Tornado Alley- "Raise Building Standards"

"Climate change has not been scientifically proven."

Is there a more deluded statement that could be made in the face of absolutely horrific tornadic results  in Moore Oklahoma.  Cars were strewn into piles like so many toys in a flooded sandbox.  Buildings, houses, and entire neighborhoods utterly flattened, three times now, all in the last two decades!?

Tornados are now commonly larger and spread further east than in years past.  These are not predictions, they are on the ground cold hardened facts.  People are dying in greater numbers, and tornados are causing more damage, much more often.  We have to adapt or continue to die needlessly.

If you live in hurricane prone areas, building standards do require that your structure be able to withstand 200 mph winds.  Doesn't it make sense to require safe rooms for tornado prone areas?  Earthquake prone areas include standards that would help prevent quake injuries and damage, right?  So, where are the appropriate levels of government oversight and regulation here?

Tornado alley is getting bigger and more violent, it is well past time to admit to this fact and begin to take action to counter its effects.

Benghazi Hay

"We still don't know what happened, that led to 4 dead Americans, in the Benghazi attack."

Not to diminish the fact that 4 souls may have had to take an early departure, but the Republicans are making far more hay out of this event than some could have with the actual 9/11 attacks on New York. Oh, how soon we forget that the cloud of war consumes all, and that the public can and shall never be allowed to know 'everything' that any Administration does on a day to day basis, during at an ongoing attack.

This is the only thing on Fox New or talk radio, and to what end?  What are they hoping to find?  Some are even talking impeachment trials!?

Now I am never in favor of comparing apples to say bananas, but on the day of the actual 9/11 attacks President Bush was TOLD "we are under direct attack," and INSTEAD of excusing himself and taking to the role of Commander in Chief, he read a book about a goat to some kids.  As a direct result, intercept jets could get NO shoot down order from the President because he was busy tending to toddlers...and THOUSANDS of people died.  The Pentagon itself was even hit!

Surely failing to report for duty when called upon is a high crime or a misdemeanor?

This faux outrage over the death of 4 people in the Benghazi attacks by Fox *cough*News*cough* reeks of fluffed hay production.  Why so much attention paid to this ONE attack, where 4 people died?  There are attacks almost monthly, somewhere in the world, where twice that many die!  In the pantheon  of Presidential piss puddles, this one hardly ranks or reeks at all.

They Can't Beat Us

"Terrorism is a threat to America."

No it isn't...  Only Americans can threaten our freedom.  Attacks, like the one in Boston yesterday only serve to bring us closer together, more American, more willing to reach out to our fellow citizens, regardless of age, sex, race, religion, or sexual preference...in that moment of attack, we are at our strongest.  Thereafter, our resolve is only strengthened as well wishes nation-wide pour in.

I don't think our enemies full understand the way we think.  We come from forefathers who fought and died for freedom, successfully.  We know nothing of kings or priests, but rather minute men who's job it was to answer immediate the call to arms at the sight or sound of danger.  Our enemies believe you can cast a few stones and overpower by mere threat of continued slings and arrows.  We are not a people easily dissuaded from unity in crisis.

What we are really in danger of is granting executives and representatives greater authority over our persons out of fear.  The Patriot Act was nothing of a kind.  Franklin said something along the line of 'those who sacrifice liberty for security would soon have and deserve neither.'  The same is true today, and yet so many continue to be molested by TSA agents, just to see a relative.

We have only ourselves to fear...

Gay Marriage Attacks AGAIN

"Traditional marriage is being attacked."

I have wondered how many people would suddenly divorce and marry someone of the same sex, but maybe it's true?  There probably are couple who live a hetro lifestyle but have homosexual sex.  They are married and have kids for tax purposes, but they swing the other way too.  If it were legal and now no longer a tax liability, there may in fact be people who abandon traditional marriage...

That said, I have never seen someone else's benefit as my loss.  If someone else is able to be happy and express their love for another, then great!  I am happy for them.  It isn't like we are keeping score, hetros vs. homes.  Then again, maybe we are keeping score through elections, polls, surveys, and ratings?

