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Well, obviously they believe a sacred host spiritually is the body and blood of Christ...

It's not just a spiritual change, but also a physical change as well. Every particle of a consecrated host and every drop of the wine in the chalice contains the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ in its entirety under the appearance of bread and wine. It's not just a symbolic "spiritual change" that occurs at the consecration, but also a change of the substance of the bread and wine that occurs at the consecration. After the consecration, it only appears to be bread and wine, but it no longer is.

Looks great - the only regrettable thing is the presence of the Novus Ordo altar blocking the high altar in the back.

I thought the same thing. The Novus Ordo altar is obstructing the high altar (symbolic of Calvary), and doesn't really fit in with the rest of the sanctuary. The Sanctuary is also missing a communion rail at which communicants can kneel to God. Other than those two things, the restoration of this sanctuary is wonderful.

Only progressives defend the income tax at this point, so are you progressive?

No, but that is a straw man argument. Just because a person argues against a national sales tax doesn't mean that they support the Income Tax. What kind of a conservative supports a massive new sales Tax increase? How is THAT conservative?

At this point, I don't support either the income tax or the national sales Tax. Americans pay enough taxes already, don't they? The government needs to reduce its size and live within its means.

No offense but that is a really ignorant question. If my earnings are tax free I can invest, pay off personal debt, gamble do what ever tax free. Most of all I can save tax free in an account that is not controlled by Uncle Sam. Do you see the difference now? It's called freedom.

By the way, I just wanted to say thanks for the perspective. It was very informative. That's why I asked the question.

No offense but that is a really ignorant question.

First, all questions are ignorant that's why they are asked. (Unless it's a rhetorical question.) Second, your argument relies on several assumptions that are not part of the original discussion. You assume that the sales tax law will allow you to do all of the things that you say, but until the provisions of the law actually exist. We don't know if you can do any of the things that you claim. You also won't get any tax break or write-offs so your sales tax could be worse than the current system. Less write-offs could result in less money for the taxpayer and thus less freedom. Your sales tax is only a better thing than your theoretical sales tax if your assumptions about it are true.

Secondly, a National Sales Tax may be unconstitutional, since it is a direct tax not based on the enumeration of the census. The 16th amendment arguably only allows the income tax to be levied without having to be based on the enumeration of the census.

Boehner is on record stating that any legislation passed using the nuclear option will not be taken up in the House. ...We'll see though.

Well, that might be good for stopping legislative bills, but the House has NO say in the nomination process, so it won't affect packing the executive and judicial branch with potentially despotic or partisan hacks.

The House must refuse to fund this presidential overreach, but I fear that the previous budget compromise of October 2013. If I understand correctly that compromise eliminated the Debt Ceiling unless Congress votes in February to restore it. Since the Republicans don't control the Senate, this won't happen barring exception circumstances. Consequently, in order to reestablish the debt ceiling in law, the Republicans need a 2/3 majority in both houses to override a presidential veto or a favorable president.

Agree - NO INCOME TAXES AT ALL. Tariffs and a NRST plus shrinking FedGov™.

What is the difference between having a Federal Sales Tax and a Federal Income tax?

As far as I can see, there is no substantial difference between the two taxes. The only substantial difference that I can see between the two taxes is that one taxes you 10% of your income when you get paid and one taxes you `0% of your income when you spend it. Thus a flat 10% sales tax and a flat 10% income tax on everything would take exactly the same amount of money from you, but at different times.

Isn't that, right?

I suppose that the theoretical details of such a proposal would be important too, like what would taxed under a national sales tax. (For example, would food be exempt from the tax. That could be a big deal for many low-income people)

Beware though, the regressive nature of a national sales tax which would disproportionately harm low-income individuals as opposed to a progressive income tax which disproportionately takes from the rich would be very unpopular.

Proselytism is different from evangelization. Proselytism is what Jehovah’s Witnesses do on your doorstep before you slam the door. Evangelization, announcing the Gospel, is entirely different, and the Pope tells us we have to do that every day.

