Immigrant Children Taken From Familes

[idhawkman]

It's not about left or right, democrat or republican, it's about the truth vs propaganda, critical thinking vs fear mongering. I believe Shep is a conservative, just an honest and intelligent one that doesn't toe the party line. There are conservatives for whom integrity and love of country come before party.

Yeah, those Rinos and Never Trumper types are slowly being drained and shown for their true stripes.

[idhawkman]

And Saudi Arabia as you have pointed out to me so many times has major control of oil prices and only accepts payment for oil in U.S. dollars, which helps us remain the reserve currency. So we overlook their scumbaggery for cheap oil.

I'm sure you know that it is nearly impossible to escape our reliance on oil. I sat down and thought about how to escape oil. All these folks thinking they help things with electrical cars and the like. Yet even that doesn't escape oil. I would literally have to give up electricity, cars, rubber, plastics, and just all things associated with modern life to escape oil. There's just no way to do it.

We could get our oil from Russia and Canada, but that would take away our position as the reserve currency. It's too powerful a position to have oil paid for in U.S. dollars. We're literally over a barrel to some real scum due to oil. We sold our values for oil and let a bunch of sleazy oil monarchs and dictators sustain themselves on the oil dollar. The layers upon layers of corruption due to our reliance on oil is so deep that we would all have to become Amish to escape it.

And even I'm not willing to go there to uphold my values. I can see why even the Democrats avoid the discussion. It's a non-starter for a first world nation to create bad blood with your oil dealer.

I think the tax cut bill which opened up ANWAR along with the shell oil drilling and other regulation relaxing that Trump has done will have a huge impact on what we have to put up with from Saudi. Trump is now talking that China will buy its oil from us as part of a trade agreement instead of getting it from Iran.

Development of the Oil infrastructure here in the US will take somewhere between 7-10 years and has been a reason that Obama's admin never approved of refineries, drilling, etc. What's really interesting is that in just 2 short years under Trump, we are actually negotiating trade deals to export our oil (which will be paid in US Dollars too)

[idhawkman]

We need to pursue alternative energy. Tolerating vile behavior for oil is a bad way to live. Saudi Arabians literally committed the worst terrorist attack in American history and we attack Afghanistan and Iraq all because the oil situation prevented us from hammering the real culprit. We have literally allowed Saudi Arabia to murder Americans to sustain our oil power. We even keep nations like Iran in check on behalf of Saudi Arabia even though they have not displayed anywhere the near the danger to us that Saudi Arabia has conducted against us. Iran is funding against us because of our relationship with Saudi Arabia and Israel. It's a very foul relationship all the way around that creates a situation in our nation where we allow our people to be murdered so oil power is maintained. That's the kind of foul relationship that Americans need to change as fast as possible by getting off oil. We'll never be able to support our nation indefinitely drilling our reserves. The only way off oil is alternative energy. Solar, wind, and any other method we can come up with generate the power we need that is sustainable without high levels of pollutants.

As you pointed out in one of your earlier posts, its almost impossible to get off Oil and move to alternative energy because the Alternative energy is too expensive. There's a study that I had to laugh at about how much oil it takes to make the wind turbines and that there has been no profit in a single wind turbine to date. The only way those companies make money is by the govt. subsidies that the Obama admin put in place. Add to that the failed experiment into funding the solar panel industry and wasting $B of tax payer money, we still don't have a viable energy alternative to oil. (Solendra anyone?)

[burrrton]

So we overlook their scumbaggery for cheap oil.

I agree to a large part (there are many other reasons, too), but that's not what ultimately kept them off the 'travel ban' list.

I'm sure you know that it is nearly impossible to escape our reliance on oil.

C'mon, asea- it's only the lifeblood of civilization. I think if we really applied ourselves, we could be completely off oil by, oh, say, lunch.

[RiverDog]

We need to pursue alternative energy.

We have been and will continue to pursue alternative energy. The problem is that it's going to take time, lots of time. But what I don't want to see happen is to force feed it by raising taxes or providing huge incentives. It needs to be economically viable in order for it to be sustainable, otherwise it's going to be subject to the ever changing political winds.

