Seems like the administration was running arms/missiles to Syria via Turkey from Benghazi, which US Ambassador. Stevens brokered. To tie up loose ends, they arranged to have Stevens sent to Benghazi with little security or protection on 9/11 when attacks were likely and left him to die.

Unfortunately for them, this has been picked up and is getting attention. Cue these other scandals (IRS/AP) which they calculated would distract attention from Benghazi. Unfortunately again, for them, instead of distracting from Benghazi, it has morphed in public perception into a "Trifecta of Corruption" in which these individual scandals are reinforcing the others and attracting magnitudes more attention to all the scandals.

People on both sides of the political spectrum are starting to agree, and that spells big trouble for them, and I include the "mainstream"/"old guard" core Republicans. Division is what keeps *both* parties in power...while taking ever more power and freedom from us.

Strat

...That having all these distributed and location-tracked radiation detectors monitored by authorities (I have serious doubts about the government/DHS allowing anything like full and complete public access to the hit-location data) makes this effectively a very powerful tool for tracking individuals/objects/papers/etc of interest to the authorities by simply "tagging", in any number of ways and methods, whatever they want to track with a radioactive substance...liquid, powder, spray, dart, added to food/drink, etc etc.

No wrapping one's head in a damp towel. Better get your ass to Mars!

Strat

It's also against the law for the IRS to selectively harass people & organizations based on politics/ideology, too.

That's why the people who wrote the US Constitution put strict limits on government power. They understood that any power government has which is possible to abuse as such *will* eventually be used to attack political/ideological opponents to the incumbent political/ideological powers regardless of any restrictions.

This administration in particular has already thoroughly demonstrated an almost complete disregard for the Rule of Law, innocent lives, and individual freedom in pursuit of their political & ideological agendas (Fast & Furious, Benghazi missile-running-to-Syrian-rebels/Muslim Brotherhood cover-up, AP/Congressional phone record seizures, IRS political/ideological-based targeting, etc etc etc).

What makes you think they'd suddenly change? Or is the (Stockholm) Force strong with you?

Strat

>> Even better, the IRS official that was in charge of the office targeting individuals and groups for IRS harassment that politically/ideologically oppose this administration has just been put in charge of the IRS's Obamacare office. Better hope your health remains good if you speak out against the government.

Do you have sources for this please?

Ask and you shall receive.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/irs-official-in-charge-during-tea-party-targeting-now-runs-health-care-office/

Strat

The US has not had anything even close to a "free market" for decades. Particularly regarding anything related to healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

The good news, however, is that there should be no worries about medical records being leaked and/or used against individuals or organizations since the IRS will keep those safe for all of us. They're so eager to begin, they simply walked in and seized without explanation approximately *sixty million* medical records in California that are reported to contain every California State Judge as well as many top Hollywood/media/news execs.

Even better, the IRS official that was in charge of the office targeting individuals and groups for IRS harassment that politically/ideologically oppose this administration has just been put in charge of the IRS's Obamacare office. Better hope your health remains good if you speak out against the government.

Maybe we can get the DoJ to seize the IRS's phone records to find out why, since the DoJ seems to be seizing phone records from everyone else these days, including the AP and phone records from the House of Representatives press gallery which journalists often use to call Congresspeople in their offices.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Strat

Progressives being in control of these cities for decades is WHY their economies have been devastated and gangs & drugs and the violence that follows them are out of control. All gun control does in these cities is assure the victims are defenseless. Most deadly assaults are over in less than a minute, and average police response time is about 8 minutes. They show up in time to draw the chalk outlines and fill out reports. Legislating away the *means* of self-defense is indistinguishable from outlawing self-defense.

If guns are the problem, why aren't there mass murders at NRA conventions and gun shows? I was on my school rifle team and nobody thought anything of a kid bringing his newly-acquired semi-automatic rifle in to school and showing it off to buddies by the student lockers in the main hallway between classes, with students and teachers crowding the hall. The only questions asked were what it cost and have they had a chance to shoot it yet. Nobody was shot. Nobody was panicking.

