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Can you explain precisely what you mean by that?

You know, I have to admit, you stumped me for a moment with that accusation. I hadn't seen anything about anyone in the Rubio campaign pushing the narrative that Carson was dropping out, and it's rare that things like that elude my attention. Finally, after three or four Google searches, I came up with a single hit. One person put out a tweet saying that the Rubio campaign was pushing the narrative that Carson was dropping out. That person's name is Conrad Close. He's a freshman at Georgia Southern University, fresh out of a homeschooling program and looks like he couldn't be more than fifteen years old. His sole connection to the Rubio campaign is that he got one of the little freeware "I'm Voting Rubio" graphics off the internet and incorporated it into this profile picture on Twitter. You can see his Twitter profile here: [Hidden Content] And the article that picked up on his tweet can be found here: [Hidden Content] He later deleted the tweet, and explained that he was nowhere near Iowa nor had any firsthand information from the Rubio campaign indicating that they believed Carson would drop out or that they wished to disseminate information to that effect. Nothing I can find suggests he's actually involved in the Rubio campaign in any way or even that he's anything more than just your average, casual Rubio supporter. Where did he get the idea that Rubio was pushing that narrative, you ask? He says he thought he saw it somewhere on Twitter. After doing some digging on Twitter, I personally can't find anything he could have gotten that idea from, so I'm left to believe the kid misread something. It's worth pointing out, on that note, that there's no Rubio campaign memo or official Rubio campaign literature of any kind suggesting that the Rubio campaign wanted to spread the belief that Carson was dropping out, unlike Cruz, whose campaign did in fact put out just such a memo. The only reason this is even notable right now is that one of the conservative grassroots media orgs picked up the kid's tweet and ran with it, and that drew attention from Rush Limbaugh on air, who apparently didn't do any real fact-checking first. So I ask you, what's more concerning? Some homeschooled kid in Swainsboro, Georgia starting a rumor based on something he misunderstood from out there in the Twitterverse, or a presidential campaign putting out a dishonest memo about a rival presidential candidate to all of its supporters and a high-ranking, professional PR advisor to that same campaign tweeting an overt lie, and then trying to cover up that lie by lying again to claim that the first lie was told by a separate rival presidential candidate? I think we both know the answer to that.

I hate Donald Trump. I really hate Donald Trump. The few political Facebook posts I've made in the course of this primary have been anti-Trump. The man's inconsistent and, in my opinion, certifiable. And for that reason, it really, really gets under my skin that I have to say this, but.... In this one case, Donald Trump's right. He's exaggerating - what Ted Cruz's campaign did wasn't "cheating" per se, but it was patently dishonest, and Trump is right to call him on it. All the photographic evidence is out there. If you haven't seen it, you can find it at the link below: [Hidden Content] Cruz's campaign took a CNN headline and misconstrued it in a way that implied Carson was getting ready to drop out of the race in an official campaign memo sent to all registered Cruz supporters in Iowa. I've seen a few reports (none of which are cited in the article linked to above) that contained statements from Iowa caucus-goers to the effect that Cruz representatives verbally informed Carson supporters that Carson would drop out of the race after Iowa and urged them to reconsider voting for Cruz on those grounds, though I'm skeptical of the veracity of those reports given that similar evidence hasn't been incorporated in the reports of more notable news sources. One of Cruz's PR officials, a man named Dan Gabriel (who himself is a suspect character in my opinion), took it a step further in claiming on his personal Twitter account that he had confirmed the rumor with a Carson campaign insider. Gabriel has since deleted the tweet, but he failed to do so before screenshots were taken. In subsequent tweets, he tried to play it off as though the Trump campaign had started the Carson rumor. Despite the explicit evidence to the contrary, he's stuck to that narrative. There's no sign that the Cruz campaign has taken any steps to distance itself from Gabriel, to reprimand Gabriel or even to quiet Gabriel's dishonest attempt at blame-shifting. Having been around campaigns for a while now, one thing I've learned is that you can get a strong sense for the type of person a candidate is by the type of people he puts on his campaign staff. This isn't the first time I've seen a high-ranking Cruz campaign official do something dishonest. One of Cruz's high-ranking millennial outreach and fundraising officials was a student in my section at UT Law last semester, and without going into more detail than I should, was forced to depart from the law school under less than amicable circumstances. The brief glimpse into the inner workings of the Cruz campaign he offered to myself and other conservatives at this law school was, if anything, alarming to all of us. I have yet to see anything of a similar nature or which invokes the same kind of concerns through my contacts in the Rubio, Sanders or (now suspended) Paul campaigns. To be totally frank, I have friends in the Hilary campaign, and they haven't sent this many shivers up my spine. Take this as a friendly word of advice from a fellow Southeast Texas native with a little insider knowledge: it would be wise to take the skeptic's approach in assessing Ted Cruz as a presidential candidate.

