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The lifeline subsidy does not come from your income taxes, but from a fee charged to telephone subscribers. This is used to make sure that poor people can call 911 and can participate in our society sufficiently so that they can get a job, go to school, and make use of government services that were formerly only available by phone or personal visit.

These days, getting a job requires use of the internet and you can't really hang around the library for the entire time you're trying to get work. So, it makes sense to give poor people some basic connectivity.

I believe the actual motivation behind this move is the same one that is behind making it more difficult for poor and disenfranchised people to vote - even though there is no evidence of significant voting fraud in the USA: Poor folks and minorities might vote Democratic. Suppression of the Black vote has historically been an important part of Republican strategy, this is just one of many reports on that issue. Having gerrymandered them into the most odd-shaped electoral districts, it becomes time to make sure they can't get news online or participate in democratic discourse.

Fortunately, the old testament is history and not the current doctrine of Christianity. Your also ignoring the fact that you would have a very hard time finding any Christians that believe it is their duty to conquer the world.

Really? Really? Really?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08...

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

Fortunately, the old testament is history and not the current doctrine of Christianity. Your also ignoring the fact that you would have a very hard time finding any Christians that believe it is their duty to conquer the world.

Really? Really? Really?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08...

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

Sometimes pressure on politicians works. Congress members received 50 times as many calls opposing TrumpCare as supporting it. And the bill failed. We could try the same thing here.

They used to charge up to $14 per minute for collect phone calls until the FCC recently put a stop to it. Now, they're capped at no more than $1.75 for 15 minutes. Can you believe it? On a 15 min phone call, there is now a shortfall of $208.25

Prisons have come to depend on this extra income for their sludge funds. Now that the FCC took it away from them. They just need to start providing services on cheap devices that the FCC hasn't even thought to regulate for prison yet. This is the real story here.

The court blocked the FCC's rate cap and then the FCC gave up on it anyway.

https://consumerist.com/2017/0...

Expel Indian-Americans https://www.petition2congress....
Why http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
And https://qz.com/889524

Where is the right trying to "deplatform" left-wing speakers?

On News Corp platforms, Breitbart, twitter, 4chan, all sorts of places?

Just look for all the hand-wringing over "BLM" and "Anti-Trump" riots, against "Planned Parenthood", all the "Birther" claims, and you''ll find it.

Let's see, who is committing the violence [rollingstone.com] and trying to prevent the speech of others? That would be the left.

Also, case in point, here, by a user named Raenex. Who will never look at the right's actions.

But you, you want us to be upset over Milo's hiring a bunch of guys in masks to disrupt his own rallies and get attention. But Milo is out so you didn't even get your memo about that.

Which political party responds to critiques of Islam with cries of "Islamophobia" and "racist"? Which political party is against restrictions on Muslim immigration? Which political party has apologists for Sharia law leading [breitbart.com] women marches?

The left went from fighting political Christians to embracing Islam.

Which political party denounces Islam and creates lies about Sharia law? Which political party tries to convince us that Islam is a material threat? Which political party wants to ignore the terrorists among us?

Which political party lies about Planned Parenthood? Which political party has been found in court to engage in unlawful gerrymandering? Which political party is threatening judges who dared to reject Trump's unlawful ban? Which political party attacks how women dressed? Which political party claims to be pro-life, but resents paying for maternity care?

The right is the party that loves everything about radical Islamists, except the name they operate under.

Contrary to what the pundits on the left like to believe, the GOP is not one monolithic voting bloc in fact if you explore voting history along party lines, you'll find it's the Democratic party which votes more as a bloc. (Sort by "votes with party" and it's mostly Democrats at the top.)

Half the GOP wants to replace Obamacare with Obamacare-lite, half wants to completely end government involvement in health care. That was the impasse. Ideally, the moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans would get together and come up with something, giving a middle finger to the hard left Democrats and the hard right Republicans. But the two parties are under the control of the hard left and hard right, and will ostracize any moderates who fail to toe their respective party line.

How about "occupying their time" with work such as making license plates, breaking big rocks into smaller rocks, digging holes, filling in holes, etc.?

Making license plates doesn't earn the prison near enough money. And before you tell me about INDOC not wanting to charge the inmate fees, you'd be right of course. INDOC doesn't want to charge the inmates. It wants to charge their families. This is exactly how they used to do it for phone calls.

