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Just give me a card that plugs into the USB port and that I can charge up at the 7-11 with cash...

And then when someone steals it, or it just spontaneously stops working one day... sure you'll still be ok with that?

I take it you find cash fatally flawed for those same reasons: the possibility of theft, loss, or destruction.

Of course, cash is anonymous—which you don't get with a credit card or check. Are you okay with the federal government tracking every purchase you make with plastic? Because they are.

lool fox news report on how afghans are gay. you're an excellent troll.

Could you expand on that? What makes a report from Fox News regarding a study conducted in Afghanistan by the military a "troll"?

Are you claiming that the information is wrong? Does the news change when its comes from other sources? No, it doesn't look like it.

Paedophilia 'culturally accepted in south Afghanistan'
Afghan sex practices concern U.S., British forces
Chapter 4. Afghan Cultural Influences

Or are you simply engaging in anti-Fox News trolling yourself?

Could it be as simple as "haters gonna hate" and you're a hater? Sure looks that way, "Noah."

One more thing: LOL

Reid has 55 (D) votes and it only needs 51 to confirm, so put the blame where it belongs.

Why is there no surgeon general?

Short answer: Obama's nominee is a political disaster; a highly partisan anti-gun obamacare cheerleader that the Dems know better than to expose to the confirmation process in an election year.

"The AdministrationÃ(TM)s neglect at having a single individual in charge of coordinating AmericaÃ(TM)s Ebola response has caused difficulty with interagency coordination.... We need a designated leader, backed by the President, who can meet the urgency of this crisis head on and protect the American people, and end the confusion about who is charge of our total response effort."

To be clear, when Kingston, Burr (and Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, and others) urges fast action to put someone in charge, he can't mean confirming someone through the Senate, which takes months or even more than a year.

Final related note: The position of US Surgeon General has limited powers and would not be the supreme leader on Ebola. Still, it would not hurt to have someone in the job, and that person can play a key role communicating with the public. However, the US has no confirmed, permanent Surgeon General because the NRA is blocking the Senate confirmation of President Obama's nominee, Dr. Vivek Murthy. He is an MD and an MBA. He practices and teaches at Brigham and Women's Hospital and teaches at Harvard Medical School. He cofounded a clinical trials company, and an HIV education organization. But he supports an assault weapons ban and tweeted that he thinks guns are a health care issue. So the NRA's opposition means his nomination will never come to a vote. It is dead. Even if one disagrees with Dr. Murthy's position on guns, he has no power over guns whatsoever, and it's reasonable that a President get his people if they are more or less qualified and mainstream (not hacks or crazy radicals). Republicans are right to seek smaller government in some places. But to just throw the monkey wrench in the gears of government for political gain is not constructive. It's just politics.

With respect to the Verizon/non-Verizon service, I had been tracking that (excitedly) at the time. There was an investment package from various wireless companies and a roll out plan for non-Verizon cell service in (1) the top 20 stations for October 2009, (2) all other underground stations by Fall 2010, and (3) all tunnels by October 2012.

They got the first two down, but the third step never materialized, with Metro blaming the wireless companies for not doing the work, and the wireless companies correspondingly blaming Metro for scheduling times for them to install the equipment in the tunnels (which required Metro staff to be there, and necessitated diverting trains around them), but then not showing up as agreed. Here's a story by The Examiner on the he-said she-said stuff. (Note: The Examiner is very right-biased on political issues, but I've found their local investigative reporting to be sound and insightful.)

I have plenty of material for crazy-thing-happened-on-the-Metro stories, but I'll save those for another time.

Lets see..
False rape claims and 'honor councils' leading men to just give up on women all together
http://washingtonexaminer.com/...

43% of men have been ''Raped'' under what the feminist movement keeps trying to push a rape claim as.
http://time.com/37337/nearly-h...

Would you like to take a rethink if its 'Men are creepy bastards' or 'Humans are creepy ass bastards and bitches'

The judge dismisses the 'bitcoin is not money' portion based of a ruling that the IRS and Fed Reserve do not have the authority to define what 'money' is. (both having defined bitcoin as 'property' and not 'money') Which is all fine and good, but the US Marshal has already ruled bitcoin as property since they disposed of the seized bitcoin through a property sale. There are very particular and different rules governing the disposal of money and property. One would think the US Marshals office actions would be the statute defining action.

do you really think the US government wont have it both ways? i'm reminded of this story: "US government declares hacking an act of war, then hacks allies"

if I've learned anything in my life, it's that laws, logic and common sense dont really matter to the government or big business... unless it's convenient.

