The p*******e you were referring to was not a Chief Justice, but a Director of the FBI, if it is the same guy I am thinking of. He knew where the skeletons were in enough closets that he was able to exercise effective control over much of the government much of the time. control

That is why we have police officers and prosecutors. Corrupt public officials get prosecuted for their crimes on a regular basis in the USA when they get caught. And when they get convicted, they do time in the big lock-up.
One of the great things about the USA is the fact that the system has a way of holding public officials accountable legally for their misdoings, without any need for vigilante action on the part of anybody.

When you say you back up your politics with a gun as well as involvement, does that mean you plan to shoot any public officials whose policies you disagree with? That is what it sounds like.

What we need is a president and a Congress that will tell the t***h to the people, and we as a people need to be able to recognize the t***h when we hear it.
If we analyze the economic policies of the Obama Administration, we can agree that when Obama took office, it was necessary to use newly created money to stimulate the economy. The mistake of Obama and the Congress was to inject that stimulus money into the part of the economy close to the top of the economic ladder. When newly created money is being used to prop up a sluggish economy, the newly created money should go to expand the capacity of activities that feed the hungry and house the homeless, and to state and local governments to keep police officers, fire fighters, and teachers on the job that would otherwise get laid off. Some of the Obama stimulus money went for those purposes, and that was fine. Too much of the Obama stimulus money went to an attempt to generate general economic growth by means of a governmental spendathon. That was not fine.
The USA does not necessarily need a white president, or a president of any particular color. We need a president of wh**ever color who will tell the t***h, and we need to be able to recognize the t***h when we hear it.
Over the last 5 years we could have done better, but when you look at what the situation was when Obama took office, the last 5 years could have also been a whole lot worse.

It was also organized religion that gave the energy to the American Civil Rights Movement which enabled that movement to succeed in liberating the African-Americans who had suffered under the Jim Crow laws of the states that used to be part of the old Confederacy. It is also organized religion that drives the Salvation Army to provide feeding and housing services to indigent people. It is also organized religion that drives the housing ministry of Habitat for humanity, building houses in partnership with people who need them.
The lesson from all this is: If you are involved with organized religion, make sure your organization is organized for wholesome goals, and not for the goal of making some person or group more powerful.

If Iraq were to be split up to separate the warring factions, that would probably mean forcibly evicting a lot of people from where they live and relocating them to a community that would be completely new to them. I do not know enough about the demographics of Iraq and the distribution of the various population groups to know to what extent that would be the case, but I feel confident in the accuracy of the statement that when you do that to tens of thousands of people, it is politically destabilizing and economically disruptive.
Violent ethnic and sectarian rivalries are usually started and maintained by a relatively small number of troublemakers looking to use the rivalry as a path to power. Effective law enforcement with civic cooperation is usually the key to defusing those kinds of rivalries so that people don't keep on getting k**led.

What we do in Iraq should be done in coordination with the United Nations. A reintroduction of US troops in a lead role in Iraq would be a disaster for both countries.
One historical fact that we need to understand about Iraq is the fact that there were multiple wars going on in Iraq before the US invasion of 2003. The fact that Saddam Hussein's Baath Party was thoroughly dominating the Shiites to the point where the Shiites had lost the ability to mount an effective resistance, does not change the fact that there was a war going on between the Sunnis and the Shiites.
What Iraq really needs is a way to bring about peace between the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds. The role of the US can be to provide technical assistance in the effort to establish some semblance of security, but the diplomatic effort to bring the warring factions together has to be led by others; preferably by elected governments in the Islamic world, such as Turkey and Indonesia.

Joseph and Mary were made homeless temporarily by the order of a power drunk emperor who made them and a lot of other people temporarily homeless by forcing them to travel to places where they might or might not find a place to stay. At the time Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary did not have a place to stay. That is why Jesus finally got born in a barn.

The real war on Christmas every year is played out in the drunken binge of materialism that accompanies the season leading up to Christmas. That is the season known to us Christians as the Advent season.
The Christmas story in the Bible is the story of God becoming man and choosing to be born into a homeless family, in a facility that was not intended for human habitation. The barn in which Jesus was born was meant for habitation only by animals. Jesus in His ministry on Earth made it clear what God's intent was in doing this. The intent was to show us that people with limited resources were just as precious in God's sight as were the wealthy people who could afford to go on an annual spending binge at the time of God's birthday.
When this birthday is observed every year with a wild spending binge that most people can not afford, this is the real desecration of the Christmas holiday.

Congratulations on the high scores. Keep up the good work.

The fact is that everybody lost. It is time to repair the damages, and part of repairing the damages is that those who are still listening to the Tea Party should learn to listen to wiser voices. If we listen to the Tea Party, they will lead us to ruin.

When you claim that somebody is less than human, you are in fact throwing away some of your own humanity. In America, we v**e people in and out of public office. When you advocate violent action to change the decision that was made by the v**ers, you are advocating violence against America.

Could you blame the Secret Service for taking that kind of talk seriously? It is because there are - and always have been - a lot of screwballs running around loose, that the presidency of the USA is historically a dangerous job. The Secret Service should keep an eye on people who threaten the president.
It is one thing to disagree with the president. I have a lot of disagreements with this president, and I had a lot of disagreements with his predecessor, and I even had a lot of disagreements with his predecessor's predecessor. It is one thing to disagree with the policies and actions of a president, but threats should be considered out of bounds.

I think we all know the real reason why there are so many people out there who h**e Obama. We can and should debate his policies, but the talk about assassinating him is going on because there are people who think he was being "uppity" when he dared to run for President, that he was being "uppity" by attempting to do the job after being elected, and that he was being "uppity" by running for ree******n.
We should be debating governmental policies, but we should be doing so in a civilized manner.

The purpose of this shutdown was - and is - to paralyze the government to spite the president. There are probably some changes that should be made to the Affordable Care Act, and they ought to be brought up as part of the normal legislative agenda. To say the whole thing has to be defunded or the rest of the government has to be paralyzed is extortion, and that type of approach to any law or any governmental activity should be rejected firmly by the Congress as a whole.
The GOP leadership in the House of Representatives could end this shutdown any time they choose to do so. The Democrats have messed up more than their share of governmental activities over the years, and they have made the government grow bigger than it has to be, but the political price for this shutdown should be paid by the Republicans. It is the old story that the Democrats do not deserve to win, but the Republicans absolutely deserve to lose.