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Funny you should mention this. The scumbags are hosting Islamic Army sites. From a government source:

In fact, two of ISIS’ top three online chat forums— including the notorious Alplatformmedia.com—are currently guarded by CloudFlare. Without such protection from CloudFlare, these sites would almost certainly succumb to the same relentless online attacks that have completely collapsed several major jihadi web forums over the past two years.

> So the Secretary of State was recieving TS-SAP information, marked as that mind you

I can understand how you would read what you quoted and think it says that. Go back and read it carefully. Comey is parsing his words very deliberately. He never says that the markings were on classified documents. He's only talking about the three emails of her call sheets. I've already provided you a link confirming that.

Until you are willing to accept the facts this discussion can't go any further. You have one reality, but it isn't the reality.

There's a huge leap from a spill (allowing classified data to make its way to an un-class storage), and removing TS+ data from secured facilities, and providing access to people who hold no level of clearance at all.

You aren't saying it outright, but I take it you think that is what Clinton did. She did not. If she had, she would have been prosecuted for it because that's clearcut.

What actually happened was basically two things:
(1) Other people who do not have a clearance (specifically Sidney Blumenthal who operates a private intelligence service) sent her unmarked TS-SAP documents that someone else gave him. She did not solicit them and its not even clear she read them. Apparently he sends her a lot of shit.

(2) She participated in email discussions of ongoing events, some of what was said was classified post-hoc. Other things that were said were classified at the time, but the origin of the information was not necessarily classified. Information comes through multiple channels and it can be classified if it comes through one channel because everything through that channel is automatically classified, but if it also comes from another source it isn't necessarily classified. It is reasonable to say she should have been more pro-active in shutting down those conversations when they got in that territory, but it was not a deliberate act on her (or anyone else's) part. That's the FBI's own conclusion and why she was not prosecuted.

(3) And lets not forget, the only items with actual markings were not actually classified. And when they were classified it was just at the confidential level because it was the list of phone calls she was going to make that day.

Its funny that the trumpkins have been claiming Comey is in the bag for Clinton. I've thought it was the exact opposite, his announcement of not-prosecuting clinton was deliberately vague and misleading - giving tons of room for people to think she actively lied about sending classified material that was marked when in fact the material with markings was not classified and simply had not been completely stripped of markings when it was declassified.

His senate testimony filled in the details to the point of almost contradicting his press-release announcement. But the lie-of-omission had already made headlines when the actual truth was revealed, so no one cared.

The most charitable explanation for Comey's behavior is that he's trying to be transparent and he's just too inside the DoJ bubble to realize how his statements look from the outside. A more cynical explanation is that he's got some sort of grudge against Clinton and is deliberately trying to make life difficult for her. Its getting harder and harder to believe the former.

such yuuuge failures, the lot of them, amirite? /s

Not sure about these other regions, but the housing situation in NYC — and that's the topic — surely is a failure. The rent-control was introduced to the city in 1943 as a temporary measure to protect families of servicemen from "greedy landlords" jacking up the prices, while the men were at war. Housing remains very expensive. Landlords wary of difficulties evicting bad tenants are very particular about who they rent to — insisting on credit-reports, income tax return-copies, and background checks.

Meanwhile, well-connected politicians — especially the "fighters for affordable housing" get such subsidized apartments for themselves — and not just one, but up to four sometimes.

Unfair, inefficient, corruption-prone — what's not to like about Statism?

There were three kinds of "classified" documents in Clinton's email:

(1) Previously classified, now unclassified, but not all of the markings were fully removed as part of the declassification. They still had a (C) (for confidential) on the line item that had formerly been classified. There were only two of these and you can see them in the emails that the state department officially released, here they are hosted on wikileaks, but they were not released by wikileaks:
CALL TO PRESIDENT BANDA
KOFI ANNAN CALL SHEET
To be clear - these were the only documents with markings but they were not actually classified. The FBI director himself testified to that fact in front of the Senate - although at the time he said there were 3 documents, but that has since been corrected to two.

