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he has eluded [sic] to the beating of ejected protesters as being acceptable several times on film

His opponents are all about violence. They openly advocate it. Trump's rally in Chicago had to be cancelled, because of the threats of violence. A US President better be ready to respond to violent threats with overwhelming violence of our own. The era of apologizing and paying off the little bullies is over.

Now, has Donald Trump used violence in personal matters? Evidently not...

he has eluded [sic] to the beating of ejected protesters as being acceptable several times on film

His opponents are all about violence. They openly advocate it. Trump's rally in Chicago had to be cancelled, because of the threats of violence. A US President better be ready to respond to violent threats with overwhelming violence of our own. The era of apologizing and paying off the little bullies is over.

Now, has Donald Trump used violence in personal matters? Evidently not...

We complain about lobbyists... but this is so much worse

I'm curious why you think this is.

We've just had an article about lobbyists that prevent Tesla from selling in Michigan without going through dealerships (which are universally hated), another recent article where lobbyists caused a town to lose it's working gigibit fibre internet.

For contrast, note that the democrats put up a billboard of Trump kissing Cruz, and naked statues of Trump in several cities.

Question 1: Why is this worse than what Democrats do, and

Question 2: Why is this worse than lobbyists who actually screw us over and make our lives miserable?

Really. I honestly want to know. Why should this be of any concern to anyone?

certain isolated incidents

There have been 15 black men killed by police just since Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the anthem a couple of weeks ago. They're not "isolated incidents" any more.

And if "pulling a gun on law enforcement" is what it takes to get shot by police, why is the guy who set up with his sniper rifle and trained it on FBI at the Bundy standoff still walking around without repercussions?

You know your story about the kid with the BB gun getting killed by police? Look what happens when it's a white guy:

http://www.wmur.com/news/polic...

Here's what happens when a white guy points his rifle at cops:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

And here's what happens when a drunken white guy pulls a gun on cops:

http://www.wfmj.com/story/2775...

If you'd like, I could go on and on and on. Being white in this country has privileges. One of them is the Second Amendment.

The last I'd heard, news fact-checking organizations were reporting that he told the truth 15% of the time. Why would I ever care what the opinion of someone like was?

And don't tell me "because he's going to be president". The people of the United States are still smarter than that.

Here's one of your news organizations fact checking some things about Donald Trump.

Bruce, I don't know if you've noticed, but the media sometimes misrepresents things. For example, the polls say that 44% of Trumps supporters have a college degree, which the media is quick to point out is less than 50%, so Trump supporters are mostly uneducated.

What they (and you) fail to notice is that the national average for college degrees is 30%, so on average Trump supporters are more educated than the national average. (And here's a reference to the analysis as backing for that statement.)

From that article:

What’s more, Silver found that 44% of Trump voters have college undergraduate degrees, compared to 29% of US adults.

What I don't understand is why Clinton supporters always resort to insults.

I mean, you're especially recognized as being a smart person, yet I don't see you posting a rational reason why Clinton would be a good president.

Set aside that she's not Trump, because there are at least two other candidates, can you point to one thing she's done that has been of benefit to the people of this country? (With links please - don't just make things up.)

Bruce, You're a smart dude.

Can you explain why you need to defend Clinton... with insults?

P.S. - The term "offensive" is used entirely too much recently, but I was honestly offended by your statement. It was an insult, targetting a clearly defined group of people; hence, offensive.

And they don't pay taxes either

Google's chairman says he is "proud" of the way his company avoids paying taxes. "It's called capitalism," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/24/investing/apple-google-trillion-dollar-market-value/

Could be, if you were an hot house flower, emotionally stunted shut-in to whom the very idea of not getting your way causes you fly into a rage so intense as to try to send your parents, who sacrificed and raised you for 18+ years to prison.

And there you go. As I said before, I don't know the details, but the case reminds me of Caitlyn Ricci, a 21 year old who has sued her estranged parents twice for tuition - and won. 16K a year from people she doesn't even have a relationship or even talk to.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Innov She sued twice, once for some 9K and was granted, then the second time she sued for 16 K a year, also granted, but the parents rebelled and said they would enter contempt and go to jail for it . The daughter sued to send them to jail, but the judge declined to enforce the contempt Poor Caitlyn had a GoFundMe site, but could only raise 2 K of teh 20 K she was aiming for.