On the contrary. I mentioned a prominent Republican politician whose fiscal practices I absolutely abhor. What I'm telling you, though, is that he's the exception, not the rule. Do you hold the entire group accountable for a the actions of a small number of its members? Particularly when that behavior has largely been curtailed compared to past circumstances? You're forgetting that more than half of that debt has been accumulated since the Democrats' control of Congress started in January of 2007. I'm not saying that we can accumulate that much debt with a "bunch of well-intentioned conservative politicians," I'm saying the exact opposite. And the numbers prove me right. You say that the Republicans can do more. The bottom line is, the deficit has decreased by more than a trillion dollars - roughly two thirds - since the Republicans took the House back five years ago. By every objective measure, cutting that much spending while running up against an obstructionist in Harry Reid for four of those five years and an extremely adept, extremely politic Barack Obama for all five of them is truly a remarkable accomplishment.

You say that as though the Republicans are responsible for the deficit soaring so high to begin with. We've covered that. They're not. The deficit made its meteoric rise when the Democrats had undisputed, unchallenged control of the two branches of government that have any control whatsoever over spending. It's only been since the Republicans have seized partial control of one of those branches that the deficit has come toppling down. The job's not finished, but it's not fair to ignore the massive amount of progress that's been made. You bring up a fair point about the members of Congress who maneuver earmarks into budget bills with assured passage that they then emphatically vote against because of supposed objections to pork. Richard Shelby is the master of that game, and it drives me crazy. But while that problem is significant, it's not endemic. Earmarks have to be inserted in committees, and even then, it's hard to add them if you're not a ranking member. That's a process that's only open to a select few members of the party, even less of whom actually invoke it. In essence, you're holding the entire Republican delegation responsible for the actions of a select few of its ranking members. Doesn't that violate the tenet of individual responsibility? On timing, though, I couldn't disagree with you more. The budget for FY 2016 was proposed in May of 2015, a full four months before it was due. The only reason it took so long was because the President is very good at (and frankly, very hypocritical about) playing obstructionist and getting away with it. Furthermore, the Republicans technically aren't supposed to propose budgets at all. The Budget & Accounting Act of 1921 requires the president to submit the first draft of the budget to the House for consideration. President Obama, unfortunately (but not surprisingly), has been somewhat lax with that responsibility. It's truly a testament to Republican fiscal responsibility that in a time of physical crisis, the Republicans have, to the fullest extent of their legal authority, taken it upon themselves to draft budgets in spite of the president's hesitance to fulfill his legal duty, in addition to doing so so far in advance of their deadlines.

This exact statement is why I want to go issue by issue with this debate. You've given me a characterization of the party based in what portion of the political spectrum you think it generally covers. You haven't told me why. There's no way we can have a discussion about that unless you give me reasons for why you think that.

A "true" conservative wouldn't vote for a budget that included a $60 Billion reduction in the deficit, almost entirely comprised of cuts to healthcare, education and welfare spending? You say that a "true" conservative would rather shut down the government than pass the FY 2016 budget that was adopted. I'll remind you that when the budget was passed, it not only narrowly averted another government shutdown, it also prevented the federal government from defaulting on its debt, which it was on the verge of doing. My understanding of conservatism includes absolute fidelity to the constitution, and I believe yours does as well - in fact, I believe that's one of the underlying, unifying principles of all the variations of conservative philosophy at the moment. Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment makes it absolutely clear that for the federal government to default on its debt would not only trigger financial calamity, it would also be patently unconstitutional. If what you're saying is true, then a "true" conservative would rather explicitly violate the United States Constitution than pass a budget that is ostensibly at least somewhat favorable to his own cause. And while we're at this, what is "true" or "pure" conservatism? One of the things I love about the GOP and the conservative side of the political spectrum in general is that, in my view, there's a greater degree of intellectual conservatism. Put simply, there's room for people of like minds, values, principles and experiences to have genuine, reasonable disagreements on a given issue. Does that disagreement make one a "true" conservative and other not? On this very site, there is a tendency among many of the conservative posters to laud the independent thinking on our side of the aisle and decry what they perceive to be monotonous, "sheeple" thinking on the other. Aren't we encouraging that very thing on this side of the aisle when we distinguish ourselves as "true" or "pure" conservatives from other genuine conservatives over marginal differences of opinion?

