

quote:

Aetna Life Insurance has been sending some unfriendly letters to residents in Washington, D.C. In their mailbox are notes informing them that they may be losing the plans they purchased through the D.C. Health Link.

Individuals seeking PPO plans will now have only one choice. Oh, and they can expect to reach further in their pockets for that limited option.

The company’s decision will leave the region’s dominant insurance carrier, CareFirst, as the only one offering PPO plans. CareFirst has proposed rate increases for those plans ranging from less than 3 percent to more than 17 percent. Industry analysts characterized those increases as moderate, given an average increase of about 7 percent expected nationwide.

These unwanted changes bring the number of health plans on the D.C. exchange to a total of 162. That, reports the Washington Post, is about half the number provided when the program began.

Many would consider this a failure. Not D.C. exchange director, Mila Kofman.

“When you have products when there’s not a whole lot of interest to buy, that’s the market telling the carrier what they are selling, people can’t afford. So in terms of competition, it’s not a loss,” she said. “I don’t consider that real competition.”

quote:

Launched after the 9/11 attacks under the Patriot Act, the ICE program known as Secure Communities required immigration agents to have access to the fingerprints and criminal history of any immigrant booked in jail. That requirement came after studies showed immigration agents failed to identify 86 percent of all illegal immigrants released from jail.

Secure Communities cost more than $1 billion, and in 2012, then-ICE Director John Morton called it “the future of immigration enforcement.” That same year, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general called Secure Communities a success, “effectively identifying criminal aliens … with little or no cost” to local jurisdictions.

But to critics, the program cast too wide a net. In large, Democratically controlled cities like Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, politicians said the program deported too many immigrants guilty of minor crimes, like traffic violations and non-violent offenses like theft and burglary. In response, some 200 cities created “sanctuary” laws to shield immigrants by prohibiting local police from cooperating when ICE sought to pick up an inmate.

Amid the pressure, DHS ended the program last year, replacing it with a narrower version called the Priority Enforcement Program, which targets only those held on certain offenses.

quote:

Hillary Clinton outlined her economic agenda today at the New School in Manhattan, and attacked Uber. The ridesharing service did not reply to Clinton directly, but the company did post a story on its blog about how the service helps “senior mobility.” Clinton, a grandmother, is 67 years old.

Uber’s post is about June, an octogenarian who recently had to stop driving. Uber now fills that void.

“For June – a very independent person – making the difficult decision to give up her own car after driving for over 60 years felt like “a huge setback.” Sprightly, active, and in her 80s, she was determined not to let transportation limitations deter her for long. After hearing about Uber from her grandchildren, June downloaded the app on her smartphone. Soon, she was riding all over Miami-Dade County, running errands, and visiting with family and friends — all with Uber,” the blog post reads.

Clinton’s criticism of “consumer-friendly ‘sharing economy’ firms like Uber and Airbnb” suggested that the relatively new companies were forces against wage growth. While she didn’t name these companies in her speech, she did allude to them very overtly, and criticized them for their payment models.

quote:

A U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) study to understand why lesbians are fat has now cost taxpayers over $3.5 million to-date.

The study, “Sexual Orientation and Obesity: A Test of a Gendered Biopsychosocial Model,” seeks to determine why there is a disparity in the obesity rates between straight women and lesbian women and straight men and gay men.

According to the study, “It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women. In stark contrast, among men, heterosexual males have nearly double the risk of obesity compared to gay males.”

Apparently, “these disparities are of high public-health significance,” therefore, the National Institutes of Health has been continuously funding the project.

quote:

For a union built on democracy, activist teachers are wondering how the American Federation of Teachers could have possibly endorsed Hillary Clinton for president without them knowing about it.

Candi Peterson, Washington (D.C.) Teachers’ Union, penned an article at Common Dreams in which several die-hard union activists appeared to be utterly befuddled by the national union’s sudden announcement.

Chicago activist Katie Osgood says, “I know many AFT members too and have not heard one person polled either.” The union claimed it polled members on their opinions.

According to the calculation of “Mr. Stevens,” only .04 percent of members were surveyed.

quote:

A shocking new expose’ video has caught Planned Parenthood’s top doctor describing how the abortion business sells the body parts of aborted babies.

New undercover footage shows Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted unborn children and admitting she uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts.

In the video, Nucatola is at a business lunch with actors posing as buyers from a human biologics company. As head of PPFA’s Medical Services department, Nucatola has overseen medical practice at all Planned Parenthood locations since 2009. She also trains new Planned Parenthood abortion doctors and performs abortions herself at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles up to 24 weeks.

Nucatola admits that Planned Parenthood charges per-specimen for baby body parts, uses illegal partial-birth abortion procedures in order to get salable parts, and is aware of their own liability for doing so and takes steps to cover it up.

Fulchrum posted:

quote:

These unwanted changes bring the number of health plans on the D.C. exchange to a total of 162. That, reports the Washington Post, is about half the number provided when the program began.

Fulchrum posted:

Yeah, remember how the established religion begged the Romans to let Jesus go.

quote:

Top reasons women gave for having abortions (women could pick more than one) according to the most recent info:

74% said that the baby would change their life too much

73% said that babies were too expensive

48% didn’t want to raise the child alone

32% did not want another child

Less than 1% for rape or incest

Finer LP et al., “Reasons US Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005 37 (3): 10 – 118

I will leave it to the reader to decide whether these are sufficient reasons or not.

Keeshhound posted:

So... you're saying we should keep the two separated?

greatn posted:

My favorite Robert E Lee one I'm seeing now is "Did you know Robert E Lee was against slavery and thought there was a moral imperative to end it?"