(2) Discussions of ongoing events that have been retroactively classified by the CIA, FBI and other agencies. Classification, which in some cases, the Dept of State disputes is appropriate. Different agencies have different agendas with respect to classification - State tends to be less restrictive because they have to collaborate with non-US and uncleared partners, so over-classification inhibits their mission in ways that it does not for other agencies that are more insular.

(3) Documents that were highly classified (secret and top-secret) that had their markings removed. The origin of these documents was outside the state department and they were not solicited by Clinton or anyone else at State. As Secretary, if she wanted them she could have requested them internally. They were sent to her by Sidney Blumenthal who is a friend of Clinton but is not a government employee, he operates a "private intelligence service" with a focus on the middle east. Somebody removed the markings and gave those documents to Blumenthal. Most likely that person was an employee of the CIA. An investigation of that imbroglio is certain, but is unlikely to ever be made public because CIA.

> It's amazing how the echo chamber distorted this,

I'm not amazed any more. Every single time I drill down into a Clinton "scandal" it turns out to be bullshit. The republicans have literally spent hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars trying to find something, anything, on the Clintons for decades. There were nine, NINE benghazi investigations alone. But the actual facts never support the hyperbole.

Hell, even the email "scandal" is bullshit. If you watch Comey's senate testimony (excerpted and elaborated here) he says there were three emails (since corrected to two) with partial markings (literally just a (c) next to a single paragraph) and there was ALSO material that was classified. But what he doesn't mention is that the "(c)" emails were already declassified when they were sent to her and for proof you can find those emails in the ones that were officially released by the state department - if they were actually classified they would not have been released because simply being exposed at some point does not automatically declassify a document.

People are going around saying that Comey gave Clinton a pass despite the evidence when in fact he misrepresented the evidence by conflating unrelated facts. He wasn't her friend, he was actually trying to fuck her up in the court of public opinion.

And that's pretty much the way every single clinton "scandal" has gone down. The Clintons are the personification of Cardinal Richelieu's line, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." And all the people hereabouts who love that quote for what it reveals about the way world works can't even see it when its right in front of them...

Like I said,

https://oig.ssa.gov/whistleblo...

https://www.oig.dhs.gov/index....

https://oversight.house.gov/su... (the "Blow the Whistle" link)

She destroyed evidence when she had received a subpoena for it.

https://benghazi.house.gov/sit...

https://benghazi.house.gov/sit...

So, in your mind, deleting emails under a congressional subpoena is normal practice and it is out of the norm to fault Hillary for doing it?

I work in the field you describe, and I gotta tell you, I wouldn't dare run that utility on a mail server after a subpoena was submitted for the data.

National defense is a responsibility outlined in the constitution so it is a justifiable expense in line with our founding principles. Of all the things the Federal Government spends money on, this is the least of my concerns (and generally a very small part of the pie).

Military spending, at 16% of the total in 2014 (most recent I could easily find), is the second-largest piece of the pie, after Social Security, and is larger than basically all other Federal departments combined.

form an enity that was OFFICIALLY known as the “Media Management Midnight Unit” at a West Virginia facility to degauss over 400 backup tapes to destroy all the e-mail records of Lois Lerner and her colleagues related to the suppression of the TEA Party, even as the congress was lawfully demanding those records.

For those wondering who is in the 4th Amendment caucus you can find the list at the bottom here.

Not surprising my congressman John Kline is absent from this list but then he hasn't met a war or surveillance action he didn't like.

The bill failed to pass. It required a 2/3 vote and didn't get close: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201...

Under 18 U.S.C. ss. 1001, lying to Congress is offense punishable by up to five years in prison (or eight if the lie is terrorism-related). The correct "response" to John Brennon's blatant, politically motivated, criminal lie is to indict him, convict him, and send him to Federal prison where totalitarian freedom-hating enemies of the American public like him belong.

The specific prediction of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is that the Lower Tropical Troposphere (LTT) will warm faster than the Earth's surface. We do not see this. In fact, the OPPOSITE is seen. Using the Scientific Method this means that the AGW hypothesis is not only not sustainable using the observed data (that is, reality) but it is falsified.

