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The USPS could build out the necessary infrastructure and at a lower cost than Fedex and UPS, if the GOP would just stop trying to kill them off. And let's be honest, it's Fedex and UPS lobbyists providing the incentive to pass crap legislation like this. Their entire drive is to hamstring the USPS, because they can't compete long term against a non-profit government agency like that unless they can buy legislation forces the USPS prices up and limits the services that can be provided.

Would you mean this Anthony Gilthorpe?

While the Automation kick is an interesting angle, lets not forget what actually killed Hostess -- vulture capitalists. These are Mitt Romney style assholes who swooped in, loaded the company up with debt, then pawned it off after leeching all the money out. Somehow though, it's not embezzlement when an investment company does it.

But it gets worse. The unions that took the blame? They were having their workers give upwards of a THIRD of their paychecks just to try and save the company they helped build. And that just caused the vultures to trade the company around more and more.

That leaves the unions in one corner and the hedge funds and Hostess management in the other. Management ordered the company to stop contributing to the union pension funds, ignoring their obligations under collective bargaining agreements. They have demanded a new round of concessions, which would have doubled insurance premiums, negated all pension obligations, and slashed pay by 27 to 32 percent. Again, the 14-year Hostess bakery veteran: “Remember how I said I made $48,000 in 2005 and $34,000 last year? I would make $25,000 in five years if I took their offer. It will be hard to replace the job I had, but it will be easy to replace the job they were trying to give me.”

So yeah, the automation is interesting, but lets not forget what brought us to this point. Vultures bought the company, embezzeled a shitload by loading on bad debt and pawning the company of as well as flat out stealing from the pension fund, and passing the buck to the next leech until they couldn't pass it any further. And now instead of having good quality Wonder Bread and tasty, if not exactly healthy, sweets like the Twinkie, we get mass produced automated crap.

The local Hostess bakery re-branded as a Franz, and the quality is really good. They also have a direct-from-the-baker storefront that you can go in and get bread at a huge discount. Oh, and they're union and pay their workers a good wage -- around $17 an hour starting.

As I said the last time this came up, no American should EVER support Union Busting. Hostess is dead to me, and besides You can clone a twinkie pretty easily, which lets you do stuff like a fresh baked chocolate twinkie with cherry filling.

This is the second-in-command of the United States and he believes, incorrectly, that the AR-15 is an assault weapon.

One of the more amusing memes put forth by the gun lobby and random white men on the internet is the very serious explanation that "the AR-15 is not an assault weapon".

Here is an AR-15:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/mgm-c...

and here:

http://crooksandliars.com/file...

Clearly, this is a gun that is marketed for personal defense. Because nothing says "personal defense" like a tripod, drum magazine and high-powered scope.

Voting against their own interests is the current thought about what's going on. This site though says perhaps it isn't. They just aren't voting at all and so only the wealthy/middle class in red States end up voting. http://crooksandliars.com/2015...

Except for pragmatism. Pragmatism only deals with things that work. That's still a problem, though, because you have to establish a standard of "what works". Pragmatically, the current system works wonderfully for those with money and power, but not nearly as well for the average citizen.

We can observe what happens in the world. I have observed that highly idealistic isms tend to fail, usually because of some fundamental mistakes in determining human nature, as well as ideology needing to become ever more "pure".

Communism does not allow for the inherent wish for humans to advance themselves.

Fundamentalist religion allows for no compromise, and it's need tor enemies and ever increasing purity eventually kills it.

Capitalism, which relies on the greed factor, if unchecked means that once enough capital is obtained, those who have attained it seek to destroy the free market. This should be self evident as the drive that produces the wealth will end up making the most greedy accumulating as much of the wealth as possible, and often by any means.

Socialism comes close, but only because it is the closest to pragmatism. Problem is, there are so many definitions of socialism these days, we have to evaaluate. on a case by case basis.

Libertarianism is another ism that is a little difficult at this point to evaluate, because what passes for modern libertarianism is just a quirky form of Republicanism. I'll note that the downfall of traditional Libertarianism is a miscalculation of human nature, assuming everyone is intelligent and law abiding. Perhaps they would stand a better chance if they didn't have to pander to the social conservative base of the party they choose to identify with. It's been sickening to watch Rand Paul try to pander to the religious right http://crooksandliars.com/2015..., Play George Bush the third by doing the aircraft carrier tough guy biz http://dailycaller.com/2015/03... - the only thing missing was the "Mission Accomplished banner! Then he forgot that there is no compromise, no room for anything that he is told that he has to believe, because if you do not do exactly that, this happens to you. http://teejaw.com/rand-paul-ju....

Actual Libertarianism is not compatible with the Republican party.

And if I'm tough on Paul, he deserves it. Libertarianism comes closest to pragmatism, as long as you remember that you can't run a pure ideology. So in my heretical pick and choose pragmatism, Capitalism with brakes to protect itself from itself, coupled with Libertarianism with it's willingness to respect the individual's rights and obligations (not what currently goes for Libertarianism, and progressive understanding that there are some things that should not be run for profit, and some that should. Banks and producing goods should always be run for profit - health care should not, makes for a pretty good version of pragmatism.

