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Real OP forthcoming, but it isn't done yet and I want to get this up in case it isn't finished before I leave town for a funeral. I'm trying to make it more "actual state of the US" with sources and less "list of recent bullshit" Happy 4th of July! Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jul 3, 2014 |
# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:27 |
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# ? May 2, 2024 22:14 |
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Bourbon Everclear New Castle Gin Hennessy Absinthe Zima Isake Drink Recommendations
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:27 |
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Could you ... just leave the OP as it is? I assume stuff is happening in this country, but I'm not sure how you can top that as an opener.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:30 |
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That is certainly... something. Anyway, how 'bout that Supreme Court? Those sure were some rulings that's made everyone angry.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:31 |
Vavrek posted:Could you ... just leave the OP as it is? I assume stuff is happening in this country, but I'm not sure how you can top that as an opener. It's perfect as is. I have only one meager response: quote:Why aren't there any knock-knock jokes about America?
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:34 |
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State of U.S. politics. Lord_Ventnor posted:That is certainly... something.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:35 |
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Of course we won't actually know if Tim Howard can save us until we elect him president in 2016.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:40 |
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Can't speak for other states but around here you need a perfect game to get elected senator. Letting three goals in isn't going to count for much.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:42 |
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Hey, what did I say? cite your source for that magnificent patriot.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 04:43 |
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BREAKING: House GOP reveals plan to fight global climate change
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 05:30 |
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Cross posting from the general chat thread: So I think we all remember Brian Boyko and Dr Lessig's Mayday PAC and their laughable goal of raising 5 million by July 4th to get money out of politics. Well today the good professor did an AMA on Reddit with one Jack Abramoff. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/commen...f_here_we_both/ Looks like Abramoff has seen the error of his ways and wants to "change the system man". ....Or the far more likely case that dude knows a mark when he sees one and wants to get a piece of that sweet $2.7 million they've raised in Internet donations and has no other options due to his total lack of credibility among people who can identify their rear end from a hole in the ground.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 05:37 |
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Prosopagnosiac posted:Cross posting from the general chat thread: Abramoff has been working on lobbying reform for years before this came along
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 05:48 |
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Prosopagnosiac posted:Cross posting from the general chat thread: Since he got out of jail he's been pretty consistently working against corruption and moneyed lobbying in Washington.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:01 |
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OP is perfect, but, if you are going to change anything maybe link to the chat thread so this one doesn't get derailed by boozechat/foodchat/what have you. Chat thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3646703
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:07 |
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Fried Chicken posted:Abramoff has been working on lobbying reform for years before this came along Really? I'd love to see a link to that. Because he was seriously one of the worst examples of it during his tenure in the profession.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:10 |
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Prosopagnosiac posted:Really? I'd love to see a link to that. Because he was seriously one of the worst examples of it during his tenure in the profession. Well, his autobiography focused on that very topic. Whether he's "truly" reformed or not is anyone's guess (becoming an anti-lobbying activist is a good way to attract attention and money), but it certainly isn't something that he thought of yesterday.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:18 |
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Fried Chicken posted:Real OP forthcoming, but it isn't done yet and I want to get this up in case it isn't finished before I leave town for a funeral. I Never change this
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:25 |
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I just noticed he has the correct number of stripes. Voting 5, drinking Evan Williams.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:27 |