The evil parents? Here is what they did:

Innocent Caitlyn was kicked out of a Disney Internship for underage drinking, and left home to move in with her grandparents because her gaddamned evil parents set a curfew, and wanted her to do chores around the house.

Her parents should be in jail, amiright?

Then there is the terribly sad story of poor Rachel Canning, a victim of the first degree. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Also an adult, Rachael moved out of her parents house because she had a boyfriend they didn't like - who she later filed a restraining order against for choking her. She wanted them to pay for her college education in a reverse emancipation move. She accused them of abuse.She eventulally dropped the lawsuit, and the restraining order after getting a 56K scholarship.

My guess is that she would have slammed the university with a lawsuit if they didn't give her a scholarship.

I think a prudent person might consider well the complications of bringing a child into this world today.

Could be, if you were an hot house flower, emotionally stunted shut-in to whom the very idea of not getting your way causes you fly into a rage so intense as to try to send your parents, who sacrificed and raised you for 18+ years to prison.

And there you go. As I said before, I don't know the details, but the case reminds me of Caitlyn Ricci, a 21 year old who has sued her estranged parents twice for tuition - and won. 16K a year from people she doesn't even have a relationship or even talk to.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Innov She sued twice, once for some 9K and was granted, then the second time she sued for 16 K a year, also granted, but the parents rebelled and said they would enter contempt and go to jail for it . The daughter sued to send them to jail, but the judge declined to enforce the contempt Poor Caitlyn had a GoFundMe site, but could only raise 2 K of teh 20 K she was aiming for.

The evil parents? Here is what they did:

Innocent Caitlyn was kicked out of a Disney Internship for underage drinking, and left home to move in with her grandparents because her gaddamned evil parents set a curfew, and wanted her to do chores around the house.

Her parents should be in jail, amiright?

Then there is the terribly sad story of poor Rachel Canning, a victim of the first degree. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Also an adult, Rachael moved out of her parents house because she had a boyfriend they didn't like - who she later filed a restraining order against for choking her. She wanted them to pay for her college education in a reverse emancipation move. She accused them of abuse.She eventulally dropped the lawsuit, and the restraining order after getting a 56K scholarship.

My guess is that she would have slammed the university with a lawsuit if they didn't give her a scholarship.

I think a prudent person might consider well the complications of bringing a child into this world today.

Preface: I am married and reasonably happily.

Women are incongruent with men in most cases, once you get past the hormone stage of needing a sexual partner. You can see this in the divorce rates and marriage rates.

The overoptimism in the article about divorce rates is counteracted by the much lower marriage rates in younger cohorts of the population. With that said, a lot of people are living together without doing the marriage thing, which is fine, and not captured in the statistics. But I have two takeways. First, people aren't pairing up as consistently as in the past, by a relatively large number. Second, the very reason people aren't marrying (or pairing up) is that they want to be free to move on when they think it is time - ie, not making a lifelong commitment.

Women have to blame something for this, for the idea of having a lifelong partner is an ingrained female desire. Just anecdotally, I have a lot of sisters and two daughters - every one of them wants a long term relationship with a man with the same passion a geek has for his geekery. And they're not finding as many takers now as in the 80s, just a bunch of guys wanting a quick fuck. Porn is one place women could lay the blame, though I don't think that is correct. They are switching cause and effect. The porn is a substitute to take care of the hormonal desires. The reason men don't want to pair up with them long term is that it isn't seen as a value proposition.

Examining why having a wife isn't considered a value proposition for most men is going to turn up some interesting data. I don't think there is a silver bullet here, but the tendency over the last fifty years for the law to favor women in _all_ disputes relating to marriage probably didn't help. Another issue is that having children isn't considered a value proposition, either, and that was a significant justification for marriage in the past.

Politifact is biased, it's owned and operated by a newspaper(Tampa Bay Times), that is not only in the tank for Hillary, but openly endorsed her.

Yes, they are a biased, right-wing rag. Which is why the endorsed the right-wing candidate most likely to support the status quo.