Said Thad Cochran.

IMHO, true Atheists don't talk about atheism. Those that do, border on religious.

Fascinating that you take one small throway statement in my contribution to th ediscussion, and turn it into the never ending "attack on religion". meme. Which in itself was just part of a group of people who I believe think differently than the scientifically inclined.

But since you steered it this way.........

While I don't recruit new atheists, I am not all that amenable to people who have a long list of abominations thet their God commands them to kill people for.

Ant therein lies the issue. There are Christians out there who would gladly kill me for my lack of belief - and they have verse and scripture to justify that. It's not possible to dent that it has occurred, and still does occasionally (usually gays at this time) But 2 Chronicals 15 tells us of the penalties for nonbelievers.

They even sponsor, like churches, the "Atheists of Butte County " Roadside clean ups and get a hwy sign, just like a church.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is likely to be a duck like creature.

This is exactly what I am talking about. You are sitting there taking umbrage that Atheists are sponsoring a roadside cleanup. "Just like a church."

Churches do not own the rights to road cleanup efforts. Road cleanup is not the exclusive right of churches, and shame on you for insinuating that atheists are trying to horn in on the churches domain.

Iin my area, Fraternities sponsor road cleanup, there is a society of chemical scientists, Some individual families, and some local businesses. Other student groups. And a couple churches. But the majority is not churches.

It's a good thing that these people do.

But despite your desires, the real reason that a lot of church-targeted groups have decided to not sit in silence and conform to what the fundamentalists demand is that many of them are in the same groups that the fundamentalists want to eliminate. Others just don't want whacky ideas like the world being created in 4004 b.c.e. or that the speed of light speeds up and slows down conveniently or that the Flintstone Cartoon was a documentary (that's a joke)

I mean the absolute crap that went down in Arizona recently was religion oriented, The "Religious Freedom Restoration Act", or Georgia's HB1023, and SB377 bills Idaho's HB427 and HB426, Mississippi's Religious Freedom Restoration act has passed, and Missouri's Senate bill 916.

All of these allow Businesses to refuse to do business with anyone they feel like, and call it religious belief.

Arizona's Governor only vetoed it because a lot of businesses, and the Superbowl were planning on pulling out:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/...

So no no no, dear believer. As much as you might desire that Atheists, and Homos, and all those other yucky people you want to muzzle would just keep their mouths shut, and not sponsor roadside cleanups and not meet to discuss anything.

We've seen your plans, and how you want to implement them. You do not have the right to deny other people their rights, and those

This has drifted far off topic, and if someone wants to mod me off topic, they should have the decency to do the samt to your post too.

It wasn't unlawful, since no "illegal information" was required or used. If you think it was, cite the law that was broken. My wager is that you can't.

Information leaked by the IRS - information that was illegal to do so. Donor lists are private and are NOT required for 501c(x) filings; yet the IRS demanded them, and in this case when they were provided, they were leaked. That's a felony.

First, if the OFA is not rejected, being a direct decedent of a Presidential campaign organization with access to the President's twitter account to promote funding drives, then no one should be scrutinized.

You seemed to have skipped over that "salient" fact.

Second, you are mis-informed on the scrutiny rates as stated by the IG doing the investigation:

292 Conservative groups.

6 progressive groups.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/...

To date, no group appears to be actually rejected, but they are still "pending". Either way, the effect is the same, they do not have status, while OFA does.

Just to clarify the 100% comment:

The letter from the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed that there just weren't many progressive groups who even sought special tax exempt status. A total of 20 sought it, and six were probed. All 292 Tea Party groups, meanwhile, were part of the IRS witchhunt.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/...

Still a scandal, but nowhere near as important as the NSA. Getting tax exempt status to do political bribery is small potatoes compared to the flagrantly unconstitutional NSA spying, in my mind.

I guessing that a few of them like Rep. Justin Amash (R)(MI) voted against it in protest of the dilution of the bill's power to reign in the NSA's bulk collection surveillance. In fact, Amash was an original cosponsor who wrote this on his Facebook page, “This morning's bill maintains and codifies a large-scale, unconstitutional domestic spying program. It claims to end 'bulk collection' of Americans' data only in a very technical sense: The bill prohibits the government from, for example, ordering a telephone company to turn over all its call records every day.”

