I doubt it would matter if they were on that list because generally speaking some kind of judicial proceeding would needed to have taken place for someone to have lost right to own a gun (an exception to that would be if they were not a US citizen). However it would throw up a red flag to the FBI if they saw that a NICS check had been run on someone on their watch list since the whole point of it is to track the location and activity of people they are 'reasonably suspicious' of. That might already happen anyway.

[Edited on April 20, 2013 at 10:33 PM. Reason : .]

4/20/2013 10:32:11 PM

I'd suggest adding the watch list as a criteria for NICS then, but we've all seen the stories about innocent kids and infants not being able to fly because they are on the watch list.

4/21/2013 10:44:29 AM

Quote :

"Some Republican lawmakers want President Obama to declare the surviving Boston bombing suspect an enemy combatant in order to question him without a lawyer and other protections of the criminal justice system"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/us/gop-lawmakers-push-to-hold-boston-suspect-as-enemy-combatant.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

LOL

4/21/2013 8:57:26 PM

Why don't we just send a drone at him?

4/21/2013 9:51:35 PM

republicans don't like Lindsey Graham and John McCain anymore, its all about the tea party now

4/22/2013 8:24:44 PM

Hey look, Rand Paul is a fraud and a hypocrite, just like daddy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/rand-paul-drones_n_3140850.html

Quote :

""Here's the distinction: I have never argued against any technology being used when you have an imminent threat, an act of crime going on," Paul said on Fox Business Network. "If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and $50 in cash, I don't care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him. But it's different if they want to come fly over your hot tub or your yard just because they want to do surveillance on everyone, and they want to watch your activities.""

vs.

Quote :

""No American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court," he said."

Drones are evil, unless there's $50 at stake!

[Edited on April 24, 2013 at 3:57 PM. Reason : :]

4/24/2013 3:55:29 PM

To be fair, the hypothetical liquor store robber was probably black.

4/24/2013 4:19:17 PM

honestly just think it's funny

4/30/2013 8:54:53 AM

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-duncan-wants-to-end-most-census-data-2013-5

Seriously, wtf are they spending their time on?

Quote :

"A bill introduced by South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan would eliminate all functions of the Census bureau except the part about counting the population every 10 years. That means no more employment stats, GDP data, housing information — it would all be gone."

5/3/2013 1:33:20 PM

What a dumbass. They'll never be able to gerrymander their way to a majority without all that data.

5/3/2013 1:54:09 PM

^^ That is completely moronic especially since that data is essential in appropriations of all sorts.

5/3/2013 2:01:23 PM

Glenn Beck Delivers Keynote Address At NRA Convention
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxgQXVPpo1s

At the fifteen minute mark, Glenn Beck has clearly represented himself as a Christofascist playwright.

By the the forty-fifth minute mark, I'm convinced that 2 + 2 = 7.

Holy shit, at the fiftieth minute mark, the NRA opposes drone-warfare.

Wait, no... it's not about drones, or guns or wars... and Glenn Beck hasn't accused the President of killing innocent children, except that's exactly what he's done...

And at the one hour and nine minute mark, there's a Native American disarmament billboard brought to us by Fox News.

Also, gun control = Japanese internment camps and genocide of Native Americans, in case you didn't know.

Let's not forget that Martin Luther King, Jr. marched because of prove-slavery Democrats and their disarmament of the blacks.

I guess the Klan was a bunch of Progressives, too...

Thanks, Obama.

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 6:52 AM. Reason : ]

5/6/2013 6:36:03 AM

Did you repost the top Youtube comment or something? What the fuck are you on about?

5/6/2013 10:53:02 AM

I think he's giving us a synopsis.

5/6/2013 11:05:43 AM

South Carolinians put a lying, cheating politician who resigned due to threat of impeachment back in office, along with his mistress as First Lady. And I thought the GOP was the party of family values...

5/8/2013 3:55:32 AM

we all know that extramarital affairs strengthen marriage, gay marriage weakens it

5/8/2013 7:37:44 AM

^^ The real breakdown, I'm thinking, occurred in the GOP primary.

5/8/2013 9:32:14 AM

Colbert will probably be worth watching tonight.

5/8/2013 9:35:01 AM

Boggles my mind why the NRA is supporting far right nut jobs. They seem to be neglecting that the majority of democrats don't want guns banned. Now they are just going to lose ground on the left, their biggest growth opportunity.

5/8/2013 9:39:35 AM

I think they've definitely taken a huge misstep aligning themselves with the characters they have. They haven't just alienated the left, they're completely alienating themselves from the middle too. The majority of Americans do not want to hear anything that Santorum, Cruz, Palin etc have to say and when the big fissure in the Republican Party comes over the next 2 election cycles they're going to get bitten in the ass for backing the crazy wing.

I'm sure their corporate sponsors are loving their sales numbers at the moment though. Short term profits at the expense of long-term sustainability. Hopefully the NRA will be wrested from the hands of gun companies and back to a grassroots people-run, common sense organization when that market crashes although I'm not holding my breath.