I also have this weird idea that a country becomes wealthy by having as many people have money as possible, not by concentrating it in the hands of a few. And this is not done by taking money from the wealthy at all, but by having as much of the populous enjoy the fruits of their labors by pecuniary renumeration as possible. People with money buy the stuff the job creators make. The present situation of making as many Americans as poor as possible, and having me the taxpayer make up for the shitty wages some industry wants to pay is a race to the bottom.

Pragmatism - its not just for breakfast any more.

Rand Paul said vaccines can lead to mental disorders: http://crooksandliars.com/2015...

Also, WaPo did a story about CA anti-vaxxers that showed they tended to share Paul's world view...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Between religious conservatives and "sovereign individual" types, anti-vax sentiment tends to come from the Right. The Left tends to oppose pharma companies on grounds that their products are overpriced and restricted with corrupt IP practices (IOW they want MORE, not less).

Actually, Ayn Rand's own admirers were calling themselves "The Collective" in her own lifetime. It may have been intended as a tongue-in-cheek thing, but the cultivation of dogma and ideology was (and is still) very real. http://crooksandliars.com/john...

How about burn them all?
http://crooksandliars.com/susi...

Is the case you described the common case, and do you think it precludes the other? There is still a perception that the rich are reasonably untouched by laws :

Look at outliers like the 'affluenza' case http://www.slate.com/blogs/the... or the case of the crook judge who owed lots of taxes and put the screws on poor people who could not pay their fines. http://crooksandliars.com/2015....

Those just cement the popular perception that justice is a luxury item.

Why is it that the uber-rich on the Left are never mentioned?

Because being an uber-rich leftist is a contradiction in terms, that's why.

Most of the richest people in the US Congress are Democrats.

You say that as if it means something. Protip: when those Democrats are to the right of Reagan on most issues, it doesn't.

Why don't we hear more about George Soros

Not a leftist.

Tides Foundation

Not lefists.

How about Bloomberg?

How about making it obvious that you're as dumb as Fox?

Or if you want to get to the real money in political contributions, look at public & private sector unions.

Or you could quit being a moran for five seconds. If unions had that much money or power, the GM bailout wouldn't have put a slow bleed on the UAW by forcing new hires to work for half as much money as experienced workers. Obama's RTT is going to put more unionized teachers out of their jobs than Bush's NCLB.

Assuming you mean potus instead of plain old telephone system, they don't seem to have regulatory approval to do so, making it congress's job.

Bad source, but concise.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014...

Better to have cameras than not; maybee...... juries can be played by selective use of cams, excluding other cam footage, and plain old laying a trap for the unwary citizen.

You asked: I read the news. Google for you:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka...
"But it goes both ways; video – or the lack of it – can also damn officers. Two on the Daytona Beach force lost their jobs after a video mysteriously blanked out in the middle of an encounter with a woman who allegedly hid a bag of cocaine in her mouth; she said the officers knocked her down, shoved a flashlight between her lips and kicked her in the head, but that part of the encounter wasn’t caught on film thanks to one officer failing to turn his camera on and a “malfunction” with the other officer’s camera midway through the arrest. A forensic analysis of the cam showed that the “malfunction” was caused by the officer shutting it down. Chief Chitwood has said the policy there is, “If you turn it off, you’re done.”"

That's Daytona. In Oakland. Mysteriously Shut Off Camera Syndrome doesn't hurt and officer much:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
"OAKLAND, Calif.—Over the last two years, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has disciplined police officers on 24 occasions for disabling or failing to activate body-worn cameras, newly released public records show. The City of Oakland did not provide any records prior to 2013, and the OPD did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/...
"Hargraves was found to have violated policy by taping over his nametag, and Wong was found to have acted improperly by failing to report the incident to internal affairs and also turning off Hargraves' lapel camera"

http://crooksandliars.com/susi...
"However, the above video, which shows several officers with their body-mounted cameras turned off – a departmental violation - is just the latest example of Oakland police officers not wanting any accountability.The video is also a clear demonstration of just how high tensions are between Oakland police and citizens."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12...
"In other cases it was the absence of video that got the officer in trouble. An officer in Daytona Beach, Fla., was forced to resign after he was caught turning off his camera at critical moments. An Albuquerque officer who shot and killed a woman in April — and whose camera was off at the time — was fired on Monday after being investigated for not complying with department orders that required officers to record all interactions with civilians.

But even when video does exist, it is often not decisive. In the case of Mr. Garner, the Staten Island man who died in July after a police officer put him in a chokehold, a video of the encounter taken with a bystander’s cellphone and viewed millions of times was enough to stir visceral outrage — but not to secure an indictment."

The records show that on November 8, 2013 one officer was terminated after failing to activate his camera. Less than two weeks later, another resigned for improperly removing the camera from his or her uniform. However, most officers received minor discipline in comparison."