To answer the questions about federal benefits, regulations and programs like Social Security, Medicaid and the military.... Occasionally, you see studies passed around regarding the "return on investment" for individual states, or, in other words the total amount of federal money spent in each individual state for every dollar of federal tax revenue collected from that state. You can find the ROI metric for each state from 2015 here: [Hidden Content] According to this, the federal government spent 79 cents in Texas for every dollar of tax revenue collected from Texas last year. That means that 21% of federal tax revenues coming from Texas is spent in one of the other 49 states, the District of Columbia or abroad. Texas is, by a wide margin, a tax donor state. Now, is it true that Texas is an overwhelmingly tax-averse state? Absolutely. It's highly probable that Texas would be forced to institute an income tax to sustain a national government, which is itself the most unpopular, economically burdensome form of taxation and a particularly abhorrent idea in this state, as well as replace other federal taxes such as the payroll tax. Would the people of Texas like that idea? Ostensibly, absolutely not. That said, if Texas were to become its own country, in theory, Texas could implement its own replacements for federal taxes at 79% of the rates the federal government normally charges Texas citizens, and raise every penny of federal funding it would lose as a result of secession. And that's just if Texas wants to replace every penny of federal funding. It's no secret that state government in Texas is incredibly efficient; for the last 40 years, elected and appointed officials in this state have displayed incredible skill in finding ways to save money. In theory, it's possible, and perhaps even likely, that a national Texas government would find a way to provide every single one of the services the federal government currently provides to our citizens at reduced cost, which would allow the state to levy even lower replacement tax rates. Therefore, the question on taxes isn't so much whether Texans would be willing to bite the bullet and accept new Texas taxes as a condition of independence. It's really whether Texans are willing to accept a reduction in their taxes of at least 21%, possibly more, in addition to national sovereignty. Offer any Texan that deal, and I'd bet good money they'd take it. Where the military's concerned, the other metrics listed in the same table at the link I've provided suggest that a significant portion of that 79 cents goes to military personnel, bases and contracts in Texas - a larger portion than in most other states. That shouldn't surprise anyone. Texas is home to Fort Hood, the largest military installation on Earth, as well as Fort Bliss, all of the military bases in San Antonio, a handful of Coast Guard and Naval installations on the coast, and numerous major defense contractors, among other important military resources. Approximately one out of every nine US military servicemen and women is from Texas, and an independent Texas would, undoubtedly, make a strong military a national priority. While the United States (I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that a United States would continue to exist comprised of the other 49 states in this hypothetical scenario) would undoubtedly remove whatever military resources it could take with it from an independent Texas, the physical installations themselves can't be picked up and moved, and the new Texas government would likely seize those properties for itself. I doubt many of those defense contractors would be willing to pick up and leave a new nation anxious to get started building a premier military, either, particularly if Texas is more open to exporting military equipment and technology than the United States has traditionally been. Add in that big chunk of change from the reduced replacement taxes and a dose of old fashioned, Texas arms-stockpiling philosophy, and you've got a recipe for one of the largest, most effective, most advanced military forces on the planet right here in the Lone Star State Republic.

