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That analysis has been questioned by several. In fact the nation that did a story on it is now reviewing their own story for accuracy. There are just too many unknowns and holes in their report. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com] https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com] https://www.aol.com/article/ne... [aol.com] http://thehill.com/policy/cybe... [thehill.com]

That analysis has been questioned by several. In fact the nation that did a story on it is now reviewing their own story for accuracy. There are just too many unknowns and holes in their report. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com] https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com] https://www.aol.com/article/ne... [aol.com] http://thehill.com/policy/cybe... [thehill.com]

That analysis has been questioned by several. In fact the nation that did a story on it is now reviewing their own story for accuracy. There are just too many unknowns and holes in their report. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com] https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com] https://www.aol.com/article/ne... [aol.com] http://thehill.com/policy/cybe... [thehill.com]

That analysis has been questioned by several. In fact the nation that did a story on it is now reviewing their own story for accuracy. There are just too many unknowns and holes in their report. https://www.washingtonpost.com... https://www.techdirt.com/artic... https://www.aol.com/article/ne... http://thehill.com/policy/cybe...

Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had. The media is all out against him from the get go, biased to hell. The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.

Your "liberals" are NOT IN POWER. Please get at least that one thing straight. Republicans control the House and Senate, case closed. Trump's failures to date are on them, not some "liberal" media.

That's Trump's own Party, supposed to be his friends, and they could care less about some "media... all out against him from the get go". They regularly bash this "biased" media of yours.

Yet even John McCain gives the thumbs-down to Trump. Why? Chiefly, because Trump picks fights with leaders of his own Party. Nevermind whatever views or causes he may or may not have, bottom-line Trump can't behave like a grown-up. That makes for great TV, and maybe it makes some people feel good ("Yeah! You tell 'em Trump!") but it doesn't get anything done.

Trump supporters need to stop asking whether they love the way-so-awesome tough shit he says and tweets, and instead ask whether they'd trust him enough, honest to God, to pay cash to buy a used car from him. Seriously. Be honest. Would you buy a used car from that man? It's the greatest, let me tell you, and don't believe those lies from the liberals at the CarFax - they're losers, this ride has never been in no accident, never been totaled, that puddle of oil is from something else, believe me.

You mean like this..... http://thehill.com/policy/nati...

This IS regular police work.

Yes, the police regularly seek overbroad and general warrants, in order to conduct fishing expeditions and draw a large net.

This is not news.

This is NOT a politically motivated investigation at all, but a criminal inquiry into actual crimes.

Yet we don't believe that. I wonder why.

We already have people charged in these cases and the DOJ is doing it's job like it should.

Are they now? We've already documented that the DOJ doesn't always do its job like it should. Has there been an investigation to certify that the DOJ is not misbehaving? Have the numerous complaints made about the handling of the protests been examined?

Your implication that this is a politically motivated investigation is not really valid given the evidence we have. This is not an issue of free speech, but an investigation into obvious crimes.

The crimes aren't obvious, but instead exaggerated hysteria meant to incite panic and outrage while ignoring reality. I've seen worse damage after a sports team loses.

Of course you might think that destruction of property, inciting riots, assault and conspiracy to commit these things should be allowed under the 1st Amendment, but you'd be totally wrong.

Perhaps not. The 1st amendment is rather limited in scope. They are, however, allowed, even required, under the principles of this country. Said rights, of course, being expressed in a variety of forms, and explicitly so in several state constitutions. And given that the US Constitution contains the 10th Amendment, it can hardly be said to be exhaustive in listing the rights of the people.

Given that this sentiment is long-standing, one can hardly expect it to be excluded. But I suspect that you, would instead mindlessly prefer to declare an allegiance to the law, over the rightful. That is sad.

I understand your confusion though, given the last administration's failure to deal with these kinds of crimes for obvious political reasons.

Yes, they were impeded from stopping the Bundy Ranch rioters, and the Malfeur occupiers, because it would have looked bad politically. On the other hand, they were also smart enough to recognize that.

Trump's a dumbass though, and will likely pull a Chicago Seven prosecution.

Apparently he's never cracked a history book to learn the value of conciliation.

He had a chance, he's had numerous chances. He keeps blowing them. Trumpcare. Muslim Ban. The recent events in Virginia.

Are his advisers incompetent, or does he just not listen? Perhaps both.

They haven't even named any suspects or particular crimes related to the website. Would you like to take back your comments now?

Maybe you'd rather do that?

If you can't see that both websites are doing the exact same fucking thing, goading and organizing people to violent protest, then you are beyond willfully ignorant, or you haven't actually visited the site and are just going by what you imagine it to be in your head.

You mean where people were discussing on the disruptj20 site about the best ways to commit/engage/etc. Maybe you should spend a bit more time reading, looking through the archived stuff that's sitting out there? That's not something you can pin on the daily stormer, no matter how much you try.

So you go ahead and bend yourself into a pretzel, I'm however going to sleep. So have fun.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/309829-dems-propose-historical-park-on-the-moon

Really, have you already forgotten the violence and racism that emerged when Obama was elected?

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundi...