Bill Nye is refusing to use the Scientific Method. That means he is actually the ANTI-Science Guy. He is trying to bamboozle people with rhetoric and partial information, instead of telling the whole story and using the Scientific Method, which inexorably leads to the conclusion that the IPCC computer simulations do not model the effects of water vapor/clouds correctly (their Transient Climate Sensitivity estimates are a whopping factor of 4 out - worse even than the results I'm used to as a former astrophysicist). This means the warming we see is natural (which should be obvious, since it started 160 years ago when we were still using horses and mostly agrarian).

Ignore the rhetoric. Look at the observational data and compare with the predictions made by the AGW hypothesis. AGW is falsified. If this was normal science then people would have accepted they got the theory wrong, but since science has been hijacked by political "Lysenkosim" then we see persistent propaganda that denies the observed reality (kinda like that old man that wants to pretend to be a 6 year old girl).

THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES ! Stop pretending he does. AGW is not supported by the data.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp...
http://docs.house.gov/meetings...
From https://climateaudit.org/2016/...

Do you want to be one of the people who pretends the naked Emperor has no clothes? is that the smart move? NO ! instead, stop listening to rhetoric from politicized Cultural Marxist Politically Correct flunkies like Bill Nye and look at the OBSERVATIONAL DATA - all of it!

If you disagree then that's cool, please give me your data and we can discuss it. In Science observational data is king. Too back Bill Nye is refusing to acknowledge this (or perhaps he is simply incompetent and doesn't know all the data).

As used in this chapter-

(1) "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from-

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(C) the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

Does waterboarding satisfy this definition? I'm not a lawyer but in my opinion and based on what I've heard about its effects, yes it does because it makes the person feel like they're drowning.

Does this mean that our military personnel are being tortured when they volunteer to be waterboarded to try to prepare for its effects? The key, I think, is "within his custody or physical control." If a soldier who volunteered to be waterboarded as part of training makes a distress signal I assume / hope that the procedure will be stopped immediately and they're not forced to continue. In that case, because they volunteered and can stop the process, I'd say that's not torture.

Jackie Spear says requiring ids in other contexts are racist. https://capac-chu.house.gov/pr.... Why not here?

According to Reuters, "The U.S. budget deficit narrowed to $439 billion in fiscal 2015, the lowest level since 2008." (I don't know where you're getting the 'over $1T' number from.) So your hypothetical 100% top marginal rate would just about cover it.

But let's be more realistic, and say we boost that top bracket to 50%... That would only add another 15% of that $622.8B or $93.4B, which does not eliminate the deficit, but it makes a big dent in it. What else could we do...?

    * Equalize tax rates for investment income and income from work.
    * Eliminate the ability of U.S. corporations to defer taxes on offshore profits.
    * End corporate inversions that allow U.S. companies to merge offshore to avoid taxes.
    * Enact a Financial Transaction Tax on various financial market transactions.
    * End unlimited executive pay tax write-offs.

I'm too lazy to look up specifics, but I believe that's close to another $100B in annual revenue, so we're already near halfway toward eliminating the deficit. Throw in a few other things like lifting the cap on FICA withholding and eliminating subsidies to Big Oil, Big Ag, and Big Pharma, and then add some judicious cuts to, say, the military and the DEA, and you're pretty much done.

It's not that hard to do.

if we raised the top marginal rate to 100%. How much revenue would that generate? Why, all of $622.8B

BTW, for anyone who's not clear on how marginal tax rates work, this hypothetical 100% top bracket would only apply to the portion of income above the $357,700 ($388,350 in my link) cutoff. The income up to that amount would be taxed at the normal rates.

For individuals:
        10% on taxable income from $0 to $8,700
        15% on taxable income over $8,700 to $35,350
        25% on taxable income over $35,350 to $85,650
        28% on taxable income over $85,650 to $178,650
        33% on taxable income over $178,650 to $388,350
        35% on taxable income over $388,350.

So, a person who makes $388,349 pays taxes equal to 0.1 * 8,700 + 0.15 * (35,350 - 8,700) + 0.25 * (85,650 - 35,350) + 0.28 * (178,650 - 85,650) + 0.33 * (388,350 - 178,650) = $112,683.50. That leaves a net income of $275,665.50, having paid an effective rate of about 29% overall. Thus, $275k would effectively be the maximum income (for an individual).