Your statement is drawing a distinction between words that does not exist everywhere yet. For most people, Evangelization and Proselytism are the exact same things. Saying that they are different is a modern attempt to change the meaning of an old word by putting a slightly new nuance on the word--A nuance which that word did not originally have. It's the same tactic that progressives use to alter the original meaning of the plain text of the constitution. (I don't mean that you are progressive yourself, but the progressives do love this logical tactic which is a form of equivocation.)

By the way the Merriam Webster dicitionary defines these words to mean essentially the exact same thing, that is to attempt to convert someone to one's religion:

pros·e·lyt·ize [pros-uh-li-tahyz] Show IPA verb (used with object), verb (used without object), pros·e·lyt·ized, pros·e·lyt·iz·ing. to convert or attempt to convert as a proselyte; recruit.

e·van·ge·lize [ih-van-juh-lahyz] Show IPA verb, e·van·ge·lized, e·van·ge·liz·ing. verb (used with object) 1. to preach the gospel to. 2. to convert to Christianity.

So you can’t volunteer on your own time?

Apparently not. The article said:

According the Archdiocese for Military Services, GS and contract priests (who are paid by the federal government as independent contractors in places where there aren’t enough active-duty priests to meet the needs of Catholics in military service) are being forbidden from celebrating Mass, even on a volunteer basis.

Yes, I agree. I think that Cruz did the right thing here, but my comment that this was not technically a filibuster was only responding to another poster about whether this was a filibuster or not under the Senate rules.

U.S. Default = WWIII Hyperinflation = Civil Unrest

Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic led to civil unrest and ultimately to WWII anyway. Perhaps the same cycle could repeat itself in the future.

You see, under a default the people who lent money to the US government get wiped out.

But under hyperinflation, everyone who holds US dollars could get wiped out whether they lent to the government or not. Paying back creditors with hyper-inflated dollars is essentially the same thing as a default and will anger both foreign creditors and domestic creditors anyway:

Thus although, a Default could theoretically lead to unrest and world war III, the same is true of hyperinflation. The real question is do you want lots of angry rich people/investors and foreign creditors or do you want everyone who holds dollars to be angry including the creditors?

Yeah, it sounds like this is not a real filibuster in the technical sense. If it were a real filibuster, then Cruz would not be able to conduct any business until Cruz yielded the floor, and Cruz would not be forced to yield the floor at a specific time.

The fact that the Senate rules require him to yield the floor tomorrow would mean that this is not technically a filibuster.

If this is a real filibuster, then Senator Cruz can hold the floor indefinitely. The Senate would have to invoke cloture in order to break a filibuster and as far as I know, cloture has not been invoked yet.

The longest filibuster in US history lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes. So it is likely that Sen. Cruz will yield the floor by noon tomorrow, not because of any Senate Rules, but because it would be likely be the longest filibuster in American history if he were still speaking at that time tomorrow.

The spending bill must clearly earmark how the money is to be spend, and it must explicitly state that no federal money or part of the budget may be spent on funding Obamacare.

If the law does not explicitly specify this, then it may be possible for the Administration to divert money from other essential government operations/defense programs and spend it on Obamacare instead. If the money is taken by the Administration from "must fund" government programs, then when these programs begin to fail from lack of funding, the Administration will be able to shame/extort Congress into paying for the programs that the Administration diverted the money from. Congress would likely cave and pass a resolution to fund the "must fund" programs that got defunded to fund Obamacare. Using this tactic, the administration would likely be able to fund Obamacare and the other programs.

Oh, did I say that Congress had control of the Fed? If so, I did not mean to give that impression.

If anything, owing to the broad powers and independence granted to the Fed by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the Fed doesn't have to answer to any government agency in any serious way. The Fed Chairman doesn't even have to answer Congress' questions in the oversight committees if it doesn't want to.