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:I just noticed he has the correct number of stripes. Voting 5, drinking Evan Williams. Yeah, I wanted to mock him for that but then I counted. He doesn't have the right number of stars but chest hairs support only so high of a resolution.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:33 |
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Happy Fourth of July and new thread, everybody! I will be drinking High Life tallboys this weekend to celebrate. Kinda wish the Hobby Lobby ruling didn't happen this week, I know it was practically inevitable but it really pushed that "Blackwater threatens to literally execute some US official in Iraq for questioning them" story out of the spotlight. PMCs are fascinating to me and reading the accounts of what they managed to get away with is one of those situations where it's so incredibly unbelievable that if you tried to stick it in a movie audiences would complain that it was too unrealistic.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:40 |
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Wolfsheim posted:PMCs are fascinating to me and reading the accounts of what they managed to get away with is one of those situations where it's so incredibly unbelievable that if you tried to stick it in a movie audiences would complain that it was too unrealistic. PMCs are fascinating to me as well because I have literally no idea why they exist in the US or why we have dealings with them. I have a hard time believing that with as much money as we spend on defense that we need to hire wildcard mercenaries to shore up our forces. And it's not like it helps our PR in any way whatsoever, with all the shady and despicable things that have come out about them. I don't even understand what kind of legal area they operate from. Does anyone have even a lukewarm view of PMCs? The media has only ever portrayed them as degenerate psychopaths, and the general public has never been given a reason to doubt that.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:56 |
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Aside from blatant defense contract grifting, I've never quite understood it either. You can do the job cheaper per head with uniformed military and you get (theoretically) better accountability and versatility as a bonus. I mean, maybe we legit don't have the numbers and doing it properly would have required a draft which no one would have supported. But we've scaled back our overseas adventures and still continue to use them, so I don't loving know. Wolfsheim posted:Happy Fourth of July and new thread, everybody! I will be drinking High Life tallboys this weekend to celebrate. I know we all love America and hate our livers, and there's nothing more American than combining the two by drinking cheap pisswater, but Low Life? Come on, man. At least spring for Lone Star. ReidRansom fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jul 3, 2014 |
# ? Jul 3, 2014 07:10 |
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Stocking up on some Sam Adams variety cases while they are on sale for 10$ this weekend. Not the greatest beer but not bad by any stretch of the imagination and as all hell. A good way to pass time while this country sinks into a dystopian ruin .
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 07:16 |
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Happy Fourth to everyone, and may I post a link that proves that sometimes good things happen despite everything being utter poo poo? The Day We Set the Colorado River Free: quote:It's been more than 50 years since the Colorado River regularly reached the sea. But this spring, the U.S. and Mexico let the water storm through its natural delta for a grand experiment in ecological restoration. TL;DR - America and Mexico agree to try ecological restoration by allowing the Colorado to flow once more.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 07:18 |
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Prosopagnosiac posted:Cross posting from the general chat thread: I lost my draft reply with sources and specific examples when the last thread closed; to summarize, the impact of Citizen's United (CU) within the system dynamics of campaign finance is to eliminate a barrier which disproportionately benefited Republicans / rewarded petitions for regulatory exemption, as demonstrated through public records. Seriously: Abramoff views CU as a systemic threat to the status que in policy development. You can give unlimited sums directly to candidates, enough so that the candidate's campaign need not develop networks beyond you. You're a billionaire and you can do direct spends. Why pay Abramoff a fee? FECI's contribution limits made it so that you'd need to hire Abramoff to deliver votes on policy; his job is to maximize the reward from a petition while minimizing associated costs. Now, it is the mere perception of liquidity which bends the will of policy. This is a very good thing. In the data, you'll start recognizing common names used on disclosure forms. Cursory research and journal/university dataset subscription access provide means to establish funding records of associations. Individuals can be tagged and matched to these association in several layers. In addition, tax records from broadcast and media disclosure provide proxy through which one may estimate the source, objective, and target of spending. When rates accurately researched, one can figure out how much which paid for what when where and how. In simple: Past contribution history predicts future contributions. Associative layers modify the source, reason, and result/impact/policy produced