Kaylon Johnson, an African American campaign worker for Obama, was physically assaulted for wearing an Obama T-shirt in Louisiana following the 2008 election. The three white male attackers shouted "Fuck Obama!" and "N*gger president!" as they broke Johnsonâ(TM)s nose and fractured his eye-socket, requiring surgery.

More frequently, Obamaâ(TM)s presidency was marked by effigies of our first black president hanging from nooses across the country, for example in Kentucky, Washington State, and Maine, or being burned around the world. What Trump supporters fail to remember is that following Obamaâ(TM)s election, property was destroyed across the country, for example in Pennsylvania, Texas, and North Carolina, and a predominately black church was torched in Massachusetts.

(links to coverage of these events are in the article)

Wikipedia has an interesting list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

November 6 - Donald Trump called for protests, based on the mistaken belief that Obama had lost the popular vote when re-elected.

I guess Trump supported protests against himself when he lost the popular vote too.

• Your link has nothing to do with global warming, so right off the bat your trolling.
• The problem is the not the science, it what he was pushing and why he was pushing it.

It was a anti-progressive rant, and linked to articles that supported his position. is links might be close to the truth, but his declarations that Google was too progressive was his personal opinion, not scientific study.

As for the NLRB, you want a few links?

• Dismantling NLRB, from 1968
• “Worse than Obamacare," conservatives demonize the NLRB
• Trump eyes union-buster for NLRB

Conservatives have always loved playing the victim while trying to undercut those less well off.

It's also a somewhat open secret that 911 in the US doesn't work all that well when calling from a cell phone. People assume that when they dial 911, the call will go through and the 911 dispatcher will know where they are. This is generally true if you use a land line.

If you're using a cell phone, on the other hand, it often isn't. 911 frequently suffers outages where calls from certain carriers will fail to get forwarded properly, and it's very likely that your location will never make it to the dispatcher. The current goal as set by the FCC is for carriers to accurately forward location information 80% of the time by 2021.

The other issue with the above is that it's not unusual for a 911 call from a cell phone to get forwarded to the wrong 911 call center.

An FCC study estimated that improving location accuracy could save 10,000 lives a year but it still hasn't happened yet, to the point that John Oliver did a segment on it.

Elon Musk continues to take billions in taxpayer subsidies through his various "green" shell companies, and we're worried that a company that isn't a battery manufacturer wants to get its batteries from a company that IS a battery manufacturer?

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundi...

So this is how Russia "influenced" our election? By spreading fake news and being Internet trolls?! For fuck's sake, that's it???

Careful, you gotta use the right language here: they didn't just "influence" the election, they "hacked" it!

Two different things Boris, but thanks for the conflation attempt.

If you don't understand that your comrades had information that was quite targeted to very specific places, you haven't been paying very close attention.

But then therre is the very specific term "Hacked" If you don't know that voting machines have been quite effectively hacked, and by us I've been trying ot find the cite from 2005, but it seems to be a little hard to come by these days, but an outfit, http://thehill.com/policy/cybe... Carnegie Mellon, took the actual voting machines that were in use at the time and hacked them.

And tell me Boris, if you could get into an enemies voting system and change the election results to a person who would do your bidding - answer me why you would not do exactly that.If you wouldn't, it would be stupid, and one thing we know Boris, your people aren't stupid.

If you don't use the right terms, people might start thinking the Democrats fucked up really, really badly, and we can't let that happen

Well Boris - yes, the Democrats have been an aboiminable fuckupfest for a long time.

However, explain how that has fuck-all to do with this election and your people's efforts.

might find themselves out in the cold, unable to pay for their third summer home in the Caribbean!

It's Mar-a-Lago Boris, your boy built that with some of your money.

Be a good winner Boris, we have a man in the White House who will do our bidding. We are discussing whether or not you get your rubles, stand by.

Hydro electric power used to be one of the darlings of the energy sector. It was clean, it was safe, it was renewable. The only draw back was the local environmental effects of the dam, changing the river flow, creating a lake; but those were deemed acceptable.

Now the environmental damage caused by building a dam is an all but insurmountable hurdle.

Not to mention labour costs and standards increases that price such megaprojects out of reach.

Oh... you probably wanted some cites right?

https://www.marketplace.org/20...

http://wizbangblog.com/2012/07...

http://thehill.com/regulation/...

I'm coming to the realization that the Democrats are actually corrupt(*).

I was reading about the DOJ slush fund [breitbart.com](**) and it struck me just how deep and insidious the corruption has been in this country.

Why not Teapot Dome, Credit Mobiler, Iran-Contra, Enron, and Bernie Madoff?

This is paired with the IRS selecting conservative charities for intense scrutiny

And liberal ones. Who both needed to file proper reports to meet their non-profit status.

Even Congress had to admit it was all proper in the end.

11 California counties have more registered voters than adults

You can't blame California for Steve Mnuchin, Tiffany Trump, Jared Kushner, and Steven Bannon, who nonetheless, remind us, it's not a crime. Despite false claims otherwise.

