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Let's hope other countries do the same thing too.

Remember, agencies of the US government regularly attempt to influence elections overseas, and, oppose the natural desires of their electorate

Below are a selection of links about the same, from across the political spectrum that are quite well-documented.

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

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

https://www.channel4.com/news/...

https://www.straitstimes.com/w...

https://www.telesurtv.net/engl...

http://www.latimes.com/nation/...

https://www.wnyc.org/story/his...

http://www.truth-out.org/opini...

https://www.foreignaffairs.com...

https://www.thenewamerican.com...

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22...

https://www.politico.eu/articl...

https://www.strategic-culture....

Most of the underclass (the 'hicks' and 'rubes') live in the inner core cities.

Nope. Poverty is actually widespread in rural areas.

There really isn't the infrastructure 'out here' for the helpless ignorant to live out here. There are pockets of poverty out in the countryside, but mostly there are people who could be judged more self-sufficient than the typical urban dweller.

Is that what you tell yourself? Or do you just listen to the wrong people?

nope.

tht's why public education and a free press are essential for a functional democracy.

While I agree with you in principle unfortunately public education has a well documented bias towards the left. Because there is a well known bias it undermines general acceptance and also undermines the mission of educating because so much effort is wasted on PC propaganda. Stated another way - the downside to clearly favoring one side for education is that it loses broad support. The press while technically still free has been allowed to be consolidated into just a few hands - and is thus no longer free in a real sense. You can thank Bill Clinton for that one (citation below).

Citations:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/...

Interesting, seems almost reasonable except there are hundreds if not thousands of real world cases where executives used lay offs to meet goals and justify performance bonuses.
Also some studies show that layoffs are tied to executive compensation.
Study Finds CEO Salaries Increase With Layoffs

https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...
https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...
https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...
https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...

CRIMES OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

United States war crimes

The Untold History of US War Crimes

U.S. Crimes Against Humanity: a history

Fellow blogger Marc Immanuel has written an extensive history of the United States and its ongoing imperial crimes against humanity from beginning to present, from its earliest days as a settler colonial enterprise to its numerous massacres of civilians in Iraq in the 21st century. The article gives a detailed account of each of the most well-known massacres committed against the Indigenous peoples by bloodthirsty white colonists who conducted what can only be described as a campaign of extermination against the original inhabitants of this land. These include

        The Gnadenhutten Massacre
        The Bad Axe Massacre
        Bloody Island Massacre
        Bear River Massacre
        Sand Creek Massacre
        Skeleton Cave Massacre
        The Wounded Knee Massacre

Immanuelâ(TM)s research leads him to conclude that by the year 1900, the combined Indigenous population from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific stood at around 250,000, or âoeless than 5% of the original population prior to the beginning of the European invasion by Spanish colonialist forces in the early 16th century.â From there other forms of genocide against the Native peoples that were used are detailed and discussed, such as biological genocide and cultural genocide.
February 28, 1991 image from the Gulf War taken by Ken Jarecke showing the corpse of an Iraqi soldier who was burned alive in the U.S. blitzkrieg known as the âoeHighway of Death.â

Aside from the multitude of genocides committed against the Indigenous populations, thereâ(TM)s the horrific U.S. Army genocide against the people of the Philippine Islands, torture of Haitians during the 1915-1934 invasion and occupation, the CIAâ(TM)s barbaric and sadistic MKUltra mind control program, Abu-Ghraib and GITMO warehouses of torture, state-sponsored and state-sanctioned brutality against people of color in the U.S., involvement in the âOpium Warsâ(TM) in China, the forced opening of Japan, financial and military support of brutal military dictator regimes all across the globe, crimes of aggression and massacres of civilians in North and South Vietnam, crimes of aggression against Cuba, invasion of Grenada, predator drone attacks on innocent families in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and much, much more. This is an essential read and good reference point to be returned to again and again to combat the oft-repeated myth of supposed higher moral authority the U.S. claims to be in possession of.

The list of US war crimes is 1000 times longer than yours.

What you psyop shill don't get is people don't give a shit about Putin, smearing Putin doesn't change the fact that the US is the biggest terrorist state on earth.

Putin isn't going around pretending to be some "Freedom" fighter, you Americans are, you fucks talk the biggest bullshit and do the biggest damages.

https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...
https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...
https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...
https://grrrgraphics.com/wp-co...

