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nope, wrong it is more complex than that

http://www.npr.org/sections/pa...

Holy crap, what a bunch of animals. *with a sharp stick*

nope, wrong it is more complex than that

http://www.npr.org/sections/pa...

the reason one tribe in Africa decimates all comers in running sports has been mentioned on NPR. Basically it is due to cultural genetic selection that only allows members to breed if they can withstand extreme physical stress. http://www.npr.org/sections/pa...

Three Mile Island was the only major commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history. Nuclear power in the U.S. has generated 24,196,167 GWh between 1971-2015. At an average price of 12 cents/kWh, that's $2.90354 trillion. So the approx $3.4 billion in cleanup and lossses from TMI is 0.117% of that. Or in other words, at a retail price of 12 cents/kWh, the historical cost of cleaning up nuclear accidents in the U.S. is 0.014 cents per kWh.

In contrast, subsidies for different energy sources are 23.1 cents/kWh for solar, 3.5 cents/kWh for wind, and 0.2 cents/kWh for nuclear. (Tables ES4 and ES4. Solar received $4.393 billion in subsidies while generating 19,000 GWh. Wind received $5.936 billion while generating 5,936 GWh, and nuclear received $1.66 billion while generating 789,000 GWh.) That's right. The subsidy for solar is 1650x more expensive than cleaning up nuclear accidents. The subsidy for wind is 250x more expensive.

Nuclear decommissioning costs are already paid for by the NRC's Financial Assurance fund. A portion of the revenue from electricity sales are placed into this fund.

The problem with insuring nuclear plants is just a quirk of statistics. The more times you roll the dice, the narrower the bell curve becomes and the more predictable the average outcome. e.g. A 1d100 has an equal chance to produce any result between 1 and 100 - the probability distribution function is a straight line. 2d50 produces a triangular PDF, with the values in the middle tending to be more likely. 10d10 produces an even more compact PDF - a narrow normal curve with results in the middle much more likely than the extremes. And 100d0.5 will always produce 50 - its PDF is just a single peak in the middle.

This is a problem for insuring nuclear plants - because they produce so much energy you don't need very many of them. Whereas there are thousands of coal plants, and (potentially) millions of solar installations, there are only operating 100 nuclear plants in the U.S. So insuring a nuclear plant represents a greater risk for the insurer. Even though the mean outcome will be that there is 1 accident every 30 years, the chance of a 2nd or 3rd accident is still significant and the amount the insurer has to pay out may easily surpass how much they've collected in premiums if they assume the statistically most likely outcome of a single accident.

The insurance company's response is to increase the premium to also cover that 2nd or 3rd event even though they're unlikely. In contrast, with thousands of coal plants they can be much more confident that there will be (say) only 10 accidents every 30 years, and 20 or 30 accidents is extraordinarily unlikely. So the premiums can be lower, even if the average risk (mean) is exactly the same. If there were some way to build thousands of small-scale nuclear plants instead of 100 large ones, private insurance wouldn't be a problem. You get around this problem by creating the largest insurance pool possible, which in this case would be nationalized insurance covering all 100 nuclear power plants.

Statistically, per unit of energy generated, nuclear power is the safest power source man has invented.

Government intervention in education and health care produces results in literally every other developed country, frequently results better than ours.

The problem with that argument is that the US already spends a lot more per student and regulates its education more strongly than many countries that perform better (like, for example, the country I immigrated from). The same is true for health care. So the US is actually a counterexample to the idea that more government intervention in education and health care produces better outcomes. The problem with the US is arguably that it spends and regulates so much that it is getting negative returns.

Providing something like universal basic income and decent health care would even the scales a lot, and lead to better allocation of national resources.

Experience in Europe and the US suggests otherwise. Several European nations have strongly restricted their welfare benefits in recent years precisely because they discovered that guaranteeing people a basic livelihood with no strings attached leads to the creation of a permanent, government-dependent underclass. And that is also a long-standing problem we see among some populations in the US. The implicit argument underlying your suggestion also confuses correlation and causation and assumes a model of human behavior that is unrealistc.