The Fed can even refuse to answer to Congress in the oversight committees if it wants to! Any influence Congress has is fairly limited, short of an act of Congress to change the current law.

The Fed doesn't buy bonds from the Treasury.

Yeah, that's kind of a technical way of putting it. The Fed doesn't buy the bonds from the Treasury directly, but the Fed does buy the bonds from the treasury, albeit in an indirect way. Instead of buying the Treasuries directly, it has a bunch of its member banks buy the bonds on their behalf. Those member banks are still buying the bonds from the treasury effectively on behalf of the Federal reserve. The Fed then pays for the bonds buy issuing a line of credit for them. Regardless, all of those US Treasuries all end up on the Feds balance sheet anyway. So it is in effect, the Fed doing the buying, albeit in a roundabout way.

You bring up a subject that I’m not real sure of. Can the Fed (or any other agency) create money out of thin air? I think they always have to borrow the money they put into the system.

No, I don't believe the Fed ever has to pay the money back. My understanding is that the Fed has been given the power by Congress to print money out of thin air at their own discretion with a dual mandate to "control inflation" and "maximize employment." This is how the system works.

Let's say that the US government wants a billion dollars of cash to spend and no private investors want to buy Treasury bonds. How does the US government get the cash they want if their are no private investors who want to buy? Well, the government won't want to raise taxes because that is politically unpopular. So where does the money come from?

Well, of course! The Government goes to the Federal Reserve Bank and asks for a LOAN of a billion dollars. The Fed does not actually have a billion dollars to give the government, but that's not a problem. The Fed will create the money out of thin air, by creating a bank account and electronically saying that it has a billion dollars in it. And just like that *poof*, the government has a billion dollars to spend. Because the computer says that the government now has a billion dollars in their account.

In exchange for this newly created billion dollars of cash, the US Treasury Department will usually give the Fed a billion dollars of US Treasury bonds. Since these treasury bonds are on interest. The US government will owe the Fed a billion dollars plus the interest on the treasury bonds. This is a problem though, because the US government will owe more money to the Fed than the Fed actually printed, so it will be essentially impossible to ever pay off the National Debt in full.

In short, the Fed is basically a legalized counterfeiting operation. They can create as much money as they like for free, but they loan that money out to the US government and other banks on interest.

The Fed doesn't have to pay anyone back. It's not the Fed borrowing from the Treasury. It's the Treasury borrowing from the Fed. Thus it's the government who has to pay the Fed back. Unfortunately, this means that ultimately, the taxpayers who will get the short end of the stick because they have to pay the Fed all of the money they created plus interest. Quite a racket, isn't it?

Now the US government could cut out the middleman and issue money to itself directly interest free like it used to do, but I don't think that the big banks would be very found of that idea.

Amash should push for Hastert Rule on Syria.

And if the Speaker ignores the Hastert Rule on an issue of this magnitude, the majority of the House should put forth a vote to remove him as Speaker.

If nuns are called “sisters” why not call priests “brothers”?

"Brother" is a title given to the members of a religious order. It typically implies that the one using it is a person who has taken vows of obedience, celibacy, and poverty, but who has not been ordained to Holy Orders.

"Father" is a title exclusively reserved for those who are ordained to the priesthood.

It would basically be a legislative body. It’s members would be appointed by the states and the members would choose a president. Just like the original convention or the state conventions. The only difference would be it would not be a complete rewrite, it would just be a means other than the congress to submit amendments to the states.

I'm not so sure about that. The original Constitutional Convention was not supposed to completely rewrite the Articles of Confederation either, but it did anyway.

There is no guarantee that the same thng won't happen in another ConCon. Once a ConCon is called, it can do whatever it wants as long as the states ratify its decisions. Once a ConCon is called there is nothing in the Constitution that says Congress can limit or stop a ConCon's actions. In fact a ConCon could in theory even abolish Congress. Once convoked the only ones who can stop a runaway ConCon are the states who refuse to ratify its decisions.