CRIMES OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

United States war crimes

The Untold History of US War Crimes

U.S. Crimes Against Humanity: a history

Fellow blogger Marc Immanuel has written an extensive history of the United States and its ongoing imperial crimes against humanity from beginning to present, from its earliest days as a settler colonial enterprise to its numerous massacres of civilians in Iraq in the 21st century. The article gives a detailed account of each of the most well-known massacres committed against the Indigenous peoples by bloodthirsty white colonists who conducted what can only be described as a campaign of extermination against the original inhabitants of this land. These include

The Gnadenhutten Massacre
The Bad Axe Massacre
Bloody Island Massacre
Bear River Massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
Skeleton Cave Massacre
The Wounded Knee Massacre

Immanuelâ(TM)s research leads him to conclude that by the year 1900, the combined Indigenous population from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific stood at around 250,000, or âoeless than 5% of the original population prior to the beginning of the European invasion by Spanish colonialist forces in the early 16th century.â From there other forms of genocide against the Native peoples that were used are detailed and discussed, such as biological genocide and cultural genocide.
February 28, 1991 image from the Gulf War taken by Ken Jarecke showing the corpse of an Iraqi soldier who was burned alive in the U.S. blitzkrieg known as the âoeHighway of Death.â

Aside from the multitude of genocides committed against the Indigenous populations, thereâ(TM)s the horrific U.S. Army genocide against the people of the Philippine Islands, torture of Haitians during the 1915-1934 invasion and occupation, the CIAâ(TM)s barbaric and sadistic MKUltra mind control program, Abu-Ghraib and GITMO warehouses of torture, state-sponsored and state-sanctioned brutality against people of color in the U.S., involvement in the âOpium Warsâ(TM) in China, the forced opening of Japan, financial and military support of brutal military dictator regimes all across the globe, crimes of aggression and massacres of civilians in North and South Vietnam, crimes of aggression against Cuba, invasion of Grenada, predator drone attacks on innocent families in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and much, much more. This is an essential read and good reference point to be returned to again and again to combat the oft-repeated myth of supposed

Listen, they're not going to show you proof that the moon landings were "staged."

Private investigators have already found proof. The evidence, including film reels of deleted scenes and "extra takes", and affidavits from "astronauts" (really actors), was held in a storage room on the 57th floor of the World Trade Center. This is why GWB had the towers destroyed, using his ties to the Bin Laden family.

Also, if you look at the film of the landing, you can clearly see the flag flutter and cast a shadow. That is where they screwed up, because as any idiot can tell you, shadows don't form in a vacuum.

What other proof do you need?

Just because paper ballots aren't immune to tampering doesn't mean they're anywhere near as bad as electronic voting machines.

It is much harder to rig paper ballots *on a massive widespread scale* compared to electronic voting. Period.

it's not who votes that counts - it's who counts the votes

Yes, that's the whole point. With paper ballots, the count can physically be observed IN PUBLIC by as many parties as are interested.

A number of years ago, Germany's highest court found that:

• There is a “constitutional requirement of a publicly observed count.”
• “[T]he government substitution of its own check or what we’d probably call an ‘audit’ is no substitute at all for public observation.”
• “A paper trail simply does not suffice to meet the above standards.
• “As a result of these principles,’all independent observers’ conclude that ‘electronic voting machines are totally banned in Germany’ because no conceivable computerized voting system can cast and count votes that meet the twin requirements of being both ‘observable’ and also not requiring specialized technical knowledge.

Smart people.

Hiring free market, limited government judges.

But only 2 judges have been confirmed, and 15 more have been nominated even though there are 132 federal judicial vacancies.

Relaxing burdensome regulations - coal mine opening (and no the coal is not used for heating or electricity but for the production of steel)

But a lot of those regulations were issued in late December, so he's just revoking regulations that weren't in place very long anyway.

Pushing for (instead of against) the Keystone Pipeline

Sure, I'll grant you that.

Pushing for (instead of against) fracking

Pushing for (instead of against) off-shore drilling

I'm not sure there's actually much of a difference from Obama's policies. For instance, environmental groups were upset that the Obama administration approved 1500 offshore drilling and fracking applications from 2010 to October 2014 and oil production boomed under Obama.

Getting out of the TPP

That's different than what Obama pushed for, but Bernie Sanders, and eventually Hillary Clinton, both came out against the TPP. I'll grant you that it is a change in policy from the previous administration, though.

Getting out of the Paris Treaty

Yes, I agree that he did do that.

And, as you mentioned, increased funding and activity on illegal immigration.

But even that's a mixed bag. ICE arrests were up, but deportations were down during the first 100 days of Trump's presidency compared to the previous year.

But back to the subject of the article. The closure of federal data centers started before the Trump administration, and it seems as though he's now trying to take credit for it.

Not to mention that he's gotten no major legislation through. So I really do believe he's not very effective.

(or Millenials like Milo, Coulter, Shapiro, etc...)

Ann Coulter was born in 1961, that makes her a Baby Boomer, or a Gen-Xer, depending on your lines. It can be a bit fuzzy, but she's in no way close to being a Millenial.