Really? Are you sure about that? The biggest complaints levied about the budget over the last ten years were the size of the deficit and the fact that for the first six years of the Obama presidency, no budget was passed. I'll tackle them separately. The deficit began its cataclysmic rise in FY 2008, which started in October of 2007 with the first budget approved by the Democrat Congress that won a majority in the 2006 elections and took office in January of 2007. The deficit reached $1 Trillion for the first time in FY 2009, which began in October of 2008 and was the first fiscal year administrated by the Obama administration, ending in September of 2009. The deficit was bolstered first by TARP, passed by a Democrat congress and signed by a Republican president in late 2008, and then ARRA, passed by a Democrat Congress and signed by a Democrat president in February of 2009. The deficit would hover in a range of $1.3 to $1.4 Trillion until FY 2012, the first fiscal year administrated by the Obama administration after the Republicans won the House - the critical centerpiece of the Congressional budgeting process - in November of 2010 and officially took over in January of 2011. The deficit has done nothing but decline since that point. The second issue underlies the first. Congress did not perform its constitutional and statutory duty to pass a budget for six whole years. Neither Nancy Pelosi's House nor Harry Reid's Senate passed a budget for FY 2010 or FY 2011. When the Republican-led House took office in January of 2011, John Boehner's first order of business was getting a budget passed for the upcoming FY 2012, and he did exactly that. Unfortunately, Harry Reid refused to so much as take up that budget for a debate, much less a vote. The exact same thing happened again for FY 2013, FY 2014 and FY 2015. Thanks to Harry Reid's shocking refusal to carry out the budget process required by the constitution and outlined in the Budget & Accounting Act of 1921, Congress was forced to fund the federal government entirely through a series of recurring stop-gap resolutions for six years straight. It was not until May of last year, after the Republicans took the Senate away from Reid, that the first budget of the Obama administration was passed. That budget, by the way, included massive spending cuts. The critical thing to understand here is that, constitutionally speaking, the power of the purse lies with Congress. People think the deficit rises and falls based on which political party the White House belongs to. In truth, that's only a secondary factor. Spending, deficits and federal fiscal responsibility generally have correlated with who has control of Congress for the last 25 years. This case is no different. When the Democrats had outright control of Congress from January of 2007 to January of 2011, federal spending ballooned to all-time highs. When control of Congress was divided after that and eventually returned to the Republicans altogether in January of 2015, spending fell dramatically. Is the budget perfectly balanced? No, but it's roughly a third of what it was five years ago. That is significant progress, and you have the Republicans to thank for it. Personally, if (and hopefully when) we take the White House and have total control of the federal government, I think we'll find a way to balance it outright. Until then, we still have a Democrat president to deal with. Next.

Yes, the GOP is conservative. I welcome any one of you to pick any single issue where you think the GOP in general has not taken a conservative stance, and I will gladly debate you on it.

In theory, Texas could make it on its own. In fact, I would grade it as a high probability of success for Texas as its own country if we meet two conditions. The first is good leadership (I think we have a mix of good and bad at the moment). The second is how we would structure our national government, which is dependent on the first. As it stands right now, I would rate our current bureaucratic structure as very well set up for national governance. I would not, however, say that our judicial structure is, and our executive branch could use some retooling at the top as well.

[Hidden Content]

Are you really sure about that? I've already talked about the inherent differences between this situation and the Baltimore and Ferguson riots. Now let's talk about a situation that's about as closely analogous to Oregon as I can find: Waller County after the death of Sandra Bland. Members of the Black Lives Matter movement, the New Black Panther Party and various other black activism groups spent weeks in front of the Waller County Jail in the wake of Sandra Bland's death. They didn't riot as was the case in Baltimore and Ferguson; they were decidedly more peaceful. Much like the Bundys in Oregon, though, they carried around rifles and other firearms in an open and intimidating manner, using angry rhetoric and calling for others to join them. There are really only two differences between Oregon and Waller County: where the Bundys seized the building, the Sandra Bland protesters stayed in the parking lot, and where the Bundys have only called for "fellow patriots" to "stand up to the federal government," we know for a fact that the Sandra Bland protesters openly called for the murder of police officers with eerie and unsettling, albeit impersonal, specificity. Did the Waller County Sheriff's Department, or any other Texas law enforcement agency for that matter, make any move that would inhibit or disperse the Sandra Bland protesters? No. Not at all, in fact. While those protests lasted for days, the Waller County Sheriff's Department remained largely disengaged from it and went about business as usual. About the only difference between the two reactions has been the amount of media attention devoted to the two of them; the Bundys have gotten an incredible amount while the Sandra Bland protesters got little to none. The bottom line is, excessive force wasn't called for in Waller County, and it isn't called for at the moment in Oregon. It was called for in Baltimore and Ferguson. This isn't a matter of race, it's a matter of the actions the groups have taken. Nothing the protesters did in Waller County warranted a forced dispersal, nor does anything the protesters in Oregon have done yet. The things done by the rioters in Baltimore and Ferguson did.

Dumbarses, yes, but they have not all done equally dumb and violent things.