of contributions. There are several small networks which can be observed within inter- and intra-layer links. The statistical analysis indicates a very strong probability for the correlation between contributions made prior to policy change sponsored/cosponsored being non-random. The historical impact of FECI has been to increase the size of central party bureaucracy. In addition, advocacy organizations were funded to provide various legitimizations for regulatory exemption. As various studies have discussed, the return on investment for lobbying is between $300:$1 and $400:$1, depending on the industry, supporting the thesis which Piketty has been developing in that the rate of change within past wealth is an accurate predictor of future wealth, i.e. the rich naturally get richer and the poor...less so. Individuals who invest through means accessed depending upon determination generate greater future wealth. Past contributions predict future wealth status; the more one falls out of the regulatory purview of state bureaucracies, the greater the increases in their rates of wealth generation, instances of associative links, and prestige class of associative layers. One example I immediately recall is: Country Club->Union League->City Club->McArthur Foundation Board->[Bureaucratic advisory title]. When one compares other records, a strong non-random correlation is observed between board membership and other board member and or organization contribution / political expenditures. As the FEC provided regulatory disclosure, one striking trend which emerges is the difference between instances of a name occuring in disclosed donations and instances/quantity of advertisement spending for titled political adverts. Now, I'm not besmirching anyone by saying there are different interpretations of the legality of grey contributions; how does one classify statistically signifcant non-random reduction in broadcast rates for specific party organizations on which may be predicted by associative donations to interest groups/political parties by a PID and individual distance from ownership/stake/board of said broadcaster? What Citizen's United has done is remove the bullshit, which makes spending on non-exemptory issues more likely to occur. For example, http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/16/130916fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all Self-interest, yes; before, with the dataset built from the 1,000 wealthiest individuals in America, 1970 and 2010, one can narrow their examination of political contributions to a comprehensible field, versus ~250,000 significant records otherwise; the >%97 of spending is associated with the 1,000 wealthiest datasets anyways. Gonna post while I got it and continue with a second.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 07:29 |
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Zombie Samurai posted:PMCs are fascinating to me as well because I have literally no idea why they exist in the US or why we have dealings with them. I have a hard time believing that with as much money as we spend on defense that we need to hire wildcard mercenaries to shore up our forces. And it's not like it helps our PR in any way whatsoever, with all the shady and despicable things that have come out about them. I don't even understand what kind of legal area they operate from. The fact that PMC's are legal in the first place already baffles me.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 07:41 |
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Fried Chicken posted:Bourbon Given recent news (let alone the World Cup), that I should probably be ipecac.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 07:57 |
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My Imaginary GF posted:
So. Nixon and Johnson, with the private planes and briefcases of cash. Congress realizes it had delegated too much power to the President and that FDR's Supreme Juarices tended to side with the Unitary Executive over our Congress. Now, I'm a big fan of FDR and what he was trying to do. However. There is a reason that there can only be one FDR. Time: FDR was President long enough to build a network where his initial power, as demonstrated by getting others to do what you want, built to a point where, due to the checks and balances of our government, his presidency was able to last long enough whereby he saw increases in his executive powers from having his supreme court appointments. The balance the court provides is to err on the side of their nominators; in recent times, we can see a clear trend for the court, post-Bush II, to rule on the side of limiting executive authority. This is due to the long-term impact of FDR's Presidency on the court and Johnson's being in the right place, at the right time, with the right court composition, to advance the causes of egalitarianism through federal programs. Kennedy was independently wealthy; Johnson was truly poor, and established his power through personap relations. The delegation of responsibility for various power bases, i.e. Chicago asking how many ballot boxes to lose in the river, allowed cohesive messaging at the state-level, and for the President to focus on legislative policy. The same processes occur in the Nixon administration. However, with the court reaffirming Johnson's executive power, Nixon came into office with an honest mindset. He was correct: When the President does something, that makes it legal. Otherwise, how can one justify the legalities of Bush II's administration? Hell, just last afternoon it was leaked that we've had 120 combat troops deployed in Somalia