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Although it doesn't fix it completely, there's a bit of positive news about civil forfeiture:

Supreme Court Limits Police Powers to Seize Private Property

Since it isn't, the rest of your rant is moot.

Serious question here....just how much shit is packed between your ears? I just mentioned Tamir Rice and John Crawford by name, who weren't holding real guns, much less threatening cops with them, when they were gunned down on sight. But even if they were holding real guns, Ohio is an open-carry state and it would have been legal for them to do so. No charges for the cops that murdered them.

There's also Philandro Castile and Emantic Bradford just off the top of my head. Hell, cops have even gunned down people holding fucking garden nozzles on their own fucking property.

No charges for any of the cops that murdered these people minding their own business, some on their own property, and some in open carry states. There is no right to bear arms if using that right means you're subjected to an instant death sentence from cops who will suffer no consequences for murdering you.

An even better example is Donald Trump. In 1995, he claimed a loss of $916 million on his personal tax return. But he didn't lose a billion dollars. His company didn't even lose a billion dollars. The banks that lent him the money that he lost on his horrible property deals were the ones that realized the loss. From TFA:

Investors, for example, can walk away from a property and record the investment as a loss — even if they were playing with borrowed money. While a profit from that same property would be treated as a capital gain, losses are treated as “operating losses” under a tax code provision that dates back to the Great Depression. Those losses can be deployed far more flexibly than capital losses to shield other income from taxation.

“He was forced to sell many of his investments in the early 1990s, at pennies on the dollar, teetering on bankruptcy,” Edward Kleinbard, a tax expert at the University of Southern California, said of Mr. Trump. “There were real economic losses from those investments — borne entirely by the lenders. Yet nonetheless he was able to emerge with a large net operating loss to carry forward, attributable primarily to losing other people’s money.”

Not to mention the fact that any money that he acquired previous to that (mostly from his father) wasn't taxed either, partially by exploiting the current laws and in some cases just flaunting them to dodge taxes. Things like vastly understating the value of property that his father was transferring to Donald in order to avoid gift taxes, setting up sham corporations to funnel money to Donald and his siblings and getting paid large sums of money for "property management" services when Donald was just 3 years old. Some of the techniques were legal, some were of questionable legality and some were blatantly illegal. But rich people have armies of lawyers to besiege the IRS when anything is questioned so they rarely are held accountable even for the small fraction of tax frauds that are discovered.

And the whole reason that some of these tax schemes are legal is because the government is owned by the rich and powerful, they basically shape any tax legislation to their ends. Rich people have obscure methods for shielding their income from taxes because they wrote the laws that created those methods. It takes a hell of a lot of landscapers under reporting their income to equal the taxes dodged by one billionaire.

An even better example is Donald Trump. In 1995, he claimed a loss of $916 million on his personal tax return. But he didn't lose a billion dollars. His company didn't even lose a billion dollars. The banks that lent him the money that he lost on his horrible property deals were the ones that realized the loss. From TFA:

Investors, for example, can walk away from a property and record the investment as a loss — even if they were playing with borrowed money. While a profit from that same property would be treated as a capital gain, losses are treated as “operating losses” under a tax code provision that dates back to the Great Depression. Those losses can be deployed far more flexibly than capital losses to shield other income from taxation.

“He was forced to sell many of his investments in the early 1990s, at pennies on the dollar, teetering on bankruptcy,” Edward Kleinbard, a tax expert at the University of Southern California, said of Mr. Trump. “There were real economic losses from those investments — borne entirely by the lenders. Yet nonetheless he was able to emerge with a large net operating loss to carry forward, attributable primarily to losing other people’s money.”

Not to mention the fact that any money that he acquired previous to that (mostly from his father) wasn't taxed either, partially by exploiting the current laws and in some cases just flaunting them to dodge taxes. Things like vastly understating the value of property that his father was transferring to Donald in order to avoid gift taxes, setting up sham corporations to funnel money to Donald and his siblings and getting paid large sums of money for "property management" services when Donald was just 3 years old. Some of the techniques were legal, some were of questionable legality and some were blatantly illegal. But rich people have armies of lawyers to besiege the IRS when anything is questioned so they rarely are held accountable even for the small fraction of tax frauds that are discovered.

