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It's not just volume. Uber is really two parts. The ride sharing side and the company researching self driving cars side. It would be interesting to see that broken down. My guess is that the ride sharing side would likely be profitable if the R&D side wasn't eating up their profit plus some.

Why do you assume that Uber's ride sharing is profitable? There is to my knowledge zero evidence to suggest that Uber's ride sharing is profitable or that it even has a path to profitability. It's not clear they have a cost advantage over their competition and the costs of running a taxi service are largely fixed (fuel, labor, etc) with limited economies of scale. Plus there actually is data out there on how Uber spends their money and it appears their losses mostly are from trying to buy their way into markets by discounting ride sharing below cost. Yes they have a lot of revenue growth but it's easy to generate a lot of sales by selling $2 bills for $1.

Driverless cars are an existential risk to lots of current companies which is why so many companies are either researching it or investing in companies that are.

In Uber's case it's hard to see what their business model is or where they have any sort of advantage when it comes to driverless cars. Uber is losing billions per year on ridesharing and their competitors (google, ford, gm, etc) all MAKE billions in profit per year or in the case of Tesla actually make cars. Given that real driverless cars are at least a decade away from widespread commercial viability (sorry you won't see them next year) I cannot see any meaningful business model that won't result in Uber running out of cash long before driverless cars become a viable product unless Uber can get to at least breakeven on their ride sharing business.

heart attacks and head-in-ass syndrome.

That reminds me, here is a list of members of Congress who get the most money from the NRA:

https://www.nytimes.com/intera...

All of them offered "thoughts and prayers" after today's mass shooting.

"LOL Congress sucks and they're corrupt!!!"
 
Say, what are you going to do come Election Day? Stay home? Vote straight-ticket? There's a reason these piles of pigshit somehow manage to remain in office despite their obviously being bought-and-paid-for, and that's that the dumbasses keep letting the fuckers trick them into voting Democrat OR Republican, by scaring them into "thinking," if it can be called thinking, that if you don't vote for ONE PARTY'S corrupt loser, their even MORE corrupt loser will win office, and take away your BIRTHDAY, meanwhile getting people to ignore or forget that BOTH CANDIDATES are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the RICH, corporations, and their puppet-strings are being pulled by them and their goddamned fucking money.

Wanna change things? STOP VOTING FOR ASSHOLE REPUBLICANS OR WEAK, USELESS, SPINELESS-LOSER DEMOCRATS! Show up, VOTE, and vote for someone who does NOT take corporate money or big legalized BRIBES. OR , don't, and continue to whine when the vast majority of the country agrees on stuff, and politicians ignore the will of the people and put in law policies that are THE OPPOSITE of what THE PEOPLE want, because the ONLY opinions that the assholes in office give a fuck about are the opinions of the fuckers bribing them.

DUH.

heart attacks and head-in-ass syndrome.

That reminds me, here is a list of members of Congress who get the most money from the NRA:

https://www.nytimes.com/intera...

All of them offered "thoughts and prayers" after today's mass shooting.

I've got a hunch there are some channels that they get paid to place in the lineup. If so, letting you drop those would actually hurt their bottom line. Then there are channels that cost them so much that they simply must charge everyone for them or they would not be able to offer them to those that do want them, due to costs.

Yup, that's exactly how it works - some channel owners pay providers to carry the channels, while the "top-tier" channels are considered must-have and so it's the other way around: the providers pay for the right to carry the channels, and then more often than not there are groups of channels owned by the same company and the rights for them are negotiated as a group. For years, Disney + ESPN (especially ESPN) were considered must-have cable channels, so not only did providers pay for for the "privilege" of including ESPN, they paid a ton for it - easily 25% or more of the fees providers paid for their channel lineup went to ESPN.

ESPN's success is why there has been a proliferation of new cable sports channels, and it's a big part of why ESPN has been weakened so much. But the deals are so valuable and complicated that they end up being deals with a very long duration. For example, Comcast and Disney hammered out a deal in 2012 that remains in effect until 2022 (see https://mediadecoder.blogs.nyt...).

Incidentally, the long duration of these deals is also a major factor in why the TV industry has been moving so frustratingly slow for end users: people were wanting to e.g. watch TV on their computers or phones long before it was allowed because few of the business deals had provisions for anything online. It's not hard to imagine that in 2020, if ESPN is still alive, viewers will be frustrated by some inane restriction due to the fact that the content rights were negotiated way back in 2012. :)

Has it even been proven that "fake news" is really an issue? I saw the shenanigans that Russia got up to on facebook and have a hard time believing that influenced anyone to vote differently than they otherwise might have.