since 2007, without direct public Congressional authorization. Wiretaps, surveillance, drones: they're legal under the authority of the Executive Branch. You can kill an American citizen convicted in trial by absentia, so long as they aren't (yet, may get interesting cases in the future/Syrian issue tangent) on American soil. Now, I'm only most familiar with the system dynamics of Midwestern politics, 2004-2012. In states which pass term limits, political power is concentrated in the hands of a very small group, if group at all. Politicians hate risk. Everyone hates risk; so why risk your job when you go for your interview with the boss to discuss plans and be afforded 20-years of job security, in exchange for party loyalty? If you play the internals right, you'll go from House to Member, from Senate to Senator. And the job's not hard, its drat fun at time, and the stress of elections can be minimized with algorithmic precision. All you need to do is vote if ever asked. You don't have to; you can talk about it. And if it comes to ever being told, you vote if you value your career. Now, this internal system doesn't allow for much bipartisanship. And you'll see in the record, the impact of contributions post-limits versus the real rate of occurance/expenditure versus airtime received, that those with a sincerely held economic interest play by the rules of taute societe. With such a high ROI, exponential growth in wealth occurs for the donative class; this growth is only checked by inflation, life's true flat tax on lenders and redistribution of wealth to borrowers, death, creation of an institutional foundation and its backbone infrastructure, and/or a combination of the above. In sum, the richest find means to redirect state authority to themselves if provided enough time. Now, in Abramoff's system, the Speaker yields authority by being the central organizer and distributor for the RNC/DNC. In the dynamics of contributions flow, limits serve as a breaker curcuit. Yes, billionaires are as lazy as you, too. People are people; we naturally go the paths of least resistance, with determination required for those less travelled. A Pritzker invites you to meet the family, and our country's history is made. A Koch joins you at lunch and calls up a Cargill, and soon enough you're a thousand miles away and running for Senate as a reformed extremist. This has all been done before; however, limits on contributions when spending has quantifiable impact upon votes, messaging, time, future regional wages, federal dollars returned to district, voter participation/feeling of engagement, etc. Limits + Will = Way. Usually through state infrastructure/other middlemen; it truly is a coincidence when one state's county party gets a 40k contribution and then sends out 5 checks. Truly, multiplied by number of counties in state if you so generously wish. CU eliminated that need. Now its direct to/for the candidate/position, wire the money to a local market broadcaster (whose controlling interest you just so happen to own) @ standard rate, charge opposition rate for higher demand, recoup between 130% - 230% of initial expenditure, modified by correlative strenth and class of associations within the state of expenditure. Don't think Murdochs spend so much in politics for nothing. With CU? No need. Just air the commercial and write off the cost, although without IRS/FCC-sanctioned modification in broadcast rates. Seriously, if you want a beneficial policy change, engeneer an increase in tax which would have impact solely on political broadcasts carried over public airwaves regulated and liscenced by your state. My point is, CU makes politicians loyal to patrons for issues, rather than centralized party institutions for ideology. This individual loyalty has, in our nation's past, allowed the passage of some of our most progressive and egalitarian legislation; its a direct path upward within the branches, and is how FDR/LBJ got into wielding their authority.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 08:36 |
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Mayor Dave posted:Happy Fourth to everyone, and may I post a link that proves that sometimes good things happen despite everything being utter poo poo? This is really great, I remember cruising on Lake mead in 2011 and being seriously disturbed by how empty it was, and 120 feet of bathtub is WAY more than there was three years ago. It made a big impact on my choice of master's degree. Go go water stewardship!
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 08:45 |
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My Imaginary GF posted:My point is, CU makes politicians loyal to patrons for issues, rather than centralized party institutions for ideology. This individual loyalty has, in our nation's past, allowed the passage of some of our most progressive and egalitarian legislation; its a direct path upward within the branches, and is how FDR/LBJ got into wielding their authority. Some questions: 1) The obvious question would seem to be: who are the centralized party institutions loyal to? And if they are not loyal to the patrons of the party, why not? How does loyalty transfer when it is processed through multiple organizations? 2) I don't see how you've shown that the individual loyalty has "allowed the passage of some of our most progressive and egalitarian legislation". You've shown that such legislation passed while such individual loyalty existed, but I'm not convinced that such loyalty was either necessary or sufficient to pass the legislation. Was it necessary, and if so, why? Was it sufficient, and if so, why?
