Doomsday

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He's a big part of the problem but you are right, it goes back farther. W should have done more to curtail spending when he was Pres but he got stupid too, and its been a death spiral ever since
Co-dependency relationship with the Dem controlled Congress, they supported his GWOT and he rubber stamped their wild spending. Read his book, "Decision Points." Until 9/11 happened, he was fighting them tooth and nail on spending. He made the decision to fight terror instead.

One example of disasterous result - he signed Dodd-Frank into law and it worked as designed, destroying banking as we knew it and leading to the economic crash of 2008.
 

dbair1967

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Co-dependency relationship with the Dem controlled Congress, they supported his GWOT and he rubber stamped their wild spending. Read his book, "Decision Points." Until 9/11 happened, he was fighting them tooth and nail on spending. He made the decision to fight terror instead.

One example of disasterous result - he signed Dodd-Frank into law and it worked as designed, destroying banking as we knew it and leading to the economic crash of 2008.
Well, he has said little publicly since he came out of office to make me believe he was a TRUE conservative. It wasn't just back when he was trying to "work" with dems.

I thought he'd be more like Reagan when he first got elected, but he ended up being just as (if not more so) moderate than his dad.
 

Creeper

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He's a big part of the problem but you are right, it goes back farther. W should have done more to curtail spending when he was Pres but he got stupid too, and its been a death spiral ever since.

Obama started us down the road of this extreme left agenda though, and Biden is just the continuation of the Obama socialist dream.
I have come to the conclusion that the best solution to the problem, and many others, is to repeal the 16th amendment and abolish the income tax. I know it sounds radical, but it is clear after many years that the only way to stop the excess spending is cut off the money supply. Or implement a flat tax that is indexed directly to the level of spending. Every time they want to spend more money they would have to raise income taxes on everyone. Once everyone has the same skin in the game the government will be less likely to take more of our money. They use the current system to divide us. Then kill all the stupid excise taxes and other hidden taxes that we do not feel directly. Our entire tax system is set up to deceive us into believing they are not robbing us.
 

Creeper

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they're straight up printing money as it is, how is your plan going to stop that? (not that I'm against your idea)
This is why I support a constitutional convention of states. It is time to fix the constitution to limit the powers of the federal government again including the power to print money and devalue the currency, which is an attack on every American citizen. We have idiots in congress, and I won't mention any names or her 3 initials, who support Modern Monetary Policy which is basically the ridiculous notion that there are no consequences to printing money at will. In case no one has noticed, there are countries around the world conspiring to replace the dollar as the standard trade currency with the Chinese Yuan. We are helping them achieve their goal when we devalue our own currency.

The bizarre thing is the people who think the constitution is obsolete are the strongest opponents of a constitutional convention. You'd think they would be gung ho to update the document they think is dated.
 

dbair1967

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I have come to the conclusion that the best solution to the problem, and many others, is to repeal the 16th amendment and abolish the income tax. I know it sounds radical, but it is clear after many years that the only way to stop the excess spending is cut off the money supply. Or implement a flat tax that is indexed directly to the level of spending. Every time they want to spend more money they would have to raise income taxes on everyone. Once everyone has the same skin in the game the government will be less likely to take more of our money. They use the current system to divide us. Then kill all the stupid excise taxes and other hidden taxes that we do not feel directly. Our entire tax system is set up to deceive us into believing they are not robbing us.
I am with you on repealing the income tax and am a huge proponent of "The Fair Tax" that numerous really intelligent people vetted and got behind it. IIRC Herman Cain was a huge proponent of it and even ran with it on his platform before he was viciously attacked and condemned by the MSM and extreme left.

The left hates the idea (and like minded ideas) of the Fair Tax and always scream to high heaven about "it hurts the poor and the middle class!!!!!!!!!!!!!" but that is absolutely NOT true.
 

Creeper

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I am with you on repealing the income tax and am a huge proponent of "The Fair Tax" that numerous really intelligent people vetted and got behind it. IIRC Herman Cain was a huge proponent of it and even ran with it on his platform before he was viciously attacked and condemned by the MSM and extreme left.