And let us not forget after the election, leftists pleaded with the EC delegates to be faithless,

I pleased with the EC delegates to quit myself, it might be the only thing that gets us past that broken system.

then pleaded with the supreme court to invalidate the results,

No, the Supreme Court acted in 2000, unlawfully overriding state courts for their own partisan gain.

then pleaded with the U.S. military to step in and prevent the inauguration (wtf?),

Like those massive crowds of people that Trump (falsely) claimed were there, huh?

leaked secret and sensitive information - not to expose crimes, but for political slander,

Oh wait, you mean when they leaked Trump's fake pictures of Time Magazine covers, right?

and rioted for weeks

No, that was Chicago celebrating winning the World Series.

For example, Hillary made no statements condemning the riots,

Also she didn't condemn the sugar plum fairy.

and most of the left blamed the rioting on Trump.

Trump called for it himself.

blocking reasonable voter registration,

No, that was the GOP.

and suppressing the military vote.

sure man

There's a sub-conversation on the net that holds that the Democratic party *won't survive* once all the corruption has been rooted out.

Sure man, and what else are they discussing? Why they can't find the dead bodies in the Pizza Parlor?

The Democratic ideals are so far from what people want that they require all the extra boost they get from a tilted playing field.

Is that why they keep getting more voters?

I'm not sure I believe that bit about the Democratic party not surviving, but after reading about the DOJ thing, and knowing the level of effort we're putting into the Russia probe while ignoring some seemingly obvious evidence [dailysignal.com] on the Democratic side, it makes me wonder...

Actually, the Republicans in Congress are still busy chasing their tails over Hillary.

I gues

If only Trump listened to Trump who criticized Obama for having 3 Chiefs of Staff in 3 years. The Internet is forever.

Your guess is completely wrong. Perhaps you should at least read the summary before you make wild guesses based on the title.

"The hope is ... the project will be able to to identify and recommend strategies, tools, and technology to protect democratic processes and systems from cyber and information attacks."

We already have insecure electronic voting machines and at least one successful attack. While the changes from that attack were detected and reverted, it's just a matter of time before someone succeeds and isn't detected.

The US government has shown no interest at all in developing secure systems for elections, so none of this is going to change without outside groups like the one discussed in this article forcing change.

It's no secret that most people do not donate to political cause they believe in, much less ones they don't.

What's also not a secret is that people with a narrative to push will often present a less than honest story.

And given that FEC donation information is the best (possibly only) indicator we have of political affiliation, you need to show that a 90% skew in favor of democrats in all donations is somehow statistically insignificant.

You know what's factually significant? That you are still relying on on your "90%" number, without addressing my point that you left out the actual number of employees who donated.

Or do you really think several hundred thousand federal employees ponied up for the Democrats?

And to be clear, we're talking out tens of millions of dollars. So, not "a handful."

Nope. The contributions by Federal employees is closer to two million dollars in total for 2016.

Even allowing for late reporting, that's well over 15 million dollars you can't account for, which really shows your lack of truthfulness.

You can even see the number of contributions. It's in the range of hundreds. Which means sure, high-level appointees contributed to their party, but despite your false blandishments, the rank and file are something you have no evidence to support your contention.

Really, even if I let you off by tens, you're still going for five times the actual amount.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=political...

You can ignore the Breitbart link, if you like. Seriously, what search terms were you using????

Here, I'll pick one out of the list for you: http://thehill.com/homenews/ca...

That wasn't hard.

If the scientists do not want people to react to the reporting of it they need to do a better job of calling out those who are using it to advance the political ideas they agree with and not just those who oppose their political preferences.

This article points out the problem clearly. When Rick Perry answered an ambiguous question with an answer which did not support AGW alarmism (it also did not support AGW denialism either) the American Meteorological Society called him out on it. Yet, the AMS remained silent when various members of the previous administration told outright untruths that advanced AGW alarmism. If they want to be taken seriously, scientists need to call out those who misrepresent the science in order to advance political agendas with which the scientists agree, not just those who are advancing political agendas with which they disagree.

Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, has been pushing for regulating internet companies like Facebook and Google as public utilities,

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/344185-report-bannon-thinks-facebook-and-google-should-be-subject-to-utility-style

> So now the portion of my travel time taken up by TSA is even greater? Fuck that, I'll take a train.

Don't look now, but TSA could soon also stand for "Train Security Assholes"... http://thehill.com/policy/tran...

Ya, apparently he's apologized "50" times to Trump for the above comments and his opposition to Trump was because he "was an unexperienced [sic] person in the world of politics." Scaramucci has apparently been throwing lots of praise at Trump to make up for his earlier comments, as you suggested.

http://thehill.com/homenews/ad...

https://www.theguardian.com/us...

No kidding. They sure as hell didn't have a problem releasing the 58,000+ fake comments submitted by some anti-net-neutrality company's bot net. Those had personal information included, which is how they were revealed as fake. Reporters started calling the people who had supposedly made the comments, only to be met with total confusion because no one had actually submitted them.

And some other sources reporting the story:
the hill http://thehill.com/policy/nati...
zdnet http://www.zdnet.com/article/u...
Yahoo https://finance.yahoo.com/news...

Yep. You've convinced me! It was Trump that has sold out to Russia. Not the lifetime politicians (and Democrats). Or, perhaps, just maybe this is business as usual and both side's politicians are vile idiots?