And the whole reason that some of these tax schemes are legal is because the government is owned by the rich and powerful, they basically shape any tax legislation to their ends. Rich people have obscure methods for shielding their income from taxes because they wrote the laws that created those methods. It takes a hell of a lot of landscapers under reporting their income to equal the taxes dodged by one billionaire.

Smoke, fire, and gallows.

The mainstream media is where the blame lies. They have put AOC on a pedestal despite the fact that she - by Bill DeBlasio's own statements - has no basic understanding of how things work. She and her ilk have been lionized by the media and the resistance against all things Trump without actually vetting her knowledge or abilities. Now she crows about the benefits of losing 25,000 good jobs plus all the feeder jobs. And the NYT is still gushing about how they dodged that terrible capitalism bullet. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com] You know the left has gone insane when uber-Leftist Bill DeBlasio rants about how unfair it was that Amazon decided they were not welcome and left for more warmer climes. Pull your head out dude, your sycophant lackeys ran them off. Didn't you get the memo? Amazon is the new capitalist Boogeyman of the left.

The media has gone full-on crazy. They place anyone on a pedestal that wants to be part of the Trump resistance regardless of their competence, experience, integrity or understanding. That's why we get nonstop stories on self important thought leader racists and imbeciles like Jussie Smollet, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Elizabeth Warren and demigods like the six month messiah Michael Avenatti. How did all that Avenatti worship work out for them? Still "bogus"? The media loves crazy so much that you would think that Trump would be their Gender-Neutral-Upright-Homonid-of-the-Year.

You seem to think the stock market is important to the average Joe's finanical wellbeing, when it's actually one of the main engines of worsening inequality. In the US, the top 10% of households own 84% of the stocks:

https://awealthofcommonsense.c...

It's also disingenuous to call Trump's massive transfer of wealth to the 1% with a little fiddling for mere mortals a tax break for middle and low earners. A lot of Americans are getting a nasty and expensive surprise thanks to Trump:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...

Rich = important.
This guy could tell you all about it.

Unlike all those U.S. citizens supporting the con artist who, the moment the last government shutdown happened, went into Joshua Tree National Park and started cutting down the Joshua Trees, or who drove their ATVs and pickup trucks where they would normally not be allowed and dug large paths, or even created new roads by destroying the environment.

It depends on the value the site provides, and the difficulty of it being cloned. Top newspapers are doing quite well with digital subscriptions, and they don't even give subscribers an ad-free experience. And I'm amazed at the success with which free-to-play games sell cosmetic items — selling to susceptible kids helps here. Then there's the paid exclusive content and free lure model.

Also, companies like Apple and PayPal allow one to set up regular payments without anyone else getting credit card details or other data.

And yes, for certain services there are alternatives to ad revenue that don't require people to open their wallets.

Amazon appears to me to be a poorly-managed company. Every Amazon web page has the distractions of Amazon trying to sell something else besides the product that interests you.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, seems to have a poorly-managed life. He was having sex with a woman besides his wife. Now his wife gets half of his money, more than $65 billion.

Knowing the sloppiness around Jeff Bezos, would you go into sub-orbital space with Blue Origins, risking your life to be a tourist?

How will Jeff Bezos losing half his money affect Amazon? ... this is going to change the ownership in Amazon.

Exactly. There is no single body signature for anger.

maybe so but check out this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1...

i.e., even when, frighteningly, a LOT of insects have died off, the ecosystem is still okay seemingly?

I would guess if we killed off all of the aedes aegypti, trophic compression would solve the problem sufficiently

...and not to mention that Amazon required a nondisclosure agreement from the cities bidding, so that the taxpayers actually couldn't know what their politicians were giving away.

Which was: 3 billion dollars.

Eh? When the USSR was industrializing, it's not as if everyone knew of the dangers of climate change and CO2 at the time. It's not like the apologia for American slave owners in the 19th century "it was just a sign of the times" when the rest of the western world had already banned the practice. Coal and hydro were the only games in town until nuclear came around. As for NK keep in mind that 99% of what is heard about the country is western propaganda, or the result of western actions - like sanctions, which strengthen regimes while impoverishing people.

In any case, if the USSR hadn't fallen, it's doubtful that its resource consumption would be 30 times that of developing countries the way it is for the United States. Modern communist countries like Vietnam and Cuba would seem to testify to that.