They used to charge up to $14 per minute for collect phone calls until the FCC recently put a stop to it. Now, they're capped at no more than $1.75 for 15 minutes. Can you believe it? On a 15 min phone call, there is now a shortfall of $208.25

Prisons have come to depend on this extra income for their sludge funds. Now that the FCC took it away from them. They just need to start providing services on cheap devices that the FCC hasn't even thought to regulate for prison yet. This is the real story here.

When you start off with your head up your ass, you can only spout the bullshit that's collected in your mouth,

1 - the president doesn't have the authority to repeal an act, such as the Patriot Act....congress does; you know, like the republican house that did absolutely nothing while Obama was in office. You too fucking stupid to remember that far back?

2 - https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.bloomberg.com/poli...
http://www.rollcall.com/news/r...
I mean seriously, how fucking stupid do you have to be to not see EVERY damn news article about Gitmo closing had republicans blocking Obama from doing it? Are you seriously that fucking stupid, or is the problem you just can't fucking read?

3 - this just sounds like you being a typical whiny ass republican dipshit who can only spout catchwords they here coming out of some other republicans ass.

4 - just quit being a lying bitch. If you're in a red state that didn't expanded medicare, the problem is your fucking ideologically driven cocksucking republicans who'd rather see people die than get medical help.

5 - http://abcnews.go.com/Politics... You're just a fucking stupid parrot.

6 - have to say, i can't find this rabid-cocksucking-republican talking point anywhere, so i have to assume you're simply full of shit like all the other republicans conspiracy theory fuckwads. http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ov... for reading not tied to some cocksucking republican lying bitch. 7 - here you're just full of shit. opinions are like assholes... like you. Obama didn't obfuscate government transparency more than any other president before him, although VP Darth Cheney probably did much worse without cocksuckers like you saying anything about it. Now you have the worthless twat Trump in office, who appears to be bought and paid for by Russia, and a bunch of co-conspirator republican traitors who won't hold him accountable. Fucking republicans are what's wrong in this country.... traitors, liars, and all around pieces of shit.

No, we're not solving climate change, we're just going to cut funding to the people telling us about it more and more until they stop telling us about it. ;)

I was visiting someone once and his college age daughter told us of an experience she had earlier that afternoon. She was driving along the highway and the engine started making a terrible noise. Her solution: keep turning up the radio so she wouldn't have to hear it. The reason: what else could I do?

No, we're not solving climate change, we're just going to cut funding to the people telling us about it more and more until they stop telling us about it. ;)

as "we will have a man on Mars in 20 years" for the past 50 years. Now it has been extended to infinity. This only trumps up the Mission To Nowhere as everyone loves to talk about Mars because you can defer costs to build real hardware to some other smucks 20 years into the future. Unlike if Moon is the goal then gotta come up with some real money now to build a lander, transfer stage, etc.

But wait, there are some people talking about the Moon besides Spudis and Wingo. Maybe we get some action before we are all dead of old age:
http://www.spacex.com/news/201...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

And Spudis blog has some interesting comments, http://www.spudislunarresource...

I'd love to see your cites and stats re "police standoffs gone wrong" in 2016.

According to the Washington Post, 963 people were killed last year in the U.S by police. I filtered that down to people that had guns, in order to kinda hit your 'standoff' thing, and got 518 people. I assume that if someone has been killed, then it's a standoff 'gone wrong', but I suppose there's no clear definition of what it means for a standoff to 'go wrong'. You might argue that if the bad guy got killed, maybe the standoff went right, so let's instead use the number of police killed in action. That's 46 officers for the year 2016, according to the BBC.

Now, how many people were killed by islamic terrorists in 2016 that arrived here by plane from one of the 'banned' countries?

It's none, isn't it? There were terrorist attacks for sure, but Omar Mateen was 'self-radicalised' and was from New York, Dahir Ahmed Adan was from Somali (the country is on the list), but he didn't kill anyone, Ahmad Khan Rahami was from Afganistan (not on the list) and didn't kill anyone, and Abdul Razak Ali Artan (also from Somali) also didn't kill anyone. Names from here.

So, you are more likely to be a police officer killed in the line of duty, than by a terrorist that's arrived from one of the banned countries.