It was NOT the House Republicans who publicly stated their goal was to stop Obama... it was Senator Mitch McConnell and you guys even take THAT out of context as a talking point and a political tactic. How about this little gem:

"Why should we put a plan out? Our plan is to stop him. He must be stopped. " - Nancy Pelosi (Dimwit, CA), about Bush in 2005 interview

Of course, she frequently complains that Democrats NEVER treated Bush harshly (Ignoring things like Democrat Dennis Kucinich filing over 30 Articles of Impeachment against Bush, her own pledges to stop all his policies and force him to adopt all her policies, etc). What's HILLARIOUS about all the Democrat whining that Republicans want to "stop Obama" is - and ANYBODY can verify this via Google - NEARLY EVERY LEFT-WING WEBSITE AND ORGANIZATION spent the Bush years demanding that Democrats "Stop Bush" and Pelosi and Reid did everything they could to stop Bush (including blocking every budget and nearly every proposal he made after they took over congress in 2006)

The Republicans do NOT oppose everything Obama does - they have confimed many of his appointees, and have given him the money to run ALL of the government (including things they oppose, like planned parenthood and Obamacare) even though this outrages thier base supporters. The fact that a party opposes policies that are completely contrary to its principles is a PRINCIPLED opposition, NOT blind reactionary opposition or "racism"

Allow me to point you to The Obama Administration itself for proof that they Republicans have cooperated on many things - not one of these laws would have reached Obama's desk as bills to be signed had they not been supported in congress by the GOP. The funniest of all is the Ted Cruz bill about Iranian "diplomats" which Obama signed into law WITH A SIGNING STATEMENT saying he would not enforce it (EXACTLY the hypocrisy he denounced in his 2008 campaigned, and promised to never do.

"pub controlled media" - That's a laugher.

Obama, Democrats got 88 percent of 2008 contributions by TV network execs, writers, reporters
There was also an article from the American Society of Newspaper Editors stating 61% of reporters self-proclaim as democrats, while only 15% said their beliefs were represented by the republican party, but the source has gone 404.

Perhaps you're just referring to Fox News (clearly a right-wing mouthpiece who laughably claims "balance") or the Wall Street Journal (at least still attempts to be objective) ?

Our government does not have higher moral in this regard. They want the same thing. They are fortunately just a tiny bit less capable of pulling off what Putin can pull off.

Solar storms are not that infrequent. Besides the one in 1859, Canada had one in March, 1989. And last July, we had a near-miss of a major solar storm.

The housing crisis was "a huge blunder" that was a forced error due to Federal intervention trying to drive up home ownership. There was a reform attempt, but it was blocked in the Congress by, guess who? Dodd-Frank is an impediment to recovery, and yet another excuse for Federal snooping.

Post Mortems on the Financial Crisis

http://washingtonexaminer.com/...

Is there any place the people of the World are not being data-raped?

They currently offer a plan that is better than Obamacare

This is where the IPCC chairman and his bobbleheads need to be. Is there any way to fly them and leave them on the abandoned ship? I realize that Climate Change is a reality however these guys are not the experts we're looking for.

Sorry, you are simply wrong about all republican proposals including exchanges. Regarding your medical bankruptcy information, the study most commonly used do make that claim treated every bankruptcy which included a medical bill as a medical bankruptcy, no matter how small a portion of their total debts was tied to medical bills.

So, 3 out of 4 quoted in your washingtonexaminer article seem to include exchanges, and the fourth is widely considered nonsense.

Regarding bankruptcy numbers, are you seriously suggesting that medical costs are not contributory to a huge number of bankruptcies in the US every year?

Sorry, you are simply wrong about all republican proposals including exchanges.

Regarding your medical bankruptcy information, the study most commonly used do make that claim treated every bankruptcy which included a medical bill as a medical bankruptcy, no matter how small a portion of their total debts was tied to medical bills.

I used mod points in section which are now wasted, but it was worthwhile to correct this post. The Obama Administration only reviewed only a single bid for the Obamacare website http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2537194. Whether that constitutes a no bid contract can be argued, but that is usually what is meant by that phrase. If you do not consider that a no bid contract then Halliburton was not awarded a no bid contract in Iraq. Calling the statement that this is a no-bid contract a myth is at best disingenuous.

Those are entirely different unless you're contending there were multiple bids that complied with the RFC and the administration refused to consider them (rejection bids from companies that didn't comply is standard practice, though they are sometimes encouraged to resubmit if they can comply). Having open bids and only one "bidder" is actually different than sole source/no bid.

I used mod points in section which are now wasted, but it was worthwhile to correct this post. The Obama Administration only reviewed only a single bid for the Obamacare website http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2537194. Whether that constitutes a no bid contract can be argued, but that is usually what is meant by that phrase. If you do not consider that a no bid contract then Halliburton was not awarded a no bid contract in Iraq. Calling the statement that this is a no-bid contract a myth is at best disingenuous.