By current count, gay marriage is on it's way to a victory...

We ARE Growing, Why Spend LESS?

"We need to reduce the size and scope of government."

This is the oldest of conservative and or republican mottos or phrases.  But why? Where's the credibility, the reasoning or 'plans to at least localize government'?

Republicans just want to CUT the size of government, plain and simple.  The problem is of course they hold this stance within a vacuum, ignorant that the reality of America is that we are still growing.  The size and makeup of America's population is GROWING.  Every day there are more cars, trucks, bicycles, airplanes, trains, and people operating them.  Government needs to grow along side its citizenry.  

By government, I don't necessarily mean just people working, but of general infrastructure itself, roads, highways, and bridges, when last inspected received D's & C's from the Army Corps of Engineers.  Some in use right now, received F's.  So, rather than expand to keep up with current growth rates, and repair or replace much needed infrastructure upgrades, we are cutting spending through "sequester" and further degrading the systems we rely on.

If we raise taxes to both balance our debt, pay it down, while making it cheaper and easier to get goods and services to market we can and will stimulate the economy.  By paying down the debt we make American Dollars worth more.  These spending cuts are going to hurt both long and short term growth.

So long as we are growing as a nation, government especially infrastructural expansion is necessary.

We NEED to Spend More, to GROW More...

"NO new taxes."

Republicans are willing to abandon the potential growth of our future through this "sequester", and for what?  To prove that they are sticking to their guns, these days, quite literally...?

The increase in spending, that won't happen, is necessary because we are growing...as a nation...clearly there are more of us than there were last year.  There are more people, cars, trucks, airplanes, trains, and goods and services that need to get where they are going.  Our future is predicated on the infrastructure needed to deliver these things to the people.  At present, our roads and bridges are in disrepair, each year we waste untold billions standing perfectly still, in traffic jams.

There will be no such increase in spending now, our roads and bridges will not only be able to not keep up with rising demand, but will NOT receive anything near what it needs to fulfill our needs.  Republicans are sabotaging our future for their principal.

When have strict absolutionist statements like "No new taxes." ever served a fluid marketplace like that of today?

We are running deficits on an aging infrastructure system.  We need more revenue so that we can build for tomorrow and today.

Liberal Medical Cost Savings Plan

"The Government needs to stop spending money."

With current budgetary shortcomings, I am certainly not looking for new ways to spend more money.  That said, I think that proper regulation can and does prevent injury, and proper care after an injury can return the injured to pre-accident condition and ability.  When we allow poor regulation to injury or completely disable people, then spend little to nothing to see to it that they get better, we are losing production...and gaining dependents.

Republicans call these notions "nanny-state regulations."  Things like requiring seat belts in cars and helmets for motorcycle riders.   One might even consider drug laws as such.  I would suggest that if we want to truly keep people healthy, then we have to make safer those things that everyone takes part in.  My first inclination was high school sports, and requiring knee and ankle braces for all contact sports athletes.  Millions of high school athletes lose mobility and range of motion because they are not properly taped or braced and then failed to properly rehabilitate an injury.

The cost of an ankle brace is between $10 and $30.  Requiring such a brace would prevent both the number of injuries as well as their severity.  Instead, kids get injured quite badly, then spend the rest of their career getting taped for every game and practice, at the cost of $1.25 per taping.  A multiple sport athlete can easily require hundreds of such tapings over a career, and then expect a lifetime of arthritic symptoms if not complete joint failure.

Joint failure is a disabling injury, at least half of the 5.4 million on Disability today are there because of it.  This is to say nothing of the tens of millions who have reduced mobility and range of motion, who are forced to take pain killers just to be able to function through their day.

The U.S. spends over half a trillion dollars every year paying people who can no longer work.  We could cut that number in half simply by applying better more protective regulation in high school contact sports.  Simply by altering the required uniforms we can help everyone live longer more productive lives of less pain.  The beauty is that the cost benefit analysis here makes this a no brainer.  How many republicans were against requiring shoulder pads or a mouth piece?