Danny Bateman

Case in point, that affluenza kid. That case was infuriating.

I don't think that a significantly different proportion of millionaires strive (or strived) for higher achievement or worked harder than do people in any other income bracket. I think a large proportion worked hard but lots of poor and middle class people work just as hard or harder. They may not have worked any harder, but they simply put their efforts in a place where it would be more advantageous to them. I think you and Moiraine seem to disagree fundamentally about the access to the necessary tools and opportunities to get themselves to such a position. Take Trump as an example. Would he have been able to attend boarding and military schools, and Wharton growing up, had he not been born into a wealthy family? Would he have had the successes he's had with only a bachelor's in economics had he not inherited his father's company? It's basically a debate about personal responsibility and hard work vs. availability of resources and opportunities.

Right. We're totally in agreeance here. I too like to keep hyperbole at a minimum, because sensationalism is often a quick way to look foolish or stagnate good conversation from differing viewpoints. Good conversation is necessary for constructing good solutions. You're right. But both those classes face real problems. The working poor are faced with the more drastic ones from my OP, and the middle class has their own, less severe problems, like healthcare spending and education. Some issues overlap and affect all socioeconomic groups, like sh**ty infrastructure, social security funding, and climate change. I'm not terribly opposed to collecting more income from the very wealthy to help address some of these. But, it should be reasonable and certainly not the hyperbolic stealing away from those who earned it that some make it out to be. How do you make out on increased taxes for the wealthy?

OK.....I guess I'm going to question the bolded statement. So....now the middle class in this country are working minimum wage and can't even afford food and basic living expenses at the end of the month? Ummmm.....no. Lumping the middle class and poor into the same group was egregious, but that's definitely true for the poorest among us in the US. But just because the middle class can put food on the table, does that mean they're still not getting the short end of stick. The price charts showing average employee vs. CEO wage growth are pretty egregious too, IMO. The prices we pay for healthcare ARE too damn high. The cost of education is ridiculous. I'm not in favor of raking successful entrepreneurs over the coals and draining the bank accounts. Nor am I in favor of some of the socioeconomic hardships that far too many people in the lower income brackets face every day. There's got to be a better middle ground than we have right now in there somewhere.

And the trickle-down economics talk begins... Oh my. ZRod is right about Bernie, IMO. The middle class and the poor are not some stereotypical freeloader out on a corner holding a hat asking for loose change. In many cases, they're folks working long hours in crappy jobs who still don't have enough at the end of the month to buy enough food or afford basic living expenses. The minimum wage does not reflect the cost of living in prettymu h every area. I'm not OK with that. Especially when I'm told they should just get a better job. I don't equate helping those peoe make ends meet with ripping off entrepreneurs. It's more about helping the people who need help in our society. I believe this is Bernie's goal, even if some of his methodology sucks. And, now a tweet about Donald:

On the topic of cutting government agencies, did it bother you at all during the last debate when Wallace asked him for specific numbers on flushing out "waste, fraud, and abuse," and his answer about cutting the DOE and EPA would only save about $86 billion of a $544 billion dollar national deficit? He then talked about lower drug prices via Medicare, who only spends $78 billion a year total. Even if that was somehow free, we're still less than a third of the way into balancing the budget. http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/03/03/trump-ill-balance-budget-with-better-negotiation-cutting-doe-epa-and-waste-fraud-and-abuse/ I could see if you're interested in strengthening the overall principles of free enterprise and limited government. However, for a guy who touts himself on his business savvy, Trump sure seems confounded when presented with actual numbers.

This guy's trolling so hard.

BAHAHAHA! The memes in here are too good. Those are awesome. And people flip their lid when they talk about Hillary changing her stance on stuff. But they vote for Trump. Weird. Hillary has changed her stances on several things over the years. But she's held completely and uncompromisingly firm on others, and actually brought about real change. Much of which was actually bankrolled, in part, by Trump. Meanwhile, he's never done anything of real significance to help the American people at large, and clearly has no idea how to affect change as a politician. Ergo, if you like Trump, but actually want to see his TRUE policies enacted (underneath this bombastic, authoritarian disguise of a Republican exterior he's donned), vote Hillary. In the short term, I would agree. But for the long term, it might be best if Rubio is selected via convention and Trump runs as an Independent. That would all but hand the election to Hillary, but in the long term it might result in a stronger Republican party by way of "removing" the extreme far right element, particularly if Trump were to form, or was the catalyst for the formation of, a true third party. The irony of course being that Rubio was born of the Tea Party.

That's a damn good analogy there, Knapp. My personal rule on the road is to set my cruise at 5 over when I'm on long road trips. Technically, I'm breaking the law, but the infraction is so minor that most cops just flat out don't care. You'd have to have a real dick having a real bad day to light you up for doing anything at or below 5 MPH over the limit. Likewise, Knapp was drawing the distinction between departmental policy (which breaking is NOT grounds for indictment) and breaking the law. It seems like a lot of people like to hem and haw about the political equivalent of going 3 or 4 MPH over.