Funny that the IRS themselves disagrees with you.

The IRS inspector general said this week that while some liberal groups were given extra scrutiny by the tax agency, they were not subjected to the same invasive queries as tea party groups

...
In a letter sent late Wednesday and released Thursday, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George said that just 30 percent of groups with the word âoeprogressiveâ in their name were put through special scrutiny for tax-exempt applications, but 100 percent of groups with âoetea party,â âoepatriotâ or âoe9/12â in their name were subjected to invasive questioning.

The IRS targeted 292 conservative groups and only 6 progressive groups. Your playing revisionist history with reality and it doesn't withstand even a minimum of scrutiny.

to the lowest bidder

People keep writing that; "to the lowest bidder." It would be nice if the selection rationale had been at least that objective. It wasn't; it was cronyism. The fix was in and the contract went to political favorites through a rigged process.

The whole premise that the contractor is incompetent is questionable in any case; CGI has implemented state run exchanges that have had successful launches. Speculation about the cause of the Federal system problems range from HHS insisting on "very strong security" to overly complex design that attempts to mask plan costs with subsidies.

you have links?... so do I...
http://washingtonexaminer.com/feds-reviewed-only-one-bid-for-obamacare-website-design/article/2537194

And really given what a joke the roll out was do you HONESTLY think using your ACTUAL HUMAN brain that they had an open bid on this?

Can you for a second bypass the partisan rot and think about this as if it weren't something you're horrifically biased about? TRY. Consider what you know and try to defend how this has played out.

What is more, who bid on it? If multiple companies bid... who were they? The government won't say. You have to submit a freedom of information act request to get that information and of course the government will basically drag their feet on that until they can fake up an answer.

How many of these scandals do we need to go through before you finally understand they're dirty. We're dealing with fundamentally corrupt people here. It can't be explained with incompetence. Its too systematic and methodical. Its corruption. And people like you let them get away with it.

It failed because they went with the lowest bidder

It didn't fail because they went with the lowest bidder. This was apparently a "sole source" contract. They just added another task onto an existing contract.

Meet CGI Federal, the company behind the botched launch of HealthCare.gov

CGI's business model depends on embedding itself deeply within an institution.

"The ultimate aim is to establish relations so intimate with the client that decoupling becomes almost impossible," read one profile of the company. ...

CGI Federal's winning bid stretches back to 2007, when it was one of 16 companies to get certified on a $4 billion "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity" contract for upgrading Medicare and Medicaid's systems. Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts — GWACs, as they're affectionately known — allow agencies to issue task orders to pre-vetted companies without going through the full procurement process, but also tend to lock out companies that didn't get on the bandwagon originally. According to USASpending.gov, CGI Federal got a total of $678 million for various services under the contract — including the $93.7 million Healthcare.gov job, which CGI Federal won over three other companies in late 2011.

It's also true that CGI Federal began lobbying as it started winning government work. According to OpenSecrets.org, it has spent $800,000 since 2006 lobbying on several different tax and appropriations bills.

Feds reviewed only one bid for Obamacare website design

Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.

CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal....

There is no evidence CMS issued any public solicitation for the Obamacare website contract. The Examiner asked both CMS and CGI for copies of any public solicitation notice for the Healthcare.gov task orders. Neither CMS nor CGI furnished any such public notice.....

The ID/IQ system provides a fast-track contract approval process, but it is much less likely than competitive bidding to secure high quality at a reasonable cost.

“Whenever you have limited competition, but certainly with a sole source or a one-bid offer, the government has to question whether it is going to get the best product at the best price,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog organization that monitors federal contracting.

Both USAspending.gov, which tracks federal spending, and the FFATA Subaward Reporting System, which specifically tracks contracts, refer to CGI as the lone bidder for the Obamacare website design award.

Each site describes the CGI contract award as the product of “full and open competition,” but CGI is the only bidder listed.

I can't find the link at the moment, but apparently this company is "favored" within the administration.... for some reason.

Nah, that is the job of the "non-partisan" media. Guess which way they broke on it?

Networks blamed shutdown on GOP in 41 stories --- 0 for Dems

You would never guess this, would you?

Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly)

Msnbc.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

Do journalists' political donations (mostly Democratic) = news bias?

