Slashdot Mirror

Google Drive is just the latest version of Google Docs, it's not going anywhere.

Hangouts, yes, it's being phased out, to be replaced by a couple of new products that aren't Hangouts but are called Hangouts because... they want Politifact to rule anything that says Hangouts is being shut down a lie I guess.

But Hangouts is not being phased out in April.

From what I can work out Google's common login system was always built around YouTube, not Google+, despite being branded with the latter. As a result, it's relatively easy to delink the social network from the rest of their products.

America pays more to defend countries of the EU than the countries of the EU.

The United States pays for 22 percent of NATO's common fund. Beyond that relatively small amount, the cost of NATO is undefined.

America pays most of the bills for the UN

22 percent is not most.

most of the "peace keeping" forces of the UN turn out to be Americans.

Today, only a couple dozen US troops serve in UN peacekeeping operations

Please reconsider where you are getting your information. Also, there's no reason to be such a jerk.

This is a distraction from the breaking story about possible GOP election fraud scandal coming to light in North Carolina.

The allegation is that someone on the GOP payroll was hiring people to go door to door and collect absentee ballots. This is illegal under NC law.

Additionally, those ballots passed through unknown hands, and may have been culled, substituted or otherwise altered in the process.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog...

https://www.mediamatters.org/b...

https://www.motherjones.com/po...

https://www.politifact.com/nor...

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

"Screwing over the country" aka lowest unemployment in 50 years, strong military, enforced borders, lowest welfare consumption in 60 years, lowest illegal immigration in 12 years

You are a fucking moron.

Lowest Unemployment in 50 years. So your saying a stimulus plus just being as evil as possible and tossing all the "others" out, regardless of circumstances, has an effect on unemployment? Really. It also has an affect on the bill owed and well probably the sins on our mortal souls.

Military spending is currently more than the next 12 nations combined. link What justifies that? What threat are we facing that warrants that level of spending?

Enforced borders is something of a red meat issue and well more of the first. Its a way to "be strong" and "macho" and other non measurable crap. Obama deported a record number of people at the time, but at least he focused on actual criminals.

Lowest welfare spending. Same cause and effect plus probably policy changes. Is any of it ethical?

Lowest illegal immigration.. Um your repeating yourself.

I'll add one of my own. We are become a place where sin is fine, sin is welcome, sin is rewarded, as long as the party sinning kicks a little back for the cause. You put our kind of judges in, that will enforce our lifestyle choices, then we will overlook all the lies, all the hate, all the racism. The current president of the united states has been blatantly and repeatedly doing things that in _anyone_ not a republican president would have had his ass charged and in jail for a long time on the list of obstruction he has committed.

Personally I want to see him impeached, removed, indicted, convicted, then tossed in gitmo for the rest of his life with only being able to watch CNN. None of that will happen. Even if by some miracle the House impeaches, the senate will never convict, not unless somehow he gets so bad that the political cost of not convicting is higher for republicans than the political cost of convicting.

That is all it is for republicans these days. The only time they do the math, is not when they decide the merits of a Bill, but when they decide decisions related to getting and keeping power. Math and statistics matter then, just not when they are doing their damn jobs.

Those "taxpayer checks" also tend to average vastly less than we pay in every year.

The less-populated states tend to receive more in federal spending than they pay. There's a helpful table in this article: https://www.politifact.com/cal...

Now, your particular state may be one of the outliers. But "rural areas" are generally a net financial loss to the government. And hey, at least you got $30 from the tariff stupidity. I just got higher prices on everything.

We already do pay more for pretty much everything

Except for housing and food. They tend to be a very large chunk of most people's spending. Which is why rural areas generally have a lower cost of living than urban areas, even when you factor in all those long drives to the city.