Got a source for that 60%? I'd be interested in following up.

Easy. Of course, next thing you'll probably dismiss NPR as some kind of alt-right hate blog, right? Note that NPR still tries to spin the data ("windfall from a home sale"), but that is misleading, since the criterion is "two or more years", and capital gains from the sale of a primary residence are not considered income anyway.

Are you claiming that the US can't be made great?

I don't want to live in a "great" country. Napoleonic France was "great". Bismarck's Germany was "great". The British Empire was "great". Trump and Clinton both behave like little wannabe Napoleons or Bismarcks (respectively) and "make America great again".

What I want to live in is a free country, like the US used to be. I don't want the US to turn into the kind of stagnant statist states that you find in Europe.

Yahoo Finance is still the most popular in its category ...it's the one place where Yahoo still beats Google.

Again, not true... Her email server and use of personal email was legal. It definitely was not in the spirit of the law, but it didn't violate it. I'm not saying that was she did was right as there is no way for a society to hold government officials responsible for their actions if they are deliberately hiding information or destroying records.

"Federal law allows government officials to use personal email so long as relevant documents are preserved for history."

"The law was amended in late 2014 to require that personal emails be transferred to government servers within 20 days. But that was after Clinton left office."

http://www.npr.org/sections/it...
http://thehill.com/policy/tech...

Here's an article that has some graphics and things that show how fucked up this election cycle is:

http://www.npr.org/2016/09/21/...

I already knew this was true (although the last poll I saw had these people as a majority), that the major reason people are voting for either candidate is because they aren't the other one, they're voting against the other person instead of for the one they want.

The top concerns about each candidate are also pretty predictable. Trump supporters' biggest concern is his temperament, and Clinton supporters' biggest concern is her honesty. No surprises.

I literally laughed out loud at the last graph, and then became sad that this is the way it is:

If Trump wins, 59% of respondents will be disappointed or angry.

If Clinton wins, 49% of respondents will be disappointed or angry.

Look at the other lines in that graph though - among Trump supporters and Clinton supporters both, there is a non-zero number of people who will be disappointed if their candidate wins. Among Trump supporters there is even a non-zero number of people who will be *angry* if he wins. I don't know if those results reflect upon the intelligence of the respondents and their ability to comprehend the questions, or take into account the apparent fact that some Trump supporters are angry no matter what, but it's funny. It goes the other way too, for both groups of supporters there is a non-zero number of them who will be relived or excited if the other person wins. But according to the link to the actual study, and based on my expert analysis of the pixels in the graph, both of those results are probably within the margin of error (with the possible exception of Trump supporters who will be disappointed if he wins, which I can understand).

This election is a joke. I don't hold it against you or any of my other friends who wants to vote for Clinton or Trump, but I just can't stomach either of them and I don't like it when people try to tell me that voting for another candidate (as opposed to staying home and not voting at all, for example) is either a waste of a vote or a vote for some other candidate. Just like a lot of people are voting against one of the candidates, I'm voting against both of them.

Considering that the US started the whole fucking mess and that Germany and Turkey had to take in MILLIONS upon millions of refugees despite being significantly smaller in size and despite not being the ones to initiate the conflict, yes, taking in 6,000,000 refugees (you seem to have misplaced the comma) would be a decent START.

While I'm not sure about 6 million, but I otherwise agree.

If it is a gun's rights issue, then we must be brave Americans and accept the needless deaths to protect our freedoms. (I'd just like to see every transfer require a background check.)

If it is a humanitarian issue, well we gotta protect our people. We don't care if it is one in 3.6 billion skittles

The Constitution clearly states any powers/rights not delegated to the government are thus the powers/rights of the people and/or states. Since the government has the power to mint money granted to it, the people by constitutional decree do not have that right.

What can I say? For over 100 years almost every US bank issued their own bank notes. Even railroads issued their own money. This practice never made it way to the Supreme Court as a issue. Here is a interesting link.

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

" She is being tortured by the US Navy and is being DENIED access to her attorney and the internet and a cell phone and a laptop."