You should probably check your own "facts" better. Seriously, Coulter has been around since the nineties with her act. Which should probably tell you that your premises are false, of course, you could find the same pattern with recognition of McCartney, Birch, Hearst, Calhoun, or Davis, to name a few. There's nothing new about them(even individuals like Milo Yiannopolous and Ben Shapiro are just recent additions to the crowd), and no, they don't care about facts, that's why they can make things up, instead preferring their flippant hysteria and emotion laden rhetoric.

Even Fred Thompson knew about it.

PS, the Italian American community has long expressed distress about being characterized as being gang and criminal oriented, as have the Russians and Irish. And Hispanics. And Blacks. And...well, the list goes on.

The Republicans have not acted in the American people's best interests for a very long time now, drawing attention away from their shortcomings by blaming some boogeyman for why things can't be any better than this. Working conservatives were already frustrated with the impotency of the mainstream GOP (still are, judging by the way their town hall meetings are going) and all Trump needed to do was dispose of the dog whistles and use a bull horn to own up to these stances to greater extremes than most candidates would have been willing to go to, giving him the image of being "strong". A figure like Trump was predicted years ago. This all should have been a gift from heaven for the Democratic Party, but instead it is curiously they who have lost every branch of government, the Supreme Court soon to follow, with Obama handing the keys to the White House to his most prominent nemesis as ex-Democrats hemorrhage out of the party in disgust and frustration. All the while, the party grows more and more to resemble the Republicans, taking so much corporate money and demonizing foreign bodies. Wikileaks and Comey might be blamed for Clinton's loss, but the whole party coming undone at the seams not so much.

This is a very bad omen, as it is important to have an opposition party for balance, especially against the kinds of ideas the Republicans push. Preferably opposition based on policies and ideas rather than "We oppose $CurrentPOTUS, but we don't have any good ideas of our own." Unfortunately it appears the Democrats would prefer their slow death to the medicine needed to get better, and that does not bode well for next year, much less 2020.

Cool story, bro. Here's what he actually said:

Last September 21 (2007), as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.

So Al Gore didn't predict anything, he cited an actual researcher.

The Navy researcher that leads this "new study" team that the former vice president alludes to is Wieslaw Maslowski at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. The team's research was funded by the Department of Energy (DOE), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Maslowski also did not say "by 2013" in his original research in 2007 or when it was republished in 2009. This grandstanding about sea ice and Gore, for whatever reason, is a huge and egregious deception. The actual prediction from Maslowski's 2009 publication is, "Autumn could become near ice free between 2011 and 2016."

And not even the researcher who did make a prediction said exactly what you claim they said.

However, now that we have actual measurements for 2011-2016, we can see that the lowest autumn sea ice extent for the period in question was 3.389 million km^2 (Sep 16 2012). That's the lowest on record and less than half as much as the same day in 1979, but arguably still too high to call it "near ice free". So Maslowski's worst-case prediction didn't come true, and now you can be less wrong on the internet.

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash...

Yes, let's have a link war. It'll prove everything, honest.

Same with jump starting the economy by giving tech entrepreneurs cash too. They don't need much to survive, and it is better incentive than making them a slave to some VC fund or fat rich bastard. Communism died because workers hated giving the bulk of their labor to the party. Same with today's workers having to give the bulk of their labor to fat rich bastards who have amassed undeserved wealth (old money, payback for giving a politician a blowjob, and personal connections). Great book: https://www.amazon.com/Meritoc... https://www.psychologytoday.co... http://www.truth-out.org/opini... https://www.washingtonpost.com... http://www.newstatesman.com/po...

BTW I think you're full of it. https://www.thefederalistpaper... [thefederalistpapers.org]

Not at all. The only way the slave colonies were going to ratify was if their slave patrols would be preserved.

The quotes in your link were just trying to justify what was already a hot topic in pre-ratification days. Remember, Slavery had been going on for over a century at the time the Constitution institutionalized it as a part of our civic life. All the founding fathers knew it was wrong, but they had to find a way to rationalize it. All the trappings of slavery were also wrong, but again, they had to find a way to rationalize it, or there would be no United States. We are a nation that was born as a slave state. It is our national original sin, if you will.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/...

Nuclear plants periodically dump radioactive Tritium and other isotopes into the atmosphere and water supplies, another is the significant release radioactive isotopes each time the reactor is depressurized to refuel it. This has a known impact on health of the surrounding communities, even the NRC admits to this fact.

Nuclear reactors are toxic to surrounding areas, and Infant mortality rates drop around five US nuclear power reactors after reactors closed . Thus, it appears that the NRC significantly low-balled the numbers.

And this is just normal reactor operation, when(not if) a reactor melts down, ten's of million's residing downwind will have negative health consequences.

Yeah yeah yeah - where was your outrage with the Plame affair? That particular link has a whole set of assertions that if true, should have resulted in a large prison population of former government people.

So what does it make Hillary who takes donations from Donald Trump?

And from the banks and other corporations?

https://www.opensecrets.org/po...

http://www.truth-out.org/speak...