- The US did not sign the Paris Climate treaty.
- The US did not sign any Iran nuclear deal.
- The US used the agreed upon measures to withdraw from a MRBM treaty that Russia was not compliant with, and China refused to sign.
- There is no such thing as "UN membership dues". The US pays about $3.3 BILLION dollars to the UN every year. Trump has proposed cutting the US contribution to the UN to $2.1 billion in 2019, but it hasn't happened yet. The UN could, of course, stop spending (embezzling) so much... but then, there would be no reason for most countries to participate.

This going to be my last response because you are willfully ignorant and no amount of expertise can convince someone who does not want to be convinced.

Ah, appeal to authority, an authority that's completely unfounded and anonymous mind you. I apologize if I don't recognize your "expertise" in this debate. My authority comes from the facts, not unverifiable claims.

You should have stopped responding a long time ago because you are wrong.

There were only 2 documents with markings and those documents were already declassified, they just missed a couple of markings in the process of declassifying.

Not exactly . . .

Politifact:

If someone has determined information to be classified, it is still technically classified even if someone neglects to label it down the line. The FBI found 81 email chains that contained information determined to be classified . . .

Comey via Politifact:

There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.

The markings can be debated, but they are beside the point. There's no debate that Hillary Clinton sent and received classified information on her private email server, which is absolutely illegal.

She should have stuck with a State department account and avoided all of this. Makes you wonder what was so important to hide, doesn't it? Maybe the Obama administration, who failed to prosecute her, knows and are in on it. I'm glad the American people decided not to take a chance with these traitors.

This going to be my last response because you are willfully ignorant and no amount of expertise can convince someone who does not want to be convinced.

Ah, appeal to authority, an authority that's completely unfounded and anonymous mind you. I apologize if I don't recognize your "expertise" in this debate. My authority comes from the facts, not unverifiable claims.

You should have stopped responding a long time ago because you are wrong.

There were only 2 documents with markings and those documents were already declassified, they just missed a couple of markings in the process of declassifying.

Not exactly . . .

Politifact:

If someone has determined information to be classified, it is still technically classified even if someone neglects to label it down the line. The FBI found 81 email chains that contained information determined to be classified . . .

Comey via Politifact:

There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.

The markings can be debated, but they are beside the point. There's no debate that Hillary Clinton sent and received classified information on her private email server, which is absolutely illegal.

She should have stuck with a State department account and avoided all of this. Makes you wonder what was so important to hide, doesn't it? Maybe the Obama administration, who failed to prosecute her, knows and are in on it. I'm glad the American people decided not to take a chance with these traitors.

Don't worry about it.

Those Red state Republican enthusiasts hate California because it shows the liberal policies can lead to a great economy and a great place to live.

It shows the lies that are spun by the right for what they are.

What "great economy"?

California has by far the highest poverty rate in the US.

Tons of laws and regs and yet air quality is terrible.

California is a shithole.

Indeed.

California has the highest poverty rate in the US. [Gawd, that had to hurt Politifact to rate that as true...]

I'm sure if they raised taxes even higher, they could address the rampant poverty.

Along with the shit on San Francisco's streets.

Robert Francis O'Rourke tried to capitalize on the nickname "Beto" to appeal to Hispanic voters (even though he's 4th generation Irish American). And he is open to abolishing ICE which is responsible for finding and deporting illegal immigrants and criminals - gangsters and thugs.

by illegally bussing in voters to vote for them

that is complete bullshit.

I am not going to waste any time refuting the rest of your Gish gallop. Your claim that illegal voters were bused in has no basis in fact, so you obviously have no concern about objective truth or fact.

The North Dakota Democratic Party posted a misleading ad on its website and on Facebook that suggests state residents should reconsider voting in this yearâ(TM)s election if they have hunting licenses in other states. âoeBy voting in North Dakota, you could forfeit your hunting licenses.â - posted on the Democratic partyâ(TM)s website this week.

https://www.apnews.com/f547f02...

The North Dakota Democraticâ"Nonpartisan League Party is running a Facebook ad in North Dakota that claims your hunting license is at risk. "Attention hunters: Voting in North Dakota could cost you your out-of-state hunting licenses," says the Facebook ad, which began running on Nov. 1.

https://www.politifact.com/tru...