Must see musical: Chi-Raq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comments by director Spike Lee:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

To my understanding, one of the points of debate was that this was an administrative finance-tracking scandal, and at no point were any aspersions being placed on the teachers or quality of education coming out of CCSF. At least that's what I got from the local public protests over the threat of loss of accreditation; the local populace was very happy with CCSF and its effects as students.

“The actions of the ACCJC –- an organization accountable to no one — have unnecessarily put at risk the livelihoods of the nearly 2,500 hard-working men and women at the college,” Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Central Labor Council said in a statement. “What’s more, their move to deny CCSF accreditation has imperiled the future of San Francisco’s working people, who rely heavily on a CCSF education for workforce training, language learning, and a pathway to better futures for themselves and their communities.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/city-college-of-san-francisco-protest_n_3569046.html

I have no doubt that teaching was probably fine at CCSF: they spent 92% of their budget on salaries and benefits (all staff, not just teachers).

The problems are simply not just finance-tracking, though, it's actually, that they didn't have any money left over at all (as I understand it, they 3-day operating reserve and intended to rely on bond money which presumably gets paid back by taxpayers, not tuition and fees, for contingencies).

Instead of addressing this issue, they actually increased salaries by 7% the next year after being warned about it. The risk of investing dollars from student (and federal student loan) into an institution that might implode financially (and cut a program leaving students out in the cold) at any time is an important aspect of any accreditation program. Sure, CCSF could be bailed out by SF (or the state as UC gets from time-to-time), but a perilous financial condition seems like something an accreditation program should warn prospective students about, no?

Apparently CCSF, ignored auditor warnings about continuing to offer many classes for free that staffed by CCSF employees (such as “Weaving and Tapestry,” “Arts and Crafts for Older Adults” and “Baking and Pastry”) which apparently cost 1/2 million a year in salaries not including that these non-revenue courses occupy time and space in expensive SF real estate. In comparison CCSF's technology investment rate was only $1.5M/year, and the reserve for unpaid tuition was $3M/year. This in the context of under-investment in student support services and Articulation courses that can transfer to CSU and other colleges contributed to their problems. Instead of using operating funds and grants for "free" classes, they should have perhaps have sought out volunteers and foundation funding sources for community outreach which didn't come from student dollars/loans? Just thinking out loud here...

Teaching, though, was likely not a problem at CCSF...

To my understanding, one of the points of debate was that this was an administrative finance-tracking scandal, and at no point were any aspersions being placed on the teachers or quality of education coming out of CCSF. At least that's what I got from the local public protests over the threat of loss of accreditation; the local populace was very happy with CCSF and its effects as students.

“The actions of the ACCJC –- an organization accountable to no one — have unnecessarily put at risk the livelihoods of the nearly 2,500 hard-working men and women at the college,” Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Central Labor Council said in a statement. “What’s more, their move to deny CCSF accreditation has imperiled the future of San Francisco’s working people, who rely heavily on a CCSF education for workforce training, language learning, and a pathway to better futures for themselves and their communities.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/city-college-of-san-francisco-protest_n_3569046.html

After all, there is a war on... and all this freedom stuff is only making total victory more elusive.

The bill of Rights and the Constitution in general are threatened not by the obvious authoritarians you have in mind, but rather by the self-identified "Liberals" seeking to ban "Hate Speech" and "intolerance".

That's a big pile of Bullshit. The House of Representatives can impeach anyone for any reason they choose. Your information is wrong.

and does Comey just resign or will he be investigated too?

300-Pound Security Robot Runs Over Toddler At California Shopping Center
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Some of it is that some people's incomes aren't in fact above the poverty line. There are reports of hardship for residents of U.S. states that successfully sued to opt out of Obamacaid. They don't qualify for a Marketplace subsidy because they don't make more than the poverty level, and they don't qualify for original Medicaid.

And some of it is that the federal poverty level is uniform throughout the lower 48 states, even though some areas have a far higher apartment rent level than others.

The interview was on CNN, which staffs a meteorologist that is a climate change denier.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.whatreallyhappened....

Unless it brings the system down, it doesn't matter...

The system itself is broken...

That's how we got into Iraq, the fatuous logic that good motivations can't make a bad situation worse, often far, far worse.

But this kind of logic will always be with us, because it's a smug, tweetable, free pass on the hard work of coming up with and implementing a workable solution (and what idiot wants to attempt that anyway amid the boo-bird chorus of polarized politics?)