The left hates the idea (and like minded ideas) of the Fair Tax and always scream to high heaven about "it hurts the poor and the middle class!!!!!!!!!!!!!" but that is absolutely NOT true.

The left believes if the rich benefit the poor are harmed. It is a silly notion based on petty jealousy. The choose to pit the rich against the poor because it benefits them.

I like the flat tax, but it must be applied to everyone, no matter how rich or poor, and coupled with a balanced budget. Index the flat tax rate to the budget and to increase the budget congress must increase the flat tax rate. When everyone sees their paycheck shrink due to higher taxes they will vote their pocket books. No longer will one party be able to divide us by economic class. However, for this to work, we have to eliminate all other taxes. All the hidden taxes we pay were created to hide how much money they are stealing from us.

75,000 pages of tax law can only serve one purpose and that is to deceive the public.
 

Creeper

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The nuclear facts behind Putin’s first-use threat

Charts and Diagrams


First lesson: Never believe anything Russia says about its weapons capabilities. They have a history of exaggerating both the numbers and capabilities of their weapons. I suspect the Chinese have learned to do this from the Russians as well. That doesn't mean we should ignore the threats but we need to always take Russian claims with a grain of salt - then verify.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, we are way past the counting game. If even a handful of these weapons strike their targets the consequences to the world would be cataclysmic. A single small nuke exploding over NYC, for example, would obliterate the US economy. Then the economies of most of the developed world would follow. Markets everywhere would crash even if the US did not retaliate. In fact, any nuke detonated in anger, even over the ocean in an act of war would cause all markets to crash out of fear. An all out nuclear war would wipe out the major super powers and probably half the world population in the first hours of the war. I have no doubt the Russians and Chinese know this and this is why they will not resort to using nukes unless provoked by a possible nuclear attack.

Putin is no doubt embarrassed by his inability to subdue Ukraine. Lesson #2: Western Technology is the great equalizer. Now Putin is resorting to words because his army cannot get passed the Ukrainian army that is being supplied with all kinds of western missiles and drones. Putin's tanks are no match for modern anti-tank missiles. This is not to say Putin is not gaining some ground but I am sure he expected to be in control of all Kyiv by now.

All this reminds me of Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" which I read many years ago. Still it is a good read, although the weaponry in that book is ancient compared to what exists today.
 

cml750

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Look at this. They are actually reusing the same pattern they used to try to hurt Trump on Putin. While I am no Putin apologist, the entire coverage of the Ukraine war has been one big load of bullshit after another load of bullshit. They try to make Zelensky, a comedian, look like a hero military expert and demonize Putin. After watching the media and the left for so long , especially after Trump won in 2016, I have absolutely zero trust of anything I hear coming from mainstream sources.

1649958523986.png
 

touchdown

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The guided-missile cruiser Moskva, named for the Russian capital, sank while being towed to port after suffering heavy damage.

The Moskva had the capacity to carry 16 long-range cruise missiles.

If Ukraine hit the Moskva with missiles, the cruiser likely represents the largest warship to be sunk in combat since the 1982 Falklands War, which saw a similar-sized cruiser called the ARA General Belgrano torpedoed by a British submarine, killing over 300 sailors on board.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-u...ss-black-sea-22d7279f32c15d4a7037a2195113fb57
 

Dodger12

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It's looking more and more like the Ukraine is becoming a testing ground for US military hardware and how it compares to the Soviet military capabilities. The military industrial complex must be very satisfied thus far. One major question is how long will Russia continue to be ass raped by US and NATO hardware before they escalate? I mean, we don't boots on the ground but we do have people training the Ukrainian military and our hardware is being used to kill Russian soldiers.
 

Creeper

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It's looking more and more like the Ukraine is becoming a testing ground for US military hardware and how it compares to the Soviet military capabilities. The military industrial complex must be very satisfied thus far. One major question is how long will Russia continue to be ass raped by US and NATO hardware before they escalate? I mean, we don't boots on the ground but we do have people training the Ukrainian military and our hardware is being used to kill Russian soldiers.
This is not a new practice. We did this in the Arab Israeli wars too, and in Afghanistan.

And in every case we find out our tech is way ahead of Russian tech.
 
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