The Facebook ad, paid by the North Dakota Democratic-NPL, warns North Dakota hunters that they may have to forfeit their out-of-state licenses if they vote in this election. âoeIf you want to keep your out-of-state hunting licenses, you may not want to vote in North Dakota,â the ad says, linking to a similar warning on the North Dakota Democratic-NPL website. âoeBy voting in North Dakota, you could forfeit your hunting licenses. You MUST be a resident of North Dakota to vote here. And if you are a resident of North Dakota, you may lose hunting licenses you have in other states,â the website said.

https://www.foxnews.com/politi...

Trump's Lies

All False statements involving Donald Trump

Trump’s Lies Have Grown Far More Frequent—and More Dangerous

The 25 Worst Lies From Donald Trump’s First 200 Days

Donald Trump has said 3084 false things as U.S. president

How Trump Gets Away with Lying, as Explained by a Magician

The Other Side: President Trump’s lies a clear and present danger

Trump lies about having ‘no financial interests in Saudi Arabia’

Trump's Relentless Lying Threatens Our Democracy.

This Is as Obvious and Blatant a Presidential Lie as You're Going to See

It’s True: Trump Is Lying More, and He’s Doing It on Purpose

President Trump Made 1,950 Untrue Claims in 2017. That's Making His Job Harder

You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true.

Seriously though, this post truth world is starting to creep me out.

were an issue. You're a high priority target you don't get to take chances.

Well, not the "same" issue. Private email servers are used throughout Washington and somehow stopped being an issue after 2016. I wonder what changed?

....How would you feel about losing the job of your lifetime to an accusation?

Let's assume he's 100% innocent. Why should I have more pity for this person than the millions who lost health insurance under Trump?

You may need to revisit those numbers. the uninsured rate of adults has increased one-tenth of 1 percentage point during Trump's presidency according to NHIS data. Politico Fact translates that to about 100k - far fewer than the *millions* you claimed.

Or Farmers who are losing their livelihoods because of a misguided trade war?

The tariffs have not been in place long enough to see any actual results; Most news outlets say that "farmers are worried that they may lose those commodity markets for good." Don't let facts get in the way of your political bias.

Or the children put in immigration prison and separated from their families indefinitely?

More political spin. Donald Trump merely asked to enforce existing laws and policies. His Zero Tolerance policy applies to all adults who cross the border. The 1997 "Flores" consent decree requires that the federal government release all undocumented immigrant children within 20 days. Since processing adults generally takes more than 20 days, enforcing our immigration laws and following the Flores decree effectively requires separating children from their families. Also note that the government is actively trying to reunite the 2,000 minors who were separated from their families under the zero tolerance period.

Or small investors who will lose their life savings in the next crash because the Trump administration is eliminating the CFPD and making fraud legal again. Or the thousands of Yemenis and Syrian civilians who were killed by U.S. bombs, dropped by the Trump administration?

More spin.

Or Heather Heyer who was run over by a Trump supporter, who happens to be a "good person". I could go on and on.

Talk about Goodwin! You cannot blame Trump for something that one of his supporters did.

There are millions of U.S. citizens who have very good reasons to vote against this administration in November.

I'm supposed to feel sorry for a very well-to-do jurist who went to Georgetown prep, was a legacy admission to Yale, and had political opportunities up the wazoo because he was buddies with all the right Republicans at a very early age. This person is a judge on the second-highest court in the country. He has a nice upper-class life. If he gets sick, doctors will take care of him. When he retires, or is disabled and can no longer work, he will receive a golden pension and live in dignity. I'm sorry Republicans, but I just cannot feel sorry for your boy. Even if he's 100% innocent and this is a "con-job orchestrated by the Clintons". Kavanaugh is the ultimate snow flake.

You're supposed to feel bad about someone who's receiving death threats over an unsubstantiated accusation. You can feel smug in judging him for the circumstances of his birth and privileged upbringing.