I could live pretty comfortably on that.

The honorable Representative in question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://jolly.house.gov/

A real trailblazer in his concern for Veterans, The Economy, Healthcare, and Beaches.

Congresswoman Mia Love is trying to do something similar. Her bill basically says that bills can only be on one subject and "poison pills" can't be entered (i.e. no gun banning attached to a budget to hold it hostage). It has no chance of actually becoming law, of course, but it's still nice to see.

The bill the Senate voted on is HR 644, which simply references existing law and indicates that the moratorium on internet taxes is to be made permanent. Here's the text of the existing law. From reading it, it seems clear that it refers both to wired and wireless internet connections, so I'm interested in where you see otherwise. This is what I see, as it defines internet access:

(4) Internet.-The term 'Internet' means collectively the myriad of computer and telecommunications facilities, including equipment and operating software, which comprise the interconnected world-wide network of networks that employ the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or any predecessor or successor protocols to such protocol, to communicate information of all kinds by wire or radio.

I think the real issue is whether it's still really a telecommunications service, which I think is questionable. The major carriers generally only provide plans now that include data and it's treated as a single package. It seems like providers such as Verizon basically give away unlimited talk and text and charge for data use. I'm not sure that really qualifies for an exemption from the law, which reads:

(D) Internet access service.-The term 'Internet access service' means a service that enables users to access content, information, electronic mail, or other services offered over the Internet and may also include access to proprietary content, information, and other services as part of a package of services offered to consumers. The term 'Internet access service' does not include telecommunications services, except to the extent such services are purchased, used, or sold by a provider of Internet access to provide Internet access.

The Data Breach You Haven’t Heard About

Finally, this incident shows that backdoors to bypass encryption—even those requested by law enforcement or mandated by lawmakers—are extremely dangerous. There is no way to create a backdoor that is not vulnerable to this kind of breach. Encryption is essential to our national security and economy; we should be focused on strengthening it not weakening it.

Rep. Hurd, a Republican from Texas, sits on the House Homeland Security Committee and is chairman of the IT Subcommittee on Oversight and Government Reform.

They haven't stopped a single one, because according to their own "intelligence", there hasn't been a single real threat against domestic flights. But that's SSI (aka "fake classified"; 49 USC 114(r)). It was leaked when TSA fucked up by publicly filing Corbett's sealed brief.

Compare:
Redacted
Unredacred

See also:
House oversight hearing
Joint staff report

They haven't stopped a single one, because according to their own "intelligence", there hasn't been a single real threat against domestic flights. But that's SSI (aka "fake classified"; 49 USC 114(r)). It was leaked when TSA fucked up by publicly filing Corbett's sealed brief.

Compare:
Redacted
Unredacred

See also:
House oversight hearing
Joint staff report

When something bad happens, we normally look for the guilty party or at least a scapegoat. Now we get "was hidden". Who hid it?

The House Rules Committee.

What individual inserted CISA into the budget bill?

This looks like an action that was undertaken by the committee, so you're unlikely to find a single person named for that particular section.

Why don't all the major news outlets say "Rep. Smith inserted CISA into the budget bill"?

Because it doesn't always work that way. See, this bill used to be H.R. 2029, which was a military appropriations bill. It went through the House a few months ago, then the Senate made a bunch of modifications last month where it passed unanimously. You can read all the sundry details of its history at the link.

What appears to have happened is that the House Appropriations Committee decided they needed a "vehicle" to pass the omnibus spending packages for next year, so they got the Rules Committee to propose a 2000-page amendment. (Actually, there are two amendments; the second is much shorter.)

So, technically, this is a giant amendment proposed by a committee to a bill that had already passed the House and then was amended by the Senate and passed by them.

Anyhow, what generally happens with these huge slates of amendments is that the Chair of the Committee (in this case, the Rules Committee) will just introduce the whole group of amendments, which will then be voted on by the House. Sometimes you can find the details of who exactly proposed which amendments by digging through Committee reports, but in this case with a giant single amendment (with only Section (N) dealing with CISA), it's doubtful that there's going to be anything in the official record to track to a specific individual, other than perhaps the Committee Chair who may officially present it on behalf of the Committee.