Is access to a cell phone, the internet, and a laptop a right for prisioners? At least she isn't being imprisioned in Texas in the summer without air conditioning where it can get to 115+ degrees. I even feel bad for the guards in that situation who have to work in those conditions.

http://www.npr.org/2016/09/12/...

Her name is Kim Phuc and she now lives in Canada. She was fleeing a napalm strike by the South Vietnamese Air Force.

How the Vietnam War's 'Napalm Girl' Is Finally Getting Her Scars Treated – 43 Years Later
The girl in the picture: Kim Phuc's journey from war to forgiveness
'Napalm Girl': An Iconic Image Of War Turns 40

The Kim Foundation International

Nope! Not at all! No one's going around exposing entire generations of entire countries to neurotoxins and diabetes. And asbestos. And exploding cars. Hey here's an idea, what if we made the exploding cars... out of asbestos?

http://www.citizen.org/documen...

And on several occasions it's been shown that bills submitted by representatives were essentially (sometimes literally) word-for-word copies of legislation drafted by lobbying groups.

http://www.npr.org/sections/it...

It's cliche' that if you're rich you buy yourself a politician. If you're rich and smart, you buy yourself a lobbyist - lobbyists can't be kicked out with an election.
=Smidge=

> Due to loopholes, exploitation and poor oversight megacorporations have had an unfair advantage for decades.

Actually, it is worse then that. Decades? Try Centuries. Before corporations were invented in 1602 there were trusts. How do you think the Catholic Church bought land let alone people in the B.C. era??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

When US Corporations were declared a legal person in the 1800's and again in the 1900's ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/... .. that enabled them to have all sorts of advantages that a normal doesn't have. The 2 most important ones are:

a) Corporations can own other Corporations which means they can structure themselves offshore to take advantage of tax breaks. Many "tax havens" have laws where they have zero tax on foreign sales.

b) Since corporations technically never die they never pay an estate tax.

If the world would ban corporations from owning another corporation that would solve 95% of the problem but good luck trying to legalize the minimization of greed. The politicians and CEO's are not interested in doing The Right Thing (TM) over Long Term -- they are more interested in the Short-Term profits.

> Tax laws, breaks and reductions are not there to be professionally manipulated to the extent that you pay nothing.

Not according to the US Supreme Court: Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465 (1935). (Emphasis added)

"The legal right of an individual to decrease the amount of what would otherwise be his taxes or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted."

That is, it is Legal to OPTIMIZE the amount you pay, that is, tax minimization, down to zero IF the Law allows.

If you don't like what Apple is doing then petition to have the Law(s) changed because I agree with you.

The letter of the law has quickly become out-of-touch with the original spirit of the law.

http://www.npr.org/2016/09/09/...

With all the corporate crime going on, it is easy to get your scumbags mixed up....

There are a lot of stories looking back Trek TOS floating around because of the 50th anniverseray. My favorites are:

Lucile Ball was the first trekkie. Yes, Lucile Ball, your new geek overlord.

MLK said he was a Trekkie. Wouldn't let Michelle Nickhols leave the show. MLK, blerd before it was cool.

Along with lots and lots of primarily lead acid batteries for storage.
You want to know where a good proportion of that lead ends up when batteries reach end of life?
You want to know what lead does to the environment? The Wildlife? The People?

Ah, but no, its all pure shiny pretty warn nice solar power! Ignore the realities.

Did you ignore the link in thread you were replying to? Here it is again: http://www.npr.org/sections/pa...

"The plant consists of five big industrial windmills and two lakes. On windy days — and there are plenty — the windmills harness the Canary Islands' Atlantic gusts. When production exceeds demand, such as at night, excess energy is used to pump water from a sea-level lake up into a natural volcanic crater half a mile uphill. When the wind dies down, the water is released down through a pipe connecting the two lakes. On its way, it passes through turbines, which generate hydro-power. Everything is connected with sensors so that within five seconds of the wind dying down, the hydro portion of the plant kicks in. For island residents, the lights don't even flicker."

I don't think the lake is made out of lead acid batteries...

The Canary Islands are far ahead of Costa Rica.... They use Solar farms, solar on practically every building, and wind farms...

http://www.npr.org/sections/pa...