Antenna removal:
http://www.latimes.com/local/l...
"os Angele

Thank you. That is helpful.

In the interest of sharing of information, and especially since so many here seem to think that the grand jury testimony is some sort of slam dunk, I'll mention some interesting points about it:

1) Grand juries almost always indict. They literally have a record of about 99.9% indictment. Many articles on the subject quote a NY judge who said that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if that's what the prosecutor wants. The strange (or maybe not so strange) flipside of that is when the defendant is a police officer. Grand juries almost never indict in those cases. Literally, about 99% end up without an indictment.

2) It is not up to grand juries to look at exculpatory evidence, or even hear testimony from the defendant. Typically they spend a few minutes looking at a small collection of evidence against the defendant, and then say "sure, sounds like he needs to be tried". In this case, however, boatloads of exculpatory evidence was introduced, and WIlson testified, contrary to normal grand jury procedures.

3) Although a ton of defense evidence was presented, the prosecutor did not cross examine Wilson. There are countless holes in his story that needed to be challenged (for example, why did he tell investigators Brown punched him ten times and then tell the grand jury it was only twice, or why did he tell investigators he didn't know what Brown handed to Johnson or make any connection to the robbery and then tell the grand jury that he pulled over because Brown and Johnson were suspects in the robbery and were carrying the stolen goods?). All of this, and more, went unchallenged.

4) There have been suggestions of other sneaky tactics that I'm not familiar enough with to comment on, but I'll provide this link as just one example.

As noted here: http://crooksandliars.com/2014... If you watch the video you'll see Valerie Harper in "Dancing with the Stars" playing in the background. That happened on or after September 16, 2013. "According to Attkisson's own timeline her computer was 'hacked' in October 2012, she came forward with this allegation in May 2013, but then waited until September 2013 to take video 'evidence.'" "We are supposed to believe that Sharyl Attkisson was hacked by the government and just said, "Oops, I'm hacked!" while she went merrily along with no additional examination, security and a nine-month lag between when she originally believed she was hacked and when she shot the video?" This is buffoonery at it's best!

Attkisson's 'Hack' In a nutshell, Attkisson claims the government hacked her computers in December, 2012 and she reported it to CBS at the time. She claims a PC and her personal Mac were hacked, and the media has accepted this claim with no skepticism. Mediaite went with the assumption that she shot it in December, 2012.

But a sharp-eyed commenter over at Media Matters observed that Attkisson's video was shot during the Valerie Harper debut on Dancing With the Stars in September, 2013. Here's what WiscoJoe observes:

Attkisson shot this video on or sometime after September 16, 2013. The episode of "Dancing with the Stars" that is playing in the background features Valerie Harper dancing a Foxtrot to "Some Kind of Wonderful" and first aired live on the evening of that date.
According to Attkisson's own timeline her computer was 'hacked' in October 2012, she came forward with this allegation in May 2013, but then waited until September 2013 to take video 'evidence.'

Has Ms. Attkisson provided an explanation of when this video was taken or why she waited for a year, and until after she went forward with public allegations, to take video documentation of her computer being 'hacked'? Is this the standard of investigative journalism that she was doing while at CBS? If that's the case it may explain why she no longer works there.

Statistically the only problem the "smart gun" solves can is already taken care of by responsible gun owners with a safe.

Yet Another Responsible Gun Owner Shoots His Own Penis
At least five American men have shot off their penises since 2010.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/06/yet-another-responsible-gun-owner-shoots

I keep hearing about these responsible gun owners who are so very careful with their dangerous weapons, so I can only conclude that this guy did it on purpose!

The problem for the "responsible gun owner" is that they have to be responsible every. single. time.
Why not use technology to help with that?

Or do you accept that a certain minimal number of children accidentally killing each other and dudes shooting themselves in the dick is the price we pay for freedom that is arbitrarily unregulated.

Thomas is corrupt, a total money shill that votes the way he is told, and pushes the rest that way. His wife makes millions as a Koch lobbyist, yet he never recuses himself from cases that involve the people that pay his wife millions.
Relevant example (there are many many more like this):
http://crooksandliars.com/karo...

Scalia is also a corporate shill. He attends the Koch right-wing money events, and consistently votes the way the Koch brothers tell him to.
http://www.politicususa.com/20...

Roberts, Alito, and kennedy are less corrupt, but do not hesitate to take tremendous pay for "speaking engagements" at the right wing events and vote consistently with Koch interests.
http://www.politicususa.com/20...

Liar liar well on fire:

http://features.blogs.fortune.... http://crooksandliars.com/susi... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... https://www.utexas.edu/news/20...

...by Lara Logan . But I suppose that would be rude.

So, you think your projections are better, or more informed?

khallow did not, actually, make any projections. You quoted the CBO's — to support your argument:

BTW, the CBO projects the deficit out 25 years, and they don't see the problem you see with obamacare.

khallow explained, rather convincingly, how unreliable the CBO's projections are (and your argument along with them).