This occupation is totally out of line. The Bundy family has gone a step too far. Technically, they've committed an act of insurrection against the United States, which is wholly out of proportion to the government action they're protesting. That said, the argument that the government's reaction to this as opposed to the reactions in Ferguson and Baltimore represents a double standard is total crap. Let's boil this down to the facts. The Bundys and their accomplices have occupied a building on federal property, and uploaded a YouTube video calling for others to join them in their occupation. Most of the others who they've called upon to join them have rejected the request and denounced the action; indeed, the overwhelming majority of them were remarkably peaceful in carrying out the protest that preceded this seizure. The Bundys themselves have damaged no property, and injured no person. They've held not one person against his or her will. They're likely well armed, but as of yet haven't fired a single shot. When you get right down to it, all they've done is take over a small federal building in the middle of nowhere, which is responsible for performing no vital government function and is of little to no importance, while spewing angry rhetoric that targets no specific person and conveys no threat. Granted, in principle, this takeover is a serious violation which should be taken seriously. In practice, however, it's less than a minor inconvenience. In Baltimore, on the other hand, no buildings were seized, they were just looted and burned instead. On the night of April 27, 2015, alone, the Baltimore riots resulted in 144 vehicle fires and 19 structural fires. One innocent bystander was injured by the widespread arson, and numerous police officers suffered broken bones and other injuries while bricks and other objects were hurled at them as they attempted to control the crowds. More than 200 people were arrested for various criminal activities. Unlike Baltimore, where the unrest was contained to a matter of days, the unrest in Ferguson cropped up at various points over the course of a full year. During the worst of the rioting in the last 10 days of November, 2014, at least one person was shot and burned, more than a dozen buildings were burned, and over 150 people were arrested for various criminal acts. As both a matter of principle and a matter of practice, the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson were decidedly more severe, more costly, more dangerous, more injurious and in every way more significant incidents of lawlessness. The punishment must fit the crime. The reaction must be roughly equal and opposite the original action. In Maryland and in Missouri, the state governments reacted with appropriate force to prolonged and severe periods of chaos and destruction. In Oregon, we have yet to reach that stage, and may not; personally, I find it hard to believe that a bunch of ranchers with real world responsibilities will actually occupy that federal building for "years" as they claim or even more than a few days. In any case, Oregon is not analogous to Baltimore and Ferguson at this time. Likewise, the reactions shouldn't be, either. Any comparison which assumes that they should be is factually unfounded.

To answer the original question posed in this thread, Carly Fiorina won the debate with Marco Rubio in a close second, and I think they'll experience moderate rises in the polls as a result. Jeb, Christie and Paul did alright. Trump bombed it - I think Fiorina's one liner about the face comment has to be the only thing that's ever made Donald Trump blush. Carson's performance was meager, as were those of Walker and Cruz. So far, the polls seem to reflect my views. The latest RCP average shows a drop of around two points for both Trump and Carson, a rise of two points for Rubio and a rise of three for Fiorina, with everyone else's numbers staying virtually stagnant. I think we could be seeing the very beginning of Trump's demise. I think Trump realizes that too. When Trump's numbers leveled off around 30% a few weeks ago and Carson really started to gain on him, Trump finally agreed to sign the Republican pledge to support whoever the eventual nominee is. I think he did so as part of some kind of deal with the party leadership, although I have no idea what it would entail. It would fit the pattern of behavior for a man who made his money in real estate - buy low, sell high. Additionally, I think there are a lot of moderate and establishment Republicans that just aren't answering polls right now because we're so far out, which causes the numbers to overrepresent the hardcore elements of the base. As we get closer to the primaries, I think more of those establishment voters will start making their allegiances known and that the numbers of whoever the "true conservative" darling is, whether that remains Trump or becomes someone else, will naturally diminish as a result.