All the recent mass shootings that are being used as reasons for additional gun restrictions share a common type of location. They all occurred in "gun-free zones" where the criminal was assured of zero opposition.

The US War Against Drugs and the earlier alcohol Prohibition disaster has proven that prohibition does not work. Attempting the same foolishness with guns in the US would result in much worse violence, crime, and government corruption than both those failed policies combined.

The KKK and Southern Democrats tried for decades to keep blacks from owning firearms. Are you saying that you agree with the KKK and want to reverse decades of progress in civil rights for blacks...and everyone else as well? The KKK's hate seems rather limited compared with those who wish everyone suffer under Jim Crow laws making possessing the means for self-defense a crime.

Strat

I think having morons as elected officials is more harmful than having kids.

Agreed. While definitely something needs to be banned, I can't make my mind on what to ban. Suggestions?
(grin)

"First, kill all the lawyers." - Ye olde English playwright dude.

Seeing as how the federal government bureaucracy including the Executive branch is chock-full of lawyers, as are most (I believe) in Congress, I should wonder if some of Nostradamus' DNA was possibly included in Shakespeare's family tree.

Strat

If you remove the crime numbers from Progressive Democrat-controlled major cities with the strictest gun control laws like Chicago, NYC, etc, the US crime rate is one of the lowest.

Keeping crime and criminals in check requires cooperation and action from both police and citizens. Disarming half the crime-fighting force does not help reduce crime. It not only requires a much larger and more brutal law enforcement arm to maintain order, It turns that disarmed half into helpless victims and erodes trust, legitimacy, and respect for the government and for police, as well as reducing citizen cooperation with police. It promotes increasing hostility by citizens towards police and the government.

This is the reality for the US and it's society & culture. Maybe gun control works in Australia or the UK. If they're happy, that's great. Different solutions to fit different nations and cultures. It's not just gun control. What works in N. Korea wouldn't work in the UK. What works in France wouldn't work in China. Rinse and repeat for other nations/cultures and various laws/policies/etc. This is true for a large number of things including gun control.

Do you think gay marriage would work in Saudi Arabia? Do you think a death penalty for being LGBT would work in the US/UK? Same thing for gun laws seeking a national database/registration and outright bans in the US. It would take an extremely intrusive, controlling, brutal, and tyrannical police state to have any hope of even beginning to enforce such bans/restrictions in the US. Many millions would die.

Strat

Sovereign Immunity applies any way they say it does if those in and employed by government are the only ones allowed to have firearms.

Same with every other law and Right.

You only have the rights and freedoms that you're willing and able to defend with deadly force against even (or in particular) your own government. More people have lost their individual freedoms and their lives to their own governments than they have to any foreign enemy.

These sort of blatant illegal and un-Constitutional behaviors should come as no surprise to anyone that's mildly conversant with history. History teaches us, with example after example, that a government that grows so big and powerful that it becomes capable of enslaving it's people, will, and government will always seek to grow it's size, power, and control towards that end. It's simply human nature and thus the nature of government. Government simply magnifies and concentrates the will of Men, including all the bad qualities.

Government has and always will be much like an essential but dangerously-unstable explosive and should be treated with the same extreme level of caution, tight controls on the amounts used, it's appropriateness as a solution, and the abundance of monitoring and protections employed.

The downside is that governments will only allow their power to be curbed in such ways if there is a significant amount of firepower in the hands of the citizens seeking to enforce those limits, and a belief on the part of the government that the citizens will use it if forced against the wall. People rebelling against the existing government with armed force is precisely how the US came to be.

Strat

Fact/info-free ad hominems are apparently the best you can come up with.

Go massage your neurotic-bordering-on-psychotic fears elsewhere with someone that may care for humoring such.

Strat

Not too much of a barrier, it seems.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165531/Its-wild-wild-West-Midlands-Homemade-gun-Uzis-Ak47s-make-huge-haul-firearms-seized-police-just-year.html

Depends on what one considers "better". The people featured in the video linked below might disagree with your premise. "Gun control" didn't work out very well for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUmKT43j4Tc

Strat

Those frightened of 3D-printed guns in Britain should be much more worried about people making Sten sub-machine guns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten

You Brits were making them like gangbusters in WW2 precisely because they required almost nothing in the way of machining, special/expensive/high-quality/tight-tolerance parts or materials, skills to make, etc etc. Probably still plenty of old original manufacturing templates, jigs, etc scattered about that anyone interested could buy quite cheaply.