His job was much easier, of course — he did not need to prove anything himself, merely destroy your proof. Well, he did it — the CBO not only failed to predict the 2008 crash, but, according to the figures khallow quoted, the subsequent "recovery" as well. The CBO's numbers are so far off, year after year, it is laughable.

I simply pointed out that the CBO did not agree with him, which is true, they don't. Whether you agree with them or not, their charter is to provide unbiased economic guidance to congress. If they missed the 2008 meltdown, well, so did everybody else. If they expected the recovery to be more robust, well, so did everybody else. Nobody expected the republicans to block any attempt to stimulate the economy, and in fact to push for austerity (in the form of the Ryan budget) once they took the House. That would have been too mean spirited even for them, given the unemployment numbers.

khallow's claims that the world is going to end because of the ACA are nonsense. His claims that rebates will cause funding problems for 'roads, defense, entitlements' is nonsense. His claims that medicare patients will face death panels are nonsense. Look at debt/GDP and learn to add for fuck sake. We have plenty of money, and bonds that are the most secure in the world, that people are still buying despite real negative returns wrt inflation. The pressures that ACA puts into effect are the same as in Germany, who has had a public health system since the time of Otto Von Bismark. Their economy seems to be doing OK. Also, they have much better health outcomes, and pay far less per person than we do.

BTW, here is a fun blog entry on the republican war against the CBO. Apparently, some Republicans (cough Newt, Ryan) don't like to be told that they are too stupid to claim 'wonk' status.

How is it pure bullshit that nuclear energy is proven, has the lowest polution, and best carbon footprint of anything we have, and could be cheaper? Nothing you said is a refutation of that. In fact, the only thing you have said about nuclear energy directly is that the energy company should be regulated due to risk of blowing things up. Well, fucking duh. But that's not a refutation.

It's absolutely a fucking refutation as long as there is profit in nuclear power. When all nuclear power plants are run by the U.S. Navy, then you can talk about how safe it is. Otherwise everything is an expense that can be cut, like cutting back on evacuation drills or removed earthquake sensors, in order to increase profit.

The shutdown was for nothing more than 'branding' of their party.

That's not governance in any way shape or form...

Any GOP congressman who voted for the shutdown should be arrested.

I really thought Obama would be different...

Oh really?? Obviously you weren't paying attention.

Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe

The NSA has created an irresistable treat for the least moral people in government. Oversight and controls will periodically fail for reasons slashdotters and sysadmins understand well.

Recently
        *Spied on reporters
        *Prosecutors pretend evidence was gathered with a warrant.
        *NSA lied to congress about what was collected.
Previously
        *Threatened U,S reporters with death,
        *Influence the U.S. elections Watergate.
        *Electronic surveillance Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Elvis, It is alleged MLK was blackmailed and the letter demanded he commit suicide before christmas.

Funny
(Unless your former spouse/boyfriend is violent)

            *Appalachee "Love-Intelligence"

This answers (for me) why Snowden left the country.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/09/15/nixon-white-house-plot-to-kill-journalist-jack-anderson.html
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/nsa-analyst-under-bush-we-spied-repor
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

Crazy talk undercuts credibility

Yes, it does. Pointing out that the "Tea Party" phenomenon was created and hyped by Fox, however, is not "crazy talk", it's the only conclusion anyone paying attention can reach.

Chuck Todd admits FOX News created and hypes the Tea Party Movement

How Talk Radio and FOX News created the Tea Party

The Tea Party: Populism of the privileged: "This must be the first "populist" movement driven by a television network: Sixty-three percent of the Tea Party folks say they most watch Fox News "for information about politics and current events," compared with 23 percent of the country as a whole."

Fox News spent weeks promoting apparent tea party scam: "Fox News heavily promoted the Tea Party Express; the Our Country Deserves Better PAC even used Fox's promotion in a fundraising email. Then Fox's Griff Jenkins hit the trail with the Express, following that bus around the country, throwing journalistic integrity aside as he declared its riders "the America that Washington forgot.""

Tea Party Promotion by Fox News

And there's the usual beautiful job by The Daily Show showing Fox clips puffing up the teabagger protests.

and "Palestinian rights group" is singular.

Not really significant to the overall point, but yes, it does seem that complaints from only one Palestinian rights group have been covered in the news to date.

I doubt they will be all that outraged. They singed it into law letting them do it.

from http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/jesselyn-radack-points-out-problem-fi -

STEPHANOPOULOS: But these surveillance programs, as the president has pointed out, were passed by the Congress, are overseen by a court.

RADACK: Well, both of those are incorrect. Congress has not been fully informed. Only the--

STEPHANOPOULOS: They passed the laws, there is oversight, or there is (inaudible).

RADACK: OK, but there is a secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which nobody knows, except for the Intel Committee of Congress, and even they say that they think most Americans would be appalled by that. And to say that it’s been approved by the courts is a misnomer, because it gives the impression that federal courts have approved this, when in reality, it’s the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has rubber-stamped every single--

STEPHANOPOULOS: Which is a federal court.