I really can't finish reading your post without laughing to myself. A lot of Democrats have certainly convinced themselves that they are truly better than Republicans, just as a lot of Republicans have done the exact same thing in reverse.

The reality is that both parties are completely corrupted. If you associate with either party, rather than agree with some of their public opinions, then you are an idiot. Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan might as well be the exact same person. They pass the exact same pork with different names slapped on top of them. The only minor difference is the large donors that benefit from the passage.

Russia certainly did try to muck around with the 2016 elections, just as I'm sure they tried to muck around with the 2012, 2008, and 2004 election cycles. Obama was proven to be a fool when it came to dealing with Russia and he was outmaneuvered at every point by them, just as Hillary was during the last election. Having someone in office like Hillary -- a person that can be openly bribed via their foundation, with emails from nations noting such exchanges in public view -- would only serve to help Russia continue to make moves.

What was the major driver of the Russian involvement? Oh, right, it was leaked emails from both Hillary's staff and the DNC. So, in other words, we're flipping out about Russian involvement for showing us the vile hatred behind the fake smiles. The DNC was just as involved with influencing the as the Russians by giving debate questions to their preferred candidate -- Hillary -- and secretly working against the other candidates (both Republican and Democrat).

On the other hand, Trump is possibly in Russia's pocket and possibly not. There is literally no proof of it and the recent issues surrounding Trump Jr are a joke given that the exact same Russian is observed with numerous people of power on both sides of the aisle (see the above link for video evidence). Furthermore, the US has stepped up efforts to block Russian-supported involvement in Syria; a move that Obama constantly threatened but never had the spine to perform, which emboldened our enemies (and, before anyone mentions it, he already had placed troops and resources there, so it wasn't to avoid it; it was weakness). If he is a shill for Russia, then he's playing it oddly better than Obama ever did.

So I will gladly take the unknown over the absolutely known corruption. Any existing politician can be presumed to be corrupt until proven otherwise, on both sides of the aisle.

The most interesting aspect of your entire rant is that you associate Republicans with Trump. And I think that most Republicans would actually disagree with that association. There's a reason that the Republicans in Congress look so bad: they're avoiding Trump's agenda because they largely disagree with it because it doesn't help their donors. They can't reform the ACA, not because it's a great bill or an impossible thing to do, but because they don't know what they want to do because they want a Republican agenda that is not directly associated with Trump.

my actual murdering someone is protected

On what grounds? I'm having a hard time seeing how you're managing to draw an equivalence between the government being forbidden to stop you from filming a cop, and you being allowed to kill someone without repercussions just because you filmed it. You're free to film all the murders you want, but murdering someone is still illegal, and your film will be used in court against you, where you will be facing a charge of "murder," not "filming a murder". I just don't see how you're getting from "ok to film cops" to "ok to kill people if you film it," unless your camera literally "shoots film" at the muzzle velocity of a colt .45 and you are actually killing the cops you are filming (which would still be murder and therefore illegal).

What makes it "unlawful"?

That's actually a really good question. For cops, anyway. It appears that for some reason the UMCJ has a whole hell of a lot to say about what makes an order unlawful.

In absence of an actual definition that applies to cops, consider for starters court rulings (like this one!) indicating that per the amended Constitution, the government cannot compel you to stop filming a cop, presumably subject to the same limitations that have been placed on other First Amendment rights such as "imminent lawless action" (such as murdering someone! Or more realistically, getting between the cop and the arrestee so the arrestee can evade arrest). Given that, may I suggest that orders that are unconstitutional are unlawful?

But hey, who knows. Maybe the Supreme Court will issue a ruling that says "well, we've decided that cops are obscene and therefore films of cops are not protected by the First Amendment."

you would've defended all articles of the Bill of Rights equally

For the record, I'm pro-gun. I'm also pro-recording because I believe that being able to document what is occurring is vital, whether that recording is used for headlining, editorializing, blogging, or just to create a personal record of events. ALL of which I believe should count as speech, whether published publicly or privately.

The problem at it's undeniable base is that Today's crypto-conservatism has no actual ideas, other than tax cuts.

It seems that may be all that "conservatives" have ever had.
Sean Hannity is getting the William F Buckley award for media excellence.

At first that seems absolute nuts.
Except that when Buckley started out he too was all about antisemitism, pro-white supremacy, etc. All the shit associated with trump's base. By the end of his career most of that had been flensed and all that was really left in Buckley's repertoire was american exceptionalism (which is just MAGA on ambien) and .... tax cuts.

It takes a certain level of stupid to still think the ACA is not the most misleadingly named law in existence. Sadly, not only does the above poster exist in a world so devoid of facts and personal observation that he doesn't understand this, but someone else of equally limited analytical ability modded him up. Since like most posts supporting liberal ideology on these forums, it contained emotion, pejoratives, and NO LINKS BACKING UP THE ARGUMENTS, I will provide some.

1. Then President Obama told the people that his plan would save them on average $2500 and allow them to keep the same level of care. In fact, they new this to be a lie, as was admitted at a fund raiser where the speaker basically is laughing at how stupid people like you are. Personally, that would bother me, but you may like it when your leaders lie and ridicule you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

2. The cost of medical insurance has more than doubled since AFC was enacted. In 2013, families typically paid $2784. Now, they pay $5712. http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...