If you think this is overly complex and sounds crazy, you'd be right. Welcome to the bureaucratic nightmare that is Congressional legislative practice.

When something bad happens, we normally look for the guilty party or at least a scapegoat. Now we get "was hidden". Who hid it?

The House Rules Committee.

What individual inserted CISA into the budget bill?

This looks like an action that was undertaken by the committee, so you're unlikely to find a single person named for that particular section.

Why don't all the major news outlets say "Rep. Smith inserted CISA into the budget bill"?

Because it doesn't always work that way. See, this bill used to be H.R. 2029, which was a military appropriations bill. It went through the House a few months ago, then the Senate made a bunch of modifications last month where it passed unanimously. You can read all the sundry details of its history at the link.

What appears to have happened is that the House Appropriations Committee decided they needed a "vehicle" to pass the omnibus spending packages for next year, so they got the Rules Committee to propose a 2000-page amendment. (Actually, there are two amendments; the second is much shorter.)

So, technically, this is a giant amendment proposed by a committee to a bill that had already passed the House and then was amended by the Senate and passed by them.

Anyhow, what generally happens with these huge slates of amendments is that the Chair of the Committee (in this case, the Rules Committee) will just introduce the whole group of amendments, which will then be voted on by the House. Sometimes you can find the details of who exactly proposed which amendments by digging through Committee reports, but in this case with a giant single amendment (with only Section (N) dealing with CISA), it's doubtful that there's going to be anything in the official record to track to a specific individual, other than perhaps the Committee Chair who may officially present it on behalf of the Committee.

If you think this is overly complex and sounds crazy, you'd be right. Welcome to the bureaucratic nightmare that is Congressional legislative practice.

The draft of this bill states, "PROHIBITION.—It shall be unlawful for any person to access, without authorization, an electronic control unit or critical system of a motor vehicle, or other system containing driving data for such motor vehicle, either wirelessly or through a wired connection."

Reference http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20151021/104070/BILLS-114pih-DiscussionDraftonVehicleandRoadwaySafety.pdf

IANAL and this is not legal advice. My reading of this makes me believe that if I own a vehicle and am not legally precluded from accessing data due to another law such as DMCA then this law would not preclude me from accessing the data. As the owner I would be the one whom authorizes accessing the data. If I buy a computer from Dell running Windows I don't have to get authorization from Dell or Microsoft to access data on or created by that computer.

Why does this myth persist? These laws are 50+ years old, they apply to all executive branches. Here is the law, and all changes that have happened to it recently:

http://uscode.house.gov/view.x...

If you read the law, it is quite clear that she was required to furnish her records, not hold onto them for three years to avoid a congressional investigation.

It is tough to collect evidence when you have someone refusing to turn over the email they illegally stored on a home server. The Benghazi committee has requested this info over and over and never received it. She should have had more guards in the facility, it was a warzone, why were there so few, and why were the solders held back? It hasn't entirely been answered yet. You don't reduce the number of guards at a facility when the ambassador visits. Unfortunately, since all the records were locked up for 3 years, it is hard to perform an investigation of what she did and didn't do in the situation.

Oh, and she broke the law, here is the law she broke:

http://uscode.house.gov/view.x...

Now the problem is actually prosecuting her for that. She also emailed classified information, it was unmarked, but as an Original Classification Authority, she was one of the people at State that was the source of classification declarations, and so should have known if information should have been classified even when unmarked.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...

http://uscode.house.gov/view.x...

I don't know how much it changed, but the records management laws have been around for over 50 years.

how ignorant, your Democrat president starts the process with budget submision, and democratic senate and democratic president signed off on budget

here, hope this helps

http://budget.house.gov/budget...

Too bad evidence shows that typical cover-ups from this administration continue and the persons performing illegal activities are government officials.

IRS permanently destroyed up to 24,000 Lerner emails after subpoena

HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM U.S. HOUSE OF RESPRESENTATIVES IRS E-mails: Part II

“By eliminating their exemption from ObamaCare, they will see firsthand what the American people are forced to live with,” he added.