The picture I've attached at the bottom of this post depicts the clock in question. I want everyone in this thread to stop for a moment. Put yourself in the teacher's shoes. You work at a large school during an age in which public schools have become the target for various incidences of mass violence. You teach English, and thus probably don't have a real acumen for electronics. One day, at the end of class, one of your students comes up to your desk and places this on it. What is your first thought? I can tell you what mine would be: "bomb," pure and simple. I would see in front of me a metal suitcase filled with various wires, electrical components and a digital display that's obviously used to keep track of time in some manner. The student's race would never enter my mind. Frankly, nothing about the student would enter my mind at all. Why? Because my mind would be singularly focused on the device in front of me that looks exactly like every portrayal of a compact, portable explosive device I've ever seen on TV or in the movies, and what I would need to do to eliminate what I perceived as a threat. Regardless of all the rhetoric used in this forum, I find it incredibly hard to believe that any one of you would have a different reaction. That's not racism, it's not prejudice, and it's not malice towards anyone. That is man's most basic instinct, self preservation, taking over. I've seen a whole lot of people on social media work really hard to try and distinguish this image from that of an actual suitcase bomb. Their entire argument hinges on a single idea: that there aren't any explosive components visible inside the suitcase... as though the average American, who has little experience with electronic components such as those pictured below and none with explosives, would be able to discern that at a glance. Frankly, I find it very hard to believe that the people who raise this argument, who often don't even know enough about weapons to distinguish between a magazine and a clip, would be able to deduce such a discovery for themselves were they put in the teacher's position. I think it's far more likely that they're simply buying into a popular argument on social media to feed their narcissistic need to feel better than everyone else by highlighting inventing an example of racism committed by an average American that they can point at and ridicule. In any case, the argument they present is crap. The fact that something that looks like a bomb doesn't have "C4" written anywhere on it doesn't mean it doesn't look like a bomb. Now that we've put the teacher's actions in some context, let's discuss the police officer. Put yourself in his shoes. You've been dispatched to a local high school over a possible bomb threat. You've likely experienced fake bomb threats at local high schools before; unfortunately, they've become fairly frequent at many schools. You arrive at the school, go into the office, and find both the student and the suspicious device. You're likely a little better versed in matters relating to explosive devices than the average citizen simply because of experience and training. You examine the device, and are likely able to determine that it's not a bomb, although you instantly recognize the visual similarities and how it can be perceived as one. You're given the story of what happened - that a student came up and put this on the desk of an English teacher and that she perceived it as a threat - by school administrators or perhaps the teacher herself. You speak with the student, asking him questions about the device. All he'll say in response is that it's a clock, nothing more. What are you thinking now? Admittedly, this is a little harder to determine. We weren't there. We don't know the context in which this information was conveyed to the police officer by school officials, or the manner in which the student responded to the officer, only what he said. So much of good police work depends on the officer's ability to read the facial expressions and interpret the tone of the person he's questioning - we weren't there to witness any of those things. What we do know, though, is that the police officer felt it necessary to take the student into custody on charges of a "hoax bomb" - the crime of creating a device that looks like a bomb with the intention of intimidating someone - while his department looked more deeply into the matter, and that nobody else close to the situation felt this was out of line except, shockingly, the student taken into custody and his family. We also know that once the department had received enough information to conclusively determine that there was no intention to harm or intimidate anyone with the device, it released the student. Given the facts as they've been outlined here, I fail to see anything that suggests the arrest was out of line. It truly amazes me how the same side of the aisle that constantly calls for increased salary and benefits for teachers, police officers and other public officials is so quick to excoriate them for making a mistake doing their job, and then use their actions to incite controversy for political gain.

I'll give credit where it's due. Quanell X, for once, got something right. That said, I still have vivid memories of this man hosting a rally in Lumberton at which he called for the entire city to be burned to the ground on live television in the name of ruining the lives of four police officers, citing entirely premature allegations made against them on very shaky grounds that were later utterly refuted by the detailed analysis of an independent, unbiased authority. Perhaps he's learned something in the six short years since then. If he has, only time will tell. Personally, I'm not holding my breath.