No question. Main Stream Media thinks it's their job to form public opinion.
Now to put leftists between a rock and a hard place. NY Times exposing CNN's fake news:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...
However I don't want other networks to feel left out (abc):
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/0...

NY Times goes all the way back to at least the 1930s when they lied about Russia:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10...

If it's the left saying something to you, it's almost certain it's a lie.

Has it even been proven that "fake news" is really an issue? I saw the shenanigans that Russia got up to on facebook and have a hard time believing that influenced anyone to vote differently than they otherwise might have.

No question. Main Stream Media thinks it's their job to form public opinion.
Now to put leftists between a rock and a hard place. NY Times exposing CNN's fake news:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...
However I don't want other networks to feel left out (abc):
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/0...

NY Times goes all the way back to at least the 1930s when they lied about Russia:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10...

If it's the left saying something to you, it's almost certain it's a lie.

After a year that saw over $300 million in damages from hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters, the Trump administration is proposing significant cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and hopes to eliminate the jobs of 248 weather forecasters.

Is the administration (not Trump, Trump has nothing to do with staffing levels at NWS, get over your Trump Delusion Syndrome) eliminating unfilled positions or eliminating actual employees currently in those positions?

So we've had $300 MILLION in damages from hurricanes, wildfires, etc.? If that's the case, then why are spending BILLIONS to repair cities like Houston and the island territory of Puerto Rico to the tune of $125-150 Billion and $94 Billion respectively?

I'm curious, is the argument that there would be greater damages without our current number of forecasters, or is the argument that we'd have more hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, etc. if not for the current staffing levels at NWS?

... wanted to privatize the NWS. You pay private forecasters* for whatever quality of report you want. Actually, I think he might have succeeded, as American (public) weather modeling falls far short of European and private technology*. We'll just go ahead and cripple the public offering if there's any chance that it might compete with a product that private enterprise wants to sell.

*Using publicly funded satellite and sensor data. But we'll just 'add some value' and sell it back to you.

Do you have any citations for this? Given the antigenic shift in the viral protein coat of influenza viruses, I'm not aware of evidence that past infections prevent future infection. It looks like there is evidence that natural immunity prevents infection from that same strain, but it doesn't look like there's evidence it provides you with much infection to inevitably drifting isotypes.

My first thought on seeing the headline was about using technology to read ancient manuscripts which may be too fragile to open or may have even been written on recycled even older manuscripts. They use x-rays and computer imaging to read that which cannot be read by the human eye.

I've seen a few stories about this over the years.

Scientists read ancient sealed documents without opening them

MIT and Georgia Tech develop technology to read books without opening them

Scientists Read Ancient Hebrew Scroll Without Opening It

Scanning an Ancient Biblical Text That Humans Fear to Open

There's lots more out there and note those aren't just 4 different links to the same story.

But this story is still interesting to me too. I'm sure that the people doing the work in the linked article might be tasked with transcribing or translating the images of pages they can't actually touch.

Oh dear, you sad semi-literate Trumpie, you missed all the references (not one of them is Reddit). Here they are so you can improve your reading skills.

1) The Guardian - Trump Tower meeting with Russians treasonous, Bannon says in explosive book

2) NBC - A Panama tower carries Trump’s name and ties to organized crime

3) Global Witness - Narco-A-Lago: Money Laundering At The Trump Ocean Club Panama

4) The Guardian - Trumps Panama tower used for money laundering by condo owners, reports say

5) Sketchy Donald Trump Deal Eyed For Ties To Iran | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

6) The New Yorker - Donald Trump’s Worst Deal:
The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

7) NPR - The New Yorker Uncovers Trump Hotels Ties To Corrupt Oligarch Family

8) Business Insider - Dossier author Christopher Steele: Trumps hotel and land deals with Russians need to be examined

9) New York Times - Trump Associate Boasted That Moscow Business Deal ‘Will Get Donald Elected’

10) The Washington Post - Trump’s company had more contact with Russia during campaign, according to documents turned over to investigators

11) Slate - An Intriguing Link Between the Mueller Investigation, Trump, and Alleged Money Laundering

12) GQ - Inside Donald Trumps Election Night War Room

13) Politico - Trump’s mob-linked ex-associate gives $5,400 to campaign

14) Raw Story - Longtime Trump business partner ‘told family he knows he and POTUS are going to prison’: report

15) The Spectator - Forget Charlottesville - Russia Is Still The True Trumps True Scandal

16) McClatchy - Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king

17) New York Times - Tracking the Yachts and Jets of the Mega-Rich

18) McClatchy - Trump, Russian billionaire say they’ve never met,

Oh dear, you sad semi-literate Trumpie, you missed all the references (not one of them is Reddit). Here they are so you can improve your reading skills.