One of the most basic, and effective, techniques of persuasion is demonstrating that others have done it.

When someone is contemplating suicide, being exposed to stories of people committing suicide will strengthen their resolve to do so. You sound like someone who should be educated enough to know this.

So skimming through such images probably did not make her depressed, but it probably did help push her over the edge.

I have no doubt she was depressed. It is rather unfortunate that her parents, who presumably see her every day, seemed to not notice the problem.

This is just another version of the "Helter Skelter" defense, or Judas Priest being sued because two teenagers https://www.nytimes.com/1990/0... or akid killing himeself, and aomehow Ozzy Ozbourne was responsible. https://www.history.com/this-d... .

Yes, I am educated. But Judas Priest, or Ozzy Ozbourne, or Instagram didn't cause those people to commit suicide, and the Beatles didn't make Charles Manson and his followers kill Sharon Tate and the others. They didn't, even if the people looked at images or listened to music.

I am educated enough to understand that people in grieving might very often look for some blame target, especially if they might have had something to do with the original problem or were in denial of it.

People commit suicide without looking at images on Instagram, or listen to Judas Priest or Black Sabbath music. Why do they do this? Often because they are depressed. No need for those three bogeymen.

I might give the concept a little more credence if normal person was driven to suicide. But that's almost certainly never going to be shown.

Want a better idea? How about in the interests of preventing more suicides in young teens, the parents interview with psychologists to see what they might have missed, or ignored, or just wrote off to "a phase". Then compiling everything to see what they might make sense of. One thing is for certain. These people had a daughter with a mental illness, a daughter who was very likely to kill herself even is she never looked at instagram. I graduated high school long before the internet, and we had some folks who committed suicide. Blaming outside things for internal family issues will seldom solve anything. And its so much better if parents can quietly get their troubled offspring good treatment than going through official channels. And we do want less teenagers to be killing themselves, wouldn't you agree?

I thought that a large fraction of "conservatives" strongly favor post-birth abortion.

They call it capital "punishment".

Which probably does not "work" (deter crime) https://math.dartmouth.edu/~lamperti/my%20DP%20paper,%20current%20edit.htm

is often applied in error https://www.cbsnews.com/news/death-penalty-mistakes-the-rule/

and is probably a tool of racism https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/opinion/09dow.html

FWIW I enjoy shooting and have little time for SJW types; OTOH, taxes are merely the cost of renting time on the massive piece of capital equipment known as "society" ; it is possible that even a 90% marginal rate can be justified; maybe: something like this https://web.archive.org/web/20130411183250/http://www.sff.net/people/jack.haldeman/people.htm might male it more palatable

To demonstrate who is actually the brainwashed idiot, consider this: Trump has, on at least 7 occasions, acknowledged that the climate is warming, and that humans likely play a role in that.

Citations please?

Oh never mind. Trump says lots of things and then says the opposite a short time later. His AGW stance has been a textbook example. He may have grudgingly accepted AGW on occasion, but his most emphatic pronouncements have been decidedly on the other side of the issue.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. -- Donald J. Trump, 2012

Not enough? Okay:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world...
https://www.theguardian.com/us...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1...
https://www.motherjones.com/en...

Yeah, lowest unemployment rate since the 60s...certainly he's "harmed the economy".

A lot of things are lowest right now, like how much money people have in savings. Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, even ones with good jobs like federal workers. And many of those who do have jobs are underemployed, meaning they're going further and further into debt to support their families. Eventually, they'll have to go bankrupt, like a Trump casino, and it will cost all of us money.

The last missile test NK did was 28 Nov 2017.

They haven't dismantled the facilities they use to build the weapons. There will be more tests.

Please point to the warmongering your claiming...would it be Syria or Afghanistan, where he's been trying to pull troops out?

You believe this theater shit? What a tool.

Or, would it be getting NATO to pay it's fair share for their defense?

That's happening already.

And, FWIW, the man is an ass, and I didn't vote for him.

Then why are you repeating his propaganda like a parrot?

No, you're a lying faggot.

"As has frequently been the case in the US".

So you mean almost never. Statistically speaking.