RADACK: No, it is a secret court set up at the Justice Department that has federal judges on it. But last year, it approved 2,000 out of 2,000 applications. They hear only the government’s side, and they have never -- they have rejected an application one time since 1978.

If I call Dick Cheney a pacifist Quaker, does that make him one? Obama's less of a socialist than Ronald Reagan.

How do we as a nation let these clowns have any sort of power.

I like Jon Stewart's send-up of another professional congressional 'ktard. (Sorry, eight minutes long, and you have to watch the whole thing to see the full depth of the idiocy. But then it's Jon Stewart, so you may want to invest the eight minutes anyway.)

here it is

Funny as hell, too.

You seriously have to be joking. If you want to read http://mediamatters.org/ then go there, if you want to read http://foxnewslies.net/, if you want to read http://www.politifact.com/ then go there, if you want to read http://crooksandliars.com/ then go there. Don't waffle on about Fox not-News and demand people provide examples of Fox not-News blatant propaganda on slashdot, just bloody google it yourself there are thousands of examples, a regular daily act of corporate propaganda.

The reality here Fox not-News dresses up opinion as news whilst the other news channels are clear about what is opinion and what is news.

Here is a couple of links, just so can can go a bit rabid, http://rt.com/ and http://www.aljazeera.com/, go for it ;D.

That sounds great if you don't pay attention to anything regarding nuclear power construction.

You're not paying attention if you think the criticism of nuclear power is based on plant construction, fanboi.

At least in Western models (I don't know much about Soviet designs), very rarely are corners cut.

You mean like turning off earthquake sensors or cutting back on emergency and evacuation drills?

We are currently building Generation III+ designs and working on Gen 4 designs, which all have significantly enhanced safety features.

And the new roof you put on your house will use greatly improved construction methods and materials compared to a roof put up in the 70's. Doesn't mean your new roof doesn't share the same basic hazards as the old one: heat, cold, and precipitation.

Your new nuclear plants can be stuffed with fanboi pedantry to the rafters, but they will still face the same problems as reactors built in the 70's: meltdown, dealing with disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, and the greatest flaw of all, the profit motive. 40 years from now, future greedy corporations will be demanding that they be allowed to run the "new, safe" designs of 2012 for another twenty years past their lifespan. They will still be cutting costs on "unnecessary" measures like earthquake monitors, backup power supplies, and preparing for disasters.

Also, what do you do in a country like Japan? Japan has no natural resources; they import all of their energy.

You mean what country can afford nuclear power, the most expensive energy source ever invented by humans?

You have billions in construction and refining costs. Billions in operation costs. Hundreds of billions in long term storage costs of nuclear waste - which will be with us for hundreds of years. Billions in insurance costs, most of which are born by the taxpayer as opposed to the for-profit corporation running the reactor. For a fraction of that cost you can put up solar panels on every public building in the country. Germany gets the same amount of solar energy as Alaska, but that hasn't stopped them from investing in solar power.

Seriously, do some research before even forming an opinion.

Seriously, get over yourself and your pedantry, fanboi. You can talk about the safety of nuclear power when every plant is run by the U.S. Navy, all profit is taken out of the equation, and plant managers and regulators are forced to live on plant grounds.

The conventional media has been very very cozy towards Democrats for quite a long time now and playing a downright shouting match over the heads of Republicans. You don't have to be blind to not see it, especially when you agree with them.

Only if you're Bizzaro.

But compare media coverage around Obama's Fast and Furious to Bush's Valerie Plame.

LOL. You do know that F&F started under Bush, not Obama, right? This is like wingers blaming Clinton for Waco and Ruby Ridge, when the former happened when Clinton had only been in office a month and the latter before he was even elected.

compare coverage over Bush's "vacation presidency" from term to 9/11 and coverage over Obama's vacation days

Obama didn't stay on vacation in advance of point-blank warnings that levees would fail. You're just insulting your own intelligence with this one.

compare Haliburton scandals versus Solyndra scandals

LOL x2. You're comparing pennies on the dollar, literally. Halliburton won billions in no-bid contracts, shared blame in the Deep Horizon disaster, and invented the fracking process that's poisoning ground water. Compare that to one investment in one company that went under at the cost of a few hundred million.

Oh, and was Joe Biden the immediate former CEO of Solandra? No? Then where's your equivalency, Slick?

So, now that we've seen your Concerns, see our raise:

Media obsession with Gore's "Inventing the Internet" and other media-invented nontroversies, vs letting Bush take credit for patient's rights legislation he fucking vetoed as governor of Texas.

The media spent years dogging Clinton over Vince Foster's suicide and Whitewater. Just what do you think their response would have been if Clinton had sat on his ass reading a children's book as the nation was under attack? They would have torn his balls off, before finding out that he ignored point-blank warnings from intelligence officials that Al Queda was determined to attacked the United States, that they would do so soon, and that they might use hijacked passenger planes as weapons.