You'll never guess what he says he found -- 235 journalists donating to Democrats while only 20 gave to Republicans for a total of $225,563 to Democrats and $16,298 to the the GOP-inclined. - See more at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/07/media-politics.html#sthash.hhVKqE2Z.dpuf

The media needs to get back to being consistently "equal opportunity bastards."

The worst that would have happened was someone getting away with their car and wallets.

You don't know that. It could have ended up like this: Crime History: Wendy's workers killed execution-style

Or this: Chuck E Cheese killer, Nathan J. Dunlap moves closer to execution, Supreme Court rejects appeal

17%, actually.

It's a huge paid vacation for Federal workers. When it ends the workers will get back paid for all of it, using money borrowed from the Fed's printing press.

Print faster Ben; let us have our reckoning.

I have a dream, that one day all the little factual posts on Slashdot will not be marked troll because of the color of the moderators politics.

Charge of racism offensive to Obamacare critics

Louisiana state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson last week took to the chamber’s floor to declare opponents of President Barack Obama’s “signature legislative achievement” are motivated by race.

“I have talked to so many members both in the House and the Senate, and you know what? You ready? You ready? What it comes down to? It’s not about how many federal dollars we can receive, it’s not about that. You ready? It’s about race,” Peterson said. “I know nobody wants to talk about that. It’s about the race of this African-American president.”

After Calling Obamacare Critics Racist, LA Legislator Says 'I Didn't Call Anyone a Racist'

Mainstream Scream: Martin Bashir accuses Obama scandal critics of racism

Are Obama's critics racist? Jimmy Carter thinks so

A Modern Timeline of Liberals Claiming That Opposition to Obama = Racism

There is plenty more that could be posted on this topic.

It's the Republican Representatives that refuse to bring the budget bills to a vote.

Nonsense. Congress — where Republicans hold a majority — passed the budget bill weeks ago. Senate and President simply don't like it and would rather have the show-down, than accept the will of the people. Yes, the will of the people — not just the RethugliKKKans in Congress, but the clear majority of citizenry want to be rid of the program, that the Republican-passed bill would not fund...

And I've seen nothing that indicates it was Obama that shut down everything.

What exactly to shut-down and how to enforce it is up to the Administration. The memorials, for example, were never closed — not during any of the shut-downs we already had. That the President made sure, such places are closed — despite it costing more to enforce the closures, than to simply leave them running — is clear evidence of viciousness.

But, wait, some can still get to enter the National Mall — and even hold a rally... Must be nice to be on the President's good side... And though ordinary federal employees are warned, working would be a "federal offense", the Administration is Ok with federal officers picking up trash left by the rally.

Such selective enforcement of its own rules by the Administration is yet another evidence, it is deliberately trying to make things as painful as possible for the ordinary citizens — in the hope, that would put pressure on the opposition...

Lawmaker: NASA broke law with visits by China officials :

Wolf chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA. He's been one of China's loudest critics in Congress, particularly regarding the country's human rights record and its reported proclivity for spying.

Wolf does not want the United States to work with what he's called an "evil" government. He said the White House has bypassed his 2011 national security measure by using federal money to pay for joint space and technology ventures with China.

Last month, Wolf and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, wrote to FBI Director Robert Mueller expressing concerns about the possible leak of highly sensitive technological information to China from the NASA Ames Research Center in California.

Lawmakers accuse Obama prosecutors of lying about espionage probe at NASA :

Congressional leaders are challenging a U.S. Attorney's denial that the Justice Department shut down a federal espionage investigation involving the illegal transfer of U.S. space defense weapons technology to foreign countries, including China, The Washington Examiner has learned.

Melinda Haag, the U.S. Attorney for Northern California, also denied that she had ever requested authority to prosecute anybody as a result of the espionage investigation.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA, and Representatives Lamar Smith, R-TX, and Frank Wolf, R-VA, say Haag's denials don't square with evidence they've reviewed and they wonder if Justice Department or White House officials interfered with a potentially explosive espionage investigation or if "politics played a role in the prosecutorial decisions made in this case."

NASA locks out foreigners, orders security review following concerns of Chinese spying :

Perhaps it’s the ambitions of the space agency that make it such a target for espionage. Wolf told Discovery News earlier this week that “the Chinese have the most comprehensive spying program in Washington that has ever been. They make the KGB look like they were the junior varsity or freshman team.”

"Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who -- if anybody -- 'wants to shut down the government.' But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare."