It's like being scared of AR-15s. Murders by all rifles together (so AR-15s plus every other rifle in existence in the USA), account for less deaths each year than by knives, blunt objects, or fists. As a firearm they present the less danger to American society than the fists on the person standing next to you. Yet they are a red-herring rallying point for a lot of people.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t...
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/0...

It wasn't deregulation by the government that fixed prices, leading to the manipulation of the market by wholesalers. If the government hadn't regulated the prices for political purposes, then Enron would not have been able to gouge the retailers.

Of course, that wasn't what anyone at Enron was convicted of - or even charged with. No, the crimes committed were actually fraud and securities crimes. Notably missing from that list: anything to do with supplying power.

The only way that cyber security will be taken seriously is when failures result in serious damage to the profits of companies. Until then the temptation to do the minimum you can will remain far too great. Interestingly this is one of the advantages of having privitised utilities; you can burn them with fines without hurting the general public when they break the rules - a fact which the investors in the California utility should be about to find out unless the corrupt politicians of Sacramento shield their campaign contributor again. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1...

The last I checked, yes... Whats your source?

Check out Locast.org
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...

They have an app for streaming local TV. Claim it's legal since they are a nonprofit and don't allow transmission beyond the local broadcast area.
Should be interesting to watch.

I mean, not that we don't already know this...

Google is asserting nothing of the sort. First of all, this can't come from Android data alone: since Android vs. iPhone ownership varies by demographic that would give a skewed misrepresentation of traffic patterns. It probably isn't coming from Android data at all, it's probably coming from the telcos. Congress specifically legalized data collection and sale by ISPs back in March of 2017, and that would be the most complete dataset for doing something like this.

One right-wing voice?

Suuuurrrreee... dozens of news anchors at stations across the US (all owned by Sinclair media, which leans heavily to the right) just happened to recite the exact same right-wing message echoing Trump's comments about fake news and the media being the enemy on the same day using the same wording.

You can keep telling yourself that Fox News is the only right wing voice out there, but reality proves you're wrong.

The screw in question.
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...

Conspicuous by its absence in much of the mainstream news coverage of Venezuela’s political crisis is the word “socialism.” Yes, every sensible observer agrees that Latin America’s once-richest country, sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is an economic basket case, a humanitarian disaster, and a dictatorship whose demise cannot come soon enough.

But socialist? Perish the thought.

Or so goes a line of argument that insists socialism’s good name shouldn’t be tarred by the results of experience. On Venezuela, what you’re likelier to read is that the crisis is the product of corruption, cronyism, populism, authoritarianism, resource-dependency, U.S. sanctions and trickery, even the residues of capitalism itself. Just don’t mention the S-word because, you know, it’s working really well in Denmark.

Curiously, that’s not how the Venezuelan regime’s admirers used to speak of “21st century socialism,” as it was dubbed by Hugo Chávez. The late Venezuelan president, said Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn, “showed us there is a different and a better way of doing things. It’s called socialism, it’s called social justice, and it’s something that Venezuela has made a big step toward.” Noam Chomsky was similarly enthusiastic when he praised Chávez in 2009. “What’s so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela,” the linguist said, is that “I can see how a better world is being created and can speak to the person who’s inspired it.”

The best part about the Trump administration is that the overall effect has been to drain the swamp. The Muller Probe guilty pleas, the White House turnover, exposing corruption and collusion which threatens the United States itself - this is all great for our country.

Well, no. All of the corruption being removed now was installed by the Trump administration, so the overall effect is zero. And he's appointing new corrupt folks as quick as we're removing them, and now we don't have time to deal with the pre-existing corruption, so the overall corruption is increasing rapidly.

That's the main difference, but their are many others.

The US Govt can't shut up the press or their people. Freedoms guaranteed in the USA.
In China, the press is owned by the govt and "causing trouble" is illegal. Thugs (aka police) come to your home, beat you up, threaten you and your family, and prevent you from travel.

And China puts people in "education camps" over their religion. Over 1M last estimate.

Smartphones in China must have govt tracking app installed. Police randomly verify this.

Tienanmen Square; they admit to killing over 1,022 civilians. Other estimates are over 10,000 deaths.

Their elections are fixed - only approved party members can be on the ballot.

Don't forget what China is and how they behave.

Stealing https://www.wsj.com/articles/S...
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...
China hacked over 125 orgs.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
The Chinese govt commonly lies. This happened while The US/China economic espionage pact was in-force beginning in 2016.