30 Shocking Domestic Violence Statistics That Remind Us It's An Epidemic

The Huffpo doesn't spin it this way, but these numbers are likely at the lowest levels since the invention of suburbia. I can't say much more than that, because before the invention of suburbia we probably weren't even keeping score.

The "system" is what brought a pretty terrible thing out of the closet. Sucks to be assaulted by a violent intruder? How about sharing your bed with a violent chest-thumper every damn day?

Software: Maintain or Replace?

But there is a tendency - fuelled by taxpayer money - to leap to replacement quickly, rather than doing maintenance. I have rarely seen a system improved by creating a new one...because the new one is loaded with the same flaws (indeed, new ones) as the legacy system that it replaced.

But of course, the hazards involved with ripping and replacing the current political system are much smaller than ripping and replacing some aging government cost-control system. I mean, gosh, look at how well rip and replace worked in Russia.

The Not-So-Great Professor: Jeffrey Sachs' Incredible Failure to Eradicate Poverty in Africa

The early sections of Nina Munk's book about the economist Jeffrey Sachs read like a celebration of a boy genius. No, strike that: Sachs piles up so many achievements so quickly that the word genius sounds somehow inadequate.

By the age of 13, he was taking college math. Later, he got near-perfect scores on his SATs and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, where by 28 he was a tenured professor. Two years later, he was advising the Bolivian government on how to administer economic "shock therapy," designed to break the spell of hyperinflation. This led to an even bigger triumph: masterminding Poland's transition to a market economy in 1989, as communism collapsed in Eastern Europe.

Like most geeks, never seen a system he couldn't fix better. Until something blew up so spectacularly, he either got the grey beard gene forever, or curled up and hid in a closet somewhere.

Of course, if you watch enough superhero movies, you just need to put the word out ("the system is broken!") and somehow Jeffery will get the bat signal, and he'll patiently hand-stitch some brightly coloured, stretchy fabric (you'd be amazing what else he found in that stiff bottom drawer with all his grandmother's old Jane Fonda work-out videos) into the peacock man-cape he always dreamed about while he was acing his SATs (painstakingly ripping and replacing the crotch seam six times to achieve the optimally brash yet task-focused fit—they don't call him "Dr Sacks" for nothing) and then he'll spring out the window, and who knows, maybe he can actually fly. I guess we'll find out.

Either way, news at 11.

That all that matters these days.

Entertainment.

They might reconsider crossing the border then.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Lots more stories like that too.

There's a man in Iran who only smokes cow shit, so I'd say it's within the realm of possible.
link

Weird that my draft committed suicide as I attempted to reply... Reminds me of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... in some ways...

Anyway, the introduction to my comment is that I don't like or dislike Hillary, but she is clearly well qualified to be president and the Donald is clearly fundamentally not qualified. The HuffPo piece is just one more angle on why not.

Therefore I believe that a Trump victory would be quite similar to a decapitation strike. Insofar as America has real enemies including Putin and Daesh, they would obviously be motivated to do anything they can to help Trump win. Hacking the DNC is one angle, but I'm more concerned about a major terrorist strike timed just before the election. America's enemies may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.

Cue the crazy trolls. Actually, I'm not convinced all of Trump's trolls are crazy. Even the ones that seem to be sincere might be faking it, like Trump himself. Actually makes more sense to me that some of them are paid to fake it (perhaps by Putin and his fiends). (Apologies to Rocky and Bullwinkle, eh?)

Right before posting, I always <ctrl>-A/<ctrl>-C to grab a copy of the text. That way if the system hiccups, I can open a local text file and save the text while I straighten things out. Has saved my bacon bunch of times.

On your point about Hillary being qualified, and not trying to provoke an emotional response, I took the trouble to research Hillary's decisions and accomplishments over the last 16 years.

And came up empty.

There's not a single moment that I could find, no decision or action or award, that Hillary can point to with pride and say "I did this!". The best I can come up with is that she was elected as senator.

Since you think she's qualified, can you help me out by justifying that a bit? I mean... is there *anything* you can point to that forms the basis of your opinion?

I don't mean "she's not Trump", either. I could just as well vote for the Green or Libertarian candidate, and they're also not Trump.

What has she actually *done* that merits your support?