1) The Guardian - Trump Tower meeting with Russians treasonous, Bannon says in explosive book

2) NBC - A Panama tower carries Trump’s name and ties to organized crime

3) Global Witness - Narco-A-Lago: Money Laundering At The Trump Ocean Club Panama

4) The Guardian - Trumps Panama tower used for money laundering by condo owners, reports say

5) Sketchy Donald Trump Deal Eyed For Ties To Iran | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

6) The New Yorker - Donald Trump’s Worst Deal:
The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

7) NPR - The New Yorker Uncovers Trump Hotels Ties To Corrupt Oligarch Family

8) Business Insider - Dossier author Christopher Steele: Trumps hotel and land deals with Russians need to be examined

9) New York Times - Trump Associate Boasted That Moscow Business Deal ‘Will Get Donald Elected’

10) The Washington Post - Trump’s company had more contact with Russia during campaign, according to documents turned over to investigators

11) Slate - An Intriguing Link Between the Mueller Investigation, Trump, and Alleged Money Laundering

12) GQ - Inside Donald Trumps Election Night War Room

13) Politico - Trump’s mob-linked ex-associate gives $5,400 to campaign

14) Raw Story - Longtime Trump business partner ‘told family he knows he and POTUS are going to prison’: report

15) The Spectator - Forget Charlottesville - Russia Is Still The True Trumps True Scandal

16) McClatchy - Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king

17) New York Times - Tracking the Yachts and Jets of the Mega-Rich

18) McClatchy - Trump, Russian billionaire say they’ve never met,

promotes such a toxic workplace...

I would hasten to add that toxic workplace is as most subjective as can be, and that this is *your* opinion. There are a lot of external references to Uber's toxic workplace. Try google searching Uber+toxic+workplace. A few hits I could dismiss as "a few haters", but I get 443 thousand hits.

Here are some of the top few. It looks pretty toxic to me: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... https://www.recode.net/2017/6/... https://thinkprogress.org/trav... https://www.recode.net/2017/6/... http://www.businessinsider.com... http://theconversation.com/fix... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... https://www.theguardian.com/te... https://qz.com/1010986/a-timel...

Maybe Alphabet doesn't believe that Google's results are accurate. ;-)

Strangely, I just ran the same search in Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Google: 157,000 hits

Bing: 3,690,000 hits

Yahoo: 21,000,000 hits

promotes such a toxic workplace...

I would hasten to add that toxic workplace is as most subjective as can be, and that this is *your* opinion. There are a lot of external references to Uber's toxic workplace. Try google searching Uber+toxic+workplace. A few hits I could dismiss as "a few haters", but I get 443 thousand hits.

Here are some of the top few. It looks pretty toxic to me: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... https://www.recode.net/2017/6/... https://thinkprogress.org/trav... https://www.recode.net/2017/6/... http://www.businessinsider.com... http://theconversation.com/fix... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... https://www.theguardian.com/te... https://qz.com/1010986/a-timel...

Maybe Alphabet doesn't believe that Google's results are accurate. ;-)

Strangely, I just ran the same search in Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Google: 157,000 hits

Bing: 3,690,000 hits

Yahoo: 21,000,000 hits

No, they didn't host the files. My recollection was correct:

...by largely affirming a lower-court ruling that the company encourages and abets the wholesale infringement of copyrights.

Kansas spends about $10K per student which is above average for the OECD (which is around $9300 per student, per my link from CBS News).

Again, you are committing the logical error of considering that because the average is acceptable, that general funding is acceptable. Kansas has some very well funded schools in affluent areas, but recently the Kansas supreme court ruled that the funding was "unconstitutionally low" for many districts.

Perhaps it's not how much is spent - but HOW it is spent

I'll raise you one more - WHERE it is spent matters a great deal. On aggregate, it can look like we spend plenty on education. But due to the fact that schools are generally funded by local property taxes, we've got a combo of schools that have enough money that they've reached the point of diminishing returns in spending, alongside schools that are struggling to provide basic services and just stay fully staffed. Which is a great way to get an education system where there's a lot of spending, and also a lot of students that aren't doing well.

The National Enquirer [and] the NYT [...]

The ONLY conclusion I can come to is that both sources need additional verification and corroboration and nobody should blindly follow their lead.