A "Star Trek" type communist world without the liberal political correctness does sound awesome where all necessities are free. Course they have "replicators", but one if the books mentioned how money was done away with once people realized a faith based currency was meaningless. Now with that said I know "Utopian" society always falls apart.

Multiculturalism always fails and has in every society on Earth.

But here's done Utopian communist examples from an episode of Star Trek excerpt: https://youtu.be/pzqW0YaN2ho

Heres the Democratic Co-Director of liberal think tank "Institute for public policy " discussing how back in 2005 at a dinner secretly taped how to destroy America by using multiculturalism , a completely made up word by political correctness just as the word racist never existed in language until the inventor of political correctness as a weapon Richard Henry Pratt created the word in 1902 for Indian youth to attack older Indian generation as he erased 100s of languages and cultures via political correctness dubbed the largest cultural genocide.
http://www.npr.org/sections/co...

So star trek world would be cool, it only works in fiction :-P

You mean the phone that belonged to San Bernardino county that they forgot to install MDM software on it and then when the government tried to get the data from the automated backup (or was that reset the password) screwed that up too. As far as I know nothing has come of the data that the government got out of the phone using some undisclosed exploit. Turns out all that effort would have been better used if instead the FBI had tried pissing up a rope.

There is a very good episode of NPR's Planet Money that talks about Kansas City taxes. Basically, businesses hop back and forth to whomever gives them the lowest taxes. It's a race to the bottom. The only winning move is not to play. Episode here

Except ALL 22 MILLION Bush administrative emails were recovered from tape backups. Clinton wiped the data AFTER the FOIA request. I don't know of a single person that has decided one day to delete ALL their personal emails, except Clinton. https://www.wired.com/2009/12/... another source http://www.npr.org/templates/s... , another http://www.npr.org/templates/s... . Yep you're idiot.

Except ALL 22 MILLION Bush administrative emails were recovered from tape backups. Clinton wiped the data AFTER the FOIA request. I don't know of a single person that has decided one day to delete ALL their personal emails, except Clinton. https://www.wired.com/2009/12/... another source http://www.npr.org/templates/s... , another http://www.npr.org/templates/s... . Yep you're idiot.

Its entirely possible we have already crossed into a run-away condition. If true conservation alone won't save your future generations. We should begin a global scale climate engineer project TODAY! So that its ready in time to be used.

The likliehood that we'll hit a runaway condition is extremely low. CO2 levels have been much higher at times in the past, and we didn't get anywhere near that level of instability.

What will happen is serious instability as the shift in climate changes weather patterns. This will probably have arid regions become rainy, and vice versa. As well, temperate areas may become sub tropical and sub-arctic areas become temperate. All at the same time that oceanic boundaries shift.

Here is a plausible, but not at all certain scenario. A water rights based civil war. California, having entered into a new arid climate, attempts to assert it's water rights upon the other states fed by the Colorado River, and demands that Oregon allow them to divert a sizable percentage of the Columbia River's water to allow California to grow food. Arizona and Oregon and Washington State refuse to cooperate. California Negotiations with Great Lakes States break off, dooming the proposed Transcontinental aqueduct. So California becomes desperate and moves to physically force Oregon to supply them with water, first in the courts, then by fighting.

Is this outlandish? Check out the California Water Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

For a worldwide list http://www2.worldwater.org/con...

There will also probably be a number of refugees from oceanfront real estate.

We already have climate refugees - Carteret Island pupulation has abandoned theit home http://earthfirstjournal.org/n...

Isle de Jean Charles is considered America's first climate change refugees. Inthe state of Louisiana the citizens have received a 48 million dollar grant to relocate. http://www.npr.org/2016/05/14/...

note: this is not all ocean levels rising - the rerouting of the Mississippi has cause delta erosion, so they are getting hit very quickly from multiple reasons.

So everyone enjoy - the future might be plenty exciting.

There will be no prolonged cooling period in your lifetime.