Disclamer: I will not research how well they keep their promises, or acts they voted for and against or sponsored. I do not endorse or oppose any of these candidates.

I looked at their website, mayday.us It referred me to a different site, repswith.us describing five proposals they support. The plan of Democrat Mr. Sarbanes was first. His site seems to directly address various issues, with little double-speak. The Government By the People Act is its own section of his site, listed under "issues", but in its own section. The plan hinges on a tax credit for political donations to encourage small donors. Also this:

"Allow candidates to earn additional public matching funds within 60 days of the election so that citizen-funded candidates can combat Super PAC"

which doesn't explain how superpac donations won't apply to the matching funds. To be fair I didn't look into it.

Next is Democrat David Price. His site isn't as straight-forward, but does present mostly solid stances on the issues. I couldn't find the Empowering Citizens Act(pdf warning) without using the search function, which tells me he's not staking his reputation on it. This one is more complicated but the main theme seems to be limiting per-donor donations. Obviously loopholes that allow present donors to give more than they need to declare (such as giving bonuses to employees who promise to donate most of the bonus) remain. It also limits total public funds available to candidates, which my intuition tells me will have the opposite effect. This plan looks pretty slimy to me. Your opinion may vary.

Republican Jim Rubens plan, Political Money Reform Proposal" isn't on his site at all, so the link is back to repswith.us. It involves a larger tax rebate for donations and "Require searchable, realtime online reporting of contributions above $200" and removes all political spending and contribution limits.

Republican Richard Painter literally wrote the bookon ethics reform. His site is his university's site, so wouldn't naturally have details on supported initiatives. According to repswith.us the Taxation Only With Representation Act involves a $200 tax rebait for private donations and nothing else.

Disclamer: I will not research how well they keep their promises, or acts they voted for and against or sponsored. I do not endorse or oppose any of these candidates.

I looked at their website, mayday.us It referred me to a different site, repswith.us describing five proposals they support. The plan of Democrat Mr. Sarbanes was first. His site seems to directly address various issues, with little double-speak. The Government By the People Act is its own section of his site, listed under "issues", but in its own section. The plan hinges on a tax credit for political donations to encourage small donors. Also this:

"Allow candidates to earn additional public matching funds within 60 days of the election so that citizen-funded candidates can combat Super PAC"

which doesn't explain how superpac donations won't apply to the matching funds. To be fair I didn't look into it.

Next is Democrat David Price. His site isn't as straight-forward, but does present mostly solid stances on the issues. I couldn't find the Empowering Citizens Act(pdf warning) without using the search function, which tells me he's not staking his reputation on it. This one is more complicated but the main theme seems to be limiting per-donor donations. Obviously loopholes that allow present donors to give more than they need to declare (such as giving bonuses to employees who promise to donate most of the bonus) remain. It also limits total public funds available to candidates, which my intuition tells me will have the opposite effect. This plan looks pretty slimy to me. Your opinion may vary.

Republican Jim Rubens plan, Political Money Reform Proposal" isn't on his site at all, so the link is back to repswith.us. It involves a larger tax rebate for donations and "Require searchable, realtime online reporting of contributions above $200" and removes all political spending and contribution limits.

Republican Richard Painter literally wrote the bookon ethics reform. His site is his university's site, so wouldn't naturally have details on supported initiatives. According to repswith.us the Taxation Only With Representation Act involves a $200 tax rebait for private donations and nothing else.

Disclamer: I will not research how well they keep their promises, or acts they voted for and against or sponsored. I do not endorse or oppose any of these candidates.

I looked at their website, mayday.us It referred me to a different site, repswith.us describing five proposals they support. The plan of Democrat Mr. Sarbanes was first. His site seems to directly address various issues, with little double-speak. The Government By the People Act is its own section of his site, listed under "issues", but in its own section. The plan hinges on a tax credit for political donations to encourage small donors. Also this:

"Allow candidates to earn additional public matching funds within 60 days of the election so that citizen-funded candidates can combat Super PAC"

which doesn't explain how superpac donations won't apply to the matching funds. To be fair I didn't look into it.