3.This year is going to be even more devastating. Here is a link from the liberally biased Politico so you don't think it is just "evil" conservatives making things up:

http://www.politico.com/story/...

4. At no point does Trump say that he wants to remove ACA taxes from the rich. This is simply a deluded fantasy on your part, or something that you read from a basement blogger with this fantasy. In fact, he wants to try to keep many protections for the poor and infirm. I know honesty is hard for you, but try to read first. http://thehill.com/policy/heal...

BTW, yes, I am being harsh and yes I am annoyed. I am sick of slander being modded up in these forums. Lets keep the debates honest and not make shit up. Lets have more reason and less emotion. Or, are you simply scared that if you are honest and analyze facts, you may have to change your world view?

Why are people so resistant to a simple audit I wonder?

Don't know. Why don't you ask the con artist who fought tooth and nail to stop vote recounts in three states by claiming, wait for it, there was no evidence of vote fraud. The exact words used:

"There is no evidence - or even an allegation - that any tampering with Pennsylvania's voting systems actually occurred."

In Wisconsin, the recount and simultaneous audit went forward despite the lawsuits. That would have seemed a perfect time to see about illegal votes but instead, the con artist and his supporters filed suit to stop the process.

As Jill Stein stated in Michigan:

"In an election already tainted by suspicion, previously expressed by Donald Trump himself, verifying the vote is a common-sense procedure that would address concerns around voter disenfranchisement,"

And yet, the con artist didn't want vote recounts, or any checking of the votes. Now he does. Why the change? As stated above, it's simply to soothe his ego that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less. He can't stand it that he received fewer votes than a woman, and it is made worse that it was Hillary.

Why are people so resistant to a simple audit I wonder?

Don't know. Why don't you ask the con artist who fought tooth and nail to stop vote recounts in three states by claiming, wait for it, there was no evidence of vote fraud. The exact words used:

"There is no evidence - or even an allegation - that any tampering with Pennsylvania's voting systems actually occurred."

In Wisconsin, the recount and simultaneous audit went forward despite the lawsuits. That would have seemed a perfect time to see about illegal votes but instead, the con artist and his supporters filed suit to stop the process.

As Jill Stein stated in Michigan:

"In an election already tainted by suspicion, previously expressed by Donald Trump himself, verifying the vote is a common-sense procedure that would address concerns around voter disenfranchisement,"

And yet, the con artist didn't want vote recounts, or any checking of the votes. Now he does. Why the change? As stated above, it's simply to soothe his ego that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less. He can't stand it that he received fewer votes than a woman, and it is made worse that it was Hillary.

What it looks like to me is that Republican lawmakers know they have an unsuitable man in the White House

That's right, Martian thinks if you voted for Trump your vote shouldn't be counted. Democracy is only allowed if you vote Martian's way.
As for unsuitable...
You mean people like McCabe who is pursuing the administration in retaliation for a sexual harassment suit? Yep, same guy broke Hatch act, took bribes to trash the Clinton investigation, and is attacking Flynn and Trump because Flynn dared to step up on behalf of a female FBI agent.
Or do you mean CNN making up Russia Trump stories, or Van Jones on CNN ALSO saying the Russia thing is fake.

Its actually hard to find any accusation of Trump that isn't easily debunked as 100% false by the people making the claims themselves. But here you are supporting people who sexually harass women, take bribes, abuse power, and everything else. All while acting like we shouldn't be allowed to vote for who we want to.

You are a real piece of work. I'm sure your mother upstairs is proud of you!

These are illuminating in regard to any discussion of the economic impact of the minimum wage:

http://thehill.com/homenews/ho...

"Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said Monday that House and Senate lawmakers should receive a $2,500 per month housing allowance — something he explained would help ease housing costs for members who can’t afford two mortgages or rents."

And this:

https://boingboing.net/2017/06...

"Rep Jeb Hensarling [R-TX/+1 202 225-3484/@RepHensarling] is the sponsor of HR 10, the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017, which will ban investors from putting petitions to the shareholders and board of publicly traded companies, except when investors own more than 1% of the company for at least three years."

I am not a big Trump fan, but he is our president. That said, this media BS of bashing Trump every 3 seconds is getting old, and people are seeing it for the partisan BS that it is:

Lets see, Jeff Bezos owns Amazon and owns the Washington Post, but Joe sixpack doesn't know who Jeff Bezos is, but everyone knows Amazon, and Trump associates the two in his tweet. Not really all that inaccurate, just semantics and partisans looking for any negative story that they can put up about Trump without losing their jobs.

The reality is that we now have CNN firing 3 reporters for completely BS stories. We have a CNN reporter admitting on hidden camera that the Trump-Russia thing is total bullshit, and in general, we have 90% of the news stories on Trump being negative. Put yourself in his shoes. He gets elected and immediately gets slammed with this bogus Russia collusion investigation and the media is basically making up stories for months from anonymous sources that turn out not to be true (CNN stating that Comey would testify that he never told Trump that he was not being investigated and then the next day Comey testifies to the exact opposite, i.e. that he had told Trump several times that Trump was not being investigated but refused to make that information public, etc.)