Someone already disagrees with you back on July 9th. Solar physicist sees global cooling ahead [from 2020 to 2053,]

Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe we just don't know because we don't have enough information. Or maybe we DO have but "teh Evil {Organization-Name-Goes-Here}" is out to get us.

Or maybe humans don't like change. Another way: "First you tell me to push, and we've build all of these emotions and businesses and structures to push, and now you're telling me to pull? How about I push you off a cliff instead and we'll call it even."

It's all in DEGREE of implementation. "If we don't stop global warming now, it'll be too late" is what I usually hear. But how much is enough?

Mostly on topic: Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change?

MY answer. NO. No you shouldn't -- if you care enough about this glorious, wonderful planet and the damage we are all causing to it every day then you shouldn't have kids. And you should kill any current kids you have. Neighbors kids, too. Oh, and go ahead and kill yourself as well. Hmmm? What about me? I'll let you go first, thank you.

Our kids will survive in their environment they inherited. Or they won't. or they'll die of peanut allergies, or the snowflakes will have nervous breakdowns once they get into the real world that doesn't care about them or what they think. It behooves us to leave them the best environment we can but who's to define "best"?

I don't know how to solve this. No one does. We don't even agree on the terms, and can't agree to disagree. So we all do what we think best and hope for the best. Until someone actually decides that violence, money, and power is the solution and then things'll get even worse instead of better.

Hell, I'm an atheist but maybe prayer IS the answer. Or at least actual careful thought and then you ostracize those without any power. Gee, sounds like The Lives of the Rich and Famous and SJWs, doesn't it?

I suffered a few minutes of NPR over the weekend while they happened to be covering the flood news. Apparently the only officials from Louisiana or the feds that NPR has any interest in hosting are climatologists. No FEMA, no state first responders; just climatologists.

Sounds like a problem with your sample size. A few minutes? Really?

Why don't you just admit you hate what the media is saying, you don't want to hear it, and it bothers you, because it's not what you want to be told.

You want some fairy tales.

While discussing the floods with the climatologists, both the federal and state climate guys made the mistake of mentioning the fact that the high costs and displacement are as much to do with recent property development as the amount of water. You could clearly detect the host's frustration as he attempted to get these hapless officials back on the rails speculating about climate and saying disparaging things about fossil fuels.

Sure dude, maybe you just heard what you wanted to hear. It's clear that you're quite angry and frustrated yourself.

Whatever. You people want to eat all the crap they're feeding you and furnish your rulers with the ammo to manage you're decline, go ahead. Enjoy. I don't care anymore. Bill Nye lives in a nice $1,000,000+ home in Studio City and I'm all set with my nice property and neither one of us are giving it up for the benefit of your virtues, so fuck off.

Well, that's ok, we probably don't want you to give it up for our virtues. But your choices may have consequences, as numbers of hedonists have found out to their sorrow.

It may be that your sins come with a price.

Scotland Yard, for one, has a bunch of specialists with a talent for grainy security footage. It's taken a while, but now that super-recognizers are actually looking through all that footage, it looks like the cameras in London are starting to put people in jail.

Where I live, it seems cameras have at least convinced crooks to put on ski-masks before they rob a bank teller or a convenience store. I've got mixed feelings about a world gone all Minority Report, but if you live in a neighborhood where this kind of shit-crime is common, you start to get frustrated at the grainy blob on the 11 o'clock news carjacking a lady at a gas station. It's these assholes who'll make it easy for toothy salesmen to sell politicians on armed security drones, DNA sniffers, cyborg security-dogs, and whatever else crazy shit the future has in store for us.

What kind of major outlets are you looking for?

http://abcnews.go.com/Internat...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gr...

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Hell, even the NY Daily News covered it:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

The problem is we are not willing to pay for quality journalism any more. It's a problem that no-one has found a solution to yet. Paywalls just destroy your readership base and comments sections. Adverts distribute malware and get blocked.

That's not true at all. There's sites out there that are increasing their readership based on their quality reporting and have been outstripping other sites. While those other sites who are driving for clickbait, making up BS and so on are driving into the tank. Let's look at an example: Breitbart has increased their readership by nearly 25m/daily views in the last 2 years. Huffington post has gone from 60m daily views to just under 20m in two years. The Spectator and spiked-online have both increased, while the guardian have decreased. And other sites even from here in Canada like Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, National Post have all accelerated their loss of readership.