..however: it's not enforceable, assuming the 'bot in question is realistic enough to pass muster with the average person, and the 'bot owner doesn't give a damn about the law (which a foreign operative working within the U.S. most certainly woudn't) or if it's owned by someone outside the borders of the U.S. The real solution to this problem is people need to stop believing shit they read online that's coming from 'people' they don't personally know, or at the very least they need to learn to apply some critical thinking and some basic research to verify something is factual or not. Sites like Snopes and Politifact are probably good places to start. So then the problem becomes: How do we educate the masses so they do this automatically?

Or if you want to commit a crime, don't turn on features that call the cops.

How would you even know if you're committing a crime? No one can keep track of all of the laws, there are over 300,000 federal laws and regulations that can result in criminal prosecution and over 70% of people have comitted one or more jailable offenses.

https://www.politifact.com/pun...

Some may seem innocuous like 'If a doctor gave you a prescription for the common painkiller vicodin and your spouse brings it to you as you lie in bed, "your spouse is dispensing a controlled substance without a license,"' but if a cop sees it and is looking for an excuse to arrest you, he's got the legal justification to do so and it may cost you many thousands of dollars to clear the charges.

in which they gave in to every single Republican demand for changes

This, to put it mildly, is B.S. They didn't give into Republican demands. The Senate committee included some of the technical fixes which were proposed (i.e. clarifying portions) and two substantive changes, which "required members of Congress and congressional staff to enroll in the government-run option and the other involved biologics medication."

Nothing the GOP suggested had anything to do with what you posted above. The committee also rejected 75% of the GOP suggested amendments. They certainly didn't give into the biggest Republican demand of all, which was to not pass the resulting law, which no Republicans voted for.

Timothy Jost, emeritus professor of law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, told us that "the basic statement that hundreds were adopted is wrong."

I cite the US tax code. All of it, in its entirety. The code itself is some 6500 pages long. There is an additional 60,000 pages of case law that modifies those. It is not possible for any individual or small business to comprehend such a document. Only megacorporations can afford the legal departments necessary to read and game every useful loophole in such a system. The immense size of our government and its regulations is a defacto subsidy to megacorporations, as smaller players cannot possibly play by the rules of the game.

Democrat-led Senate. Democrat President. Republican GOP. Shutting down Yucca Mountain was a goal of President Obama and he worked with his own DOE to make it happen. President Obama submitted continuing resolutions that tied elimination of Yucca Mountain funding to military expenditures - so it was either shut down the military or shut down Yucca Mountain. The Senate (led by Harry Reid) loved that as well. Definitely a priority for the President and for half of Congress - such that they were willing to eliminate funding of Constitutional duties of Government before they let it keep running.

Deemed lie of the year by the media the year he said it, and here we have kqs telling us it was the truth. Story from politicfact about it.

You wanted to know why people lie? There you go. You have a bunch of literal psychopaths, like kqs, telling us the lies are actually true despite literally EVERYONE who isn't a psychopath confirming it is a lie. If you are part of the DNC you can fuck over the middle class, blacks, women, you can literally start a civil war killing hundreds of thousands to keep slavery, you can have a KKK leader as a Senator for half a century, and you will still have people defending you.

Its gotten to pure insanity with the left anymore.

Does Amazon pay taxes? Here's some links from left, right, and center-tending media:
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-s/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-not-paying-taxes-trump-bezos-2018-4
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/amazon-earned-5-6b-in-2017-but-paid-no-federal-taxes
https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-2017-gets-789-million-windfall-from-new-tax-law/
https://splinternews.com/amazon-made-5-6-billion-in-profits-last-year-and-repor-1823329221

he's one of the poorest. And when you consider how long he's been in politics it's frankly amazing how little he has. He's held one of the most powerful and prestigious positions of the most powerful nation on earth and he's barely a millionaire.

this does not invalidate the report by the CIA, FBI, NSA and Director of National Intelligence, nor their "high confidence" in their judgment that Russia engaged in an influence campaign directed at the election.