No need to read minds, just read a newspaper like the conservative Washington Examiner from July when they were pushing for it as a GOP tactic, headline:

"Republicans are willing to shut down government to stop fraudulent Obamacare subsidies".

http://washingtonexaminer.com/morning-examiner-republicans-are-willing-to-shut-down-government-to-stop-fraudulent-obamacare-subsidies/article/2533356

Acting like there's some question of who's to blame is ridiculous. In addition, we know that there are votes in the House to pass a full-funding bill right now but the GOP leadership won't allow the vote to occur. (See "discharge petition" in the House below):

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/05/us-usa-fiscal-idUSBRE98N11220131005

Canadian firm hired to build troubled Obamacare exchanges

A Canadian tech firm that has provided service to that country's single-payer health care system is behind the glitch-ridden United States national health care exchange site healthcare.gov.

CGI Federal is a subsidiary of Montreal-based CGI Group. With offices in Fairfax, Va., the subsidiary has been a darling of the Obama administration, which since 2009 has bestowed it with $1.4 billion in federal contracts, according to USAspending.gov.

The "CGI" in the parent company's name stands for "Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique" in French, which roughly translates to "Information Systems and Management Consultants." However, the firm offers another translation: "Consultants to Government and Industry."

The company is deeply embedded in Canada’s single-payer system. CGI has provided IT services to the Canadian Ministries of Health in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Saskatchewan, as well as to the national health provider, Health Canada, according to CGI's Canadian website.

I think Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps" visited a future where our protagonist worked at a junkyard where they took brand-new, off-the-lot cars and crushed them.

Well, I have to wonder where all the cars which go unsold in the USA are going now... 2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/07/us-autos-ports-idUSTRE4B61NA20081207... 2012, http://washingtonexaminer.com/cars-stacking-up-at-port-of-baltimore/article/44053

But that would involve admitting some facts, instead of citing natural temperature changes only to cover things contrary to your view, and dismiss when they actively contradict your views. It's also better instead to assume that anyone who believes different has been taken by a scam artist.

And with the tenets of doctrinal purity being spread through the federal government -- Interior Secretary Sally Jewel's recent statement in an agency-wide address on August 1 "I hope there are no climate-change deniers in the Department of Interior", for example -- it's becoming clear that the administration has enough of its credibility invested in the "crisis" of global warming that actually admitting that there hasn't been any global warming for more than a decade would make it impossible to impose the controls on American industry that it wants.

--
"You are charged with preaching wrongful, pernicious, and misleading doctrine about anthropogenic global warming."

The Constitution is the highest law in the land.

It is not this court's job to determine constitutionality. If you don't like the way it works, Congress is the proper venue for change. Or you could get Saint Obama to tell his FBI and NSA to back off the requests, or to have them reviewed by a neutral party first.

What you should really worry about is that even when the court approves a reasonable request, there's little oversight as to whether the FBI or NSA stayed within the bounds of the court order.

And of course logically it cannot be a rubber stamp if Bush felt the need to circumvent the court for his illegal spying on the American people. One of the judges resigned in disgust over his actions. If it's a rubber stamp, why didn't Bush just get FISA warrants and evade the whole issue of his wiretaps being illegal?

This court has been manned by many different judges for decades, of either party influence, many known for ruling against executive abuses of power. It's not one consistent star chamber of executive flunkies.

Where is your citation?

These statistics do not reflect the fact that many applications are altered prior to final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them

If you were giving me random numbers between 1-10, and I only found 5 and 8 acceptable, you would have a 20% success rate. But if we went through an intermediary who always told you "wrong, do it again" for unacceptable numbers, you'd get a 100% success rate for numbers that made it to me.

Both of the numbers we listed are correct: about half from membership dues, and 3.2% from corporate donations. The NRA also gets money from advertisements in its publications, payouts from its endowments, donations from members, donations from state-level gun-rights groups, etc. The point I'm trying to make is that there simply isn't a logical case to be made that gun companies control the NRA when they don't provide even close to half of its funding, while gun-owning members provide more than half.

Indeed, that would be inefficient when they can get members to do their dirty work for them.

You're literally saying that people acting in what they've each determined to be their own best interest, is in fact a giant behavioral control conspiracy. If the NRA's policies really were so out of line with the membership's desires, we wouldn't see the membership continue to increase. Your whole argument relies on the pretentious fallacy that people don't know what is best for themselves, but you do.

The judicious use of outright lies, such as the "they're coming to get your guns" narrative, also helps.

All but the last one of these is from THIS YEAR.