And both moonshine and orange juice contain alcohol - yet they are very much not the same.

Bias is more than how something is reported, but also what isn't reported that should. I mean how important is it to report that he drinks a twelve-pack of coke a day? Did the news report on Obama's smoking habit in the same manner?

Well, spending a minute with Google tells me that the NYT did in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 - and that is just a small selection from one newspaper.

The National Enquirer [and] the NYT [...]

The ONLY conclusion I can come to is that both sources need additional verification and corroboration and nobody should blindly follow their lead.

And both moonshine and orange juice contain alcohol - yet they are very much not the same.

Bias is more than how something is reported, but also what isn't reported that should. I mean how important is it to report that he drinks a twelve-pack of coke a day? Did the news report on Obama's smoking habit in the same manner?

Well, spending a minute with Google tells me that the NYT did in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 - and that is just a small selection from one newspaper.

The National Enquirer [and] the NYT [...]

The ONLY conclusion I can come to is that both sources need additional verification and corroboration and nobody should blindly follow their lead.

And both moonshine and orange juice contain alcohol - yet they are very much not the same.

Bias is more than how something is reported, but also what isn't reported that should. I mean how important is it to report that he drinks a twelve-pack of coke a day? Did the news report on Obama's smoking habit in the same manner?

Well, spending a minute with Google tells me that the NYT did in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 - and that is just a small selection from one newspaper.

The National Enquirer [and] the NYT [...]

The ONLY conclusion I can come to is that both sources need additional verification and corroboration and nobody should blindly follow their lead.

And both moonshine and orange juice contain alcohol - yet they are very much not the same.

Bias is more than how something is reported, but also what isn't reported that should. I mean how important is it to report that he drinks a twelve-pack of coke a day? Did the news report on Obama's smoking habit in the same manner?

Well, spending a minute with Google tells me that the NYT did in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 - and that is just a small selection from one newspaper.

During the course of the investigation, the FBI recorded Sporyshev and Podobnyy speaking inside the SVR’s offices in New York, known as the “Residentura.” The FBI obtained the recordings after Sporyshev attempted to recruit an FBI undercover employee (“UCE-1”), who was posing as an analyst from a New York-based energy company.

That undercover employee ("UCE-1") was Carter Page. He was the primary witness and worked for the FBI up to May of 2016.
But then, suddenly, in October of 2016, the FBI applies for a Title 1 FISA application against Carter Page. What is a Title 1 FISA? It says the target "is working on behalf of a foreign government". Why???
Let me tell you why! A Title 1 FISA allows the FBI to retroactively monitor all communications of not just the target, but ANYONE he communicated with as well!
The FISA warrant was an excuse that allowed the Obama WH to spy on Donald Trump's entire team.

they were completely orthogonal about what was wrong with her.

Though I didn't vote for Trump, I found myself in a similar situation to this regarding my own mistrust of Hillary. Here's my argument:

There are a hundred smaller events such as the 'public and private positions' and a couple larger events like the 'deplorable/irredeemable' comments (I'd put that in the same category as the 43% comment from Romney) that hurt her reputation. The Clinton foundation accepting large donations from enemies and tyrants didn't help.

However, when you get down to brass tacks , it was Hillary's exceedingly calculated and orchestrated campaign that gave the impression that we weren't getting the 'true' Hillary. Even listening to her on Ezra Klein's podcast after the election when presumably she'd have no reason to be cautious, I still left with the view that she was not being forthcoming.

anyway, here's a link to the real article which OP neglected to use

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

The entire Trump Russia investigation was predicated on the 100% false Steele Dossier

Based on what I just recently read this is not true.

Notably, the Republican memo does not assert that Mr. Steele’s information was the fountainhead of the broader Russia investigation as many Republicans and conservative media commentators have insinuated.

The Republican memo does not provide the full scope of evidence the F.B.I. and Justice Department used to obtain the warrant to surveil Mr. Page, and it is not clear to what extent the application hinges on the material provided by Mr. Steele. In December 2017, the Republican memo said, Andrew G. McCabe, then the deputy director of the F.B.I., told the House Intelligence Committee that no surveillance would have been sought without Mr. Steele’s information.

But the people familiar with the Democratic memo said that Republicans had distorted what Mr. McCabe told the Intelligence Committee about the importance of the information from Mr. Steele. Mr. McCabe presented the material as part of a constellation of compelling evidence that raised serious suspicions about Mr. Page, the two people said. The evidence included contacts Mr. Page had in 2013 with a Russian intelligence operative.