Taking money from corps doesn't distinguish good or bad from Rubio.

Bullshit ass-hole. You like Condoleezza Rice should have known terrorists would hijack a plan and crash it into the Trade Towers.....

You mean the terrorists who hatched that plan and were working on it under the Clinton administration? Those terrorists? The ones who were answering to Bin Laden, a person that the Clinton administration let slip through their fingers more than once, even after his group and associates had already killed hundreds of people, including US Navy personnel? Yeah.

Or do you mean the Bin Laden family who have long ties with the Bush family?

• Bush ties to bin Laden haunt grim anniversary
• Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
• Bush-bin Laden family links

Or how the Bush family wealth comes not only from partnering and or owning everything from banks to Halliburton and selling or financing arms to the Bin Laden family as well as Hitler?

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

How War Made the Bush Family Rich

You mean *those* terrorists?

"Although several other countries - including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines - have undertaken some land reclamation activities, Gomez says they have reclaimed less than 100 acres of land, combined, over the last several decades." Source

The specific class at the United States Air Force Academy in which the train them in this is Law 220

Is that class before or after the required fundamentalist Christian dominionist prayer meeting?

http://www.truth-out.org/opini...

But I think if the president were to issue such an order without a clear and present threat, it's more likely that it would not come down to the missile jockey; instead, he'd be wrestled to the floor by his senior cabinet

Do you remember any of the people in the Bush Senior cabinet? The Reagan senior cabinet? You're really prepared to trust that all these people and all future cabinet members are always going to be rational?

http://www.truth-out.org/opini...

Scientists actually already did declare the Arctic functionally ice free in summer.... in 2010.

• Pull the plug on the hunt for Bin Ladin
• Ignore warnings of an imminent terrorist attack
• Invade Iraq until false pretenses
• Give huge tax cuts that apparently pay for themselves with economic growth
• Stack government science committees with fundies
• Use a pseudo-scientific definition of life to pull funding on stem cell research

I am sure that Gore would have made many annoying mistakes, but you are fooling yourself if you think both parties are the same.

People in politics are motivated as much by their personal beliefs as anything else. Judge them by what they do.

In many places, crimes against a police officer are tried more harshly than against regular citizens

I think it's more than fair that crimes committed by police officers - who hold a position of trust - also come with stronger consequences.

Who is NASA shilling for when they say "there has been no warming this century" ?

Who was NASA shilling for when the pointed out in 2010 the IPCC model was indeed broken in the exact same way Freeman Dyson said it was?

Who was James "Gaia theory" Lovelock shilling for when he said "I was wrong, and being alarmist . CO2 has gone up but the temperature hasn't risen this century. But them I'm not getting a climate grant so I can say that".

Who is the national snow and ice center shilling for when they point out the arctic ice as grown steadily for three years?

If you're so sure it's warming, how much warmer has it been each year compare to the previous? Why don't you know this? Why have all the graphs in the press shtoped showing up?

Because the temperature had flatlined that's why. Only the Daily Mail got this right. Imagine a world where out of all the newspaper only the Daily Mail had data that aligned with NASA and CERN, the rest misinterpreted it.

Don' t give me that "hottest year" crap, the 2014 data won't be qualified until march 2015. Not that one year indicated a trend.

At some point the math will run out. "Truthout" printed this:

"The last time we had this discussion was 2013, remember? Before that it was 2010. Before that it was 2005, and everything started with the Super El Nino in 1998. Statistically, saying that 2014 was the hottest year ever is a very valid thing, and if you understand statistics, I am envious of you."

Maybe if you hadn't skipped grade 10 stats you wouldn't be so confuzzled.

"But the global average temperature for these years, and every year since 1998 except 1999 and 2000, have all been virtually tied, if one is a casual civilian statistician watching or reading reporting on television or other media. But a few things have been overlooked in this and the periodic media outbursts that have preceded this event."

Look, I'm no math major... oh wait, yes, yes I am a math major. Not that that matters, "stats for the humanities" will also learn 'ya that when a record is tied for sixteen years that sorta mean it's NOT GOING UP. How many math classes do you have to skip to write something that fucking stupid? All of them?

http://www.truth-out.org/news/...

When did the US become such a fact free zone?

The fact that The Guardian just got popped for publishing ghostwritten climate article as stories when they're ads may not help.

As a liberal I'm just revolted at this dumbing down. What the hell kind of world has a Comedian pretend to be a "science guy" with no science degree but who contradicts the guy that took over Einstein's job? And secretly influences media because of his "fame". Blinky the science clown strikes again.

Facts used to matter it he US.

I would not say it's like poetry, any more than I would say it can be taught like a foreign language. Neither is true in the broad sense.