Same minimal requirements are needed to produce something like the International Ordnance MP2: http://olegvolk.net/gallery/d/37779-2/international_ordnance_MP2_0068.jpg

Just check this site out: http://thehomegunsmith.com/

Those are all much greater real-world, practical threats than some geeks 3D-printing a plastic gun that's as likely to kill/maim the shoot-er as the shoot-ee.

Strat

Trying to hide money in bitcoin ought be seen as tax evasion

Why? If the government said that some things aren't taxed and you use those things to reduce your taxes, how is that *your* fault and not the government's fault?

Because you haven't the made the "right" political money contributions, or you might belong to a currently politically un-favored race/class/religion/ideology/private business sector, or believe that government should not trample the Constitution/BOR at it's whim, etc.

There is no rule of law anymore. The Federal government has grown far too large and powerful, and nobody but the occasional scapegoat is ever punished for blatantly-criminal and illegal acts, including murders. They hardly bother to hide it anymore.

There is only rule of & by political expedience in the US anymore. And, political expedience has no rules except to benefit politicians at your ultimate expense, which you might be forced to pay in your wealth,.your liberty, your hopes & dreams for yourself and your children, or your and/or your family's lives. Or in all of the above. But, you and everyone else will pay.

If a central government grows powerful enough to make it worth the risk to corrupt, it will become corrupt, and in rough proportion to the amount of power & control the government has, and will at some point become a positive-feedback loop.

Another thing history has proven again and again is that if a government achieves the power and ability to enslave it's people, it will.

That's why the Constitution was really a plan for a distributed network, only a network to distribute the exercise of government power instead of data, but still very similar in basic security principles to a simple computer network, like avoiding having a central point of commend/control that, if compromised, compromises the entire system. That is exactly what has happened to the US over the last 100 years as the Federal government has grown so massive and gained so many new powers while infringing ever-more on the BOR with every passing day.

The political/ideological versions of malware/botnet criminals have compromised and rooted the "central command & control server" that the US Federal Government has become. It needs to be re-imaged to the last verified and tested-clean version, and returned to it's former minor place in the power network.

Strat

So you'd be OK with a team of DHS agents following you and recording & archiving everything you do, everywhere you go, who you meet/talk to, and with timestamps, in a search-able government database from the moment you step outside your house until you return?

My neighbor sees me leave home. That fact does not get added to a DHS or other TLA database for analysis against all other available information. The fact that I may have gone to the gun range to target-shoot with friends the morning prior to boarding my airline flight isn't available to provide some TSA parasite an excuse to single me out for an anal-probe.

Strat

Drones are weapons

No they aren't. Even if they carry bombs, it's the bombs that are weapons.

Close, but not quite all the way there.

There is only _one_ weapon.

It is the concept residing in the gray-matter of humans.

Everything else is simply the various physical-world implementations of the concept.

A piece of pipe can be plumbing or can bash in a skull.

Unfortunately, history and human nature teaches that humans will always, and usually as the primary impetus for developing it in the first place, use any new technology as some form of weapon and/or means to enhance their power/control over others.

A similar phenomenon exists around new technology that can be used as another means for those in power to catalog, monitor, and control the general populace and what information the population can easily access and share about those in power.

This has the potential to be equally as important and sweeping an issue affecting individual liberty, freedom, and privacy as any other Bill Of Rights issues/arguments we've faced so far. Maybe even more important in some ways.

Eric Schmidt's comments establish that he's either dangerously short-sighted, narrow-minded, and ignorant of history and human nature, or that he's a card-carrying member of those in power who would use this tech to enhance their own power and wealth at the expense of individual liberty, freedom, and privacy for the general population (but not his own, of course).

I'll leave the decision as to which is more true as an exercise for the reader.

Strat