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 09:22 |
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moebius2778 posted:Some questions: 1) Apologies for not better communicating the construct. From what I've seen, thenselves. It all depends on the state and well organized a movement is. Fearful respect is what I have for Speaker Pelosi. About to pass out, will try to better communicate later. If you're asking specific indivisuals, take this to PM.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 09:51 |
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Zombie Samurai posted:PMCs are fascinating to me as well because I have literally no idea why they exist in the US or why we have dealings with them. I have a hard time believing that with as much money as we spend on defense that we need to hire wildcard mercenaries to shore up our forces. And it's not like it helps our PR in any way whatsoever, with all the shady and despicable things that have come out about them. I don't even understand what kind of legal area they operate from. I don't have any hard figures at the moment to show it, but from my personal experiances like 99% of what PMCs do is run support services like chow halls and laundry and provide facility security (like no poo poo just security guards). There's some jobs which are far more dangerous which is where you see companies hiring up former special operations guys whom get given a dangerous job and jack poo poo for oversight (moving the mail around in country is an example, though I've never heard of those guys causing any incidents) but thats a small small minority of PMC activity. As to why? I don't know if it turns out to be true by I know the theory at least is that it takes a lot of money and time to train up new soldiers, even more so when you stand up new battalions and larger units, and it takes even longer to get rid of them when you don't need them anymore. The idea is that a temporary need is easier/cheaper to fill with a contractor because you don't have to pay to develop and maintain the organizational support or personal, and you can just contract them for exactly as long as you need them. This really should be the case, but with the corrupt as poo poo contracting practices I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it doesn't end up that way at all.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 09:51 |
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Jarmak posted:I don't have any hard figures at the moment to show it, but from my personal experiances like 99% of what PMCs do is run support services like chow halls and laundry and provide facility security (like no poo poo just security guards). There's some jobs which are far more dangerous which is where you see companies hiring up former special operations guys whom get given a dangerous job and jack poo poo for oversight (moving the mail around in country is an example, though I've never heard of those guys causing any incidents) but thats a small small minority of PMC activity. I also speculate that it allows you to run a quieter war. 10 soldiers die in Iraq, thats news, but a few mercenaries dying, thats just business.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 11:00 |
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DarkCrawler posted:The fact that PMC's are legal in the first place already baffles me. They aren't. The Anti Pinkerton Act was passed in 1893, as has been routinely upheld in saying it includes mercenaries and the government can't use them. The clearest was probably the 5th circuit court's ruling in 1978 saying it covered mercenaries and quasi-military forces. Bush just came up with a legal fig leaf that Blackwater totally isn't a mercenary company, they just fight for money, and claimed that let them ignore the law.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 11:53 |
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LowellDND posted:I also speculate that it allows you to run a quieter war. 10 soldiers die in Iraq, thats news, but a few mercenaries dying, thats just business. THousands of soldiers died in Iraq, it never once made the news.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 11:54 |
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Can't mercenaries pretty much just be killed if they're caught on a battlefield?
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 12:03 |
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Officers don't want dead men on their records, plus it sucks over there in Iraq, the locals hate you. and just stare at you, afraid to move and give you a reason to shoot(in their perspective). And there are amputees everywhere, wtf, what human wants to stay there? It's not your money is it? This already went in the win column for you. vv Just saying, only people who can't understand the misery of war can fail to see why it's not healthy for the mind to be there; especially when you can pay some already broken ones. Femur fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Jul 3, 2014 |
# ? Jul 3, 2014 12:21 |
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Femur posted:Officers don't want dead men on their records, plus it sucks over, they hate you. and just stare at you, afraid to move and give you a reason to shoot(in their perspective). This is wonderfully incoherent. I think the "Hilary has a head injury" rebuttal from last thread had more logical flow
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 12:24 |
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Fried Chicken posted:They aren't. The Anti Pinkerton Act was passed in 1893, as has been routinely upheld in saying it includes mercenaries and the government can't use them. The clearest was probably the 5th circuit court's ruling in 1978 saying it covered mercenaries and quasi-military forces. Bush just came up with a legal fig leaf that Blackwater totally isn't a mercenary company, they just fight for money, and claimed that let them ignore the law. The most baffling thing about the last decade and a half to me has been this whole "This is obviously not [THING], it's just [THE VERY DEFINITION OF THING]" legal tactic that somehow works 99% of the time. "Honey, I wasn't cheating on you! I just stuck my dick in that waitress until I achieved coitus. Totally different thing. Don't you see how you overreact? Yes, this is somehow your fault now."
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 13:16 |
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# ? May 2, 2024 22:14 |
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You guys seems to not really understand how PMCs are utilized at all, they aren't mercs that are sent out to do the job soldiers are. The most offensive operations they ever did was acting as body guards for VIPs working for/with the state department (what blackwater was doing when it caused all its trouble).LowellDND posted:I also speculate that it allows you to run a quieter war. 10 soldiers die in Iraq, thats news, but a few mercenaries dying, thats just business. Yes that makes sense seeing as there was almost 4,500 US troop deaths in Iraq compared to 225 US PMC deaths.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 13:22 |