I get it....this whole post is just another fascist right conspiracy theorists bullshit that shouldn't even show up on /. BUT we have a cadre of worthless fucking fascists on here who's whole goal is to undermine this country. We can see them in all these up voted posts that are basically people too fucking stupid to even understand what was written in the article, all the way to up voting posts like yours which downplays serious issues because you're little partisan brain is nothing more than a rat turd.

I long for the good old days when there were some conservatives who actually used their brain, and had a little integrity. They certainly don't seem to exist anymore.

"This week, State Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes called poverty California’s No. 1 priority during a forum of legislative leaders in Sacramento. Mayes, who represents parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, claimed the state’s poverty rate is higher than any state in the nation when considering factors such as cost-of-living."

We decided to fact-check whether the report Mayes cited really shows that California has the highest poverty rate in the nation.

While I don't disagree with anything in particular you've said I feel it is important to note that statistical analysis of the major news outlets consistently puts CNN as an honest media outlet as they tell the truth far more often than not. They aren't perfect. but definitely don't deserve all the hate they get from Trump.

The issue is echo chamber syndrome affecting a larger and larger population. You can have a crazy idea now and end up with a million flat-earth followers. That lends legitimacy to your crazy idea rather than it fading like it used to.

Trump's crazy idea is that everyone is out to get him. This is common paranoia for the rich who made a lot of enemies in their pursuit of ever more riches. This is why rich are often super stressed out and angry. The ones that did it with legitimate hard work and doing the right thing are usually less stressed out since they have complete security to do whatever they want. I saw this contrast often being in the collector car business for many years.

Actually, it isn't That distinction goes to the 6th and 11th. Read the article for a more detailed analysis, based on the different ways these rates are calculated.
6th Circuit - 87 percent;
11th Circuit - 85 percent;
9th Circuit - 79 percent;
3rd Circuit - 78 percent;
2nd Circuit and Federal Circuit - 68 percent;
8th Circuit - 67 percent;
5th Circuit - 66 percent;
7th Circuit - 48 percent;
DC Circuit - 45 percent;
1st Circuit and 4th Circuit - 43 percent;
10th Circuit - 42 percent.

Remember this is saying 79% of the 9th Circuit's cases that are applied up are overturned. Not that 79% of the 9th Circuit's decided cases are overturned.

Actually, it isn't That distinction goes to the 6th and 11th. Read the article for a more detailed analysis, based on the different ways these rates are calculated.
6th Circuit - 87 percent;
11th Circuit - 85 percent;
9th Circuit - 79 percent;
3rd Circuit - 78 percent;
2nd Circuit and Federal Circuit - 68 percent;
8th Circuit - 67 percent;
5th Circuit - 66 percent;
7th Circuit - 48 percent;
DC Circuit - 45 percent;
1st Circuit and 4th Circuit - 43 percent;
10th Circuit - 42 percent.

What it really amounts to is that you were mistaken. So we'll start with that.

I voted for Obama in 2008. I know what he promised and I know what he delivered. As far as I'm concerned, he lied. With Hillary, her lies were even more transparent and obvious.

Apparently you don't. Try here and here and maybe refresh those rose-tinted glasses of yours (/s in case you missed it). In 2000, when Trump stood next to Hillary and said she'd be the first woman president, my response was the only way I'd vote for her was if Trump was her opponent. Little did I know...

Obama fully approved of the ACA and took credit for it. And it's nothing more than a massive handout to corporations that does nothing to address the unsustainable cost spiral of health care.

Everyone involved knew ACA was a compromise. As for health care, the first thing they should have pushed through was posted rates. No special treatment for someone because they're with A or B, but everyone gets charged the same. That would also address transparency.

Yes, and that "de facto emergency coverage" was a better way of covering the uninsured than to force healthy, young people to subsidize unhealthy old people, which is what the ACA does.