My context comes from a Math/Philosophy education (before we had CS degrees). I am not a programmer for a living, but I have had to write programs for nearly 30 years. My "programming" is not something a user normally interfaces with, my programs have to interface with everything else. I have had little problem writing in Perl, Ruby, C, various "sh" scripts, and started with Fortran and Pascal. The reason I could do this is because I know concepts that sit underneath, I know logic and can break problems down to components. I know how to take knowledge in one subject and use it to my advantage in other subjects. Wisdom came with age and practice, but I needed the base knowledge to start with.

This giant push for STEM will not teach people critical thinking and logic, which you can benefit from in any job. This "push" won't make better programmers, because we are not teaching the core logic.

See, the problem with teaching everyone logic is that it comes at a risk. People in power don't want to be questioned, and a bunch more smart people would cause problems. Hence, why teaching Logic and Rhetoric was removed from public schools as soon as the US Government took over the role of dictating a national policy in the 1930s. Here is a good summary of political opinion on critical thought, and more can be found written by "insiders" on the subject as far back as the founding of the US Department of Education

For those that want to claim that "we are so much smarter today than we were in the 50s" I will point you to this, and scoff. No, we are not anywhere near it. You just fall for the appeal to emotion that gets tossed out all the time to make you feel good about yourself and our pathetic level of public education.

And, if this no-cap on advanced degrees passes, just watch the next logical step unfold--legislation removing the accreditation standards. Bet on it :-(

highly doubtful. this same removal of the cap on advanced degrees has been before Congress in various forms. the point of that legislation is to attract and keep highly educated foreign nationals in the U.S.

http://truth-out.org/news/item...

You were saying? The point of the U.S. Dept. of Edu and Dept. of Labour and affiliates is:

1) fuck the U.S.
2) fuck the free market
3) hooray pre-planned communist "global economy"
4) fuck U.S. independence
5) fuck America
6) hooray global private for-profit companies
7) hooray tying # of graduates to taxpayer money (thereby ensuring standards are lowered, since colleges all want federal money)
8) hooray tying federal funding of education to "availability of jobs after graduation" and "schools that teach skills in "high demand" (those skills that private companies profit from by pushing workforce training off to the taxpayer, what used to be the responsibility and expense of private companies)"

you are too late, it has already happened, started > 100 years ago in the U.S.

they are all "degree mills now" and they all prop up a pre-planned communist "economy."

what did you think Obama meant when he says "free tuition" is for "in demand" certifications and degrees only?

"in demand" means "how private companies decide taxpayer money should be spent"

they are all "degree mills" now, the entire U.S. economy is hijacked and has been radically transformed.

the "private" interests and deciding how u.s. taxpayer money is spent, what fields are "in demand", transforming the flow of taxpayer money per their interests...the "free market" was outlawed, destroyed, corporate communism is simply more profitable and more efficient for global interests than the unpredictable and uncontrollable "free market" .. which might not graduate "on time."

you act like the U.S. economy is still standing...it is not, it is has been declared "obsolete" in the name of "world peace" (more profits for global organizations, fuck the U.S. and fuck americans)

that is the "private" sector taking over the public sector, public taxpayer money...communism 101, there is no distinction.

it just happens to be in the other direction...instead of the socialist utopian dream of private property being outlawed and redistributed to the public, we get the opposite, very similar, but in the other direction:
public taxpayer money and the public interest being outlawed, and redistributed into private hands.

So sad that ppl no longer grasp economics, or how things work. It used to be that ppl had enough sense to at least study a bit prior to piping up.

Look, this is already an almost done deal. Assume that it is not. Then what changes? Well, instead, nations like China will continue to get their oil from other locations. Basically, oil demand will NOT go down just because you stop a pipeline. In fact, tar sands will continue until the price hits about 50/bl, which none of the producers will allow directly.

OTOH, If America allows keystone, BUT IN RETURN, insists on limited time subsidies for new commercial vehicles using nat gas, then within 3 years, limiting it to serial hybrids using nat gas, this will drop America's demand for oil. That will spread to other nations as nat. gas vehicles come down in price. And with the serial hybrid commercial trucks, that can not only increase semi vehicles to 50+ MPG from the current 5 mpg, BUT, it will drop oil demand, and its prices.

Look, back in the early 80's, I used to protest against the manufacturing of nuke triggers in Colorado. And it was in fact, shut down AND cleaned up (thank god; it was bad). However, we are now creating a new site in which to make newer better triggers. Nothing really stopped. Now, these are not about economics, but about politics. BUT, oil/nat gas/coal/etc combined with climate change is not really about politics, but economics, combined with some politics.
Here. Read this.

Mod this joker down. he is neither insightful, nor correct, and he deliberately misquotes in order to create false impressions.

To Mi:
You are wrong on all counts.
And the morphing is being done by you.

One:
The relevant passage in his speech, that is to say, THE FULL ACTUAL QUOTE, which you so thoughtfully left out in order to misconstrue what he said, is:

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years. Seven years from now.