Next is Democrat David Price. His site isn't as straight-forward, but does present mostly solid stances on the issues. I couldn't find the Empowering Citizens Act(pdf warning) without using the search function, which tells me he's not staking his reputation on it. This one is more complicated but the main theme seems to be limiting per-donor donations. Obviously loopholes that allow present donors to give more than they need to declare (such as giving bonuses to employees who promise to donate most of the bonus) remain. It also limits total public funds available to candidates, which my intuition tells me will have the opposite effect. This plan looks pretty slimy to me. Your opinion may vary.

Republican Jim Rubens plan, Political Money Reform Proposal" isn't on his site at all, so the link is back to repswith.us. It involves a larger tax rebate for donations and "Require searchable, realtime online reporting of contributions above $200" and removes all political spending and contribution limits.

Republican Richard Painter literally wrote the bookon ethics reform. His site is his university's site, so wouldn't naturally have details on supported initiatives. According to repswith.us the Taxation Only With Representation Act involves a $200 tax rebait for private donations and nothing else.

Because he is the one that arrogantly ignored the democratic process, stole a massive store of intelligence documents, incompetently encrypted them, and made them available for friend and foe alike, and then fled to be among Americas adversaries. Surely you must see some room for assigning culpability to him?

Our own government "ignored the democratic process". Even the author of the Patriot Act says the NSA is abusing the law by collecting (i.e. stealing) such a large amount of their citizens' private information.

The NSA didn't make the documents available to China and Russia. Snowden did.

You're overlooking the fact that the NSA and its allies are the ones who made Snowden available to Russia in the first place.

You mean the copies of the phone records of many, but not all, Americans? That was repeatedly authorized, including by courts.

Once again, I refer you to the author of the Patriot Act, who says: "No public court has ever upheld document collection that is remotely close to the dragnet at issue. . . . The administration therefore admits that its bulk collection is unprecedented."

CONGRESS. Snowden could have gone to CONGRESS. He didn't.

If he was that naive, he'd be spending the rest of his life in solitary confinement, and we'd still be in the dark.

Because he is the one that arrogantly ignored the democratic process, stole a massive store of intelligence documents, incompetently encrypted them, and made them available for friend and foe alike, and then fled to be among Americas adversaries. Surely you must see some room for assigning culpability to him?

Our own government "ignored the democratic process". Even the author of the Patriot Act says the NSA is abusing the law by collecting (i.e. stealing) such a large amount of their citizens' private information.

The NSA didn't make the documents available to China and Russia. Snowden did.

You're overlooking the fact that the NSA and its allies are the ones who made Snowden available to Russia in the first place.

You mean the copies of the phone records of many, but not all, Americans? That was repeatedly authorized, including by courts.

Once again, I refer you to the author of the Patriot Act, who says: "No public court has ever upheld document collection that is remotely close to the dragnet at issue. . . . The administration therefore admits that its bulk collection is unprecedented."

CONGRESS. Snowden could have gone to CONGRESS. He didn't.

If he was that naive, he'd be spending the rest of his life in solitary confinement, and we'd still be in the dark.

This is untrue. At least 80% of actual legislation introduced by congressmen is written by the non-partisan House Office of Legislative Counsel. While I can believe that more legislation is written by interested non-government entities than ever before, it is not even close to a majority.

Most bills are drafted when a congressman gets an idea (which could come from industry, sure) and asks HOLC to write him/her legislation that actually implements her/his idea.

I am not under the impression that the HOLC is well-known.

They may not get the answer they want if they ask that question! (Q3 of this request)

Even if that Rand Paul guy has done only one thing right that ONE THING still represents one thing MORE than all the other congress-critters (plus senate critters) on the Congressional Hill!

While I applaud him for so openly opposing the bill, he's not the only one in Congress who has. There were 121 votes against the bill in the House.

Sorry, that article was published and you somehow don't provide any citation that it's wrong. Strange.. Obama asked for funding of Proton's and Manned rockets to service the ISS and change crews, it's his decision and its hypocritical but he's fucked himself by his administration's decisions regarding NASA and manned launch capabilities. The smart thing would be to mothball the ISS until the US manned capability returns because it appears that international politics and Russian failures put the ISS mission at risk anyway.

Oddly, the GOP is split. About 1/2 of them are pushing it, and the other half are joining O and the dems in saying NO.