Furthermore, as you no doubt very well know, Trump himself has publicly stated on more than one occasion that the ban is about religion. This is why it has been struck down in the courts, because there is no other basis for his choices. There's certainly no public safety basis, that's for sure.

How Does One Freely Use Bitcoin In the Land of the Free?

Not sure how Germany handles bitcoin, any Germans care to comment?

I assume you do not mean the US, since the US has not been the land of the free since January 19th[1], Rightwing Trump-Cuck rhetoric notwithstanding.

[1]www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/21/how-angela-merkel-a-conservative-became-the-leader-of-the-liberal-free-world/

That's January 20th, 1981. Not my fault people are too stupid to realize it.

How Does One Freely Use Bitcoin In the Land of the Free?

Not sure how Germany handles bitcoin, any Germans care to comment?

I assume you do not mean the US, since the US has not been the land of the free since January 19th[1], Rightwing Trump-Cuck rhetoric notwithstanding.

[1]www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/21/how-angela-merkel-a-conservative-became-the-leader-of-the-liberal-free-world/

I'm really tired of seeing this same racist/misogynist bullshit repeated time and time again.

Oh you are? When have you opposed it? Ever?

Even Obama and Clinton were calling for securing the borders previously, including fence/wall building. It's on youtube if you don't believe me.

Trump actually claims they wanted open borders. It's right there.

More to the point, none of them claimed there was a need for a Wall as vast as Trump's, let alone that Mexico would pay for it.

Obama also put a hold on people entering from the same countries that Trump is trying to temporarily ban.

Obama did not put a hold on people entering with actual visas and permits already, but held up further processing of refugee visas.

Your reply is all echo-chamber.

Ironic.

If the sore losers somehow manage to knock Trump out of power before the next Presidential election, prepare for all hell to break loose. That will be a call to arms that I believe will lead to the end of the United States.

You still believe in Jade Helm and Fema Camps, don't you?

We're already heading that direction with the judicial branch shitting all over the executive branch.

You mean actual judges recognizing the hysteria caused by Trump's Mill-considered is in your mind, mere pique, and thus the judges are at fault?

Huh. Good show of your partisan leanings there.

Your mention of race riots is humorous given that Obama started that, not anyone in the GOP.

No, sorry, that Ohio Campaign chair was wrong.

Nuclear fallout? Thank Hillary for her uranium deal and Obama for letting Iran do whatever it wants.

To the contrary, it did the exact opposite. For far less than any of the other options.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/21/trump-wont-allow-you-to-use-ipads-or-laptops-on-certain-airlines-heres-the-underlying-story/?utm_term=.fe81fadb4606#comments

http://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/news-room/2017-03-16-alpa-joins-open-letter

From the Washington Post:

Today, U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), released a bipartisan report examining the U.S. State Department’s grants to OneVoice—a non-governmental organization operating in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. The group received nearly $350,000 in grants from the U.S. State Department to support peace negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority over a 14-month grant period ending in November 2014. In December 2014, Israeli elections were called following the collapse of peace negotiations.

The Subcommittee’s investigation concludes that OneVoice Israel complied with the terms of its State Department grants. Within days after the grant period ended, however, the group deployed the campaign infrastructure and resources created, in part, using U.S. grant funds to support a political campaign to defeat the incumbent Israeli government known as V15. That use of government-funded resources for political purposes after the end of the grant period was permitted by the grant because the State Department failed to adequately guard against the risk that campaign resources could be repurposed in that manner or place limitations on the post-grant use of resources.

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

To say the Obama Administration worked to screw over Netanyahu's re-election bid is a heavy distortion of what happened.

>> If you have some evidence of malfeasance in the Clinton Foundation, please provide it.

Oh dear God are you really that ill-informed, or just another one of those braindead Hillary fans that are determined to live in denial?

Just google "Clinton foundation corruption" or similar. Its all over everywhere. here's a few to get you started in case even that's to much of a challenge:

http://observer.com/2016/11/wi...

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

http://www.realclearpolitics.c...