I will not be at all surprised if when we drill down on the Russian collusion scandal, we actually find that this is an Obama/Clinton contingency plan to try to illegally steal an election.

Here are some undisputed facts on collusion with Russia:
- Republicans have been hostile to Communist Russia for 7 decades, Democrats have been friendly.
- Obama was caught on a hot mic telling the Russians that after his re-election he could be more flexible http://www.weeklystandard.com/...
- Hillary Clinton presided over a deal where she allowed 20% of US Uranium resources to be sold to the Russians, after which millions of dollars were donated by the interested parties to the Clinton Foundation, and Bill gave a speech in Russia for around $1M, where his normal fee was around $100k https://www.nytimes.com/2015/0...
- Hillary Clinton presided over the "Russian Reset" an attempt to normalize relations with Russia just a few months after they invaded Georgia (not the US State, the country)... http://www.politifact.com/trut...
- President Obama learned of Russian hacking attempts in the summer of 2016, and yet he chose to do nothing (supposedly out of fear of revealing sources and methods, which is BS; the entire point of intelligence is to protect the country, if you don't do that, there is no point in having sources and methods in the first place), and now he may get his ass hauled in front of congress to explain why he did not try to better secure the election that his party is so upset about losing. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-...

I could go on, but you get the point. There is a Russian connection, but it is not Trump, it is Obama and Hillary, and the entire Russia-Trump collusion farce was a misdirect to try to thwart the investigation of the real scandals.

The entire Trump-Russia connection consists of a few Trump advisors who had business deals with Russia or Russian interests (try to find a successful multinational that doesn't do business in/with Russia, I bet Amazon has Russian deals) and one Trump advisor who jumped the gun after the election and started talking to the Russian ambasador before Trump was sworn in. Legal scholars say that this could have been prosecuted but highly likel

> Calling him any sort of stupid is belied by the fact that he is a self-made billionaire, successful reality TV star, and the current president of the US. On top of that he has a strong family, raised good kids, and has a smart and lovely wife.

You can't blame them, it's part of a cognitive dissonance trap that was set for them decades ago. The media has been promoting (and even manufacturing) every little "stupid" thing done by anyone vaguely Republican and has used it as part of their branding. So they'll find as many polls as they can saying that smart people are Democrats and denigrating anyone in "fly over" states, etc. Well, that last part finally bit them pretty hard, but the conditioning is still quite effective and they literally cannot see the brainwashing at this point.

Trump knows this and used it against them in a master-stroke, by deliberately making them underestimate him at every turn. Heck, the DNC even promoted him in the Pied Piper campaign of theirs (go look up the emails, and be sure to validate the DKIM key) to give him the initial boost he used to run away with this. Even though they're being led around by the covfefe they don't get it, and it's hilarious to everyone outside the brainwashing.

P.S. Here's a story you probably won't see today elsewhere. Yet another page 99 retraction. Fun times.

Considering the fact that Obama was trying to ram TPP through, trying to blame this on the Republicans and Trump is ridiculous.

First of all, realize that the TPP is NOT about free trade. It's about intellectual property control and a variety of other topics. "Free trade" is a generic cover for the whole thing. The real motivators are things that would be balked at if they were negotiated separately.

For details as to what TPP really IS about, well, here's a very short summary:

The TPP and Intellectual Property

And the EFF's position on it:

EFF on TPP
EFF and the Copyright Trap

I'm not going to go into a lot of research for that particular question since this has already been hashed out a million times before.

However, as for the Democrat portion... well, first off, Obama spearheaded TPP and intended to try to get it rammed through towards the end of his term.

Obama and the TPP

Hillary in fact praised it as the "gold standard" while it was in development (in secret, I might add, to the point where Congressmen had to go to a secure room to look at the drafts and could not keep their notes on it with them):

Hillary on the Gold Standard

TPP Secrecy (note the caption on the picture)

Now she did try to back off on this and flip-flopped, although this might well have been a pose for the campaign:

Hillary and TPP

But the fact is that the Democrats did not officially oppose it.

Rejecting formal TPP opposition

Some would say that the fact that Hillary is particularly likely to lie about this to get elected, even among politicians. But people specifically close to her indicated that, if she was elected, she'd flip-flop on it pretty rapidly.

Terry McAuliffe's view on TPP flipping

Additionally, while people seem to very much enjoy shitting on the Republicans for draconian copyright laws, fact is that the Democrats are just as bad, and in some cases, worse:

Congressional support for SOPA and PIPA

This raises doubts as to what parts of TPP would be "renegotiated," if that had happened, which was one option that seemed to be spoken of for a Hillary presidency. Suffice it to say that it is likely that the IP law portions would not receive renegotiation that would be considered consumer-friendly.

Stereotypical "Republicans are evil 'cuz Republicans" and "Trump is evil 'cuz Trump" is not going to fly here, unless you're also willing to jump on board the "Democrats are evil 'cuz Democrats" train. Fact of the matter is, both sides are bought and paid for by the technology and content generation industries. This was the sentiment when SOPA was defeated by massive Internet backlash:

Backlash after massive SOPA protests

And Democrats were certainly benefiting from Hollywood donations which "encouraged" them to support SOPA:

So in short, both sides are filthy here. You can blame one side or the other for the majority of the problem a

Considering the fact that Obama was trying to ram TPP through, trying to blame this on the Republicans and Trump is ridiculous.