Dan Rather was shitcanned over the Bush Guard memos, nevermind that he wasn't the producer, that the memos were never proven to be forgeries, and that even if the memos were fake, they forged the truth about Bush's Guard service. Contrast that to all the journalists that were decidedly not fired over the Brietbart smear of ACORN, which did feature forged video.

Media obsession with Rev. Wright vs media's total non-interest in Rev. Hagee. The John Hagee who's endorsement McCain sought after he ran around calling Catholicism an "apostate Church" that would be "devoured by the Anti-Christ" that was represented by the "whore of Babylon".

And of course, what if Obama had been the flip flopping train wreck of incompetence that was John McCain in 2008. Would the media have let Obama skate if he confused Shiites with Sunnis half a dozen times despite campaigning as the Experience Hand At Foreign Policy? Called Petraeus the Chair of the Joint Chiefs? Went on and on about the non-existent border between Iraq and Afghanistan?

Bitch please.

Either way, if you're like me and think both major parties are full of shit and can stuff it, all I've got is Alex Jones and Infowars.com

Of course both parties are full of shit, as the media. But so is Alex Jones, and so are you. The media isn't pro-Democrat. They're pro-establishment , pro-jingoism, pro-corporate, and pro-neoliberal hacks, which is why they worship Obama and Beohner. Contempt is reserved for the hippies and the gadflys, like Kucinich and Ron Paul.

Late night comics, I mean. The rest of us, not so much.

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2012/11/Election_night.jpg

Well, most of the campaign staff is now unemployed, so I'm not sure they care that much. Romney's lucky that's the only thing that went up after the loss...

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2012/11/biotch.jpg

the link the Jon Stewart interview. Two very smart men, one of them is funnier than the other, you can decide :-)

Colbert had a great intro for his interview.

I wonder how Ghaddafi feels about Obama's use of projected power.

I do love partisans though. If Obama doesn't thump some Arab leader with a big stick, he's an apologist pussy. If he does thump some Arab leader with a big stick, why he's a warmongering Congress defier. One gets the sense that it is irrelevant what a sitting President does. If he's wearing your team's colors, he's 100% great, if he's wearing the other team's colors, he's 100% bad.

Jon Stewart's take: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/jon-stewart-skewers-hannity-and-senor-thei

Have you heard of projection? Because you're doing it right now, probably without realizing it.

Dukakis in the tank.
Clinton's draft dodging.
Dean not knowing the exact number of active duty troops.
Kerry's swift boating.

All memes enthusiastically embraced by the media to trash Democratic candidates. You couldn't tell us with a straight face that the media wouldn't be all over Obama if he said the troops weren't important, or that it has a long history of looking the other way when a Republican has gaffes every other day.

The debt has increased approximately $5.4 trillion since President Obama took office on January 20, 2009.

And none of it was because of the wars, tax cuts, etc., starting before that date.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/07/238653/animation-tax-cuts-deficit-debt/ (watch animation)

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cbppdebtchart.jpg (static display of same plot)

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2011/06/cbpp_deficit_factors_2011.jpg

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/govt-spending-per-capita.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/jamesfallows/assets_c/2011/07/24editorial_graph2-popup-thumb-560x622-58477.gif

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2012/02/wsj_deficit_obama_2013.png

So, before you talk about how shockingly the debt has risen in the past four years, tell us about the prior four years, and the policies from 2001-2008 that are still costing us out the wazoo.

The debt has increased approximately $5.4 trillion since President Obama took office on January 20, 2009.

And none of it was because of the wars, tax cuts, etc., starting before that date.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/07/238653/animation-tax-cuts-deficit-debt/ (watch animation)

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cbppdebtchart.jpg (static display of same plot)

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2011/06/cbpp_deficit_factors_2011.jpg

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/govt-spending-per-capita.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/jamesfallows/assets_c/2011/07/24editorial_graph2-popup-thumb-560x622-58477.gif

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2012/02/wsj_deficit_obama_2013.png

So, before you talk about how shockingly the debt has risen in the past four years, tell us about the prior four years, and the policies from 2001-2008 that are still costing us out the wazoo.

The guy above has a chart of spending, you have a chart of deficits. The last Democratic congress had a large deficit because tax revenue fell off in the recession, and they refused to cut programs or raise taxes to bring the budget back into line, a policy the Republican congress has basically affirmed. They propose austerity budgets but they do so secure in the knowledge they won't get passed as long as the President and the Senate are controlled by Democrats, they're designed to be rejected and to "clarify" the choice for voters.

Most of the increased spending in the last four years has been non-discretional, which means a congress, regardless of who controls is, can't stop it without cutting an existing program, and it automatically gets bigger during recessions, by design. Food stamps and unemployment benefits aren't rationed, they are paid to people who qualify, regardless of how many people qualify in a year.

In the end, you have to attribute debt to the actual laws passed by whatever congress passed them. And by far, the single largest contributor to the national debt over the past 20 years would be a certain set of tax cuts that were passed in 2001 by a Republican senate, under reconciliation rules (thus no supermajority for cloture required), without matching spending cuts.