Hawaii legislature proposes gun confiscation
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/its-hawaiis-proposed-guns-laws-that-are-criminal/123

New York Assemblyman asks colleague not to mention that original proposed SAFE Act included confiscation
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/01/20/NY-Assemblyman-exposes-gun-confiscation-agenda-of-Democrats

Missouri Democrats introduce legislation to confiscate guns
http://nation.foxnews.com/gun-control/2013/02/14/missouri-democrats-introduce-legislation-confiscate-firearms-gives-gun-owners-90-days-turn-weapons

VA has veterans who cannot manage their own financial affairs declared prohibited persons unable to own firearms
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/04/15/va-targeting-veterans-for-gun-confiscation/

NJ State Senator "We needed a bill that was going to confiscate confiscate confiscate."
http://www.politickernj.com/back_room/confiscate-confiscate-confiscate#

Oregon Legislator calls fears of gun confiscation a "paranoid delusion" and then states he is in favor of gun confiscation
http://www.examiner.com/article/gun-grabber-has-meltdown-flees-public-affairs-forum-anger

Governor Cuomo says, "confiscation could be an option."
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/336373/cuomo-confiscation-could-be-option-eliana-johnson

Feinstein suggests "compulsory buyback."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/sen.-feinstein-suggests-national-buyback-of-guns/article/2516648

CA assembly proposes confiscating 166,000 legally registered guns.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_22544460/californias-state-senate-democrats-roll-out-big-gun

And the classic from 1995:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoWE8v9QTOY

When the PAEA was passed in late 2006, it was at right about the peak in total mail volume (which of course they didn't know at the time) and the recession was still 2 years off. Everyone (Democrats, Republicans, and the postal service and unions) thought the prefunding was easily affordable, so it passed with bipartisan support. For example see this from the NALC (the main letter carrier's union) giving it high praise. (Although after things went sour, they started insinuating that it had been shoved down their throats, and pretty much everyone believes that by now.) Prior to 2006 there was no prefunding requirement at all, so it was just bad timing - it would have been fine if done 5 or 10 years earlier.

By the way, the correct prefunding figure is actually 50 years (see this and this which debunk the oft-repeated false value of 75 years).

When the PAEA was passed in late 2006, it was at right about the peak in total mail volume (which of course they didn't know at the time) and the recession was still 2 years off. Everyone (Democrats, Republicans, and the postal service and unions) thought the prefunding was easily affordable, so it passed with bipartisan support. For example see this from the NALC (the main letter carrier's union) giving it high praise. (Although after things went sour, they started insinuating that it had been shoved down their throats, and pretty much everyone believes that by now.) Prior to 2006 there was no prefunding requirement at all, so it was just bad timing - it would have been fine if done 5 or 10 years earlier.

By the way, the correct prefunding figure is actually 50 years (see this and this which debunk the oft-repeated false value of 75 years).

The correct figure is 50 years (according to section 8909a of the PAEA), not 75. The PAEA does not specify 75 years anywhere at all. See here and here. Given that a postal worker can start working in their late teens and retire in their 40s, a 50-year requirement is perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, as the first link says, once you've gotten enough people, even "journalists", to repeat an unsubstantiated claim, there's no killing it (not even here at Slashdot, where people like to believe they check their facts). In this case, the false claim was apparently first made by the NALC and the NRLCA, two postal carrier unions. Neither of them has ever substantiated the claim. The NRLCA merely says it's "widely cited" (of course, that was the plan). The NALC simply refuses to respond to requests.

The rumor that the PAEA was a Republican plot is also false. This was before the 2008 recession, and total mail volume peaked around 2006 (although first class volume peaked in 2001 and was already dropping), so at the time everyone involved (Republicans, Democrats, postal management, and postal unions, with the possible exception of the APWU) thought the prefunding was affordable. It passed with bipartisan support. For the NALC's opinion of it at the time, see this. Note the almost total praise. The only criticism was a now completely forgotten provision that requires injured postal employees to wait three days before qualifying for Continuation of Pay. The NALC has never actually claimed that it was a Republican plot, though it now serves their purposes for people to believe that. They don't have to, there are enough left-leaning bloggers to do the job for them (along with spreading the false 75 year figure).

The correct figure is 50 years (according to section 8909a of the PAEA), not 75. The PAEA does not specify 75 years anywhere at all. See here and here. Given that a postal worker can start working in their late teens and retire in their 40s, a 50-year requirement is perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, as the first link says, once you've gotten enough people, even "journalists", to repeat an unsubstantiated claim, there's no killing it (not even here at Slashdot, where people like to believe they check their facts). In this case, the false claim was apparently first made by the NALC and the NRLCA, two postal carrier unions. Neither of them has ever substantiated the claim. The NRLCA merely says it's "widely cited" (of course, that was the plan). The NALC simply refuses to respond to requests.