You do realize, if god hates us, you'll be one of those old people sooner than you think? And if he really hates us, you'll live 100+ years? And that being part of society is that when everyone pays in, everyone benefits. Or should we just dump those young freeloaders down Sweeney Todd's chute?

Preventive care visit once a year costs less than a tank of gas; ditto for vaccinations. They are also provided for free at free clinics, something the US government could have expanded.

In fact, it looks like the ACA has reduced preventive care and office visits, because it has forced many people to go onto high deductible plans.

Who do you think pays for free clinics, because they're certainly not free? And why did they have to exist in the first place? Is it because health care was unaffordable? BTW, I have paid for my own healthcare, out of pocket. It's not a fun thing to pay for. I've also seen what happens when you have to hit the ER for a relatively minor emergency that turns into a $50K bill. Oh, but they'll settle it for $5K. If you have insurance. Cash? $20K. That's what's fundamentally wrong with the US health insurance industry right there.

And I did check out those ACA plans, after Trump took office. Amazing how they went up 30% and offered less. But I'm sure that's Obama's fault too.

You understand that most of these "stories" have turned out to be true. CNN absolutely does recant when they get something wrong. I would think the main criticism is that they get it wrong a lot. Statically they are still way more accurate and correct than Fox News which is in turn way more accurate than Breitbart.

I'm not sure why you have such an axe against CNN. Trump shouting fake news all the time should be ringing pretty hollow given the number of times he and his cohorts have been caught lying. In that aspect Trump is definitely breaking records and not in a good way.

No news company is perfect which is why you should never limit yourself to one medium. The problem with Fox News is that they don't consider themselves news. Don't need to take my word for it.

Then of course we have a disparity between stations telling the truth.

It is overturned about 80% of the time, putting it in the bottom 25% in terms of rulings that stand.

Lynnwood Rooster, claiming one thing, while his own citation states, quite clearly:

The Supreme Court reversed about 70 percent of cases it took between 2010-15. Among cases it reviewed from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it reversed about 79 percent.

"Reversal rates for each court of appeals would be very small, in the range of a tenth of a percent, if calculated as the total number of cases reversed over the total number of appeals terminated by that court," Hofer wrote in his article published by the American Bar Association. "Conversely, if the reversal rate is calculated as the total number of cases reversed over the total number of cases reviewed by the Supreme Court, the ratio increases dramatically."

In comparing courts’ "performance," it makes more sense to compare reversal rate in terms of the ratio of cases reversed over cases reviewed by the Supreme Court, Hofer said.

Over the 10-year period analyzed by Hofer, the 9th Circuit terminated 114,199 cases, in comparison, the 1st Circuit had 16,620, he found.

Huh. I wonder why you lie so badly. Do you just have an agenda to push, so desperately, that you don't care about how easy it is to expose your transparent attempts at deception?

It is overturned about 80% of the time, putting it in the bottom 25% in terms of rulings that stand.

In 1910, there was no federal income tax.

You may have meant the Revenue Act of 1913, in which the top rate was 6%.

But I suppose the actual numbers wouldn't have sounded quite as compelling.

When a process is demonstrated to be so flawed that compromise should be assumed, why is irrefutable proof even necessary?

Yes! Indeed! Which is exactly the logic, we should be applying to the phenomenon of illegal voting too.

It is easy, it happens — which is more than we can say (with citations) about the Diebold machines, actually.

But, for some reasons, any attempts to improve this demonstrably flawed process are struck down — because, it is said, on Slashdot and elsewhere, "there is no proof".

Can't name a single instance?

Face it man, nobody works for Manchurian Global.

Distribution is a service.

When economists talk about "distribution", then mean the distribution and allocation of goods and services. Economists don't care what logo is on the truck making shipments. They care about how many trucks are going to what places.

Capitalists see subsidies as Lemon Socialism. Liberals see subsides as a form of capitalism. The capitalists have a better claim: The TARP bank bailout, and the auto industry bailout were both passed by Democrats, and opposed by Republicans.