Emphasis added to show the oh so important part you left out.
http://www.truth-out.org/opini...
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobe...

Two:
It's only recovering if you ignore the past 3 decades of observation in order to focus on the past 2 years. The trend is down down down. 2012 was the lowest EVER RECORDED. So low it broke all records and even went beyond standard statistical deviation expectations. The last two years were more ice than 2012, but so was EVERY YEAR EVER RECORDED. That's what happens when you set a new record low. Make no mistake: The past 2 years of ice coverage have still be below average, and the trend is still down. It is NOT recovering, it is NOT increasing.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad...

Three:
Oh hey, you tossed in Solyndra too (Drink!). Do we really REALLY need to cover how Slyndra is just another dogwhistle distraction from the facts? How Solyndra and its ilk represented not even 3% of all monies loaned out by the DOE? How the other 97% have not onlyy been successful, but the Government has actually earned a profit, such that over the course of the program it was made more money that it loaded out? How the government earned a return on its investment and success rate unseen and generally unheard of in the private venture capiltal world? How Solyndra's, and other solar panel startups, failing was not due to their own mistakes, not due to any scam or con, but due to the fact China's panel amkers are heaviliy subsidized and undercut the international market? Or how some of the companies who initially failed, are now getting up and back on their feet again?

Bringing up Solyndra is akin to saying "global warming can't be real because it's cold outside".
It's that kind of ignorance and posturing. It's that kind of denial of, or ignoring of, reality.

Thank you for playing, but your lies and half truths have no place here.
Go away.

You are wrong on all counts.

One: he never said it. The relevant passage in his speech, which you so thoughtfully left out in order to misconstrue what he said, is:

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years. Seven years from now.

http://www.truth-out.org/opini...
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobe...

Two: It's only recovering if you ignore the past 3 decades of observation in order to focus on the past 2 years. The trend is down down down. 2012 was the lowest EVER RECORDED. So low it broke all records and even went beyond standard statistical deviation expectations. The last two years were more ice than 2012, but so was EVERY YEAR EVER RECORDED. That's what happens when you set a new record low. Make no mistake: The past 2 years of ice coverage have still be below average, and the trend is still down. It is NOT recovering, it is NOT increasing.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad...

Thank you for playing, but your lies and half truths have no place here.

Cristian Fundamentalists (ISIS worldview minus the bombs and beheadings)

MINUS the bombs!?

Ahh, you are just inventing history now...no, I'm not. History of Richard Armey, Freedomworks and the origin of the tea baggers Secrets of the tea party The tea party is an AstroTurf campaign front for Koch and Sciafe, with some money from DeVos (of Amway)

WHO CARES if the Koch Brothers want to fund a political organization. It's a free country, at least for now, and the First amendment still applies. If you think the left doesn't have rich people who give to political causes (i.e. that your side has the moral high ground on this issue) you are gravely mistaken. It's hypocritical of the left to act all shocked and bothered about how politics and money work and start yelling about how awful the Koch brothers are because they donate a small portion of their vast fortune to causes you don't approve of. Your side does it too, so stop acting like you don't.

Back to the Tea Party, I think your side is just scared of a grass roots organization that leans right and seems to have some traction. In an effort to discredit it, you have adopted scorched earth level rhetoric which is not becoming. Face it, you guys are scared to death, and you should be given the 2014 polling I've seen. Your side is facing a huge backlash caused by 6 years of Obama both in domestic and foreign policy and I got a feeling the problem you face is going to last well past the 2014 election as more of Obama's chickens come home to roost. Get ready, you are going to have to live with the Tea Party for another decade at the very least and likely they will have significant influence in this country.

Ahh, you are just inventing history now...no, I'm not. History of Richard Armey, Freedomworks and the origin of the tea baggers
Secrets of the tea party
The tea party is an AstroTurf campaign front for Koch and Sciafe, with some money from DeVos (of Amway)

Against my better judgement I went and looked at your WUWT cite. It was just more of the same BS I've come to expect from them. As I said above Gore merely reported on research published by Wieslaw Maslowski at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. The actual prediction from Maslowski's 2009 publication is, "Autumn could become near ice free between 2011 and 2016." This article goes into it in some detail about it. I'll keep wearing my hat, thank you.

No he didn't: http://www.truth-out.org/opini...

The intention was reassuring the south that their slave patrol "militias" wouldn't be disbanded creating a back door to end slavery.

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

I thought the whole point was to entice the south to ratify by giving them a legal means of arming all their citizens against slave uprisings?

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

Revealed: secret plan to push'happy' pills
http://www.theguardian.com/soc...