First of all, realize that the TPP is NOT about free trade. It's about intellectual property control and a variety of other topics. "Free trade" is a generic cover for the whole thing. The real motivators are things that would be balked at if they were negotiated separately.

For details as to what TPP really IS about, well, here's a very short summary:

The TPP and Intellectual Property

And the EFF's position on it:

EFF on TPP
EFF and the Copyright Trap

I'm not going to go into a lot of research for that particular question since this has already been hashed out a million times before.

However, as for the Democrat portion... well, first off, Obama spearheaded TPP and intended to try to get it rammed through towards the end of his term.

Obama and the TPP

Hillary in fact praised it as the "gold standard" while it was in development (in secret, I might add, to the point where Congressmen had to go to a secure room to look at the drafts and could not keep their notes on it with them):

Hillary on the Gold Standard

TPP Secrecy (note the caption on the picture)

Now she did try to back off on this and flip-flopped, although this might well have been a pose for the campaign:

Hillary and TPP

But the fact is that the Democrats did not officially oppose it.

Rejecting formal TPP opposition

Some would say that the fact that Hillary is particularly likely to lie about this to get elected, even among politicians. But people specifically close to her indicated that, if she was elected, she'd flip-flop on it pretty rapidly.

Terry McAuliffe's view on TPP flipping

Additionally, while people seem to very much enjoy shitting on the Republicans for draconian copyright laws, fact is that the Democrats are just as bad, and in some cases, worse:

Congressional support for SOPA and PIPA

This raises doubts as to what parts of TPP would be "renegotiated," if that had happened, which was one option that seemed to be spoken of for a Hillary presidency. Suffice it to say that it is likely that the IP law portions would not receive renegotiation that would be considered consumer-friendly.

Stereotypical "Republicans are evil 'cuz Republicans" and "Trump is evil 'cuz Trump" is not going to fly here, unless you're also willing to jump on board the "Democrats are evil 'cuz Democrats" train. Fact of the matter is, both sides are bought and paid for by the technology and content generation industries. This was the sentiment when SOPA was defeated by massive Internet backlash:

Backlash after massive SOPA protests

And Democrats were certainly benefiting from Hollywood donations which "encouraged" them to support SOPA:

So in short, both sides are filthy here. You can blame one side or the other for the majority of the problem a

We interrupt our daily, reflexive dose of Trump bashing to attempt to have a legitimate conversation. Like too many things on modern slashdot, this post starts off with the bashing of all things Trump and non-liberal ideology, instead of actually just talking about the issues in an honest way, and evaluating the proposed solutions to get to the truth.

A little investigation yields that there are elements of hyperbole and FUD in the article and the issue general. At the simplest level, it seems easy to feed into the wrong-headed narrative that Trump and conservatives are anti-liberty, even thought the opposite is generally true. A deeper look into the issue has more nuance. Almost as if people are not cartoon villains and have different perspectives in looking out for the greater well being. Almost.

The counter argument is that the Obama era bill only provided protections against what ISP companies can do with your data. In limiting the scope, it actually opened the door for other companies like say M.S., Apple, or Alphabet to be a little more nefarious in their data collection rules. The current rules in house GLB Act and the existing FCC standards on the book already provided larger scale protections than the new rules, so replacing them is actually harmful to consumer.

Now, I am not a lawyer, and I will admit to not being the 'net expert of many of the readers of these forums. If the existing rules do not go far enough I am happy to hear an honest non-partisan name calling discussion about why. I am also curious to see if the new California bill actually improves things, or if it is well meaning but damaging?

Worse, is it a bill that sounds nice, but when you look at it, it was written by tech sector lobbyists to gather more data? I guess I am really struck by the line Nick Fury says in the Avengers, "you say you want peace, but I think you mean that other thing."

In case you are curious, here is a link discussing the other side of the issue. I am sure that there are others.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundi...

The question becomes, are people on these forums remotely interested in finding answer to issues, or is it going to be non-stop tribalism all the time?

Time for Congress to reconsider Obama's attempt to limit gun access to mentally ill citizens.

Right, because how many mass shootings each year could be avoided if we simply kept guns out of the hands of Septagenarians too trusting to manage their own checkbook?

Obama wanted to deny a constitutional right to anyone that has someone else manage their finances according to social security records...

http://thehill.com/regulation/...

That's a very low bar to take away someone's right to self-protection.

Because the majority of the voters want the Iraq war and the War on Drugs (I'm with you, by the way, on those items), but the majority of voters don't want "free" health care because they're smart enough to understand that health care isn't actually free.

Gallup polls: 55% support the ACA

Quinnipiac University: 17% support Obamacare repeal.

USA Today: 51% of those surveyed said they would prefer to keep and work to improve ACA. Another 7% said they wanted to keep the health care law as is.

Keep in mind that many "approval" numbers for the ACA appear low because there is a percentage of people who will not approve of the ACA when they call it "Obamacare." Second there is also a percentage that is against the ACA because it does not for them go far enough. They want single-payer.