Partisanship somehow changes the merits of an argument? That's an... interesting... approach to debate. Politics aside, it's worth noting that the auto bailout ended up costing the US government about $14 billion, while TARP as a whole (including the auto bailout) actually ended up turning a $86 billion profit overall. All together, the program seems to have done exactly what it was intended to do: reduce the shock of the financial crisis, stabilizing the economy to protect against further snowball effects.

Your partisan analysis of subsidies also doesn't mesh with a socialist perspective. To a socialist, subsidies are a governmental decision that something risky is of such benefit to society that the risk (financial or otherwise) should be offset. In a totalitarian state like the USSR or DPRK, the state-run company in that area would just go order work on that project... and open the door to corruption because the state will ensure the project's success, no matter how poorly it's managed or how wasteful it may be. With private industry, however, the subsidies have to be financial offsets, either ensuring a minimum income or covering some expenses outright.

What's offensive to a socialist is the use of subsidies and financial incentives to support projects that aren't directly in the public interest. For example, I know of a particular company that promised to upgrade their factory in a small town, but only if they got a nice tax cut for a few decades (similar to a more-publicized event). While that made for nice headlines about "creating jobs", it hurt the town in the long run. Since the company's normal taxes were a significant percentage of the town's budget, local projects actually lost funding in order to keep the town's budget balanced. Sure, some folks got a new shiny office building, but the high school roof started collapsing.

Unfortunately, that's been a recurring theme with American government policies lately. A notable example is the coal industry, which is subsidized by about $850 million annually, yet only employs about 77,000 people. That's about an $11,000 cost per person per year, ostensibly to keep those 77,000 jobs. The question is, of course, whether we need those jobs as a society. To a socialist, that $11,000 would likely be better spent funding career education and training to support other industries (or even bringing new skills to the coal industry), with the key benefit being that even if the coal industry collapsed, the society would still have a larger wealth of skills to continue progress.

Again, it's a matter of philosophy. The socialists want societal improvement to be the primary goal of government, with industries benefiting indirectly. Who actually owns the company is relatively insignificant at this point.

We're borrowing the entire defense budget? That's terrible. We need to cut spending.

https://www.politifact.com/tru...

Considering defense is barely 16% of Fed spending, and social programs (SS, medicare, etc) is around 57%, I think I know where we should really start cutting.

Trump told Howard Stern that he routinely walks into the dressing rooms to see the beautiful naked women. That is not in dispute. Whether it occurred also with teenage girls is still in dispute.

You can easily find the Howard Stern interview. I'll just leave this here for you:

  https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/article/2016/oct/18/allegations-about-donald-trump-and-miss-teen-usa-c/

Let's leave aside the difference between having a human physically show up and having bots click on a website link. Let's leave aside also that the types of ID required might be aimed at certain demographics, like in Texas where a gun license is an acceptable ID to vote but a student ID from a state school is not an ok ID https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2015/jun/26/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-you-can-vote-texas-concealed-/. Let's put aside also that North Carolina Republicans deliberately optimized their voting ID system to minimize African-American turnout https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/the-smoking-gun-proving-north-carolina-republicans-tried-to-disenfranchise-black-voters/. Putting all of that aside why are so many people focused on in-person voter fraud when the evidence and consensus of actual experts is that absentee ballot fraud is an actual and serious problem especially in local elections?

You are completely missing what I am trying to say. Let us pretend we are attending a conference on qualfonic energy, which is completely made up. Let us suppose that someone has just given an address with a serious criticism of this form of energy. Would you be more likely to trust this criticism if it came from someone who has had nothing good to say about it or from someone who was a major proponent of it? Hopefully you can understand why people might take the comments from the latter person more seriously given no other information.

Neither. They both have motivations to lie. I'd want to fact check the claims of either person because the first one might be inventing a criticism and the second one may be omitting other major problems. You're a fool if you think either of them is more trustworthy than the other. Furthermore, a proponent admitting a minor flaw, is a classic hustle technique to get you to buy into the product that they're pitching.

