30% would most likely be sufficient, and I'd be supportive of that.

How do you figure poor people wouldn't pay anything? It would be a regressive tax.

We make this shit way more complicated than it needs to be. Set an income tax and abide by it. None of these dumb loopholes or different rates for different types of income.

Yup. Greatly increase standard deductions, and eliminate all other deduction.

Everything has to be a fucking slippery slope with some of you people.

Is it really different than the percentage of our income we pay in taxes? It's just a different method of collecting it.

Overall, yes, but it will fall much more heavily on the middle class and the price changes will initially be a major shock with a lot of unknown consequences. What happens when everything costs 40% more?

Yeah, that's why I'm mostly opposed to the VAT is the hit to the middle class.

As for what happens when everything costs 40% more? Maybe people would start to ask more questions government spending and whether or not tax dollars are being spent wisely.

Some potential good news in Israel as the coalition government says it has enough votes to oust Netanyahu

Kinda. Neftali Bennett gets the first term as PM and he's to the right of Netanyahu.

Yeah seems that way from what I read. :( But getting rid of a corrupt Netanyahu who maybe finally can go to jail for his corruption charges has to be a plus?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...cial-security/

Serious conservatives continue to remind us that the debt really matters until the GOP is in charge again.

From the group of people that whines about their 1st amendment right being muted...

Just like in Forest Gump.

caNcEL CulTuRe

Opinion writers are so weird. Imagine being this wrong and still being taken serious by anyone.

Should Greenspan have stopped the housing bubble? - The Atlantic

With McArdle, I think it is sheer force of will.

In an industry filled with big egos, she stands out with her quiet insistence that she, personally, is smarter than everyone else.

She's also rich and got in on the right-wing welfare train early. She knows her job is to trumpet talking points even if they are comically wrong in retrospect.

I do feel like if you were one of those people who said "everything looks good" back in 2007, you should not be given a major platform to write about economics. Or Director of the National Economic Council. But that's the world we live in.

I think that if you voted for the Iraq War then you shouldn't be president. But we don't always get what we want.

I agree on that too.

What's the statue of limitations on doing things we disagree with being disqualifying? To my mind, if it didn't happen in the last 10 years I'm not particularly concerned about it. Everyone evolves over time. What's important is who our leaders are today, not who they were.

Veteran’s microphone was turned down during Memorial Day speech

Some talk of holding people responsible. I'll believe it when I see it.

Doesn't it depend on what it is? "He hasn't murdered prostitutes for at least the last ten years, cut him some slack."

I have a theory on why we went into Iraq and then Afghanistan. Look at a map and look at what country those 2 border on each side.
Seems like we wanted military bases close, just in case.

I think that's using hindsight and doesn't really take into account what was going on. We have presence in SA and Kuwait. We have access via the water, and air access a multitude of ways. I don't think that 20 years ago we needed a plan to put military bases in place to deal with Iran. That would be such a colossal waste of a couple dozen trillion dollars someone should be shot.

I feel like the President 20 years ago looked at how quickly his Daddy kicked ass in Iraq and thought he would do the same. I dont think that his admin thought it would be a 20 year quagmire.
We have all those other bases, we have sea and air covered as you say, but Iraq would not have let ground troops move through their country to attack Iran and no way we can get anything from the East. Having bases with easy access for ground troops would be optimal. Logistics would be so much easier.

I don't think you need to overcomplicate things. Both now and at the time, it was pretty clear the objective was to install a friendly regime like the Saudis and then have more access to/control of the world's oil supply.

To a degree, yes. I think a conviction for a major felony is a lifetime 'not gonna vote for you' kind of issue. But we also need to leave room for people to grow and adapt.

Yeah, people still give me shit about that.

Sure. But add Irans oil into the mix. You control 75% (?0 of the worlds oil if Iran does something stupid and you kick their ass.

We went into Afghanistan because the Al Qaeda training grounds that spawned the 9/11 hijackers and other terrorist attacks were operating unabated with complicit support from the Taliban.

We went into Iraq (a country with a secular dictator, Saddam Hussein, who was despised by Osama Bin Laden) based on manufactured intelligence promoted by Cheney and Rumsfeld. There was no terrorist presence in Iraq when Saddam was in power, but after the U.S. invasion the country went into anarchy, spawning the Al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists, and later the Isis terrorists who poured over the border from Syria.