(Note that I'm trying not to be trollish, and I haven't thrown any insults. Please keep that in mind when responding.)

Weird that my draft committed suicide as I attempted to reply... Reminds me of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... in some ways...

Anyway, the introduction to my comment is that I don't like or dislike Hillary, but she is clearly well qualified to be president and the Donald is clearly fundamentally not qualified. The HuffPo piece is just one more angle on why not.

Therefore I believe that a Trump victory would be quite similar to a decapitation strike. Insofar as America has real enemies including Putin and Daesh, they would obviously be motivated to do anything they can to help Trump win. Hacking the DNC is one angle, but I'm more concerned about a major terrorist strike timed just before the election. America's enemies may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.

Cue the crazy trolls. Actually, I'm not convinced all of Trump's trolls are crazy. Even the ones that seem to be sincere might be faking it, like Trump himself. Actually makes more sense to me that some of them are paid to fake it (perhaps by Putin and his fiends). (Apologies to Rocky and Bullwinkle, eh?)

Citations please? Even one?

Ok.

Was that before or after California's plastic bag ban caused a whopping 46% increase in deaths from foodborne illness? Why in the world would anyone sane use a reusable canvas bag for carrying food? Ridiculous.

Removing money is actually required to achieve less corruption. Here's an example from a sparsely populated state regarding local issues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... There are many reasons why and ways that the obscenely rich can bend the rules. Transparency, the actual definition not the Obama et al version, and campaign limits are the only way to return democracy to the people.

Absolutely! I can't wait for my kids to get to experience having to stay indoors during lunch and recess because it's another smog alert day like I got to experience growing up. Or the streetlights in LA being on all day because it is so smoggy that the sensors think it's night like my grandparents got to experience. Maybe if we're lucky we can get some of those screens that the Chinese have that show everyone what a sunrise looks like. These EPA regulations are obviously just a bunch of crap designed to hurt the large multinational corporations!

I know this is a US-centric site, but the allies of the USA are also upset with the F-35 program:

UK.

Canada.

Australia.

It's not like its just Yahoo or a couple of other companies. This is a unilateral trend across all the media.

You can say that again. The PC culture, or SJW culture, or whatever you want to call it, is probably going to end up destroying itself sooner or later though:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Nobody, not even the BLM movement itself, actually cares about a black life unless it involves a cop, (something Al Sharpton proved) so I think they're probably going to get their wish as soon as the current generation of police officers retire. It will be interesting to watch, from a distance, (we don't have this problem in Arizona, thankfully) what happens when their ideas about societies without police come to fruition.

or "pee-pistol".

That's rape, bro.

Neither the FBI nor anyone else found that any laws were violated. So stop obsessing about it!

WUT?!?!?!?!

Evidence Hillary Clinton Broke Federal Laws And Jeopardized National Security, No Charges Recommended... WTF, FBI?!

FBI Director James Comey gave a press conference on Tuesday, July 5th, discussing in surprising detail the three main aspects of the investigation: What they did (a lot). What they found (she broke the law and jeopardized national security). ...

And that's the Huffington Post - hardly a hotbed of anti-Democrat obsessions.

What's the color of the sky on your planet? Because it sure as shit ain't blue.

We need the law's version of universal health care

Yey! Veterans Affairs for all!..

Not failed to scrub. Purposefully didn't scrub. Just like they didn't scrub anything when they doxxed every female voter in Turkey recently.

The only thing they've scrubbed of late is their own antisemitic tweet.

Ahem: "Almost immediately after her resignation, Wasserman-Schultz was given a position within the Clinton campaign as an honorary chair. " http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

So no she was not thrown under the bus. She did her job and was rewarded.

The Koch's will support whoever they think will do their bidding.

And yes, that includes Hillary Clinton.

Not need more computing power? I think you're on the wrong site, maybe you should be over here, or maybe here, because no one will ever need more than 640 kb.

What are the odds such different technologies would cost exactly the same to the consumer?

The price is not a function of costs, as you mistakenly believe, but of the balance between supply and demand.

Price is a function of supply and demand, so if you artificially restrict the supply, then you can raise price arbitrarily high without affecting the cost. This is how you profit. In an actual, free market, a large difference between market price and cost of service should attract new businesses until the market price is close to the cost of service. This is known as an efficient market. The US telecom market is horribly inefficient, as witnessed by cable providers gross profit margin of 97%.