If this were not the case you would understand why a source pointing out all of the things that Trump has lied about or misrepresented is not sufficient proof of your claim. You need to compare it to other politicians and I am not convinced that Trump is significantly worse. He certainly is not a truthful politician, but few are and we tend to forget the myriad lies and cover-ups of controversies that surround past politicians. I suspect that if we were discussing some subject where you were not in agreement with the conclusion, you would be quick to employ the same arguments I have used here, but you dislike Trump so much that your emotions blind you to reason.

Trump's lies corrode democracy.
There's a long history of presidential untruths. Here's why Donald Trump is 'in a class by himself.
How Does Trump Stack Up Against the Best — and Worst — Presidents?
Trump’s Lies vs. Obama’s
Donald Trump running the most dishonest White House ever, says historian
Comparing Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump on the Truth-O-Meter
Are Clinton and Trump the Biggest Liars Ever to Run for President?

That is not to say you are a bad person, because everyone is that way about something that they take personally. My point is that in this particular area, you are not a good source absent significant and quality evidence.

How much evidence do you need? If you're really interested, there's a lot more stuff on Trump's lack of honesty and his place in the world of American politics in respect to that, but I think it's telling that presidential historians (who ought to know quite a bit about past presidents) have (spoilers) ranked him last place out of all of America's presidents. That's pretty unusual, most politicians get ranked in the middle somewhere during their terms, neither best nor worst.

Well enough that the economy in California is booming. I don't see that the cost of education in California is substantially better or worse than any other state in the US. While the cost of education in the US in general is out of sight crazy granted. How is the cost of 'free' education in '(insert your state)' ?
https://www.politifact.com/cal...

It's better here in Texas (like everything) ...

Except in Education (ranked 40th) and Healthcare (ranked 38th) in the nation. Also, it's really frelling hot in Texas. Still, not a bad place to fly over on your way to somewhere better. :-)

Or maybe if Nasa's foremost mission hadn't been "Muslim outreach"?

https://www.politifact.com/tex...

"Bolden next lists the "three things" he says Obama charged him to do, including, "perhaps foremost," engaging much more with dominantly Muslim nations and getting "more people who can contribute to the things that we do,"

Note that politifact rates it as half true...mainly because he is confirmed to have SAID it, but later walked back "that's not really what I meant".

When you dig deeper in the articles, and read the speeches and comments, they really do sound apologetic. However, the analysts, from sources that are not what one would call right leaning, all seem to miss this. Bias is what bias does, but hey, congrats on being modded up for expressing a liberal leaning view on slashdot. In other news, the sky is blue...

https://www.politifact.com/tru...

But I do remember when a certain tan-suited "president" decided to go on an apology tour and apologize to every nation he could about America being a land of opportunity.

Yeah, except there were no "apologies". The whole "Obama apology tour" thing was completely made up.

https://www.factcheck.org/2012...

https://www.politifact.com/tru...

https://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23...

And yes, there are at least three copies of the forensically-imaged DNC server in the FBI's possession. We know this because the Trump Justice Department has told us so.

PopeRatzo is literally making shit up and can't back it up. Is it because he knows he is lying or is he just stupid?

“The FBI was given images of servers, forensic copies, as well as a host of other forensic information we collected from our systems,” said Adrienne Watson, the DNC’s deputy communications director. “We were in close contact and worked cooperatively with the FBI and were always responsive to their requests. Any suggestion that they were denied access to what they wanted for their investigation is completely incorrect.”

"review of the system performed by CrowdStrike, a third-party cybersecurity firm."

https://www.politifact.com/tru...

I will keep it simple: what YEAR did the FBI examine Your Highness mail server?

2016.

https://motherboard.vice.com/e...

Here is some more background on Trump's "Where is the server?" lie:

https://www.politifact.com/tru...