Only in America

[Tero]

You're being serious?

Hamburgers and salad Fri
Fish and chips Sat
Very small t-bone and baked potato Sun

[Sean Hayden]

Yeah, I figured you were joking.

[Seabass]

Not the Onion:

Bill would require some Missourians to own an AR-15

Missouri representative wants every resident to own an AR-15

Andrew McDaniel (R-Deering) is purposing the McDaniel Militia Act, which requires every person between 18 and 35 years of age who can legally possess a firearm to own an AR-15.

Under his proposal, there would also be a tax credit for individuals who purchase a firearm.

And yes, of course he's a Republican...

[Svartalf]

militia act... I wonder how the people will take to being shanghaied into a militia, that kind of stuff is a thing of the past and even conscription/the draft are no longer accepted by the population at large, looks like somebody will have to work real hard to get reelected ... I mean, it's one thing to be allowed to own toys, it's another to be required by law to own something, bought at your own expense, whether you like it or not... wonder what the ultra pacifist denoms, like the JW will make of it.

[Forty Two]

The military does not have a budget, just a credit card.C7EC1316-B141-4F8E-ADCA-6827FD28A808.jpeg

I guess it would depend on how much lobster they got. Knowing the Pentagon, not enough.

[BarnettNewman]

militia act... I wonder how the people will take to being shanghaied into a militia, that kind of stuff is a thing of the past and even conscription/the draft are no longer accepted by the population at large, looks like somebody will have to work real hard to get reelected ... I mean, it's one thing to be allowed to own toys, it's another to be required by law to own something, bought at your own expense, whether you like it or not... wonder what the ultra pacifist denoms, like the JW will make of it.

It’s like abortion. They only care that you have it, not what you do with it once you get it.

[JimC]

The college admissions scandal has many ramifications, and many implications for American society. Here is an excellent article from our ABC: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-21/ ... l/10918884

Some highlights:

"The irony of college admissions in the US is that it's the great equaliser in theory, and in principle, it's the great stratifier," said Richard Reeves, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies inequality and social mobility.

"It actually is quite true that if you get to go to a good college, and get through, your life chances are transformed. The problem is, who's going through?"
For many Americans, the scandal confirms fears that the country's upper class is stealing opportunity from the rest of the population.

It's also a serious challenge to the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps belief that an American's success or failure is theirs alone.

Putting outright bribery aside, there are two levels of unfairness to the college admissions, Mr Reeves explains.

First, Reeves said, assume two candidates are equal in talent but the admissions counsellor is blind to their economic backgrounds.

"They're still going to skew towards the most affluent students," Mr Reeves said. "They've been to better schools; they've paid for private tutors. They look better prepared for the race before the race even starts."
Some of the elite colleges fight back against this kind of bias with affirmative action programs designed to preference those with disadvantaged backgrounds. But not all US colleges have to publish data on this, so it's tough to gauge whether it's working.

The second level of unfairness is like "bribery done in the light of day," Mr Reeves said.

"If the parents of an applicant have made donations to the college they will receive preferential treatment.

"There's also legacy preferences. Most of the top schools offer a non-trivial leg-up to relatives of people who went to the college themselves."

Taken together, these factors have caused a giant schism in a college admissions system that outwardly claims it's based on merit.

One group of researchers found that students from the wealthiest 1 per cent are 77 times more likely to go to a top school than those in the bottom 20 per cent.

Apologists for neo-liberal capitalism rely heavily on the idea of a level playing field, where anyone has an equal chance, solely based on merit, of achieving wealth, power and success. It is clear that this is a self-serving myth; families on top want to stay there, and have the means, legal or illegal to achieve this. Aside from the inequities of skewed educational chances (and often it's about having gone to a prestigious college, rather than demonstrated intelligence and competency), the wealthy strata of society can leverage their wealth and power to minimise tax, and to influence a corrupt political system to make decisions which favour maintaining their position.

I'm not claiming the US is alone amongst western nations in this issue, although it's demonstrably obscene levels of disparity between rich and poor (more extreme than most) suggest that this shadow class system is worse than most.

[Seabass]

Yehbut even poor people own refrigerators, Jim!

[pErvinalia]

And the poor would live like kings in Asia and Africa. Why don't they move there?

[Tero]

Lone liberal posting on Foxnews story
https://www.foxnews.com/world/new-zeala ... que-attack

[BarnettNewman]

43C93A32-78C0-4871-9647-0BC1CC2CA634.png

Lone liberal posting on Foxnews story
https://www.foxnews.com/world/new-zeala ... que-attack

I like the parading of “Switzerland has the most guns of anyone libtards.”
These guys would lose their shit over the regulatory requirements, least of which is strict storage.

https://www.businessinsider.com/switzer ... ths-2018-2

[Joe]

The stupid; it burns!

Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich attempted to counter Senator Elizabeth Warren’s call to discuss the injustices of slavery, and its lasting systemic impact on generations of African-Americans, by claiming that the United States does not get “enough credit” for ending slavery.

While discussing reparations to descendents of enslaved people on Fox News’ "Outnumbered" on Tuesday, Ms Pavlich claimed that the US was the first country to abolish slavery.

“They keep blaming America for the sin of slavery but the truth is, throughout human history, slavery existed, and America came along as the first country to end it within 150 years,” she said. “And we get no credit for that to move forward and try to make good on that.”

[Sean Hayden]

See what happens when you take God out of the classroom, the kids don't learn!

[Clinton Huxley]

Not the Onion:

Bill would require some Missourians to own an AR-15

Missouri representative wants every resident to own an AR-15

Andrew McDaniel (R-Deering) is purposing the McDaniel Militia Act, which requires every person between 18 and 35 years of age who can legally possess a firearm to own an AR-15.

Under his proposal, there would also be a tax credit for individuals who purchase a firearm.

And yes, of course he's a Republican...

Anyone legally able to own a gun but choosing not to is impacting the manufacturer's profits and that's a crime against capitalism.

Compulsory gun ownership is the price of freedom.

[L'Emmerdeur]

I doubt that this phenomenon is limited to the US. Perhaps only in America is it tracked.

'America’s drunk shopping habit balloons to $39.4 billion'

Load up (drank), browse though (drank), click on (drank), check out (drank). No, these aren’t the lyrics to Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 single “Swimming Pools (Drank)” but the buying habits for million of Americans.

More than a quarter (26%) of Americans admit to shopping under the influence, totaling some 53.4 million people, according to the latest Drunk Shopping survey from finder.com, an annual survey of roughly 2,000 American adults about their boozed buying habits.

While the number of people buying items after drinking is on the way down compared to last year, how much they’re spending is way up. Collectively, Americans spent $39.4 billion on drunk purchases in the past 12 months, up from last year’s $30.43 billion.