Due to my generation's endemic social media "shaming" problem, I've generally elected to stay very quiet about the mounting tensions between police officers and the black community in this country. This predilection for silence mostly stems from an incident following the targeted killing of two NYPD officers in Brooklyn last December in anger over the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner (Link 1), shortly after a Manhattan protest staged as part of the #blacklivesmatter movement descended into chants of "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!" by throngs of protesters marching through the streets (Link 2). After the ambush, I posted a short Facebook status calling for the rhetoric of that movement to change to emphasize the importance of all lives instead of the importance of the lives of a particular racial group, on the grounds that emphasizing one particular group's value as opposed to the value of all people only served to further entrench preexisting divides and invite more incidences of racial animus. Put simply, I was excoriated for that status. A litany of comments was posted in response from a fairly sizeable group of Facebook users - interestingly enough, all of them white and male - which leveled everything from harshly worded criticism of the position on a pseudo-factual basis to personal insults aimed solely at humiliation and ostracism. In my usual way, I attempted to counter with the facts; I attached video of the aforementioned protest in New York which preceded the Brooklyn incident, made reference to the riots which took place in Ferguson following the grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson over the death of Michael Brown, and as the argument broadened, I delved deeply into the actual statistics regarding race in officer-related shootings and how their rough correlation to the proportion of national crime for which each demographic group is responsible substantially undermines any assertion of real bias on the part of the nation's police against black Americans (Links 3 & 4). To them, none of that mattered. One of them tried to nitpick some of the data and substitute some of his own, but when I rebutted his only real point, he managed to quickly disappear. The rest stuck to abstract generalizations, emotional appeals and the age old informal fallacy of appealing to ridicule. No matter how many times I tried to take a rational, articulate, factual approach, the users carrying on the verbal sparring were simply too impassioned to listen. In an attempt to sum things up for one of them, I gave them a singular warning: that if this kind of rhetoric continued both at #BLM events and on social media, it would become a justification in the minds of many for carrying out severe acts of violence aimed generally at law enforcement, although not exclusively. Now, nine months later, I sit here typing this post under the burden of having been proved right when I had hoped I would be proven wrong. The last year has revealed an explosive growth in the number of law enforcement officer deaths incurred in the line of duty (Link 5). Counting Deputy Goforth this past weekend and the two officers killed in Brooklyn last year, we now have three officers that we know for a fact were targeted and killed without provocation solely for being police officers, with several other cases in which speculation of the same is not unreasonable. Additionally, an officer in Birmingham, Alabama, was beaten to the point of passing out on the side of the road last month, while onlookers took the opportunity to glorify the incident on social media rather than render aid to the injured officer (Link 6); that same officer later admitted to hesitating to discharge his weapon in his own defense for fear of being labeled a "racist cop" as so many others have been of late (Link 7). Ferguson has not been the only riot stemming from this movement; numerous small altercations took place around the country in conjunction with the events in Ferguson, and Ferguson seemed to be put on replay in Baltimore earlier this year (Link 8). #BLM's own website states that the organization embraces a "diversity of tactics" in the name of social change as opposed to the nonviolent approach embraced by prior generations of black activists (Link 9), and many #BLM supporters have even ostracized fellow #BLM activists for, of all things, advocating peaceful protests in place of abrasiveness and apologizing for outrageous conduct associated with #BLM such as that outlined in this post (Link 10). #BLM leaders, on that note, have been callous in statements during and regarding such instances; the most damning example of this, in my opinion, came in relation to the death of Deputy Goforth, when a leader in the #BLM movement chose to respond to the ambush by criticizing Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman, perhaps hypocritically, for "politicizing" the incident with the statement that "cops' lives matter too," and failing to express any sympathy whatsoever for Deputy Goforth or his family in the process (Link 11). After scouring the internet in search of some redeeming statement by a #BLM leader somewhere in relation to the Harris County incident, I am deeply disappointed to report that the above is the only relevant statement from a #BLM supporter of any kind that I could locate at all. A cursory review of the social media accounts of several personal friends and acquaintances who have actively expounded on the principles of #BLM and highlighted so-called instances of "racial injustice" over the last year revealed the same result. Worst of all, just two weeks before the the murder of Deputy Goforth, during Black Panther protests at the Waller County Jail in just the next county over from the site of Goforth's murder, one of the protest's leaders threatened to retaliate against police in a manner eerily similar to the one in which Goforth was assassinated (Link 12). On its face, this makes it look as though last year's Brooklyn incident has repeated itself. I have read statements on this board and elsewhere from a number of individuals claiming that #BLM has nothing to do with these incidents of violence targeted at police. I will admit that there is no definitive link between the two. Nonetheless, such a link is easily inferred, and I believe it exists. We know for a fact that the Brooklyn shooter acted in retaliation against police regarding the Brown and Garner cases. Is it really so hard to believe that whatever anger he harbored was nurtured by protests such as the one caught on video in New York? Men are not moved to commit heinous acts by rationality, they're moved to do such things by poorly governed passions and a misguided sense of justice - especially those with emotional or mental disorders, as I imagine the killers in the Brooklyn and Harris County cases had. Given the totality of the circumstances in the Goforth case, is it so hard to believe that it is of a similar nature? And considering the two in tandem, is it not reasonable to intuit the potential beginnings of a grim pattern? #BLM as an entity offers no condolences for or discouragement against acts of violence carried out for purposes in line with its own mission, and explicitly rejects pacifism as an approach to social change. Its leaders meet radical, inflammatory rhetoric that indisputably cites people to violence with tolerance, and fail to utter a single word of disapproval when actions are carried out almost in perfect accordance with that rhetoric. #BLM repeatedly withholds condemnation for incidents of mass violence the likes of Ferguson and Baltimore. Is it really implausible that these stances can become implicit encouragement and justification for acts of violence in the minds of fringe elements? When coupled with the outright rejection of pacifist protesters such as the girl in Seattle that apologized for the incident at the Bernie Sanders campaign rally, is it not easy to see how others infer that #BLM, if anything, endorses such rhetoric and its inevitable, injurious ends? In that light, the phrase "diversity of tactics" takes on new meaning. Link 1: [Hidden Content] Link 2: [Hidden Content] Link 3: [Hidden Content] Link 4: [Hidden Content] Link 5: [Hidden Content] Link 6: [Hidden Content] Link 7: [Hidden Content] Link 8: [Hidden Content] Link 9: [Hidden Content] Link 10: [Hidden Content] Link 11: [Hidden Content] Link 12: [Hidden Content]

I can report that Travis County did in fact have Blue Bell today. I can also report that I have a bad case of case of brain freeze this evening, which I'm pretty sure is a symptom of listeria poisoning. So, you know. Nobody else should buy any.