Tolerating vile behavior for oil is a bad way to live. Saudi Arabians literally committed the worst terrorist attack in American history and we attack Afghanistan and Iraq all because the oil situation prevented us from hammering the real culprit. We have literally allowed Saudi Arabia to murder Americans to sustain our oil power. We even keep nations like Iran in check on behalf of Saudi Arabia even though they have not displayed anywhere the near the danger to us that Saudi Arabia has conducted against us. Iran is funding against us because of our relationship with Saudi Arabia and Israel. It's a very foul relationship all the way around that creates a situation in our nation where we allow our people to be murdered so oil power is maintained. That's the kind of foul relationship that Americans need to change as fast as possible by getting off oil. We'll never be able to support our nation indefinitely drilling our reserves. The only way off oil is alternative energy. Solar, wind, and any other method we can come up with generate the power we need that is sustainable without high levels of pollutants.

Why not nuclear? It also irritates me when liberals talk about "renewable" energy, but don't count hydropower.

Like it or not, the internal combustion engine is going to be with us for a long, long time to come.

[c_hawkbob]

It's not about left or right, democrat or republican, it's about the truth vs propaganda, critical thinking vs fear mongering. I believe Shep is a conservative, just an honest and intelligent one that doesn't toe the party line. There are conservatives for whom integrity and love of country come before party.

Yeah, those Rinos and Never Trumper types are slowly being drained and shown for their true stripes.

I have no idea how that relates to what I said. Is "Rinos" your name for republicans that still think for themselves?

[RiverDog]

It's not about left or right, democrat or republican, it's about the truth vs propaganda, critical thinking vs fear mongering. I believe Shep is a conservative, just an honest and intelligent one that doesn't toe the party line. There are conservatives for whom integrity and love of country come before party.

You're looking at one.

As I've said many times, it's not so much Trump's politics that I object to, it's his personal character and his trustworthiness that bothers me the most.

[Aseahawkfan]

We have been and will continue to pursue alternative energy. The problem is that it's going to take time, lots of time. But what I don't want to see happen is to force feed it by raising taxes or providing huge incentives. It needs to be economically viable in order for it to be sustainable, otherwise it's going to be subject to the ever changing political winds.

It's better to force something than run out and have everything collapse. No matter how many ways we try to twist it at some point the oil runs out, the air becomes so polluted we can't breathe and die, or some similar bad outcome. Human population is growing, not shrinking. We need ways to sustain that growth even if not as cost effective as oil. It has to happen for our survival.

Why not nuclear? It also irritates me when liberals talk about "renewable" energy, but don't count hydropower.

Like it or not, the internal combustion engine is going to be with us for a long, long time to come.

I'd like to see improvements in nuclear, but we know the dangers of badly done nuclear energy. Worse than gas if it goes bad.

Hydropower is viable as long as it doesn't kill the aquatic environment which is a major cog in everyone's food supply chain from the fish within it to what the fish eat to the wildlife eat and the plants. Advancement in hydropower are necessary, but we can't screw with the water too much given how necessary it is.

Sustainable fusion is the ultimate goal, but it's been hard to obtain.

[RiverDog]

It's better to force something than run out and have everything collapse. No matter how many ways we try to twist it at some point the oil runs out, the air becomes so polluted we can't breathe and die, or some similar bad outcome. Human population is growing, not shrinking. We need ways to sustain that growth even if not as cost effective as oil. It has to happen for our survival.

Wind and solar still have storage issues and depend on the versatility of other energy sources to supply power during peak demands in the winter months when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. That's why nuclear is a viable option.

Hydropower is viable as long as it doesn't kill the aquatic environment which is a major cog in everyone's food supply chain from the fish within it to what the fish eat to the wildlife eat and the plants. Advancement in hydropower are necessary, but we can't screw with the water too much given how necessary it is.

I'm not advocating building anymore dams. The river systems in the US are pretty much tapped out anyway. But existing structures can be used more efficiently.

Sustainable fusion is the ultimate goal, but it's been hard to obtain.

Agreed, but they need to step up research.