What you're saying would make sense if bodily temperature regulation wasn't a hard wired feature of animals. People who are saying it's not hotter are 1) factually wrong and 2) overcoming their own body's internal signaling system that tells them "hey, it's freaking hot".

I think in other areas of scientific investigation this phenomena goes by the name "motivated cognition" and in political spheres it's known as "fanaticism".

One thing that could have been broken out is "how much time do you spend outdoors?". If you're going from your air conditioned garage to your air conditioned car to your air conditioned work place , then did you ever really know how hot it was in the first place and are you experiencing it now except for brief moments?

But that's giving them entirely too much credit. Everyone opens the door to put the dog out or get the mail and when you do it's like sticking your head in an oven It's hard to blink away that fact and moreover, you know you've never felt anything like it before.

If you read history, you'll seed that the impulse towards oppositional defiance to authority knows no limit, and will take a population straight into death itself without any of them really blinking, and even irrespective of what kind of death that is too.

Christians were well known to be only too glad to burn at the stake by the Romans and when the Romans tried to up the ante by making their children watch their parents being burned, the children cheered them on.

We are not going to convince deniers and neither is the weather or any weather related event or any assemblage of scientists or any predictions coming true or anything else. It's what Anthony Watts said when asked what evidence could possibly make him change his mind about global warming. His answer? Those who called him a denier would have to apologize first......

It's not about evidence, it's ego and a refusal to admit you're wrong which is only made stronger by the gravity of what it was you were wrong about. It's about political identification and the assumption of an oppositional- defiant mentality with respect to the legitimate, earned authority of scientists:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002504/,

It's about a paranoid personality type that dates back to the 50s and the John Birchers and their fears that fluoride in the drinking water was a government plot to emasculate men :

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-exposes-john-birch-society-c

It's about narcissistic personality disorder , which permits deniers to believe that their home-spun theories of climate and the rebuttals to scientific theories they can't even grasp should be given equal footing to the theories of legitimate scientists, because one of the traits of NPD is the belief that you're entitled to speak as an authority without first having earned that right by doing the required work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

This is just another name for terrorism. What are terrorists but a set of fanatics with an anti-scientific view of the world determined to inflict their erroneous view of reality on the rest of us irrespective of the consequences to the larger society or how many innocent people have to die. That's what the Nazis were, that's what al Queda is and that's what deniers are. We need to face the fact that none of those sets of people could or can be negotiated or reasoned with. Once you willfully place yourself outside the bounds of evidentiary based reasoning, the only thing left saving you from open warfare from the reality-based community is - "how much damage do you intend to do?". In the case of the above three, the answer is the same- total and permanent damage to everyone and everything.

We h

Oh, no, the Mormons were caught sending letters out to their congregations telling them how to vote, getting directly involved in politics illegally, and pretty much extorting funds from companies.

http://crooksandliars.com/julia-rosen/mormons-and-prop-8-lies-and-blackmail

The Mormons had more to do with this than the minority vote.

Single payer is what nearly every other advanced nation has and the reason why their health care costs are less expensive, cover more people and have better outcomes. Sorry, it's just true.

You have only to study the following graphs for a moment to get at the truth: our healthcare system is a kind of social welfare programme for multinationals who leverage the hell out of our refusal to regulate their cost structures.

You're the CEO or sit on the board of say, United . Do you want your customers collectively spending 10% of their nation's GDP (like everyone else) or do you want them spending 16% of GDP? Because your companies income and thus your salary is directly tied to how big that number is.

In the charts on the linked page, the US is conveniently colored orange, or just look for the outlier that is 16-50% away again in which ever direction represents WORSE from the rest of the countries, who all pretty much cluster together together for virtually any given statistic .

The for profit health care system we have is a kind of structural violence where the perpetrators are not easily personally identified and whose everyday-ness ( I regret to inform you that your (life saving) bone marrow transplant has been turned down ... ) makes it seem as though literally lethal violence, is not being committed by those in the corporate hierarchy against people who are unable to compete with the campaign contributions those corporate giants can muster. .

This is not a hypothetical. Here's exactly how that violence works:

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/bill-moyers-journal-cigna-chief-admit

There is no God given right for America to have a job done without us fucking America up the ass so far that whoever pulls it out will be crowned the fucking King of England. .

Carly Fiorina HP CEO, June 14, 2010

There is no job we gave to Americans after we talked Congress into letting us re-patriate the taxes we dodged by relocating our jobs overseas, and with which we promptly paid ourselves huge bonuses and made a huge stock buy-back.

Carly Fiorina HP CEO, June 14, 2010

There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore, except mine.

Carly Fiorina HP CEO, June 14, 2010

There is no job for the 20,000 Americans we laid off so we could pay ourselves tens of millions in bonuses for that quarter...

Carly Fiorina HP CEO, June 14, 2010

There is no job for Americans at HP anymore because HP is going down like a crack whore in a housing project

Carly Fiorina HP CEO, June 14, 2010

There is no job that is America's God given right anymore.