Far be it for me to defend Donald Trump in anything, but I was going to say something similar. We need more of a "f*ck you" attitude with the Russians - maybe not as much as Trump has, but a lot more than any of the Democrats have. That's the only thing Putin understands.

Now's the time to be in the rental business. Between the impending mortgage issues you've outlined and the number of people who are underemployed who just plum can't afford to buy either away, rental property's going to be in high demand. If I wasn't headed for law school....

What message? No, seriously. What message? So far, Donald Trump's message has been that Megyn Kelly's a mean reporter dealing with the bad time of the month and we need to make Mexico pay for a wall to keep Mexicans out. Go look at Donald Trump's website. Notice something missing? I do - it's called the "issues" section. You know, that part where candidates articulate their platforms? Yeah, Donald Trump doesn't have one. But, I try to be thorough and diligent when I research candidates, so I watched the debate last week, thinking (perhaps naively) that he might articulate his positions there. And what did I get for my trouble? "The moderators are being mean to me." At least he doesn't try to hide the fact that he's a whiner; he publicly acknowledged that much in a phone interview I listened to today. In another attempt to be thorough, I scoured the internet for policy positions. Didn't find a single one. I even went out of my way to contact the Trump campaign and ask for a list of positions or a platform summary or at least a statement giving me some idea where he stands on the issues. You know what I got in return? Neither do I, because I'm still waiting on it a week later. So I'll ask you again: what message? I'm betting you can't actually give me an answer. Why not? Because there is no message. Why is there no message? Because Donald Trump is an entertainment mogul with an ego the size of Mt. Rushmore who sees this primary as nothing more than a cheap way to put his name in an infinite number of headlines and sweeten his reality TV deals. He's not actually in this because he cares about the country, he's in it because he cares about his checkbook. If any part of him actually wants to be president, it's his ego talking, but I strongly suspect that he doesn't want to be the President of the United States. He just wants the publicity, and he's going to ride that wave of tweets and primetime interviews until he loses steam, grassroots donations stop coming in and he actually has to put up some of his own money to stay in the race. When that moment comes, the return on investment takes a nosedive and it won't be worth it anymore. He'll walk away having played the system and gotten exactly what he wanted out of the deal. The sad part is that he'll leave his supporters out to dry in the process. The most hardcore elements of the conservative base - the ones that have been claiming that Obama supporters are "low information voters" or whatever else for years - will have fallen victim to the exact same trickery that they claim everyone who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 fell for. Why? Because Trump and Obama are the exact same thing at heart: demagogues, and dam good ones at that. Don't believe me? Let's consult Dr. Google. Oh sure, they have very different styles. Obama prefers charm and eloquence, whereas Trump is frank and bombastic. Obama likes to be relaxed, articulate and optimistic, while Trump prefers to be fiery, to speak in generalities and to remain obstinate in the face of opposition. Obama wants to appear levelheaded, while Trump likes his reputation for stubborn brashness. But at the end of the day, those two personas are two sides of the same conman's coin - their only differences exist solely because they're contrived to appeal to the two very different bases on which they feed. And in the absence of substance, both are the trademarks of - you guessed it - a conman.I hope you enjoy losing again in 2016. Because if you keep egging your buddy Trump on, that's exactly what's going to happen to us.

Donald Trump is a flip-flopping opportunist who sees this election as nothing more than an opportunity to put his name in the headlines. In the process, he's become the official mascot for the senility problem that currently exists in the modern body politic and made a mockery of the Republican Party - my party. Fox News was completely fair to him last night - when you've got a history like Trump's, those are the kinds of questions you deserve. He wasn't targeted unfairly, he made himself a target. Welcome to politics, Mr. Trump. Enjoy your brief stay.

​Not just smarter, stronger. North Korea could have Stephen Hawking for a leader and I'd still consider Russia more of a threat. Russia is to North Korea as the Titanic is to a rubber dinghy. It doesn't really matter what the IQ of the guy at the helm is, one is still obviously superior to the other.