You know what's unique about all of those sites who've lost readership? They're all pushing an agenda, they're all pushing far-left agendas, and they've all at one point attacked or continue to attack their readership. Whether it be in opinion/editorial or in the articles they publish. That alone shows that if you're simply publishing news, it's fairly unbiased, and so on you get viewership. Even breitbart has expanded and moved from just right-leaning reporters, editorial writers around 18mo ago and that further accelerated their gains in readership. An interesting thing with NAPO is around 15 months ago, they decided to fire their editors, replace some editors, fire a bunch of reporters, replaced their comment system to "facebook commenting" and guess what happened? Their readership fell through the floor. And many of those other sites which continue to hemorrhage, also gutting comment sections. Next up is NPR, and I expect the same to happen.

I suppose that's the norm for him, but there's no legitimate reason why he can't provide them. He doesn't want to. that's the sole reason. Which leads to the question why he doesn't.

Because he's under audit. There's no law stopping him from doing so, but, from a legal standpoint, it's a really bad idea.

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/26/...

Basically, if someone he does business with is disgruntled, they can pull up his tax information, find some line item they are somewhat familiar with and tell the IRS he's lying. Then the IRS is obligated to do more investigation into that area of his tax return. The claim could be completely bogus, made anonymously, but it will still hold up the audit while the IRS does it's due diligence.

Now, when you're talking about a controversial presidential candidate, you *really* don't want to release anything. Nutjobs would be coming out of the woodwork making claims about his tax returns. The IRS would be obligated to follow up on all of them.

Normally this isn't an issue, as there would be no reason to release your returns. Slightly different situation when you are running for president.

I can see valid arguments on both sides of the issue. Personally I don't care, but I could see how you could.

Do yourself a favor and have a look at the youtube video in the NPR link. It was produced by the war department. It's fascinating. I especially like how the solders were handling the fuel rods in t-shirts and no protective equipment at all. I am quite sure every single one of those poor guys died a horrible death not long after.

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Why would every poor guy handling fuel rods be dead already? Looking at how everyone seems to smoke back then, I expect more solders died of smoking that any radiation issues. (Remember they are handling new fuel rods, which are not all that dangerous.)

Do yourself a favor and have a look at the youtube video in the NPR link. It was produced by the war department. It's fascinating. I especially like how the solders were handling the fuel rods in t-shirts and no protective equipment at all.
I am quite sure every single one of those poor guys died a horrible death not long after.

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Meanwhile, the NIH is lifting it's ban on chimera research.

". Ignorance of the law, including rights, is no defense."

For you and me but for law enforcement it most certainly is, thanks to the Supreme Court. http://www.npr.org/2014/12/15/...

The music industry set the bar at $22,500 per violation ($675,000 for 30 works) for an individual violating copyright without a profit motive. $1 billion for 18,000 works is only $55,555 per violation, which is relative to the Tenenbaum case is not unreasonable when you consider this is commercial copyright violation. Her lawyers are actually being nice by "only" asking for $1 billion. Copyright law allows her to sue for up to $150,000 per violation, which would be a cool $2.7 billion.

In other words, if she gets less than $22,500 * 18,000 = $405 million out of this, there's been a gross miscarriage of justice either in her case or the Tenenbaum cause. Unlike filesharing, what Getty Images did is precisely the sort of thing copyright law was made to prohibit - profiting off the work of others.

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/23/...

All told, a single donor can give more than $700,000 for the election.
That's serious money, according to campaign finance lawyer Brett Kappel.
He said, "It also shows you where campaign finance law has gone. We're now back in the era of soft money."

"Soft money" was the term for unregulated contributions to the party committees in the 1980s and '90s.
The soft money system led to corruption cases in both major parties, and Congress barred party committees from raising it in 2002.