I got a chuckle out if it. Yeah, for real. That's why I said they're either lying, or grossly incompetent. And don't get me started on the Republican's going full retard. I don't care what party you work for, your job is to serve the American people. Partisanship from citizens and politicians is the worst. It cheeses me off we're forced to pick between scumbags, and idiots. Meh, Bernie's not really an idiot. He's more of a crochety old mad-scientist type. His policies, though? Idiotic. Certainly not the strongest round of applicants, ever, this year...

Eh, not really. A buddy and I talked about it with a former SOCOM guy that worked at MacDill here in Tampa. Regarding classified materials, he said that at every level, it's drilled into you so that there's not really much room for error. From what I gather, classified info is classified, regardless of if has a special header on it. If you know that you're discussing a classified topic, even if the relevant document doesn't say it's classified, then you make damn sure that you CYA. Ignorance isn't a defense. Gotta say it. I'm obviously biased. Regardless, I seriously don't envy anyone who has to handle classified information. Specifically if you have to travel a lot. What are the legitimate secured methods of communicating classified info? The term "secure line" comes to mind. Can you talk about it? Can you send it with a messenger in a sealed envelope?

Wow, way to fight the good fight Knapp. I think people get very easily politicized around this topic and can sometimes throw objective and perspective out the window. The fact that we're having this conversation about multiple former SoS's seems to indicate that the classification system makes it damn hard for them to do their job correctly. The fact that they classified a New York Times article because it was about the drone program ought to tell you what you need to know about the goofy classification system right now. I agree that we need to just wait to see what happens with the FBI. I very much agree this is only talked about so much because she's running for President.

It's worse than that BRB. Recently, Michael Hayden came out and said that if Trump gave the order to our military to kill wives and children of terrorists, has called for, the military is would disobey the order. Hayden is no schlub-- he served 41 years in the Air Force and retired a four star general, 6 years as the NSA director, and 3 years as the CIA director. All armed forces members take an oath to protect the Constitution, not to the commander in chief. They're not required to follow an unlawful order, per the Geneva Conventions. Targeting civilians is a war crime, and Trump doesn't seem to understand that. They asked him about it and said, "If this were the case, how would you get military members to do what you want them to do?" "Because I'll tell them to. They will do what I tell them to do." He's awful.

Dude...be honest...how hairy was she back in the day? Pick one 1. Very 2. Wookie 3. Very Wookie Are we talking about Hillary or Moiraine?

All this guy does is spew emotional appeals and illogical bullcrap. How the hell is he the leading candidate for the GOP? Teach and Moiraine, you need to just go makeout somewhere. And, for the record, Hillary was pretty hot back in the day. That buzzcut is SICK.

#perspective

Holy mother of pearl. Megyn Kelly is going for the throat! This is fantastic. This has turned into a bloody hatchet job. She's systematically tearing the Trump answer apart.

You're right, but treason is a very different offense than misusing an email server to do your job.

I'm not going to come off as some type of HIllary superapologist here, because the waters are very murky. But I still feel like the line "If she was an average person, she'd already be in jail" is a bit partisan. General Petraeus plead down to a misdemeanor and got 2 years probation and a fine. What he did was arguably worse, because he straight up handed classified information to his mistress. There exists the possibility that Pagliano plead the fifth on the advice of counsel, the FBI doesn't have anything to go on at this point, and were forced to offer immunity in order to try to dig up new dirt. We're not really privy to what's going on.

The GOP is not Trump's party. Just like the Democratic Party is not Sanders' party. What is Sander's party?? He was an Independent for his entire career in Congress prior to announcing his run for President.

I think at that point he had something that had set Van off and he was trying to remain civil. Odd thing to say, though. He must have! Could you imagine if you flipped that though? Good lord...also...he reached out and put his hand on the guy...could you imagine that flipped? Van looks like a strong dude. I think he could've torn that arm off if he really wanted to.

I seriously can't believe we've gotten to the point where we're watching the former face of the Republican party give a speech to try to dress down the current frontrunner. This seems so surreal.

I think they're both lofty ideals but fundamentally different, depending on your perspective. Lord, a conservative, claims his party wants to see all people from the same lens and achieve a colorblind society where no one is judged on the merits of their skin color. Van, a liberal, is trying to make a point that that's not how his party sees things, that's not how Dr. King wanted things (this was later seen between an interaction between himself and Don Lemon-- Lemon brought this up), and that doesn't appear to be how Trump himself sees things. I tend to agree with the latter sentiment, and the fact that the majority of people of color side with Democrats is rather telling as to which view of America is more accurate. My problem with Lord in this whole exchange is it feels like he's deflecting Van's entire argument. He falls back on history, points out the KKK came from the Democrats, and states that liberals try to divide people by race. This is a microcosm of Trump's entire campaign. Van was presenting problems he has with Trump's actions in the present day, supported with past actions. Lord deflects and evades by pointing the finger. It seems irresponsible to me to derail an important discussion about the current dynamics of race relations in this country in an attempt to cast blame.