Mr. Page’s contacts with the Russian operative led to an investigation of Mr. Page that year, including a wiretap on him, another person familiar with the matter said.

(emphasis mine)

From what I've gathered so far es a European trying to stay on track on current events, the main issue is this: FISA applications are not public information. It is not possible to know what evidence besides the memo was used in the application and how much (if at all) the memo eventually influenced the decision. Now. to me it seems the republicans are taking full advantage of this fact and trying to portray the memo as the singular piece of evidence on which the whole thing hangs upon, because they know that they cannot be disproven without the releasing of classified material, meaning their backs are covered.

Stop slurping up the shit being shoved by the MSM and actually read it

So instead we should believe a memo written by a party that has a vested interest in the investigation and does not (cannot in fact due to the classified nature) release full details on the state of the investigation and seems to be crafted precisely to appear to say something it indeed does not say (that the memo was the primary reason/piece of evidence used for the application) and thus to give a misleading picture of the state of things? Huh? How does that make sense?

Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly and does change in market share. In fact, if you look at consumer computing devices as a whole, instead of focusing only on classic style desktops, Microsoft has dropped way more.

The history of electrical utilities is that as soon as the government lightened up regulations to allow more competition, more competition happened. That's a pretty strong argument that it's been the regulation saying no one is allowed to compete in an area driving the lack of competition, not the other way around. Electrical generation is a lot more competitive now that the government allows it. The government still enforces local monopolies in electrical distribution. Why do they need to make that legally enforced if it's a natural monopoly, meaning no competition would arise if it wasn't illegal? Back in reality, there is still competition creeping in from local solar and natural gas installations who setup right where the power is needed, rather than using the monopolized distribution lines. It's pretty bold to claim "No competition could naturally arise, so therefore we must make any competition illegal!" That contradicts itself, as there would be no need to make competition illegal if it was actually a case of a natural monopoly.

Clinton was never indicted for any crime other than obstruction of justice.

When debating whether or not to impeach him, Congress considered four accusations: two independent perjury charges, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. Of these four, two had enough votes to impeach:

• the nature and details of his relationship with Lewinsky
• prior false statements he made in the Jones deposition
• prior false statements he allowed his lawyer to make characterizing Lewinsky’s affidavit
• his attempts to tamper with witnesses

• encouraging Lewinsky to file a false affidavit
• encouraging Lewinsky to give false testimony if and when she was called to testify
• concealing gifts he had given to Lewinsky that had been subpoenaed
• attempting to secure a job for Lewinsky to influence her testimony
• permitting his lawyer to make false statements characterizing Lewinsky’s affidavit
• attempting to tamper with the possible testimony of his secretary Betty Curie
• making false and misleading statements to potential grand jury witnesses

I urge you to read up the Wikipedia article on the matter...

You're also incorrectly assuming that I am a democrat, it seems. I don't care whether Harry Reid or Schumer wanted Comey fired.

Whatever you personally think, my point stands: when the President faces calls — from both supporters and the opposition — to fire an official, his actually firing the official can not reasonably be suspected of being criminal.

Yeah, he may have done it to better obstruct justice, but that's unlikely. And, most importantly, you still don't have anything to accuse him of in the first place — what crime was he trying to prevent uncovering by this obstruction you allege?

It is evident that Trump tried to get Comey to stop the investigation into Manafort and other members of the Trump campaign

Manafort quit Trump's campaign in August 2016. You need something better than an unsupported claim of it being "evident", that Trump still cared about him in June 2017 — cared so much, he fired head of FBI over it.

And yet we can see that many people are trying to undermine that investigation too

You keep bringing up Clinton, as if that case was the same — it was not. With Clinton the primary charge was obvious and well-known — he was credibly accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and outright rape. What, I ask you for the last time, is the primary accusation against Trump?

It would take years to build out sufficient prison capacity, the court order would not let them take that time. It was not a solution available to them.

No jail.
No dip into the fortunes of the people who directed the fraud.
No keeping these thieves from working at another financial institution.
No systematic attempt to fix the sabotaging of the careers of the workers who refused to commit fraud.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

This little bit of Old Harry's Game is spot on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Haha, this wasn't the 1st FISA warrant on Carter Page, who became a person of interest to the FBI in 2013. The Steele document was a thing until 2016!

This has NOTHING to do with Manafort's laundering and Russia connections, contact between Papadopoulos and Russia, or Russia hacking the DNC to help the GOP win the election, or Trump's son and son-in-law meeting with Kremlin connected Russians, or Trump firing the FBI director, because, by his own admission, he wanted to hinder the Russia investigation.