But eight years later, the Supreme Court gave unregulated money a new path with Citizens United and other court decisions.
In a 2014 ruling in the case McCutcheon v. FEC, the Supreme Court elevated the importance of joint fundraising committees between campaigns and parties, such as the Hillary Victory Fund.

Campaign finance law had previously set an overarching limit on how much one person could give to federal candidates and the major parties â" combined â" in one election cycle.
In McCutcheon, the Supreme Court said that limit was unconstitutional.
As in other rulings, the court said removing the limit didn't raise questions of corruption.

You don't like that? Well, you can hop on your time machine and go and shoot down people responsible - two Bushes and a Reagan.
They appointed the guys who made it legal. Obama and Clinton appointed judges were against it.
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down an overall cap on the amount that large campaign donors can give to parties and candidates in a two-year election cycle.

...
Chief Justice John Roberts led the opinion and was joined by justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito.
A separate but concurring opinion was written by Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/23/...

All told, a single donor can give more than $700,000 for the election.
That's serious money, according to campaign finance lawyer Brett Kappel.
He said, "It also shows you where campaign finance law has gone. We're now back in the era of soft money."

"Soft money" was the term for unregulated contributions to the party committees in the 1980s and '90s.
The soft money system led to corruption cases in both major parties, and Congress barred party committees from raising it in 2002.

But eight years later, the Supreme Court gave unregulated money a new path with Citizens United and other court decisions.
In a 2014 ruling in the case McCutcheon v. FEC, the Supreme Court elevated the importance of joint fundraising committees between campaigns and parties, such as the Hillary Victory Fund.

Campaign finance law had previously set an overarching limit on how much one person could give to federal candidates and the major parties â" combined â" in one election cycle.
In McCutcheon, the Supreme Court said that limit was unconstitutional.
As in other rulings, the court said removing the limit didn't raise questions of corruption.

You don't like that? Well, you can hop on your time machine and go and shoot down people responsible - two Bushes and a Reagan.
They appointed the guys who made it legal. Obama and Clinton appointed judges were against it.
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down an overall cap on the amount that large campaign donors can give to parties and candidates in a two-year election cycle.

...
Chief Justice John Roberts led the opinion and was joined by justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito.
A separate but concurring opinion was written by Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

Fantastic! Now you can prove me wrong. Just find one person who did what Hillary did (mishandle classified data but with no intent to leak and with no data leaked) and is in jail, and you will prove me terribly mistaken.

Or, if you can't, then it will be clear that your hatred of Hillary is greater than your love of facts or fairness or patriotism, and that you will make anything up if it fits the narrative you wish were true.

How many cases would you like links to? Here is one from NPR that talks about David Petraeus who was indicted for mishandling classified data. He received one year of probation after pleading out. The same article mentions John Deutch, who was the CIA director under Bill Clinton. President Clinton had to grant him a pardon when he was facing indictment for "Improper handling of classified data." In fact, he basically did the same thing as Clinton - had classified data on a (government owned) computer at home. He was facing indictment because he didn't turn over classified material several days after leaving the CIA. How long did Clinton keep the classified data at her house? Oh and here's another Clinton aid mentioned in the same article: Samuel "Sandy" Berger who destroyed copies of classified data and then lied about doing so. Hmmm didn't Clinton do the same thing - only in her case it was to destroy evidence of wrongdoing? And then again we have Alberto Gonzales, AG under GW Bush. He was investigated just for storing material in a safe that non-cleared people had access to - inside the Justice Department office - though in this case there was no indictment. What about this Navy Engineer who was indicted and convicted for mishandling classified data with no intent to distribute it? This young sailor just took a picture on a submarine and then destroyed the evidence and was indicted and convicted. How about this Marine Corps Major who was dishonorably discharged after using personal email to send classified documents? And here is a lab tech who was prosecuted for taking classified material home from the office - again with no evidence of intent to distribute. How about an NSA Employee who was indicted for leaking material to the press? And a State Department Employeee indicted and convicted for taking classified material home. Are these enough references? Because it took me all of 30 seconds to find these news articles.

And what did the FBI basically say? She's too big to indict.

You have a rare talent, to interpret what people "basically" say. My poor brain can only handle what they "actually" say: "In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: [various bad stuff]. We do not see those things here."