Big Pharma Could Win International Price Monopoly, Unlimited Profits in 'Free Trade' Deal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

US patent moves are 'profoundly bad' in leaked TPP treaty
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement under negotiation between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Leaked documents show the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is pressuring TPP countries to expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and trade away access to medicines.
http://www.citizen.org/TPPA

The medical industry the third-leading cause of death in the United States; after heart disease and cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Big Pharma Shamelessly Shills Dangerous Bone Drugs You Don't Need
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency
http://www.globalresearch.ca/t...

"Somewhere in Rayong or Chon Buri on the coast of Thailand, a young woman may at this very moment be baring her arm for a shot of an experimental Aids vaccine that many of the leading scientists in the field say categorically has no hope at all of working.

She will be one of 16,000 volunteers recruited for the second large-scale Aids vaccine trial, a $119m exercise many scientists believe is a farce."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/scie...

Fraud has become so endemic in this country that it's woven its way into America’s DNA. 2). Big Pharma Fraud.
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

Drug Makers New Targets for U.S. Fraud Inquiries, Report Says
http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt...

Merck drew up a "hit list" of doctors that needed to be "neutralized" because they criticized the now banned drug Vioxx.
http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Merck invents its own journal to publish bogus research findings to promote it's own products.
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009...

Why Aren't These Fraudulent Papers Retracted?
http://truth-out.org/news/item...

Doubts about Johns Hopkins research have gone unanswered, scientist says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

A National Survey of Physician–Industry Relationships
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...

Interesting attempt to paint the "rightmost elements" of government as being responsible for our dysfunctional government.

A 30-year senior GOP insider said explicitly that the agreed strategy to destroy government, and then blame the other guy.

I suggest, instead, that the primary problem with our government, and our economy, is the Federal Reserve.

Ah, I see we're dealing with a crank. Well no-one expects a true believer to give due diligence to counter-arguments, but for those reading... both provided links are pithy, and highlight just how screwed up our situation really is.

... to "gotta-pay-for-those-social-welfare-benefits" dept.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-military-cost-nasa_n_881828.html

DOWNVOTING BEGIN!

You deserve downvoting, because you are a liar and/or an ignoramus who nonetheless speaks authoritatively.

Your opinion is worth less than nothing, as it is based on faux news.

They are about trying to keep a balanced budget.

In the last 40 years, the budget has been balanced 5 times. EVERY TIME BY DEMOCRATS. The score is 5-0.

Why do you buy into the rhetoric? People should be known for their behavior. The GOP has a long history of blowing up the budget through a combination of reckless spending and reckless tax cuts. It's just history.

Even the modern Tea Party doesn't really care about balancing the budget, because it could be done a reinstating taxes on the top 1%, and modest reforms to the tax code in general. And modest spending cuts. Incremental, minimal effect on society. Balanced. If you don't support that which will work, and that which is achievable, then you yourself do not support balanced budgets.

The most important rule in American politics is that when some politician, D or R, talks about balancing the budget, then they are actually talking about something else. If you want to really know what the GOP believes is far more important than balancing the budget, then you should know .

Cue motivated reasoning.

The real theme is limiting the federal government to its enumerated Constitutional powers, not a desire to promote anarchy.

Well, Mike Lofgren who we actually there when the strategy was made reports that the official GOP strategy was to break government, and then claim it doesn't work. Deeply cynical? Yes.

I found a citation for the source of the Gore quote and posted it way up stream but here it is again:

"Last September 21 (2007), as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years." cite

So it appears that Gore never actually said the Arctic sea ice would be gone in 2014. He just mentioned some U.S. Navy research that indicated it was possible that would happen. He first mentions a study that finds the Arctic sea ice could be gone in the summer in less than 22 years. Accusing Gore of saying the ice would be gone in 2014 is spinning to the max.

Gore said the Artic [sic] would be ice free by 2013,

This is just another example people putting words in Gore's mouth that he never said. It is apparently derived from this quote from Gore:

Last September 21 (2007), as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years. cite

Notice that Gore was only reporting the results of studies that he was aware of, not making an absolute statement.

You're talking about this kind of thing. Essentially these kinds of studies measure the dollar spent, and adds the spending of the people who got it, etc. Intuitively there are limits to this kind of thing, because otherwise we could tax 100% and spend it all on social security and double the GDP of the country immediately. What the study doesn't take into consideration (the study done by the AARP, not an unbiased scientific organization) is that for each dollar spent, you are taking a dollar out of the economy when you tax it. And that dollar would have been either spent or invested, with its own multiplier effect. So the question you have to ask is, "is the multiplier effect of money spent by the government more than money spent by the private economy?" And the answer to that is, "it depends." If anyone tells you it is always better for the government to spend it, or always better for the private sector to spend it, then you know they are spreading propaganda. It's a complicated problem that no one understands completely.