Good links, thanks.

But why does the USA let babies die?

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Health/Infant-mortality-rate

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-steven-friedman/infant-mortality-rate-united-states_b_1620664.html

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63_05.pdf

http://www.nber.org/papers/w20525.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... If you want to see something mind blowing, watch that. The accent might be a bit difficult at times (obviously depending on what you're used to normally), but it's 17 minutes you'll want to spend doing the same thing over again. A couple minutes in it changes format a little and really puts us in our place.

Nope, they're deciding what's good for *them* by ensuring their customers don't see anything controversial on someone else's laptop, and Americans are somewhat puritanical in their views about sex. You can easily imagine lawsuits being filed over some accidental view of some T&A rather than someone getting shot up in an action movie, which might be grumbled about but probably ignored.

Also... one would hope that most people have a sense of proprietary about what sort of material one should view in public, because of the possibility of other people seeing your screen, but given the experiences our public libraries have had with this, I don't blame McDonalds or Starbucks in the slightest. These are private establishments, so they're under no obligation to provide free access to porn.

And no, no one cares in the slightest if you're looking at a political page, which is a somewhat implausible slippery slope arguments (although beware looking at Wolfram-Alpha with those dangerous looking symbols). These companies have *no* interest in what you're looking at, just that it doesn't bother other customers. Our typical societal mores dictate that sex is something that's done in private. We have no such taboo about political discourse. Besides, let's get real... no one cares enough to actually read a wall of text on your screen.

Also, for those insisting on lathering up that slippery slope, this is a *long* way from any supposed reports of media bias by companies like Facebook, which, I think, was more a reflection of the bias that was held by the people they hired to mark the trending news. Young, recently graduated journalism students tend to be left-leaning? Color me shocked!

The US would happily increase cooperation with Russia if only Russia would stop sabre rattling.

Actually, the USA has over 1,000 military bases abroad - many of them in Asia, as close as possible to the frontiers of Russia, China, and Iran. Not to mention its 11 (give or take) massive carrier battle groups which prowl the oceans to intimidate other nations.

Russia has, from memory, three or four small military bases outside its own borders. Apart from Syria, where it is fighting terrorism (because someone has to, and the USA isn't) they are all in friendly nations next door to Russia itself - Belarus, Armenia, etc.

When the USA sails its carrier battle groups or other naval units a few miles from Russia and China, in waters many thousands of miles away from the USA, that isn't sabre-rattling.
When the USA organizes "NATO" military exercises that involve large numbers of soldiers and weapons parading around a few miles from Russia, that isn't sabre-rattling.
When the USA places German tanks as close to St Petersburg as they were in autumn 1941, that isn't sabre-rattling.
When the USA places missile stations that could, without anyone knowing, be equipped to fire offensive nuclear missiles, within a few miles of Russia that isn't sabre-rattling. (Although it is exactly equivalent to the Soviet actions to prevent which President Kennedy precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis).

But when the Russians or Chinese calmly announce the measures they have taken to defend themselves, or when they conduct military exercises entirely within their own borders - THAT is apparently sabre-rattling.

See http://www.globalfirepower.com.... Clue: Russia is the 5th-ranked in military spending, slightly below the UK. Its spending is less than one twelfth of the USA's.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/p...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Ha ha, that's rich.

Consider the USA very carefully:

You have killings.
Mobs.
Torture.
Unsafe water.
Corruption.
And at least one of your presidential nominees is a Total Nutjob!

So what's wrong with India exactly?

Let's see how I do...

Murder: In the US, there is the 2nd amendment right, enshrined in the Constitution, which gives everyone the right to own a gun (or, indeed, as many guns as they can buy). It's fair, everyone can have guns, even people who mow down defenseless children by the dozen. It's what the NRA wants.

Mobs: Admittedly, that is a problem, mobs generally don't behave rationally. Though most protests start out aimed at government groups or companies that are damaging their rights, rather than singling out and murdering individuals for perceived slights against a book they've read.