Yeah, China is nothing like the USA.

Although Ajit Pai was first installed by Obama, Tom Wheeler did a much better job. This has nothing to do with draining the swamp.

The best part about the Trump administration is that the overall effect has been to drain the swamp. The Muller Probe guilty pleas, the White House turnover, exposing corruption and collusion which threatens the United States itself - this is all great for our country.

Nobody wants surgery to remove a tumor. It is a painful process, being cut open, having flesh removed, and installing a stint to drain the pus. However, it is often necessary to save the patient. Hang in there USA, it gets better.

Publicly traded companies are required, by law no less, to seek ever greater and greater revenue.

This is a myth. Public companies have no legal obligation to maximize profits.

This might actually be a legitimate case for a national security tariff.

Informants aren't spies. Deal with it.

It doesn't matter who paid for the Steele dossier, not even the fact that the initial work was paid for by a conservative news site, because the Steele dossier isn't illegal evidence, isn't being used as direct evidence of criminality, and the law doesn't care who paid for it.

Keep telling yourself there's no evidence of collusion. Where there's thick, sun-blotting smoke, there's...nothing? Is that how the old saying goes?

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

Spoiler: for the worst lies, Obama raked in 2 per year, Trump was on course for 124 per year (but that only counted his first 10 months in office - it's higher now).

These smart guys already did the math: Odds Hillary Won Without Widespread Fraud: 1 in 77 Billion Say Berkeley, Stanford Studies (If you don't like this link, there are several other copies of this article floating around on the web.)

The available voting data from the 2016 democratic primary shows significant statistical abnormalities, in the last half of the data, that favor Hillary at the expense of Bernie. It appears that a voting machine exploit was in place in several districts, that only triggered in real time when someone or something detected that Hillary was about to lose to Bernie.

That's just the election itself. Stepping back in time to the pre-election Hillary vs. Bernie campaign trail, there's also the obvious issues of stealing campaign money from Bernie's campaign, and installing Imran Awan, a Pakistani spy as the IT manager of the DNC's computer network, subverting the DNC 'VAN' computer network that Bernie, a democratic candidate, was forced to use for official campaign business. Meaning that Hillary was secretly in control of the Bernie campaign's network, and even revoked access at one point during his campaign. (We discovered Hillary's DNC network subversion through a Wikileaks publication.) Then we have a secret joint fundraising agreement that DNC bosses signed with Hillary Clinton, giving her nearly full control of the DNC, BEFORE she was nominated. (alternate link.)

If that's too technical for you, then let me remind you that, defending against the DNC fraud lawsuit, a DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva said in court: "We could have voluntarily decided that, 'Look, we're gonna go into the back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way." This is in reference to the whole Hillary-biased democrat super-delegate debacle that was all over the news at the time. Hillary bribed those super-delegates with laundered money through one of her crooked 'charities' to secure her nomination over Bernie.

This is just the easily cited stuff Hillary's done to screw Bernie. I'm not saying that Hillary's crimes only include screwing Bernie, or that Bernie's a perfect candidate. And I sure as hell didn't vote for Trump.

Did you seriously just claim we have "rising wages" and "better living standards"?

NO, I did NOT say that. What I said was we had rising wages and living standards while jobs were being automated.

Automation leads to higher productivity, making labor more valuable, and thus leads to higher wages.

They've been stagnant for a long time.

They have indeed, and this is due to stagnant productivity growth. The problem is not automation, but a lack of automation. Manufacturing and agriculture jobs were easy to automate back in the 20th century, but those days are over, and modern service jobs are proving much harder to make more productive.

If TFA is correct, and the pace of automation improves, then we should see wages start rising again.

Europe couldn't even scramble planes to bomb Libya...and they want to try to do something in space again? https://www.theguardian.com/wo... https://www.nytimes.com/2011/0... "Libya has been a war in which some of the Atlantic alliance’s mightiest members did not participate, or did not participate with combat aircraft, like Spain and Turkey. ...the French finally pulled back their sole nuclear-powered aircraft carrier for overdue repairs and Italy withdrew its aircraft carrier to save money. Only eight of the 28 allies engaged in combat, and most ran out of ammunition, having to buy, at cost, ammunition stockpiled by the United States."