5/8/2013 9:53:11 AM

With the way that districts work, you can't align yourself with the middle and have to align yourself with the far right. Very few districts nationally are competitive for Republican or Democrat, most are fixed for a particular party which means that representatives are elected in the primary and not the general election. This means that to win office, you have to win the primary which means turning to the right (or left).

The only way we can solve this is through massively changing the districts (which is unlikely to happen in a way that improves things) or to increase the number of representatives in the house.

5/8/2013 10:19:22 AM

I think there's a legitimate chance that Republicans will start primarying themselves out of general elections like in NJ, IN, MO, etc. And the resources the establishment is using to combat the far right primary candidates are going to start bleeding the entire Republican Party dry.

5/8/2013 11:04:49 AM

BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI

Hey you dumb fucks, the election is over, your hail mary didn't work and in the end it did nothing but make your candidate look like a giant jack ass on live TV. Why are they still wasting time on this? There is no possible way it ends impeachment, and it can't possibly hurt Hillary's chances in 2016 when even today no one gives a shit about it.

5/8/2013 6:12:00 PM

Obama is currently on track to running the most successful foreign policy presidency since the end of WWII. They're completely grasping at straws.

5/8/2013 6:43:02 PM

wasn't there supposed to be some bombshell dropped today? just seems to me like the dude went through a retread of everything we already know.

5/8/2013 9:08:46 PM

Quote :

"Obama is currently on track to running the most successful foreign policy presidency since the end of WWII. They're completely grasping at straws."

lol :trollface:

5/8/2013 10:18:12 PM

i'm curious who since WWII has had a better foreign policy in your opinion

5/9/2013 7:46:43 AM

Truman
Eisenhower
Kennedy
Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
Bush
Clinton
Bush

5/9/2013 8:32:07 AM

lol. Suggesting GWB's foreign policy being better than Obama is a complete divorcing of reality. 9/11, starting two wars on the basis of nothing...I find it implausible that Obama could top that in the time that he has left unless he nuked NK or something.

5/9/2013 8:48:44 AM

Iran-Contra was better than Obama? Iranian hostage crisis was better than Obama? Invading Grenada was better than Obama? etc...

ahahaha, Smath is such a gomer

[Edited on May 9, 2013 at 9:37 AM. Reason : autocorrect]

5/9/2013 9:36:50 AM

GWB aside, what exactly constitutes a successful foreign policy to you?

Doing nothing? That's what your metric seems to be.

Make me believe his approach has been the best compared to Smath's list, although feel free to leave out Bush2 and the Vietnam-era presidents.

5/9/2013 10:06:22 AM

My 84 year old grandfather on Truman: "He'd Shoot'em in a heartbeat!"

[Edited on May 9, 2013 at 10:18 AM. Reason : .]

5/9/2013 10:16:10 AM

well he hasn't given missiles to an Iranian con-man and so far hasn't invaded any tiny island nations with intel gathered from old encyclopedias because they were building a secret airport (that wasn't secret, that a british company was building and american and Canadian companies had bid on)

to start

[Edited on May 9, 2013 at 10:17 AM. Reason : en]

5/9/2013 10:17:23 AM

I seem to remember a war in SE Asia as well. Vietnam, was it?

5/9/2013 10:42:20 AM

President by President?

Harry Truman might have the best case for beating Obama. He made a tough decision to nuke Japan, but most people believe it was probably the right decision. He conducted his containment policy against the Soviet Union in Europe pretty well. Korean War is kind of up in the air, probably a good thing though.

Eisenhower probably didn't seem too bad at the time, but he oversaw the Presidency that began a massive nuclear build-up and let the CIA run wild starting to overthrow foreign governments, especially in the Middle East. He expanded containment policy to the point where the US was overextending itself into places we really didn't need to be and that had zero strategic purpose.

JFK did well during the Cuban Missile Crisis but not so much Bay of Pigs. Might have been good or bad had he lived.

LBJ - Vietnam

Nixon was probably pretty similar to Obama, actually. Presidents' foreign policy is largely shaped by the preceding president. It's hard to do much of your agenda when you get handed a shitty war. Nixon gets some credit for scaling back on some of the CIA shit and going more after strategic targets, but fails because of his management of the Middle East and OPEC.

Carter - I think he started off alright but idealism got the better of him and the hostage thing with Iran was pretty terrible.

Reagan - Contra and the fact that the Soviet Union wouldn't have lasted much longer than it did even if he hadn't been President.

George HW Bush I think did just about a perfect job managing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the global transition to having only one superpower. He used soft power to achieve everything he wanted to achieve and I think his international strategy of multilateralism and UN diplomacy with the handling of the first Iraq War was generally superb, as was the execution of the war. But he only got 4 years so...

Clinton did alright. He didn't get himself involved in any quagmires. The Balkan stuff at the time was something nobody wanted to touch. Gets points for relations with China but loses them for failing to adequately combat new global terrorism and India-Pakistan nuclear stuff.