Oddly the Democrats are concerned on Obama's key trade policy in the TPP, are not advocating that there should be dissent? http://www.theguardian.com/us-...
http://delauro.house.gov/index...

Stop blaming the GOP for all the worlds problems and stop sniffing Obama's farts, it'll cause brain damage.

388 to 88. That's pretty much a consensus that crosses party lines.

Why guess that its a consensus that crosses party lines when you can know for a fact how the vote went?

I see this again and again here on slashdot. Supposed computer nerds averse to the simple act of looking at how exactly a vote went. Often times they guess, and guess wrong. This time you guessed correctly, but thats no excuse for you guessing something so fucking trivial to look up. Every vote in both the House and Senate are documented on their respective websites.

REPUBLICAN yeas 196 nays 47 nv 1
DEMOCRATIC yeas 142 nays 41 nv 5

Its as if you fucks think the information is impossible to get, rather than the exact fucking opposite. For the House its as easy as going to http://clerk.house.gov/ and clicking on the fucking calendar, or entering a query in the search box.

Even my grandmother can do it. But no, not fucking slashdot people.

Historically, small businesses create more jobs than any corporation does. Mom and pop businesses. Family businesses. Local cooperatives. Some individual who sticks his neck out - and entrepreneur. Young companies create jobs - older, more established businesses do not.

http://www.sbecouncil.org/abou...

http://smallbusiness.house.gov...

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/ar...

http://www.nber.org/digest/feb...

Of at least equal importance, is the question of WHEN do businesses create jobs?
Small businesses, new businesses, and startups create jobs all the time. Large corporations instead only "create" jobs in times of plenty. That is - they stand back, and watch the small players take the risks. When they see little guys making a go of it, then they either buy out the little guy, or go directly into competition with that little guy.

I can't find the text of the bill. The press release from Rep Nadler http://nadler.house.gov/press-... doesn't have a bill number. The Future of Music Coalition http://nadler.house.gov/press-... has an extensive write up, so I assume they wrote the legislation for Rep Nadler.

I can't find the text of the bill. The press release from Rep Nadler http://nadler.house.gov/press-... doesn't have a bill number. The Future of Music Coalition http://nadler.house.gov/press-... has an extensive write up, so I assume they wrote the legislation for Rep Nadler.

It's hard to say if this is part of any longterm cycle. To determine a cycle of such length would require precise records of at least 4 cycle durations or 2 millennia.
We would only have proxy data to work with and that wouldn't be accurate down to the level of a few years or probably not even a few decades.
And the start or end points of a cycle of such length could easily shift by more than a century in a chaotic system that is the Earth's climate.

As for the water mgmt legislation you linked to, read the objections raised by the Oval Office with their threat of a veto. It's not trivially made.

http://nunes.house.gov/uploade...

Here's an excerpt that should clarify why the bill lacks support or needs to be significantly amended

"Specifically, H.R. 3964would undermine years of collaboration between local, State, and Federal stakeholders to develop a sound water quality control plan for the Bay-Delta. And, contrary to currentand past Federalreclamationlaw that defers to State water law, the bill would preempt California water law.
Moreover, much of what the bill purports to do could be accomplished through flexibilities in existing law.
The bill also would reject the long-standing principle that beneficiaries should pay both the cost of developing water supplies and of mitigating resulting development impacts, and would exacerbate current water shortages byrepealing water pricing reforms that provide incentives for contractors to conserve water supplies.
Finally, H.R. 3964would repeal the San Joaquin River Settlement Agreement, which the Congress enacted to resolve 18 years of contentious litigation. Full repeal of the settlement agreement would likely result in the resumption of costly litigation, creating an uncertain future for river restoration and water delivery operations for water users on the San Joaquin River. "

California is regularly in drought. It's a 500 year cycle for them.
But good of you to bring it up, If the environmentalists hadn't been blocking water management and in general been in the business of creating problems http://naturalresources.house.....

Write to your congress-critters! I have. If enough people write, there could be a chance.

http://www.house.gov/represent...

  https://www.opencongress.org/p...
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/US-...
http://www.contactingthecongre...