Torture: This, too, is a toughie. It was (is?) a program by the Bush administration and CIA to extract information from suspected terrorists. While morally and legally wrong, they at least tried to limit it to people who may have performed real world actions, rather than supernatural powers. If the witch floats, she's a witch, and if the witch drowns, she wasn't a witch?

Unsafe water: According to the Republican leaders, the EPA is in the way of business, so they've spent long years bleeding the EPA of ability to enforce the law, issue warnings and hold people accountable. That is a problem.

Corruption: Yep, the financial system is broken. Yep, the police are rarely held responsible for murdering people, destroying evidence, lying, et cetera.

Candidates: Our choices are horrible. We have a crazy, erratic liar who says whatever thought pops into his head and a consistent liar who is desperate to say whatever she thinks people want to hear as our only choices. But, at least neither of them have been implicated in the mass murder of thousands of their own constituents.

All in all, shitty as both places can be, the reality is still that a much better, safer life is still possible in the USA. Maybe not for long, but at least for your lifetime, maybe.

If you experience a life-threatening medical emergency, your insurance will likely not cover everything and you will be left with a pile of debt.

Most insurance will cover the majority of costs. Furthermore someone who has a job that is at risk to an H1B tends to have a rather good paying job so chances are they can afford decent insurance. You are trying to conflate two issues that have very little to do with each other.

This was true before Obamacare, and it's still true. But now premiums of the paying have skyrocketed to cover the unpaying.

Premiums have gone up a lot in some places and not much in others. Prior to the ACA double digit increases per year were normal. On average plan increases from 2015 to 2016 were around 7.5%. A lot but still low by historical standards. The insured have ALWAYS had to cover the uninsured. But now there are fewer uninsured so the rate of increase is less. Insurers are figuring out the real cost and adjusting accordingly which is why this year there was a bump in costs. Some people's premiums have gone up and others (like mine) have gone down. My policy costs just 2/3 of what my pre-ACA policy cost and I have better coverage. On average we are all paying a bit more which is EXACTLY the point of insurance. We all pay some so fewer of us end up bankrupt.

The fact that medical costs in the US continue to rise at ridiculous rates is largely a function of our idiotic refusal to accept a single payer medical care system like every other modern country in the world. So we get high costs and second rate outcomes.

Ha ha, that's rich.

Consider the USA very carefully:

You have killings.
Mobs.
Torture.
Unsafe water.
Corruption.
And at least one of your presidential nominees is a Total Nutjob!

So what's wrong with India exactly?

All the money in the world couldn't get me to a third-world country like India. The honor killings, mobs murdering people suspected of eating beef, thousands being tortured and executed on suspicion of being a witch, 80% of their rivers choked with raw, untreated sewage, rampant corruption, modern slavery, and their prime minister is a nutter are all things I try to avoid.

oh it has everything to do with race.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

the only idiot here is you.
and all you're doing is proving that even members of the trans community can be racist bigots who support summary execution of blacks by police.

The United States hasn't fought a peer or even near-peer country since 1945.

That's because there are no peer or near-peer countries! Our military dwarfs literally every other military on the planet in almost every conceivable way (IIRC China has more personnel, but they aren't nearly as well equipped). The only reason our military spending seems reasonable when expressed as a percentage of GDP is that our GDP is gigantic too! We could cut the DoD to just over 1/6th of its current budget and still outspend every other country.

In any case, the true American power isn't hard military power, but rather it's soft economic and cultural power.

No, it's economic and cultural power and hard military power. We may not use the full strength of our military all the time (or ever, since 1945), but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that we aren't spending hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain it.

Note well that I am not making value judgement about whether or not we "should" be maintaining such a gigantic military. I'm just saying that failing to acknowledge the FACT that we are doing so is despicable willful ignorance on your part.

(Actually, I'm glad that we dominate -- I just think it's a bit overkill to do so by so wide a margin.)

Nope: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Yes, this is the case:

"Federal prosecutor Stephen Heymann engaged in prosecutorial misconduct by withholding key evidence from the defense team of Aaron Swartz, the late Internet activist’s legal team alleged in a letter to an internal Justice Department ethics unit."

It is important for people to read about him and his views so that they find common ground and realize that it could just as easily be THEM falling under the thumb of a prosecutor who have been granted sweeping abilities and sentenced to decades in prison by judges whose hands are tied when it comes to sentence lengths.