Obviously, there are limits to this sort of thing. It can be useful, however. Unemployment benefits are a great example. Someone who loses their job doesn't have money to spend on food or mortgage or heat or electricity. Providing unemployment benefits helps in multiple ways:
1. Helps the individual and their family stay fed and lodged (I say help, because unemployment benefits are a fraction, usually less than half, of what the person was making while working)
2. If the person owns a home and can pay their mortgage, that helps home prices in the community.
3. The money is actually spent, which drives demand and, in aggregate, can stimulate the economy.

Whether the multiplier effect can be applied across the board (for all safety net spending) is an open question. Obviously, it would be better for that person to be employed. But the concept (IMHO) is valid and is backed up by quality research into this area. If there is data that shows this to be false, I'd like to see it.

You're talking about this kind of thing. Essentially these kinds of studies measure the dollar spent, and adds the spending of the people who got it, etc.

Intuitively there are limits to this kind of thing, because otherwise we could tax 100% and spend it all on social security and double the GDP of the country immediately.

What the study doesn't take into consideration (the study done by the AARP, not an unbiased scientific organization) is that for each dollar spent, you are taking a dollar out of the economy when you tax it. And that dollar would have been either spent or invested, with its own multiplier effect.

So the question you have to ask is, "is the multiplier effect of money spent by the government more than money spent by the private economy?" And the answer to that is, "it depends." If anyone tells you it is always better for the government to spend it, or always better for the private sector to spend it, then you know they are spreading propaganda.

It's a complicated problem that no one understands completely.

• The emphasis on militarism
• The emphasis on nationalism. (Do you here that America was exceptional?)
• The emphasis on colonialism
• The emphasis on mysticism and the state
• The emphasis on warriorship
• Suppression of trade unions
• Foreign policy based on the myth of national power and greatness (covered above)
• Skepticism in democracy.

Here are some fascist traits associated with liberal politics:

• Broadened mandate for government intervention in the economy
• Anti-materialist -- but qualified that this is really not like liberal econuts -- since fascists are supposed to be sustained by their ideological commitment.

Here are some fascist traits that are identifiably both liberal and conservative (or a third rail in the two party system):

• the belief in the states role in monitoring its citizens.

Here are some fascist traits that are neither liberal nor conservative:

• endorsing terror to gain political power
• the notion that the entire population should be permanently and emotionally engaged in the political process.

DrHat, you are an ideologue, so don't bother me with logical contortions about how the Dems are really the more fascist of the two parties. But if there a legitimate argument, grounded in what Karl Rove pejoratively called the reality based community, then I'm all ears, because I love actually knowing things.

We stood idly by while Saddam expended huge quantities of chemical weapons.

Personally that may be true. On a bigger scale, we (the United States) provided helped them deploy the chemical weapons.

Our governments (US and UK) knew very well what Saddam had, and what Saddam was capable of.

We certainly should have known what Saddam had and was capable of. First, we helped put the Ba'ath party in to power. During the Iran / Iraq war, we helped them financially and with intelligence information. Then, we sold the precursors of chemical weapons to them and provided reconnaissance intelligence that was used in their deployment. Why else would Donald Rumsfeld be smiling as he shook Saddams hand in 1983?

You will note, I hope, that I've said nothing in Saddam Hussein's defense. I have ONLY pointed out how dishonest our own governments are.

And here is more evidence supporting that supposition.

Progressives are under no illusion about the Democrats in general and Obama in particular being corporatist sell-outs.

Your use of the word "corporation" and its derivations as a dirty one reveals naiveté at best. There is nothing wrong with corporations — they are merely a way to organize large number of people into doing useful things. There is nothing inherently wrong with them — they certainly are more efficient than collective farms or kibbutzes, for example.

The complete lack of prosecutions of Wall Street by the Obama Administration says all that needs to be said to make that case.

Well, your "case" falls apart, once you learn facts: people, who've committed actual financial crimes (like insider trading or running a Ponzi-scheme) really do get prosecuted. Bush's Justice Department has done it (Bernard Madoff and Martha Stuart being the most publicized cases), and so did Obama's.

What you and yours may be lamenting is absence of prosecution for some vaguely-specified misdeeds, like "the massive Wall Street crime wave that devastated the economy". Huh? We are not a banana republic, where the Dear Leader would organize a show-trial every once in a while to channel popular anger away from his own incompetence. Not yet...

Winning our democracy, our economy, our society back from corporate control

There you go again with the "evil corporations". Corporations want nothing else but maximize shareholder value. This is best achieved in a healthy, well-run country — they are not your enemy. (Except for those corporations, who profit from government spending — which requires higher taxes. But, somehow, I'm afraid, lowering taxes is not on your list of priorities...)

I'm not blaming the GOP, the exact same thing happens in gerrymandered blue districts.

You should. It is a stated goal of GOP leadership to destroy government and then claim it doesn't work. It is a deeply cynical move. The source is a senior 30 year GOP insider who started during the Reagan years.