Interesting logic, Europe's space program sucks because an unspecified set of countries ran out of ammo over Lybian in 2011. For one thing the major players here were the UK and the French, the Germans bowed out anticipating what a FUBAR Lybia would become. The French who make their own bombs and ammo, they have not relied on the US for their aircraft munitions in a major way for a long time (and for a very good reason) and I know for a fact that the French did not deplete their stockpiles in 2011. That leaves the UK and a bunch of countries that buy their jets from the US on US military assistance programs. The US deliberately keeps such countries on a starvation diet of munitions and parts. On top of that all repairs to certain system parts on F-16s for example have to be done by US citizens flown in especially for the purpose which, as you can imagine, is a very slow and inefficient process. The Finns for example, bought their own F-18 fleet outright, and were thus able to rip out several of these untouchable black boxes and replace them with something they could fix themselves which had a correspondingly positive effect on operational readiness. On top of that the EF Typhoon was, at the time, still being introduced into service and not upgraded to perform A2G missions, forcing the RAF for one to rely on the Tornado which was beginning to be phased out at the time. But all this aside, remind me again why this has anything to do with ESA and the European space program??

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion... - Caifornia makes up 13.3% of the United State's GDP https://blogs.voanews.com/all-... and holds 15.34% of all state debt going by the numbers I'm looking at here https://www.usgovernmentdebt.u... . I would certainly agree that the state has a liability problem (one of what I would consider to be one of the state's two key problems) but the scope of it isn't as big as the author tries to make it seem.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... - So an article about how our governor is trying to get California ready for another recession is bad? That sounds like a plus for California. Hopefully the governor of Texas is planning for another dip in their essential oil market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1... - The only really damning thing here is mentioning our high cost of living (the other major problem I'd say the state has). This certainly needs addressing and is likely already cutting into our economic growth in places like the valley but it is hardly a doomsday scenario.

https://www.investors.com/poli... - This is just dumb fear mongering with gems like...
"The carbon emissions laws and other regulatory overreach kill jobs and hope for many." So our record unemployment isn't real?
"The state's gas tax is the nation's highest, some 30 cents to a dollar per gallon above the national average." Oh heavens! Wait, doesnt every other first world nation have gas taxes far in access of what California has?
"Businesses won't hire more workers and invest in growth due to confiscatory state and local taxes and complex and contradictory regulatory regimes. Hundreds of striving small businesses face bullying and high fees from state agencies." Once again, current massively low unemployment rate. We also generated 20 percent of the country's GDP growth last year, so no, this is not a problem.
"California has become the modern equivalent of the Southern Confederates of 1860. Antipathetic to federal law, and seeking its own coalition with foreign governments via trade and environmental and immigration policy." HAHAHAHAHA. Right, we're a bunch of slave holding degenerates willing to dissolve the union so we can own people. What an apt comparison for the incredibly small amount of international outreach California has done.

"Not to mention my personal hope that high-state tax states (CA, like NY, MA, and my state of MN) *don't* get to wriggle out from under the state-tax-writeoff cap put into law last year. Because previously - being able to write off the high endemic state taxes - meant that RED STATES were essentially subsidizing your (our) social giveaways, which was/is bullshit. ...but I'm sure they're all just conservative publications funded by the Koch brothers, right?"

Are you referring to this? https://www.forbes.com/sites/m...

Well much like your self I can't find proper numbers on what the results are expected to be but I would anticipate it will not be the wonderful put down to blue states you want it to be. When have you heard of the South generating economic prosperity for our country? Only when they used to own people. All they do now is offer cheap American labor because they're that destitute. How about the bible belt? Well they have some reasonably solid agriculture whose backbone is illegal immigrant labor. Thankfully for them Trump is

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion... - Caifornia makes up 13.3% of the United State's GDP https://blogs.voanews.com/all-... and holds 15.34% of all state debt going by the numbers I'm looking at here https://www.usgovernmentdebt.u... . I would certainly agree that the state has a liability problem (one of what I would consider to be one of the state's two key problems) but the scope of it isn't as big as the author tries to make it seem.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... - So an article about how our governor is trying to get California ready for another recession is bad? That sounds like a plus for California. Hopefully the governor of Texas is planning for another dip in their essential oil market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1... - The only really damning thing here is mentioning our high cost of living (the other major problem I'd say the state has). This certainly needs addressing and is likely already cutting into our economic growth in places like the valley but it is hardly a doomsday scenario.