The rumor that the PAEA was a Republican plot is also false. This was before the 2008 recession, and total mail volume peaked around 2006 (although first class volume peaked in 2001 and was already dropping), so at the time everyone involved (Republicans, Democrats, postal management, and postal unions, with the possible exception of the APWU) thought the prefunding was affordable. It passed with bipartisan support. For the NALC's opinion of it at the time, see this. Note the almost total praise. The only criticism was a now completely forgotten provision that requires injured postal employees to wait three days before qualifying for Continuation of Pay. The NALC has never actually claimed that it was a Republican plot, though it now serves their purposes for people to believe that. They don't have to, there are enough left-leaning bloggers to do the job for them (along with spreading the false 75 year figure).

Could we get some winger trolls that are a little less willfully ignorant please?

Back at you, Obamabot.

1. Someone walking by and recording a conversation with a handheld device isn't "bugging", it's "eavesdropping". No device left in the room? Then it's not bugged.

Yet Curtis Morrison admitted bugging the McConnell office.

2. Obama is responsible for the actions of every democrat in the country now? In that case, which republican is responsible for James O'Keefe's actual attempt to bug a senator's office?

He's exactly as responsible as Nixon was for G. Gordon Libby's actions.

You do know that democratic groups were not just given equal scrutiny by the IRS, but that the only group to be denied tax-exempt status was a democratic group?

That's pretty disingenuous to delay, repeat continually more and more probing questions over the course of up to 3 years in some cases, and then claim "but none were denied. Yea, technically true, I guess. I don't know what denial you're referring to (probably an Occupy group - anything populist is viewed a threat to the statists in charge), site if you have it. But I do know that OFA got their tax-exempt status quickly and without a hitch, in spite of being "politically inclined", which was exactly the excuse stated for targeting the Tea Party / Liberty groups.

And this all happened under a Bush appointee to the IRS?

I don't think W appointees are any more ethical than Obama appointees. At best, maybe some of them were savvy enough to hide it better.

As for the EPA, you mean the agency where the Obama Administration had to be taken to court to actual enforce EPA regulations rather than giving industry a free pass? That EPA?

There are plenty of favored industries under the Obama Administration, probably just as many as there were under Bush, but most were different companies (other than some banks and Wall Streeters). So that's not surprising. But we were talking about using agencies for targeting political enemies, not providing favors. Stuff like this.

You mean Ford ended the war.

As Vice President? You'll have to explain that, or admit you're wrong. The United States officially ended its military involvement in Vietnam on March 29, 1973, and Nixon didn't resign until August 9, 1974.

Avoiding that the US scales even more and a faster pace its offensive against the entire world could be worthy of the "bringing peace" title.

is paved with exceptions to our rights.

That the big bully does it means that it is right now? We won't get targetted by drones if people from outside US does exactly what they are doing? This is a declaration of war against the world (their words, not mine). Whats next? Redoing pre-WWII discourse and taking invading countries where there are americans as something right?

Privacy are the bricks over what intellectual property is built, one of the things that US push in every international treaty, agreement, pact, embargo, boicott or whatever in the last 10-20 years at least. I say that something is mine and private, and will give the permission to others to have/use/know it under certain, defined conditions. Stripping everyone of privacy means no intellectual property too. Or we will keep making exceptions and say that you have right to have intellectual property if you are a big corporation lobbing the US government? The UN can agree that if the US pretend that we have no privacy, the rest of the world can pretend that they don't have intellectual property?

They do only with what comes in and out of France. In the other hand, US hacks foreign companies to get information on everyone, no matter where. And probably in France https worth something, but for US services the information must be given to the government in a silver plate by the companies (that is what PRISM is all about, after all) . And, of course, is US who defines hacking as act of war.

So this is a mostly unilateral war, and you could see the monitoring that could do some other countries mostly as self-defense.

The point is that people from all the world should care about what the US is doing (because affects everyone) while French (and a small fraction of other countries) people should care also about what they government do. Also, I don't see France putting in jail or doing a massive international manhunt for the people working for Le Monde, violating every international treaty and convention doing so, as US is doing (and forcing their allies to do) with Assange and Snowden, we are just past the point of absolute corruption, and seeing the first hints of what is coming in the next years.

How laughably, pathetically naïve. As if France and everyone else wouldn't be doing the same as the Yanks if they had the same budget and influence instead. Read up about what France was doing at the height of its power and just project it forward 200 years.