Carly Fiorina HP CEO, June 14, 2010

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/carly-fiorina-election-about-economy-and-d

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster

Bolded a word you might have skipped over. Because a woman getting breast cancer that wouldn't have, or a man dying of prostate cancer 20 years earlier than he would have without the radation aren't indirect deaths from radiation.

And even if you are able to make the perfect reactor design, there are still the fatal flaws of human greed, corruption and hubris.

I have to agree this particular thing would be a waste. But there's wasting money and then there's wasting money. The military budget is about 5% of government spending. This pales in comparison to the debt that Obama has racked up in such a short time.

You may want to look at this and this and this.

Or you could just get all your "facts" from FOX.

Republicans love to proclaim that they're deficit hawks, unlike the tax-and-spend Democrats. But if you look at what they *do* instead of what they say, it becomes obvious that they're tax-(less)-and-spend-(more) hawks.

They only object to spending money when it won't help someone who doesn't need it.

I have to agree this particular thing would be a waste. But there's wasting money and then there's wasting money. The military budget is about 5% of government spending. This pales in comparison to the debt that Obama has racked up in such a short time.

You may want to look at this and this and this.

Or you could just get all your "facts" from FOX.

Republicans love to proclaim that they're deficit hawks, unlike the tax-and-spend Democrats. But if you look at what they *do* instead of what they say, it becomes obvious that they're tax-(less)-and-spend-(more) hawks.

They only object to spending money when it won't help someone who doesn't need it.

I'm interested in hearing your proposal for this.

Just rolling back the Bush-era tax cuts would put a huge dent in our deficit.

We could also tax capital gains at the same rate we tax people who actually have to work for their money.

And tax profitable corporations rather than subsidizing them.

Unfortunately, this country has become a cream-skimming operation for the rich. When their wholly-owned legislators have bankrupted us, they'll throw us away and move on to the next country, just like they do when the acquire a business, squeeze it dry, and discard the husk.

Who the fuck cares?

It's your comparison, it's not my fault that it sucks. There is no hypocrisy, no double standard in supporting stem cell research on single cells destined for a garbage and opposing animal research on beings that can feel pain.

I don't know. They do this with the FDA, the EPA, and others, so I assume they do that at the NRC too.

It's called regulatory capture. You can be the most rabid Randian fanboy and have to admit the fact that government officials have a direct incentive not to do their jobs if they companies they are in charge of regulating can reward them with fat paychecks when they leave office. Like Robert Rubin, who paved the way for the repeal of Glass-Steagall as Clinton's Treasury Secretary, who then went on to make a cool couple hundred million as they head of CitiGroup. Like the VP in charge of freaking lobbying for health insurerer Wellpoint getting to write Obamacare, I mean Romneycare, I mean the Heritage Foundation plan from 1992.

But that could never happen with nuclear power, did it? Except it does all the time in both the U.S. and in Japan - it just blew up in Japan's face first. Say you nuclear fanboy pedants go ahead and build hundreds of nuclear power plants to meet increasing energy demands and as the replacement for coal - the odds of one of them facing a once-in-a-thousand-years disaster like Fukishima will go up. Dramatically. Is each and every one of those plants going to be able to handle it, after the design process goes through the penny pinchers and the captured regulators?

But not Obama's chairman - that guy is just an incompetent partisan douchebag that was the first cabinet level administrator brought before congress because of votes of no confidence by every directly reporting member of his staff. He's also clearly wholly unqualified for the position, and makes idiotic decisions based on emotional criteria. Much like yourself. Greg Jaczko, is that you?

You're seriously trying to say that an example of regulatory capture (forcing out an official unfriendly to industry) is an example that regulatory capture doesn't exist? Get your own emotions under control, and wipe the spittle off your monitor while you're at it.

No, you fucktard, not as far as safety is concerned. No iota of evidence for such an accusation.

Other than constantly with TEPCO and the Fukishima plant? When plants in the U.S. share the same design and are of the same age? How about plants in the U.S. that disconnected earthquake sensors in budget cuts?

The facts go against your storyline. Again.

That's a great question! Oh, wait, no it's not. I reject the premise your question is based on.

Too damned bad:

Reagan withdrew from Granada and Lebannon, he didn't double down on an endless occupation.

Reagan not only negotiated with terrorists, he sold them weapons.

Reagan wanted terrorists treated as common criminals to delegitimize their cause - Obama assassinates American citizens without bothering to even bring charges, and bombs rescuers and funerals with predator drones.

Reagan granted amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants, Obama has deported more of them than Bush.

Reagan proudly signed a treaty that requires the prosecution of torturers - Obama is violating that treaty with his "look forward, not backward" bullshit on Bushco's torture.

Reagan raised taxes 11 times during his administration - not only did Obama fight to keep the budget-busting Bush Tax cuts, he's proposing new corporate tax breaks right now.

Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union to deescalate the cold war with arms r