How else can you interpret the comment that "No reasonable prosecutor would indict" when it was clearly a violation of the law and we can clearly see dozens of cases above where people were indicted for doing similar things, and in some cases, far less than Clinton? If they could not find cases of prosecution in events similar to hers then

Seriously dude, there's plenty of negative things to say that are legitimate. Stop making crap up, or provide citations. You just look like a fool.

It's possible that this is just tone deaf instead of racist, but that is the "CP time" incident referred to above.

Because when you're young and male and your frontal lobes are fully developed, you're superhuman dontcha' know?

That's why we recruit the young'uns to be infantry in both the US Army and the USMC.... quite literally they're too underdeveloped to fear death like an adult.

You are taking what he said out of context.

No I am not. He says directly in the interview that "capitalism and competition are ... really antonyms". In other words, Thiel believes that competition is incompatible with capitalism.

Thiel "has been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump's run for the oval office, previously supported Ron Paul for president and has identified himself as a conservative libertarian in the past...

Anyone who supports Trump is certainly not a libertarian. In fact, it was clear that Thiel had abandoned libertarianism when he gave an interview two years ago. During the interview, he said that he was opposed to competition because "it's very, very hard to make money" when there's competition!

Actually, Day One for Bitcoin was buying two pizzas for 10,000 BTC, and that was 18 months after the network first booted up. Until then it was just a cryptographic curiosity. The Silk Road prosecution revealed that only 4% of bitcoin transactions were used on their black market to buy drugs and other nefarious purposes. That's not much higher than the ratio of illicit drugs to GDP worldwide (3%), and is far less than the total underground economy in the US (20%). The underground economy = black market (illegal) + off the books economy (nominally legal but not reported).

Good old cash is still by far the preferred choice for illegal activity. That's why over 70% of hundred Dollar bills are overseas:

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

The US space program is essentially a gigantic playtoy for white males
I liked this better the first time I heard it. As for this bit, Spending on social programs is never wasted as it goes directly to the people who need it most. Yeah, that is an awfully big assumption, no corruption or misdirection of funds?.

Don't forget (some of) the farmers and fishermen that see and acknowledge the effects that they experience first hand. Republicans trying to court them have to walk a fine line between acknowledging the reality of climate change, and following the script.

I remember a while back hearing of a Republican who was about to be replaced over it, for essentially listening to the concerns of his constituency. He also reported that there are many Republicans who also believe in it, but who remain quiet due to fear of losing their jobs. I am unable to find the source of this right now.

This story is similar.

Also, notice how it's much easier to profit from it than it is to say that you believe it.

Don't forget (some of) the farmers and fishermen that see and acknowledge the effects that they experience first hand. Republicans trying to court them have to walk a fine line between acknowledging the reality of climate change, and following the script.

I remember a while back hearing of a Republican who was about to be replaced over it, for essentially listening to the concerns of his constituency. He also reported that there are many Republicans who also believe in it, but who remain quiet due to fear of losing their jobs. I am unable to find the source of this right now.

This story is similar.

Also, notice how it's much easier to profit from it than it is to say that you believe it.

From 4 Questions About Donald Trump's Potential Conflicts Of Interest If He's Elected

"If I become president, I couldn't care less about my company. It's peanuts. I want to use that same — up here, whatever it may be — to make America rich again, and to make America great again. I have Ivanka and Eric and Don sitting there. Run the company, kids. Have a good time. I'm going to do it for America. ... I would put it in a blind trust. Well, I don't know if it's a blind trust if Ivanka, Don and Eric run it. But — is that a blind trust? I don't know. But I would probably have my children run it with my executives. And I wouldn't ever be involved, because I wouldn't care about anything but our country. Anything."

Do you really believe that he may let go of his businesses? I don't, and having trust in the POTUS is rathe important.

NPR's Planet Money economics podcast did an episode on this very issue.

I can't find the original full podcast episode, but here's the shorter All Tech Considered version.

W

after all, "computer software developer" is the most popular job in CO, UT, VA and WA.