Trump isn't cutting Meels on Wheels. Meals on Wheels is not a federal program, nor do its local groups directly receive federal funding. Rather, the groups run on a mix of local, state and federal money, as well as private donations and the work contributions of volunteers, which vary depending on the funding structure of each affiliate.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

The only cutting of after-schools programs that I am aware of is the preventing of some states from illegally repurposing tax-payer $$$ that the Fed have given them for education, that they are instead spending on after-school meals (that have also been proved to have no effect on educational scores), and there are already other programs to address welfare.

As for "Humanitarian aid", you're gonna have to be more specific.

Poor people are living longer, earning more, eating more, all over the world

Not in the United States.

Life expectancy in the US is declining. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Also, real income went down in the 2008 recession, and have not recovered for anyone not in the top 2% of incomes.

Also, food insecurity is up by quite a bit among the poor.

Can't. Asians are white.

Whatever was the problem with Clinton was surely of much lesser magnitude than Trump's people having secret dealing with foreign state entities.

What? So, Hillary Clinton and her husband personally rake in millions of dollars selling access to foreign dictators

I don't like to see Hillary selling access to foreign dictators, any more than I like her selling access to Bear Sterns and domestic corporations. I am not a Hillary fan.

Trump, however, did things like personally change the Republican platform from supporting arms to the Ukranian resistance to pro-Russian factions. At the same time Trump had business deals with Russians like the "Fertilizer king" which got him hundreds of millions of dollars. This was documented pretty well by Rachel Maddow and others http://www.politifact.com/trut... https://www.washingtonpost.com... http://www.npr.org/2016/08/06/... and, if you prefer the other reality, even the Daily Caller http://dailycaller.com/2016/07...

So Trump was taking hundreds of millions of dollars from a country run by a dictator and adversary of the U.S., and he subsequently changed U.S. policies to favor that adversary and go softer on him (and defended Putin's killing of political enemies).

If he is serving the interests of a foreign adversary against the interests of his own country, because of his financial benefit, that's treason.

Hillary did something similar with her Clinton charity, Bear Sterns speeches, and other corporate favors. However, unlike Trump, she didn't take money from countries that were U.S. adversaries, but from "friendly" middle eastern dictatorships. And while I think that corporations like Bear Sterns are enemies of the American people, U.S. law doesn't support me on that.

Hillary sold out the working class (which should be a crime but isn't).

Trump sold out the whole country to a foreign enemy in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars laundered as business deals. That's treason.

This just infuriates me. It is part of the reason why people don't have any faith in the two major US political parties. It is sort of like how people will eagerly issue wedding invites to relatives they have no desire to see when they are confident that the invite will be refused. The Republicans now obviously have the same lack of spine as during the last 6 years of the Obama administration. During the Obama administration they quickly rolled over on every debt ceiling increase and budget increase requested. They sent unworkable legislation that they knew Obama would veto (not just Obamacare repeal bills). They were clearly posturing/grandstanding.

This is something you didn't know from the start? Trump's own blandishments were a joke. And his excuse that nobody realized how complicated it was? That's what we call revealing insight into his character.

I can't help but feel that the way they are behaving now is an effort by the establishment types to subvert Trump because they don't like him. Funny enough, I think that they are likely to more damage than the Democrats that also don't like Trump.

Yes, your average Republican is more likely to do more damage than any Democrat, the party has turned crazy enough to elect Trump is full of nutbars.

Yeah, I got whiplash from last 16 years. Rewind to the Bush administration and dissent was patriotic, at least according to the media. It was hysterically funny to see the diehard Democrats who tried to pass themselves off as being all about civil liberties oppose renewal of the PATRIOT Act under Bush, but not really a peep out of those same people when Obama pushed for the same exact renewal of powers as Bush had.

In reality, you were only called racist because you were paying attention only to the deluded ravings of Orly Taitz, meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, the ACLU, EPIC, and FreedomWatch continued their opposition to the Patriot Act, both in the courts and the legislatures.

In fact, most Democrats opposed an extension in 2010,2011 2013, and 2015. Rand Paul might be the only name you know, but Dennis Kucinich and Ron Wyden stood against it numerous times as well.

This is why you have no credibility, you go along with the empty-headed Mi when he plays the "race card" card, while anybody with a modicum of information can point out the flaws to your story. The deep factual ones.

And while we are at it, explain why we have AM and PM. Wouldn't it be more logical to have 12 hours a day (twice as long), and no AM/PM distinction? Now if you can show that this is not just making up a rule without any reason based on the natural system, then you have failed to make your point. Why do we have to designate that it is 1 am or 1 pm? I would not have made a system like that. Would you? Think.