Which is absolutely true. They just leave out the second half of what he was saying, he thought there was a moral imperative to end it just as soon as the superior white race finished uplifting the godless Africans and bringing them fully into Christianity, which he estimated would take about forty more years.

Fulchrum posted:

The first black president needs to be jailed! Also, we're totally not racist!

Fulchrum posted:

Hmm, I know there was some involvement with the gays and the Nazis, involving a pink trianlge. Was it about persecuting white christians? Surely that must have been it, right?

quote:

BigRed0427 posted:

Can I just how loving sick I am of the cell phone/smart phone thing? EVERYONE HAS ONE NOW! Even if it's just a cheap flip phone. They aren't a luxury item any more, their now basically a almost essential tool to function in soceity.

Also, just because you are well off and can afford nice thins doesn't mean your not allowed to argue for income equality!

I'm just sick of being told I'm a hypocrite for not believing in "gently caress you, got mine"

Mo_Steel posted:

Originally fifth, behind the proposed second article: "No law varying the compensation to the members of Congress, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened."

Also, suck it Due Process and Trial by Jury, you unimportant piece of poo poo amendments.

Fulchrum posted:

quote:

...
Wasn’t American and didn’t speak English is irrelevant. There were no Americans then and English had not come into existence. It would only be relevant to people who want to imply Americans are bigots or evil for being American. In other words, racists.
...

There is no gently caress you big enough for this poo poo.

Fulchrum posted:

BigRed0427 posted:

Also, just because you are well off and can afford nice thins doesn't mean your not allowed to argue for income equality!

Lemniscate Blue posted:

So the 9th Amendment is more important than the 10th Amendment, is that what I'm seeing?

Idiot Kicker posted:

I'm not coming from a bad place here, but my concern is about the difference between "well-off" and "extraordinarily wealthy," such as Nancy Pelosi's case. It's easy to see how a conservative could look at someone with 7 homes in expensive real estate markets talking about inequality as hypocritical. It feels obnoxious even to my liberal rear end.
I should say that I'm glad someone in high power is speaking out though.

quote:

The fundamental problem with energy-efficiency mandates and subsidies is that they are based on two absurd premises. First, they assume that consumers are not fully interested in saving money—hence, government intervention is required. Second, they expect a bureaucracy that has served up an $18 trillion national debt to transform into Scrooge McDuck when it is time to count energy pennies.

Exhibit A: A federal rule to cut energy use of microwave ovens when they are off (this is not a joke). To reduce energy use by two watts per oven (also not a joke) the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office pushed manufacturers to adopt a technology that caused the ovens to fail 50 percent of the time in the Department of Energy’s own tests.

Exhibit B: Dishwashers with interminable cycle times. To save eight cents of hot water, federal mandates led to wash cycles taking much longer to complete. Two- and three-hour cycles, virtually unheard of 20 years ago, are commonplace today.

The bureaucrats-know-better-than-consumers mindset is especially nonsensical when it is applied to businesses that relentlessly monitor energy use. Such is the case with the trucking industry, which employs GPS and a host of driver and truck monitoring technologies to shave fuel use to the minimum. A 10th of a mile per gallon is a big deal. Operators do not need federal mandates to spur cost cuts.

That isn’t stopping the federal government from pushing costly new efficiency rules on the trucking industry. Regulatory proponents, of course, claim it won’t cost a thing. The director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies said, “The beauty of the proposal is that the cost of the necessary improvements will be paid for by the savings associated with the increased fuel efficiency.” This association of regulators either believes in free lunches or stupid executives.

Fulchrum posted:

A rich person? Arguing that people should be well off? IMPOSSIBLE!

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

She's not poor, but she's far from being the richest member of congress.

http://media.cq.com/50Richest/

Idiot Kicker posted:

Holy poo poo, Issa has 3x more worth than the #2 guy.
I can't believe how many have negative worth. How does that happen, for the uneducated among you? (me)

greatn posted:

My favorite Robert E Lee one I'm seeing now is "Did you know Robert E Lee was against slavery and thought there was a moral imperative to end it?"

Which is absolutely true. They just leave out the second half of what he was saying, he thought there was a moral imperative to end it just as soon as the superior white race finished uplifting the godless Africans and bringing them fully into Christianity, which he estimated would take about forty more years.

Fulchrum posted:

"Judges I disagree with weren't forced to recuse themselves. Meanwhile, judges I do agree aren't allowed to recuse themselves? DOUBLE STANDARD!"

Fellatio del Toro posted:

I'm confused here. The argument has always been "it's not about denying gays rights, we just want to protect traditional marriage." Shouldn't that mean that all of the judges with heterosexual marriages should recuse themselves?

Julio Cruz posted:

It's so important, in fact, that it was left out of the original Constitution entirely and had to be added in later.

Verisimilidude posted:

It's a tactic. Move the goal posts so everything supports your argument. Are you arguing against income inequality? Are you poor? Well you can't be poor if you have a cell phone or a computer! Are you wealthy? Then you shouldn't be complaining because if you can make it anyone can! How could you take benefits from a society you hate so much!

Twist everything to help you. Every circumstance and aspect of a person's character.

Goatman Sacks posted:

McCain was a poo poo pilot that was on his fourth plane at the time. Trump has a point.

Klaus88 posted:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/trump-attacks-mccain-being-prisoner-war-i-people-werent-captured_993092.html#.Vap_qf3YSaM.twitter

Welp.

This outta generate some fodder for the thread.