It's fun seeing Nunes go to battle with the people investigating the campaign _he_ worked on. A decent person would recuse themselves. This has all the hallmarks of political theater aimed at confusing rubes who will jump at anything that makes their side look good. I'm sure McCabe said lots of things, but the simple fact is that Carter Page is marginal to the Trump-Russia investigation, and besides, this wasn't even the first warrant application. And it's easy for Nunes to omit details to pull the wool of partisan nitwits, because partisanship makes people dumb.

Uh, you do realize that Page publicly admitted to his role in the original spy ring last year, right? The one operating out of New York with Russian government officials and a Russian banker. The one from this story was about the original break up of the ring, and here's one about Page's role revealed last year.

Page was not indicted, he was listed in the court documents as an unnamed male that the Russian spies were talking about and Page had given them some unspecified documents from the energy sector.

What this all means is that he was at least an early stage Russian intelligence asset, which probably falls well short of capital-T Treason but definitely crosses the line of very suspicious individual with plenty of probable cause for US counterintelligence to watch closely to make sure they aren't spying on behalf of their handlers. Why bother with counterintelligence at all if you are going to ignore the people being actively and successfully recruited by spy rings of hostile governments?

If Page got closer to the capital-T Treason in the meantime, then we should wait and see what special prosecutor Mueller finds and whether he indicts Page. That is if Trump doesn't fire Mueller and burn down the DOJ first.

You're talking like every word in there is the God's honest truth. The guy who wrote it is a full-fledged climate-change denying Trump supporter. He could easily have written the same nonsense for Breitbart and released it instantly. However, as head of a House committee he was instead able write his partisan screed under its aegis, get it approved on party line votes, then turn around and play like his own committees' rules are some kind of giant conspiracy of silence.

What part of it do you think is false?

Steele was paid $160,000 by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to write that dossier.

Incorrect.
The dossier was started by the request of The Washington Free Beacon while Trump was a Republican Primary candidate. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...

After Trump was likely going to win, Free Beacon stopped paying Fusion GPS for this research. The DNC then contracted Fusion GPS to continue doing the research.

Fusion GPS then hired Steele, and did not tell him who the client was.

That is a far cry from what you just said happened, and what that memo claims happened.

Not just unverifiable rumors, but planted rumors.

The DNC fed Fusion GPS, who fed Steele.

Fusion GPS was originally funded by the conservative website The Washington Free Beacon who was funded by a major Republican donor, New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, and the research was abandoned once it became clear that Trump was going to win the Republican nomination. (The House Intelligence Committee knows this, but doesn't mention it.) From Conservative Website First Funded Anti-Trump Research by Firm That Later Produced Dossier:

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, first hired the research firm that months later produced for Democrats the salacious dossier describing ties between Donald J. Trump and the Russian government, the website said on Friday.

The Free Beacon, funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had begun paying Fusion GPS in April for research that eventually became the basis for the dossier.

The Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee on Friday that it had retained the firm.

This is all political theater by Republican Congressman Nunes, who once worked for the Trump campaign (you know, the people being investigated), to distract people from, and discredit, the Trump/Russia investigation.

One thing I know, the Steele dossier was initial funded by the anti-Trump republicans.

If that's the one thing you know, then you need to reevaluate your knowledge, as it's wrong. Fusion GPS investigating Trump was funded by anti-Trump Republicans from the Washington Free Beacon. They didn't find anything significant and ended the contract.

Then the DNC and the Hillary campaign paid Fusion GPS to produce the Steele dossier. It was a separate effort from the previous work, which Steele wasn't involved in. He was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016, after the original contract was over.

From the

“All of the work that Fusion GPS provided to The Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product that The Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier,” they said. “The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele.”

Carter Page was under investigation before even the GOP contracted GPS Fusion.

In addition, the investigation was working with George Papadopoulos, who is cooperating with Mueller as part of a plea deal, *before* the Steele dossier came into play -- as noted in The Nunes memo is out. It’s a joke and a sham.,

[Nunes Memo] The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s office for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump.

This is apparently supposed to show that the investigation was opened by a biased FBI agent. But it actually shows that the FBI investigation predated the supposed misuse of the Steele dossier, and it shows that the cause of the investigation was information provided by Papadopoulos, which is what the New York Times reported. Remember, this Times report was widely mocked by Trump allies. Yet the memo actually lends that story more credence and, in the process, undercuts the whole alt-narrative that the genesis of the probe was illegitimate.