https://www.investors.com/poli... - This is just dumb fear mongering with gems like...
"The carbon emissions laws and other regulatory overreach kill jobs and hope for many." So our record unemployment isn't real?
"The state's gas tax is the nation's highest, some 30 cents to a dollar per gallon above the national average." Oh heavens! Wait, doesnt every other first world nation have gas taxes far in access of what California has?
"Businesses won't hire more workers and invest in growth due to confiscatory state and local taxes and complex and contradictory regulatory regimes. Hundreds of striving small businesses face bullying and high fees from state agencies." Once again, current massively low unemployment rate. We also generated 20 percent of the country's GDP growth last year, so no, this is not a problem.
"California has become the modern equivalent of the Southern Confederates of 1860. Antipathetic to federal law, and seeking its own coalition with foreign governments via trade and environmental and immigration policy." HAHAHAHAHA. Right, we're a bunch of slave holding degenerates willing to dissolve the union so we can own people. What an apt comparison for the incredibly small amount of international outreach California has done.

"Not to mention my personal hope that high-state tax states (CA, like NY, MA, and my state of MN) *don't* get to wriggle out from under the state-tax-writeoff cap put into law last year. Because previously - being able to write off the high endemic state taxes - meant that RED STATES were essentially subsidizing your (our) social giveaways, which was/is bullshit. ...but I'm sure they're all just conservative publications funded by the Koch brothers, right?"

Are you referring to this? https://www.forbes.com/sites/m...

Well much like your self I can't find proper numbers on what the results are expected to be but I would anticipate it will not be the wonderful put down to blue states you want it to be. When have you heard of the South generating economic prosperity for our country? Only when they used to own people. All they do now is offer cheap American labor because they're that destitute. How about the bible belt? Well they have some reasonably solid agriculture whose backbone is illegal immigrant labor. Thankfully for them Trump is

> And most importantly, don't give anyone a pass/handycap based on race; for that in of itself is racism!

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

https://www.ussc.gov/research/...

Boy, those were easy to find.

That's easy, because the Republicans don't want the wall either. I honestly can't remember, did the GOP ever even deliver him a budget to veto? I know they were getting shot down by the senate even before they made it to him. If GOP congress, with a GOP senate and a GOP president can't pass a budget, I fear this will be a very long shutdown.

I do wonder just how divided can things get before they just implode?

You forget the R(ussian) Party's other branch, Faux News (Hannity, Coulter, ....) didn't like the end of year resolution. Dems have been burned too many times. See 2017 DACA deal: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

Lucasfilm management has openly stated they intend to use the Star Wars universe to effect social justice.

Kathleen Kennedy founded the group in 2012 when she succeeded George Lucas as president of Lucasfilm, putting Kiri Hart, a former film and TV writer, in charge of the unit. Ms. Hart’s first move was to make the story group entirely female, starting with Rayne Roberts and Carrie Beck.

Using computer software that analyzes the content of movies, Shrikanth Narayanan and the University of Southern California’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab found that women spoke 6.3 percent of dialogue in “A New Hope,” the 1977 film that kicked off the franchise. In contrast, women accounted for 27.8 percent of all dialogue in “The Force Awakens” in 2015. Even more promising, in “Rogue One” (2016) nonwhite characters accounted for 44.7 percent of all dialogue, a marked increase from zero in the 1977 original.

From another article

Ms. Kennedy said there was no excuse for the lack of diversity in the entertainment industry. “There is no doubt that the visual effects community and film industry as a whole need to be more inclusive and equitable,” she acknowledged, adding later, “We are determined to strive every day to build a much more diverse and inclusive company. We will be better for it and the industry will be stronger because of it.” Ms. Kennedy may help fulfill this vision if she hires a woman to direct a future “Star Wars” film. “It is going to happen,” she said at a women’s summit in 2015, “I have no doubt.”

Lucasfilm management has openly stated they intend to use the Star Wars universe to effect social justice.

Kathleen Kennedy founded the group in 2012 when she succeeded George Lucas as president of Lucasfilm, putting Kiri Hart, a former film and TV writer, in charge of the unit. Ms. Hart’s first move was to make the story group entirely female, starting with Rayne Roberts and Carrie Beck.

