True, but one that is devoted to the quick delivery of things that are of value to military activities.

Well... It's stayed up there ya know... That's an achievement..

Maybe you mean "Advancement"?

You mean like weaponizing space kind of experiments?

OPM says she was lying with the intent to mislead and she had an ongoing relationship with one of the other members of the organization who DIED IN JAIL in relation to crimes committed in association with said organization.

OPM say she's unfit, good bye job. With her qualifications, finding another won't be hard. End of report.

Dang, I'd be in trouble here... Where I have come across people who obviously where into this kind of thing, I've never actually known anybody who I would classify as a "close contact" who I knew for sure was into this kind of thing. I'd have to honestly say "no" to that question. Glad I'm not trying to be a cop..

What I'm reading is that she was indeed a member of two or more such organizations, some who had members jailed for inciting and committing violent acts. Her activity in these organizations was more than just passing by the accounts I'm reading and the nature of the organizations coupled with the failure to disclose her associations with them conspired to fail the background check. Cannot pass background check = no job. She knew this before she accepted the position, before she signed the paperwork, and when she was interviewed by the investigator. It's not like she's getting hauled off to jail (which by the way IS possible in this kind of thing), she's just out looking for a new job.

If you want a job that requires a background investigation, it seem to me that a lot of candor might be in your best interest, especially if your employment is conditioned on actually passing the background check. Remember, they TELL you before you get hired that you will need to pass the check, so it's not like you are being forced to disclose stuff any more than you are being forced to take the job.

However, if you DO fill out a form that asks you questions and you LIE on it in an attempt to hide or mislead the investigators, you can bet it won't go well for you should they happen to find out. When they kick you to the curb with your box of personal items and your last paycheck, don't come crying to me about how unfairly you've been treated.

Further, I'm guessing that in the headline case here, the issue wasn't so much her association with some radical group 30 years ago, but with the failure to disclose it. I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet they wouldn't have tossed her had she disclosed it and the evidence was that she hadn't be involved in such stuff since. This lady played it your way and got fired for it.

Do what you want though...

If it is the set of questions I answered for the same folks, It's pretty clear what they want. Where you a member of.... Do you have friends or associates who are members of... Is anybody in your family a member of...

She clearly WAS an actual member and apparently didn't disclose it. When it turned up in the background investigation that what was on the disclosure she signed was not true, she got the boot.

Bye Bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out....

So you just miss the part where "SHE LIED" on her background check and got canned for it. I don't know about you, but if I lie on my employment application or Resume and get canned because of it, it's going to be my fault.

Maybe I live in some alternate reality or something, but I don't see a problem with this lady getting the boot if she signed the paperwork and either misrepresented her past, failed to remember it, or neglected to disclose it and the investigation turns up something different.

Does it matter? The problem here is that some yahoo *could* get a sample of small pox, or plague, and start such a problem. Small Pox might be officially eradicated, but I can think of possible ways to collect samples outside of official channels and you could kill millions in the third world if you let that loose.

But, I'm more concerned about stuff that might not be lethal to humans, but say kills chickens or cattle. There is a virus that is killing pigs "in the wild" right now that is causing hog farmers no end of trouble. They don't know where it came from, how it is transmitted, but it's killing a significant number of pigs. Say somebody comes up with something that destroys corn plants and gets transmitted by wind and birds. Lets say it wipes out 25% of the corn crop before we can deal with it. There will be a LOT of starving people out there. This is the kind of thing that we must prevent.

Most of this kind of thing can be prevented if you follow simple protocols when working with risky things. Such protocols need not be expensive, but they need to be followed and that means we need oversight in place to make sure they get followed, even for the guy with a microscope running an incubator on his back porch.

WMD's, everybody needs them. Bio-weapons from hacking? Why not....

I have no doubt that BIO hacking is a great pastime, but seriously, there really needs to be some oversight on this, draconian or not. I'm not going to sit here and say it's easy to weaponize this kind of thing, but if some yahoo are growing anthrax on the back porch it might be a good idea to have somebody keeping track of it. Virus production is even worse. Anything that could cause trouble for humans, the food supply, or the environment needs to be watched, carefully, or somebody who doesn't know better is going to cause a big problem.