So it seems the FBI/DOJ under Obama used smear information bought from Russian intelligence sources by the Clinton Campaign to justify secretly wiretapping and investigating their political rivals during a presidential election. Did someone say Russian Collusion?

You mean the information originally paid for by the conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, funded by a major Republican donor, New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, and abandoned once Trump won the Republican nomination? And that the House Intelligence Committee knows this, but doesn't mention it? That one?

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, first hired the research firm that months later produced for Democrats the salacious dossier describing ties between Donald J. Trump and the Russian government, the website said on Friday.

The Free Beacon, funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had begun paying Fusion GPS in April for research that eventually became the basis for the dossier.

The Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee on Friday that it had retained the firm.

And you're also implying information cannot be legitimate and useful if obtained by the opposition and/or potentially biased actors, and/or this fact isn't disclosed during review? Others, apparently, disagree:

“Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the D.N.C., Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior D.O.J. and F.B.I. officials,” said the memo, which was written by committee staffers.

That assertion is “potentially problematic,” said David Kris, a FISA expert and former head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division in the first term of the Obama administration.

If the warrant applications did disclose that Mr. Steele’s research was funded by people who were opposed to Mr. Trump’s campaign, even if it did not name the D.N.C. or the Clinton campaign, then the applications “would be fine,” he said, and the author of the memo and those who backed its release are trying to mislead the American people.

This is all political theater by Republican Congressman Nunes, who once worked for the Trump campaign (you know, the people being investigated), to distract people from, and discredit, the Trump/Russia investigation.

So it seems the FBI/DOJ under Obama used smear information bought from Russian intelligence sources by the Clinton Campaign to justify secretly wiretapping and investigating their political rivals during a presidential election. Did someone say Russian Collusion?

You mean the information originally paid for by the conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, funded by a major Republican donor, New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, and abandoned once Trump won the Republican nomination? And that the House Intelligence Committee knows this, but doesn't mention it? That one?

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, first hired the research firm that months later produced for Democrats the salacious dossier describing ties between Donald J. Trump and the Russian government, the website said on Friday.

The Free Beacon, funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had begun paying Fusion GPS in April for research that eventually became the basis for the dossier.

The Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee on Friday that it had retained the firm.

And you're also implying information cannot be legitimate and useful if obtained by the opposition and/or potentially biased actors, and/or this fact isn't disclosed during review? Others, apparently, disagree:

“Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the D.N.C., Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior D.O.J. and F.B.I. officials,” said the memo, which was written by committee staffers.

That assertion is “potentially problematic,” said David Kris, a FISA expert and former head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division in the first term of the Obama administration.

If the warrant applications did disclose that Mr. Steele’s research was funded by people who were opposed to Mr. Trump’s campaign, even if it did not name the D.N.C. or the Clinton campaign, then the applications “would be fine,” he said, and the author of the memo and those who backed its release are trying to mislead the American people.

This is all political theater by Republican Congressman Nunes, who once worked for the Trump campaign (you know, the people being investigated), to distract people from, and discredit, the Trump/Russia investigation.

Your sources are crap

When your only rebuttal is the opponent's sources, you are usually done for. Because none of them are lying, nor have any obvious conflict of interest. But, hey, how about the below citations, this time from unimpeachable sources?

Remember to logout.

Your sources are crap

When your only rebuttal is the opponent's sources, you are usually done for. Because none of them are lying, nor have any obvious conflict of interest. But, hey, how about the below citations, this time from unimpeachable sources?

Remember to logout.

I admit I hadn't heard of the case settlement:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...

But that's a long way from "under the Obama administration, the IRS was weaponized against groups the Democrats didn't like... whether they were Tea Party, Patriots, whatever." Is there any evidence of bias in targeting political groups, or just the settlement?

No thanks. I don't want to be a keyboard warrior. Human interaction usually improves your mental state too https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

I don't believe Mr. Steele told them anything new

Why, then, did seek to pay him? Quoting from an unimpeachable source:

And before Election Day, the F.B.I. reached an agreement to pay Mr. Steele to continue his research, though that plan was scrapped after the dossier was published.

You're talking like every word in there is the God's honest truth. The guy who wrote it is a full-fledged climate-change denying Trump supporter. He could easily have written the same nonsense for Breitbart and released it instantly. However, as head of a House committee he was instead able write his partisan screed under its aegis, get it approved on party line votes, then turn around and play like his own committees' rules are some kind of giant conspiracy of silence.

If the republicans are so worried about FISA violations then why did they just vote to renew it? Is hypocrisy a prerequisite to holding office as a Republican?