There is absolutely no evidence beyond right-wing sound bites that indicate that government involvement in health care is unpopular.

And Putin offered asylum to Comey.
History is repeating itself as farce.

But overall, there are too many idiots on both sides that refuse to listen to the other sides ideas

Do not attempt to make a false equivalence here. The only reason it might seem that way is because one side has a massive persecution complex fed by an outrage machine dedicated to hyping that noise for profit and the other 'side' (described as the reality-based community by Karl Rove) treat such as cases as just another minor news event.

NYC: Linda Sarsour Faces Death Threats Ahead of Her CUNY Commencement Speech | Democracy Now!
Princeton professor who criticized Trump cancels events, saying she's received death threats
Shakespeare in the Park featured a Trump-like Julius Caesar, and right-wing media freaked out - Vox
Greg Gianforte Pleads Guilty To Assaulting A Journalist : The Two-Way : NPR
GOP pressured NPR into firing a journalist who reported on their bigotry / LGBTQ Nation
Lawmakers across the US are finding ways to turn protesting into a crime - Vox
Tom Price commends police who arrested journalist asking questions
GOP rep goes after activist by writing letter to employer | TheHill
Sinclair Requires TV Stations to Air Segments That Tilt to the Right - The New York Times
Oklahoma Governor Signs Anti-Protest Law Imposing Huge Fines on “Conspirator” Organizations
FDA Denies Ordering Employees to Switch Television Monitors to Fox News Channel
FCC to investigate, 'take appropriate action' on Colbert’s Trump rant | TheHill
Jury Convicts Woman Who Laughed At Jeff Sessions During Senate Hearing | HuffPost
Fordham U. blocked formation of pro-Palestinian group: suit - NY Daily News

But overall, there are too many idiots on both sides that refuse to listen to the other sides ideas

Do not attempt to make a false equivalence here. The only reason it might seem that way is because one side has a massive persecution complex fed by an outrage machine dedicated to hyping that noise for profit and the other 'side' (described as the reality-based community by Karl Rove) treat such as cases as just another minor news event.

NYC: Linda Sarsour Faces Death Threats Ahead of Her CUNY Commencement Speech | Democracy Now!
Princeton professor who criticized Trump cancels events, saying she's received death threats
Shakespeare in the Park featured a Trump-like Julius Caesar, and right-wing media freaked out - Vox
Greg Gianforte Pleads Guilty To Assaulting A Journalist : The Two-Way : NPR
GOP pressured NPR into firing a journalist who reported on their bigotry / LGBTQ Nation
Lawmakers across the US are finding ways to turn protesting into a crime - Vox
Tom Price commends police who arrested journalist asking questions
GOP rep goes after activist by writing letter to employer | TheHill
Sinclair Requires TV Stations to Air Segments That Tilt to the Right - The New York Times
Oklahoma Governor Signs Anti-Protest Law Imposing Huge Fines on “Conspirator” Organizations
FDA Denies Ordering Employees to Switch Television Monitors to Fox News Channel
FCC to investigate, 'take appropriate action' on Colbert’s Trump rant | TheHill
Jury Convicts Woman Who Laughed At Jeff Sessions During Senate Hearing | HuffPost
Fordham U. blocked formation of pro-Palestinian group: suit - NY Daily News

Nice try , Comey in Jan said the DNC DENIED direct access to the servers, multiple times and the FBI never got access. http://thehill.com/policy/nati...

The report does not claim that voting machines were hacked, a once-popular post-election theory from Democrats, nor does it state whether the information pertaining to the voting systems could be used to hack those systems.

As opined by Matt Vespa> , "still, 55 percent of Democrats think that Russia messed with the vote totals to get Trump elected. The Left has gone insane. Like the rest of the Russian collusion drama, there is no evidence that vote tallies were tampered with by a foreign intelligence service."

Like they did their ethics waviers:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336038-white-house-may-have-broke-ethics-rule-with-retroactive-waiver-report

Story with link showing the FBI's evidence of Russian hacking. It was even a story on /. I read it, there was NO evidence in it.

Its not secret, it just doesn't exit. You are full of shit.

So returning to your original outrageously disingenuous proposition that all of a sudden America is for sale:

No, you don't understand at all.

It's the White House that's for sale, from the Russian "loans" to the visas for wealthy Chinese to the cheap jewelry that Ivanka hawks out of the West Wing. To the Trump Hotels, to Mar-a-Lago to the bottled water on Air Force One. To the overpriced suites at Trump Tower that the Secret Service has to stay in to the (now-doubled) country club fees that are on sale to those who want access to the administration. Right down to hiring his kids to unspecified jobs in the administration. Down to the unprecedented (as in never before) number of lobbyists who have been hired to work in the administration. Drain the swamp my ass.

There's never been a presidency this corrupt. There's never been such a flaunting of the ethics rules. Not ever. You wanna step into the ring to defend this shit? Then you better hose that muck off your hip boots first, motherfucker.

http://thehill.com/homenews/ad...

US is not interested in tourism so it doesn't need to build pyramids.

That could explain why tourism is suffering from the "Trump Slump" and Brand USA is being cut from the budget.

http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/334828-trump-budget-kills-marketing-program-for-us-tourism