On the other hand, especially when the "role" is at least largely about know how, a country of 330 mio should be able to find qualified individuals elsewhere without that 'history' ? Just as there are countless other avenues for them to pursue. There's a lot between "they can never say anything again" and "they need to be given some of the biggest, most influential roles".

Speaking generally though, not going to pretend to know the details of how the 2007/08 predictions came about and how much was negligence or incompetence or worse.

Totally agree with the last sentence, but I think it's a little more complicated than the first one indicates. 29 of 50 Democratic Senators voted for the AUMF in Iraq. If you say, based on that alone, they are disqualified, that means you are taking over half of the most qualified people off the table. The remaining 42% will generally have issues of their own. How many are electable? How many have committed other similar acts we disagree with? (we being whatever the perspective of the person in question is)

You don't have to go very far with this before there aren't many left who are both experienced and qualified.

There's truth in everyone's responses, there are multiple reasons with different degrees.

Afghanistan was pretty clear cut. We went to take revenge (call it what you want) on AQ, the Taliban was complicit in sheltering them so they went also.

Iraq was faulty intelligence (I won't go as far as saying "manufactured" but there was some confirmation bias in believing Saddam had WMD, his un-cooperation etc. and of course it was personal. But really don't think oil was a top 5 factor). He was a threat to SA, Kuwait etc. but he was also a buffer to Iran.

Interesting question, is Iraq better off in present day than with Saddam (comparison is with Saddam rule, not the mess it is today)? We can talk about human lives lost etc. but interested to see a poll broken down with the Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites etc. My guess is Kurds will say better off, the Sunnis will say no. US will be a no. Unsure about the Shiites but guess they'll say yes.

I heard that Biden wanting a floor of 15% but didn't realize it was a G7 thing also. A good sign that we are working with traditional allies again.

However, don't know if this really helps. Don't understand all the implications but wouldn't surprise me if multi-nationals incorporate in a more receptive country or they find loopholes. But guess its a good start

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/05/busin...gbr/index.html

Dick Cheney knew it would be a quagmire.

Watching a GOP politician give a sober, thoughtful, knowledgeable answer to a question feels so strange.

That's a huge part of what MAGA and its enablers took from us. That kind of knowledge being valued on the right is just gone now. And that's really bad.

Too bad the Dick Cheney of 1994 gave way to the Dick Cheney of 2003, when he and Rummy brainwashed GWB into thinking that the U.S. troops would be welcomed with "roses in the streets" after invading Iraq.

I wonder what changed in the 9 years.

And yes, I miss mature adults running this country.

A right-wing parade in Israel is being cancelled by the government because of security threats. It looks like Bibi is itching for his own Jan 6.

Politicians are, with all the caveats included (chief among them the 2 party system), elected and everybody can (again, with all the caveats) directly influence that. The way you pose the question makes it seem like it's happening too easily, but at least looking from afar the opposite seems true. Would it be a (different type of) issue if nobody got any 'forgivenes' ? Sure. But is that really the prevalent dynamic/bigger issue, even today ?

I'm not sure that's an alltogether Apples to Apples comparison either with regard to the examples given ?

A little scary but do think its not a matter of if but when there will be a major attack. Oil pipelines are a precursor of stuff to come. Only hope our hackers are better than their (Russia, China, Nigeria etc.) hackers.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/06/polit...ntv/index.html

I'm feeling especially bitter at the moment, but it's super comforting to see that aside from immediately abandoning any fight over living wages, healthcare, student loan debt, voting rights & the filibuster were actually going to move backwards in regards to gun control.

The FBI recovered a huge chunk of the Colonial Pipeline ransom by secretly gaining access to Darkside's bitcoin wallet password

Good for the FBI.

Colonial CEO today said that the company only used single-factor authentication. There should be stricter regulations for critical industries.

No, I don't think it is the case that nobody gets forgiveness. I was responding originally though to a couple of posters who thought it was evident that there shouldn't be any such forgiveness.

I used exactly the example they did intentionally, so there wasn't even any need for a comparison period, much less an apples-to-apples one :).

Vaccines cause magnetism?

We should show this clip to aliens who invade our planet. Prove to them we're the dumbest species in the solar system.pic.twitter.com/OpnpLSyN0v

— Isaac (@WorldofIsaac) June 9, 2021

When a guy stole millions from our condo association years ago, the FBI mostly just laughed and told us we were on our own.

When you are a petrochemical company in the United States, the government pretty much works for you.