Now if you want to experiment with genetics by selectively breading peas or some such, knock yourself out, but if you start "hacking" around with possibly lethal pathogens or something that could become one, we need draconian oversight.

Right.... So, do you want to continue discussing original intent as a logical position or do you want to keep pulling things out of context to suit your arguments...

Care to point out what "inconsistency" you are pointing at in the Federalist Papers? Which article should I read?

So let's talk about that in terms of original intent then, it's a good example of how this works... Looking at original intent, what DOES the 2nd amendment say? What did the founders intend when they wrote that? What right where they trying to protect?

The text of it says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

During the 2nd world war, it was said by military leaders in Japan that they NEVER wanted to invade the USA because "there was a gun behind each front door". I think this was the intent of the framers, to provide an intrinsic armed populace that could muster a defense of the country. That's how the revolutionary war was initially waged, private arms owned by private citizens, fighting for their independence.

So what's the left's out from the "the right of the people to keep and bare Arms, shall not be infringed?" I don't know, but it seems to me that it is a whole lot more strained interpretation that says something like "What's a well regulated Militia?" and how is that related?

So, at risk of misstating your side on this debate, what IS the original intent argument here that supports this "Ban Guns" mantra of the ACLU? I'll let you respond.

I suggest you look long and hard at your information sources. But the problem here is that nobody is actually releasing "real" signup numbers. Who knows what HHS is actually feeding us as "signups" on the websites. They won't actually tell us what their numbers mean and all they don't tell you that there is no way they can know if a "sign up" actually has paid their premiums or not. I've heard that nearly 50% haven't, but we don't know if that's true so I don't go around saying that it is. I DO know one person who 'signed up" and then didn't proceed to pay the premiums personally. She did so to figure out exactly what her costs would be, what kind of subsidies she would receive and then decided that medicaid was better with her unemployment situation. I'm sure she's not alone. So I know that the numbers from HHS are not reflective of new insurance policy holders and strangely showed the exact numbers needed to break even, being an election year that is suspect to me.

Also, the ACA has only increased what insurance costs for all of us. Take away the subsidies and the average person is paying more, LOTS more for insurance. Premiums went up for nearly everybody, deductibles went up in most cases, out of pocket maximums when up for many, and millions lost their employer provided insurance to be tossed onto the exchanges. These numbers are pretty well known and verified.

So the ACA remains a failure on all the points used to sell it. You want to put the rose colored glasses on and say "it will get better!" and I'm firmly in the "Government programs have never done that before". Face it, we are 6 years into this thing which has yet to be fully implemented because this administration has openly extended the deadlines. It's not going to get better without some changes, and changes to the ACA are "off the table" according to Obama's statements over the government shutdown mess last year. The ACA's popularity continues to fall along with the prospects of the Democrats who tied their success to this misguided law, and there is a good reason for that...

Go get your own numbers, primary sources preferred. Forget what your "friend" is telling you, he's a blue cool-aid drinker and either doesn't know better or is misleading you on purpose.

Your continued attempts to paint me as logically inconsistent because of the examples I'm using to show YOUR inconsistencies is noted. That I use a regulation as an example, is not equivalent to me agreeing with it. In FACT, I was poking holes in your argument using a regulation that was generally well supported (if not foisted on us) by the left and comparing it to your voiced position that my health was government's (i.e. and thus your) business. Both the ACA and HIPPA are products of the left's ideology and have little direct constitutional support for their existence; banning large soft drink cups from the 7-11 is the same kind of thing. You got painted into a corner.

I see your last response as an attempt to spin out of a loosing position which doesn't advance this debate. Admit it, you have paint on the bottom of your shoes as you left footprints on your way out.

So are we going to advance here or are you going to insist that I cannot carry on a logical argument? Because if we are not advancing in at least understanding each others positions, I have better things to do and I bet you do to.