re: Why has Arkansas been electing weak cuckholded Senators and Reps for decades?

Meant to up its you Killean and hit red instead.

Well, you can always visit the free market libertarian utopia of Somalia




Once again though.. that whole ever increasing government is just plain wrong.


It's not only wrong on a relative scale, it's actually wrong on an absolute scale. Then again, having to declare Obama as the champion of smaller government would probably make your head explode

Reagan:

Initial government size (millions): 678,241

Ending government size (millions: 1,143,743

Absolute Change: 465,502
Rate of Change: 6.75%



Bush Sr:

Initial government size (millions): 1,143,743

Ending government size (millions: 1,409,386

Absolute Change: 265,643
Rate of Change: 5.36%


Clinton:

Initial government size (millions): 1,409,386

Ending government size (millions: 1,862,846

Absolute: 453,460
Rate: 3.55%


Bush Jr:

Initial government size (millions): 1,862,846

Ending government size (millions: 3,517,677

Absolute: 1,654,831
Rate: 8.27%


Obama:

Initial government size (millions): 3,517,677

Ending government size (millions: 3,506,089 (2014)


Absolute: (11,588)
Rate: (0.07)%


So, as you can see.. if you love big government.. you love republicans :)

Bush Jr: 8.27%
Reagan: 6.75%
Bush Sr: 5.36%
Clinton: 3.55%
Obama: (0.07)%


Now, if you make it relative to change in GDP (gvt size increase minus GDP increase)

GDP rate of change by president:


Reagan: 7.34%
Bush SR: 5.01%
Clinton: 5.58%
Bush JR: 3.89%
Obama: 3.77%



Bush Jr: 4.38% Government Size Increase
Bush Sr: 0.35% Government Size Increase

Reagan: 0.59% Government Size DECREASE
Clinton: 2.03% Government Size DECREASE
Obama: 3.84% Government Size DECREASE

Whatever the Koch brothers say. Must be super neat to be gozillionaires from our daddy's dealings with the Soviet Union, and have influence in states all around you by buying candidates. I'm super jelly.

quote:

---

Which is unconstitutional.

---

but no problems randomly banning entire religions, lol.


(as long as it's not Christianity)

quote:

---

You can't ban someone from owning a firearm without legal due process.

---

Yea, I think that's why Obama wants it changed in this limited situation. They're banning these people from flying right now without due process, so it would be one more very important right to take away from these people who have done something suspicious to deserve to be put on a terrorist watch list, which is what a no fly list is.


If your so called "normal person" is put on there, that's called a mistake and can be easily corrected, unless you consider terrorist suspects to be "normal people".

quote:

---

That may be the single, dumbest part of a post Ive ever read on the rant...for sure on our board.

---

I've always thought you were pretty naive.

You republicans want to get tough seeking out these Muslim terrorists that could be hiding within our borders...


just as long as we don't infringe on their rights to buy assault weapons that they might need for deer hunting or just going to the rifle range to let off some steam.

quote:

---

The problem lies with the terrorist watch lists themselves, which are both secret and routinely updated without the typical due process given to those who are accused of breaking the law, such as court proceedings. Without a trial, the government can add anyone to watch lists who it believes may be a threat to national security—and exactly how the government defines such a threat isn’t even public knowledge.

---

quote:

---

“The government doesn’t release its criteria,” says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty & National Security Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “It’s really a black box.”

---

quote:

---

In 2014, a federal court found the no-fly list unconstitutional because it denied those listed due process in challenging their inclusion. Since then, the U.S. government has said it’s providing more information to those who are on the list, potentially allowing persons banned from air travel to appeal and get their names removed. The ACLU, however, is still challenging the list in court, arguing that the government isn’t handing over enough information about how it populates those names. The civil liberties organization is also against barring those included from being denied guns for similar reasons.

“We are opposed to the use of terror watch lists, as presently constituted, to screen gun purchases,” said ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi. “We believe the lists are deeply flawed.”

---

https://time.com/4146025/guns-no-fly-list-constitution/

quote:

---

But here's the problem: The terror no-fly list is a mangled, bureaucratic mess of over 700,000 names. Yes, there are names on the list that are connected to terrorism, but nearly half of those names belong to people who have zero links to terrorist groups at all.

---

quote:

---

That list, which contained 47,000 names at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, has grown to nearly 700,000 people on President Obama’s watch. The fact that they are names, not identities, has led to misidentifications and confusion, ensnaring many innocent people. But surely those names are there for good reason, right?

Not really. According to the technology website TechDirt.com, 40 percent of those on the FBI’s watch list — 280,000 people — are considered to have no affiliation with recognized terrorist groups. All it takes is for the government to declare is has “reasonable suspicion” that someone could be a terrorist. There is no hard evidence required, and the standard is notoriously vague and elastic.

---

quote:

---

So who ends up on the list who shouldn't and why? Take for example Weekly Standard Senior Writer and Fox News Contributor Steve Hayes, who was put on the no-fly list after a cruise.

---

quote:

---

Stephen Hayes, a senior writer at The Weekly Standard and a regular Fox News contributor, was informed Tuesday that he had been placed on the Department of Homeland Security's Terrorist Watchlist.

Hayes, who spoke to POLITICO by phone on Tuesday, suspects that the decision stems from U.S. concerns over Syria. Hayes and his wife recently booked a one-way trip to Istanbul for a cruise, and returned to the U.S., a few weeks later, via Athens.

"I'd be concerned if it was anything more than that," Hayes said.

Hayes first learned about his status on the watchlist during a trip to Minneapolis a few weeks ago when he was stopped for extra screening.

"When I went online to check in with Southwest, they wouldn't let me. I figured it was some glitch," he explained. "Then I got to the airport and went to check in. The woman had a concerned look on her face. She brought over her supervisor and a few other people. Then they shut down the lane I was in, took me to the side, told me I was a selectee and scrawled [something] on my ticket."

"On my way back. the same thing happened," he continued. "I got pulled out, they closed down the lane, and did a full pat-down and looked in all parts of my luggage."

Things got slightly awkward on that return flight, because one of the TSA employees was a frequent Fox News viewer. "He knew I wasn't an actual terrorist," Hayes explained, "but it didn't matter."

---

LINK

There are around 98,000 names on the no-fly list, not 700,000.

I think there could be effective legislation to restrict people on the no-fly list and other terrorist suspect lists from legally purchasing a weapon in the U.S. as long as the legislation included a quick and responsive administrative appeal for individuals that feel they are on the list due to clerical error when denied purchase of a weapon.

Over 2,000 purchases of weapons have been made legally by suspects on the no-fly list here in the U.S.

If our threshold for passing federal legislation was that there could never be any unintentional errors in the execution of the legislation, then there could be no federal legislation.

No-fly was a Bush initiative and yes it could have been initially structured better, like just about everything that came out of that presidency.