Players don't play rough only in games. The practice sessions can also be rough. I don't know what % of total brain injuries come from practice sessions, but if it's a large %, then that would explain why men who played vs. didn't play in most games had the same number of injuries.

The Canadian Football League is trying to reduce injuries sustained during practice.

"Seriously, how is this joke of a company still allowed to do business?"

Some links, if you haven't been following the story:

Equifax hired a music major as chief security officer and she has just retired.

Equifax Faces Mounting Costs and Investigations From Breach.

The Equifax Breach Was Entirely Preventable

Equifax's data breach sins live on to this year's tax season

Equifax, Fox, NFL top report of most-hated U.S. companies

You Can't Fire Equifax, but Your Employer Can. Mine Just Did.

Senators want 'massive' fines for data breaches at Equifax and other credit reporting firms

Thanks to Equifax, the risk of fraud is higher this tax season

This Will Make Equifax Think Twice About How They're Protecting Your Data
"If this policy had been in place during the Equifax breach last year, Equifax would have paid at least a $1.5 billion penalty, half of which would be returned to consumers affected by the breach."

"Seriously, how is this joke of a company still allowed to do business?"

Some links, if you haven't been following the story:

Equifax hired a music major as chief security officer and she has just retired.

Equifax Faces Mounting Costs and Investigations From Breach.

The Equifax Breach Was Entirely Preventable

Equifax's data breach sins live on to this year's tax season

Equifax, Fox, NFL top report of most-hated U.S. companies

You Can't Fire Equifax, but Your Employer Can. Mine Just Did.

Senators want 'massive' fines for data breaches at Equifax and other credit reporting firms

Thanks to Equifax, the risk of fraud is higher this tax season

This Will Make Equifax Think Twice About How They're Protecting Your Data
"If this policy had been in place during the Equifax breach last year, Equifax would have paid at least a $1.5 billion penalty, half of which would be returned to consumers affected by the breach."

This move completely follows the recommendation of coal magnate and Head of "Murray Energy", Robert E. Murray. His action plan was given to Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

Murray Energy's plan is to:
* Overturn the clean power plan
* Withdraw and suspend the "endangerment finding" of green house gases
* Eliminate production tax credit for solar/wind
* Withdraw from the "illegal" Paris accord
* Eliminate "mine safety" regulations
* Kill the EPA
* Eliminate environmental safety regulations
* Replace non-conforming panel members on Federal Energy Commission

Read the memo yourselves: https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
A picture was taken of Robert E. Murray, the coal Barron hugging the Energy Secretary... The photographer was fired.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
If you don't think this not a cut and clear case of the oligarchy changing Government policy against the health and well being of Americans, you're in sand.
VOTE THESE PEOPLE OUT!
I posted this a couple of days ago and was flagged as "off topic", but if people looked, its exactly on topic..

This move completely follows the recommendation of coal magnate and Head of "Murray Energy", Robert E. Murray. His action plan was given to Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

Murray Energy's plan is to:
* Overturn the clean power plan
* Withdraw and suspend the "endangerment finding" of green house gases
* Eliminate production tax credit for solar/wind
* Withdraw from the "illegal" Paris accord
* Eliminate "mine safety" regulations
* Kill the EPA
* Eliminate environmental safety regulations
* Replace non-conforming panel members on Federal Energy Commission

Read the memo yourselves: https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
A picture was taken of Robert E. Murray, the coal Barron hugging the Energy Secretary... The photographer was fired.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
If you don't think this not a cut and clear case of the oligarchy changing Government policy against the health and well being of Americans, you're in sand.
VOTE THESE PEOPLE OUT!
I posted this a couple of days ago and was flagged as "off topic", but if people looked, its exactly on topic..

Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries Into Fake Accounts

Federal and state authorities are investigating the sellers of artificial followers and other fraudulent social media engagement.
More than a million followers have disappeared from the accounts of dozens of prominent Twitter users in recent days as the company faces growing criticism over the proliferation of fake accounts and scrutiny from federal and state inquiries into the shadowy firms that sell fake followers.

The people losing followers include an array of entertainers, entrepreneurs, athletes and media figures, many of whom bought Twitter followers or artificial engagement from a company called Devumi. Its business practices were detailed in a New York Times article on Saturday describing a vast trade in fake followers and fraudulent engagement on Twitter and other social media sites, often using personal information taken from real users. Twitter said on Saturday that it would take action against Devumi’s practices. A Twitter spokeswoman on Tuesday declined to comment about whether the company was purging fake accounts.