GWB is the worst president of all time.

Obama has had his hands tied for the most part on foreign policy because of Iraq and Afghanistan so he hasn't been able to do much. Whether you think he deserved it or not, the guy did win a Nobel Peace Prize and just by being elected reset US relations with much of the world. He's been tough when he's needed to be but generally talks softly. North Korea hasn't nuked anybody and Iran's power is waning. Syria is pretty sticky but what exactly would we hope to accomplish by going in there. He's shown massive restraint during the Arab Spring. Drone strikes are not ideal but it's not really any worse than anything that was going on before and Americans aren't dying. He wouldn't even have to use them if we weren't in Afghanistan. He got Osama bin Laden. The next 4 years will probably define him as he tries to achieve some of his agenda, but he set it up by having a pretty successful first 4 years because he's laid low.

5/9/2013 10:42:23 AM

i'd add a pretty big minus to Clinton for massively expanding the use of private military contractors as a way to circumvent congressional oversight of war powers. i guess its better than simply lying to congress (Reagan), but its a pretty big problem and because of the size and money involved its one that is unlikely to go away

[Edited on May 9, 2013 at 10:50 AM. Reason : and Truman was a terrible puppet president who inflamed relations with the soviets]

5/9/2013 10:48:28 AM

I think a successful foreign policy is one that expands or maintains the US' power in the world while heavily factoring in human rights abuses. Ideally only defensive wars. If it's aggressive you pretty much need international approval. Context of the time matters somewhat, but is no excuse for doing terrible things.

So basically improving the US' economic power in the world and using diplomacy instead of military power to achieve goals.

5/9/2013 10:48:31 AM

the terrible human rights abuses of Clinton's private military contractors in the Balkans shouldn't be overlooked

5/9/2013 10:52:16 AM

Neither should the abuses of milosevic and the fact that nobody in Europe did anything either.

5/9/2013 11:09:50 AM

that doesn't explain why its okay to send private military contractors who then bought women as sex slaves and committed other human rights abuses

5/9/2013 11:15:04 AM

Quote :

"Harry Truman might have the best case for beating Obama. He made a tough decision to nuke Japan, but most people believe it was probably the right decision."

Obama has the best foreign policy of any U.S. president, second only to the man who ordered that nuclear weapons be used on civilian populations not once, but twice - the only times in human history.

I understand now. You're trolling. It's so perfectly clear now.

Quote :

"I think a successful foreign policy is one that expands or maintains the US' power in the world while heavily factoring in human rights abuses. Ideally only defensive wars."

Another gem. You're good, man. Maybe too good.

[Edited on May 9, 2013 at 11:23 AM. Reason : ]

5/9/2013 11:22:20 AM

I'd rank Obama's foreign policy as marginally better than Bush's.

Obama didn't start a bunch of ridiculous wars, but between civilian deaths from drone strikes and incursion into Pakistan, he can't be proud of himself.

5/9/2013 11:47:01 AM

Quote :

"Obama didn't start a bunch of ridiculous wars, but between civilian deaths from drone strikes and incursion into Pakistan, he can't be proud of himself."

In the last say, half a century or so, how many Presidents were responsible for less civilian suffering than Obama? JFK maybe? Carter, but he basically founded Al-Qaeda. Probably pretty even with Clinton. If that's your metric, then Obama should be much higher than "marginally better than Bush", who was responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and millions more displaced from their homes

5/9/2013 12:05:45 PM

how are you determining that?

5/9/2013 12:26:44 PM

Just musing, I didn't really look anything up.

5/9/2013 12:34:52 PM

i can't even tell what you're arguing there. and i think"hundreds of thousands" might be a slight hyperbole.

[Edited on May 9, 2013 at 12:36 PM. Reason : ]

5/9/2013 12:35:59 PM

freedom math

5/9/2013 12:39:27 PM

Dick Cheney Suggests Republicans Subpoena Hillary Clinton On Benghazi
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/09/dick-cheney-hillary-clinton-subpoena_n_3246502.html

5/9/2013 5:08:53 PM

Quote :

"In the last say, half a century or so, how many Presidents were responsible for less civilian suffering than Obama? "

exactly, they've all been war criminals (insert Chomsky quote about US presidents and Nuremberg Laws)

5/9/2013 5:34:16 PM

Michele Bachmann: 9/11 and Benghazi were God's Judgement:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/michele-bachmann-911-god_n_3254568.html

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) continued to promote a right-wing Sept. 11 "National Day of Prayer and Fasting" on Thursday, telling an audience gathered at a Capitol Hill event that such actions were necessary because "judgment" had been passed down by God on that day in both 2001 and 2012.

"Our nation has seen judgment not once but twice on September 11 and that’s why we’re going to have ‘9-11 Pray’ on that day," she said at an event called “Washington: A Man of Prayer,” according to Right Wing Watch. "Is there anything better that we can do on that day rather than to humble ourselves and to pray to an almighty God?"

5/11/2013 9:50:29 AM