Using computer software that analyzes the content of movies, Shrikanth Narayanan and the University of Southern California’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab found that women spoke 6.3 percent of dialogue in “A New Hope,” the 1977 film that kicked off the franchise. In contrast, women accounted for 27.8 percent of all dialogue in “The Force Awakens” in 2015. Even more promising, in “Rogue One” (2016) nonwhite characters accounted for 44.7 percent of all dialogue, a marked increase from zero in the 1977 original.

From another article

Ms. Kennedy said there was no excuse for the lack of diversity in the entertainment industry. “There is no doubt that the visual effects community and film industry as a whole need to be more inclusive and equitable,” she acknowledged, adding later, “We are determined to strive every day to build a much more diverse and inclusive company. We will be better for it and the industry will be stronger because of it.” Ms. Kennedy may help fulfill this vision if she hires a woman to direct a future “Star Wars” film. “It is going to happen,” she said at a women’s summit in 2015, “I have no doubt.”

If you want something to be so, then legislate it.

California is trying, but the the justice dept. is suing them to prevent it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

It already skews representation in Congress and votes for the Presidential election. The wording for the Census says it will count all "persons", not just those eligible to vote. In 2016, the Supreme Court decided that this wording means people in the country illegally get counted in the Census. (I should note that this was a 9-0 decision. If you don't like it, the Constitution needs to be amended to change the wording.)

Since the Census is used to decide apportionment (how many Representatives a state gets in the House), and the number of Electoral votes a state gets in the Presidential election, this has the effect of giving additional votes to states with higher populations of illegal immigrants. It's currently at about 710,000 residents per representative, so California gets 3 additional House seats, Texas gets 2 extra, and New York and Florida get 1 extra due to their illegal resident populations. That's a net +4 for blue states, +2 for red, and 1 swing state.

This is what the whole brouhaha over the citizenship question on the census is about. Those for it argue it's needed to properly measure the magnitude of the skew. Those against it argue the question discourages people in the country legally from responding to the Census.

Do you understand how little the Russians like the Clintons? You understand that they were actively working against Hillary, right?

Right, the Russians were actively working against Hillary to the tune of $2.35 million dollars donated to the Clinton Foundation and half a million dollars paid to Bill Clinton himself, for "giving a speech." Do some research on Uranium One before you vote for Clinton again in 2020.

Ahh more moving of the goal posts.

The money came from the "Trump Foundation" which was ordered disbanded by New York

That order came what? 18 months after what I quoted above: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

Since the Foundation was used as a personal Trump check book for both private and election activities, there are likely a litany of laws broken.

Possibly, though you note I was speaking related to campaign funds. Can we stay on topic please?

There's several ongoing investigations so we're only beginning to scratch the surface of this shit storm

There are, and they relate to this particular matter... how?

I recall Bill Clinton having many investigations against him while in the Whitehouse... how did that turn out again?

In other news today Giuliani now claims - contrary to 18 months of loudmouthing - "I never said there was no collusion".. And they called Kerry "flip-flop/flip-flop". Giuliani must be running for cover or he's just insane, I wouldn't rule out either.

What does that have to do with the topic at hand? I have a guess... but I won't spoil it yet.

The realty is the Mueller investigation alone has thus far resulted in 36+ indictments, guilty pleas (9) and people in Jail (4). Incoming House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff will be handing over tons of documents to Meuller (where and Nunes woundn't) and will likely implicate Don Trump Jr. in lying before the House Intelligence committee. I'm going to invest my money in popcorn for this one.

Again... you seem to be moving the goal posts from campaign finance laws.

Trumpkins continually cry "What laws were broken?"....

Except... I'm not a Trump fan, I do however believe in due process for all.

Campaign finance laws, fraud (Trump U), IRS rules (Tim Tebow helmit), election laws by emailing foreign officials to solicit political contributions, illegally using a superpac, trade laws to Cuba, copywrite infringement....and a long yet to be determined list... Sorry Trumpkins, the OompaLoompa king will ultimately go down painfully.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. Get help, please.

I was even less a fan of Obama than I am of Trump, but I didn't spend so much energy collecting and regurgitating so many yet to be proven conspiracy theories.