Houston gets it just for the humidity.
Well that I can go along with.
A friend posted this: With this bizarre twisting of words, the Supreme Court has revealed the nature of 21st century American political thought. Those who make, interpret and enforce the laws no longer lie on the ‘left-right’ political continuum. Instead, they are in effect at ‘right angles’ to that continuum. The ideology that drives the Supreme Court, the political administration and the Congress is not Conservative or Liberal but can best be described as “Corporatist.” This is the ideology that affirms that “corporations are citizens, my friends.” it is the ideology that drove the Roberts Court to the odious Citizens United decision. it is the ideology behind a bailout for banks that are ‘too big to fail.’ And it is the ideology that allows Congress to pass a law like the ACA that is essentially written by a favored industry. The Corporatist ideology allows the Supreme Court to uphold the ACA despite the obvious and glaring consequence: forcing someone to buy health insurance is like forcing someone to buy a used Rambler — it’s a shoddy product at an inflated price, but you must pay a tax or swallow your anger and buy it from the smirking dealer down the street.
What do we think about that?
Or, this: Why the ObamaCare Ruling was a Victory for the Corporate Right - CounterPunch.org
Relevant snippet:
"The essential enigma at play here is this: the problem does not lie with the ACA; it lies with the Supreme Court decision. The ACA was not found permissible under the Commerce Clause, though it was upheld anyway, under another theory. The SCOTUS established a precedent that the clause is more limited than it has been since the New Deal era (also known as the Lochner era). Does anyone really think Roberts grew a conscience? This is pure activism on his behalf: the act is upheld and—we barely notice it, hardly object—but the law was just fundamentally changed under our noses. Why is this a big deal? All post-New Deal social and environmental regulation happens under the Commerce Clause. That is to say, the groundwork to repeal decades of legislative progress because it may be seen as undue, as “excessive regulation,” was just laid. And it was laid with silence and stealth."
I hate to be picky, but the word “corporatist” already has a meaning that is totally, completely different from this.
No, not sales tax. Payroll tax.
So you say that Conservatives are unhappy with Justice Roberts for not voting with the Conservative bloc on the Court. And I say, are you talking about this case? 
History repeats itself.
Because of how you said you had a problem with raising taxes. Remember when I quoted you earlier?
Lol, no. I don’t know why my guesses about your political views are even up for discussion here. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re an independent. I never said anything about you being a Republican. I just pointed out specific right-wing sound bites that you repeated.
You heard a manipulative, deceptive sound bite about how 47% of the population “doesn’t pay taxes”, and you repeated it, without understanding that most of those people are, in fact, paying lots of taxes, including the payroll taxes every wage-earning worker pays for entitlement programs. And you now, from your statement, it seems you have further embellished the sound bite to concoct a belief that there is lots of potential tax money on the table going uncollected. Whereas, if you stop and think, most households that aren’t paying any federal taxes aren’t exactly ripe juicy fruits just a-waiting for the revenues to be squeezed out of them.
Thing is, if you actually look at the two parties, and their histories, and their proposals, you’d see that there is a stark difference between the them. Differences that you ought to care about if you’re really worried about our country’s debt. One of the two parties is responsible for almost all the debt we owe as a nation, including stacking up large amounts of it even when times were good and by any rational standard we ought to have been generating a surplus for later. The other party was in power last time we were actually running a surplus. And hint: it was the irresponsible ones who launched those eye-rollingly dumb complaints about how not enough households pay income tax.
You’re sitting here repeating GOP talking points about how government spending is out of control (even though it’s not, and you didn’t even point to any examples of how it is) and how the government is wasting tax money (even though taxes keep going ever downward). Do you think that taxes can continuously go down forever without that ever causing a problem?
It’s too dumb to bother responding to in any detail greater than this.
This one’s making a pretty obvious point. I don’t think anyone who pays attention is unaware of Roberts’s narrowing of the Commerce Clause or the potential consequences of it.
I do notice that nobody objects with nuking College Station. 
I have a former debater of mine who teaches there, so I’ll have to give him a heads-up to be out of town.
Actually, Miranda has turned out to be a good thing in the long run. It’s made law enforcement be more meticulous and careful. As a result, they get fewer cases kicked.
Probably because they’ve met an Aggie.
I would agree, but you are the first far right conservative I know of to actually take that position.
Huh? I meant income taxes…which is what I said…which are a payroll tax, no?
Look man, its obvious I don’t have a complete understanding about our government’s budget based on your derisive replies. But I do know that our government spends a shit ton of money, like on our military, which I generally support, that can be cut back. I also know that despite your assholish replies to my posts that reference wasteful spending that there is in fact, wasteful spending. And there are a ton of people that do not pay into the system as they should. That’s a fact, not conjecture on my part. What those numbers are is anybody’s guess. What I don’t get is your campaign to try to tear me down as if I am some complete dunderhead posting about nothing. I have admitted my shortcomings…but the fact remains that we are 13 TRILLION dollars in debt, much of which is held by China (not our friend) and that it really doesn’t matter how we got here but what we do about it.
Where “much” equals 8% of the debt (as of July 20, 2011),
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
CMC fnord!
You said “taxes”, actually. And no, income tax is not a payroll tax. Words have meanings.
I hadn’t noticed.
Which, still, you fail to identify in any detail. You’re just sure that spending has to be cut. On something. For sure.
“Fact” means something interesting and different in your world, I guess!
Plenty of people don’t pay what they should, but the 47% figure addresses hardly any of them. Look at the capital gains tax if you want to see people who really aren’t paying into the system the way they should be.
Only a small percentage is held by China. (Currently 8% of it.)
You don’t get how global capitalism works if you think China is some sort of adversary when it comes to economics.
Which, in your view, is somehow figuring out how to extract income taxes from the population that doesn’t currently owe them, and cut spending from . . . something. Because it’s too high, so cut spending on . . . something.
Way to conveniently cut out where I support (gasp..oh noes!) slashing the military. Why do you persist in your superiority complex? I’ve admitted I don’t fully understand the issues…what the hell is your problem NOW?
Except nobody cares. To a lot of people, ‘Corporatism’ means ‘Fascism’ means ‘Corporations as we now know them have influence.’ Therefore, the fact Halliburton can influence politics means we’re a Fascist state.
It’s utterly dishonest and distressingly common.
(To make it painfully clear: The ‘corporations’ in Corporatism have nothing to do with businesses, but were about organizing all of society into groups ultimately controlled by the government. Trying to tie modern corporations back into that is dishonestly changing the definition of a word halfway through a debate without acknowledging the definition has changed.)
I’m glad you support slashing the military. I’m also glad you understand that you don’t really know anything about the budget. I think that’s a great place to start from.
I’m still not going to take you seriously, due to that whole thing about how you think anyone who disagrees with your brilliant analysis of the budget has decided you’re a Republican. I don’t take anyone who is as invested in partisanship as you are seriously. If you can’t imagine a disagreement over the budget that’s not partisan in nature, you can’t really discuss the budget.
I also never said “anyone who disagrees with me must think I’m a Republican”. I assumed YOU thought so in an earlier post, mostly due to the tone and nature of this board in general. Please, I try as hard as I might to engender a bi-partisan spirit in any discourse I might have. I also realize that the two parties are often obstructionist in nature and that it isn’t helpful.