Face it, the system is one of many that could have been devised, and this one was chosen for arbitrary reasons based on the people who designed it.

If you can stand it, take a look at this:

"As a rational policy, daylight saving time may be ineffective. But as a social ritual, it retains real value. Our biannual clock-tuning is a slip of the mask, a glitch in the matrix that reminds us that clock time is always artificial and arbitrary."

Link:

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

The meaning is plain and the court really needs to go back to elementary English class if they ruled otherwise.

Is it just Eastern states that have this issue?
"A person is guilty of reckless driving who fails to stop, when approaching from any direction, any school bus which is stopped on any highway, private road or school driveway for the purpose of taking on or discharging children."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Ahh, the ole Bush helped the Nazis kill jews bit.

Yes, that old bit, in which it is revealed that Prescott Bush could not possibly have not known what he was doing. In fact, a number of corporations willingly cooperated with the Nazis. Without their assistance, the axis could not have made war effectively. Naturally, every one of these corporations has tried to disclaim responsibility for what their German divisions were up to, but the ongoing relationships between such entities during the war make that difficult. The service contract for the concentration camp management machines was paid straight to IBM's American operations in Armonk, NY, for example.

It is a fact (simple or not) that American interests willfully and thus traitorously aided the axis for profit. And it is a fact that Prescott Bush was among them.

I don't see any mention of Elon Musk and Tesla in this discussion. Musk is bringing a new level of automation to his car factories. The interior of the new Model 3 will be designed for full robotic assembly. For example, typical wiring harnesses that appear in other cars will be avoided as they are not suitable for robotic manipulation. Instead, wiring connections are likely to be more pluggable by robots. Their new cars feature full glass roofs. I suspect this is because it will leave the top of the car open for robots to work until close to the end of assembly. Most cars weld their roofs on during frame assembly (which is typically robotic for most car manufacturers). This limits access to the interior during final assembly.

Musk has talked about the machine that makes the machine as the most important engineering challenge to be solved in manufacturing. He says the final version of his factories will look like an "alien dreadnought". Humans will be involved only in maintaining the robots, and not in the actual assembly process, since they slow the entire process down to "human speed". I'm not sure how many people are aware of the level of innovation that is occurring right now in America at Tesla's factories. There is no company in the world that is doing what Tesla is doing in automobile manufacturing.

She originally claimed that using the personal server for work was so she would only need to carry one device.

No, she originally claimed that she used her personal phone for official work so that she'd only have to carry one device

It was all about the email, hence the server.

"“First, when I got to work as Secretary of State, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two. -- Hillary Clinton, news conference addressing her private email server, March 10, 2015”
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

They have charged Edward Snowden, as well.

How's that working out?

I wonder if this is part of the "adult conversation" about encryption that FBI director James Comey mentioned last year that he was preparing to have this year. Also when ever mentioning that fucking iPhone it should also be pointed out that nothing of value was found on it. This way it becomes clear that encryption wasn't something that hampered the case in any way so they can't trot out that old saw to try and make their case against the public having access to strong encryption.

I'm pretty sure all acts of espionage are classed as treason.

"Pretty sure" is pretty weak.

The "classes" of treason are what I cited above, directly from the Constitution, and explains precisely why Edward Snowden could not be charged with treason.

He did not declare war against the United States. The last time that happened was the Civil War.

He did not aid any enemies because the United States has no list of enemies. The last list was WWII.

Edward Snowden is charged with, among other things, espionage.

it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.

That same Washington Post article also has FBI Director James Comey saying he is:

"focused on trying to get the law changed" so that companies would be required to unlock data and devices for law enforcement

Fast forward to the terror attacks on Paris and the line in media was all about how the terrorists used encrypted communication, a line that was total BS but is what was initially widely reported so that is what the general public believes. Then go forward a little more to the San Bernardino attack and that fucking encrypted iPhone. It was a problem because it was encrypted, but it turns out nothing of value was found on it.

Go forward a bit more to the latter part of last year and you again have FBI Directory James Comey stating that he is preparing to have an "adult conversation" on encryption next year. So I would expect that anything that can be done to vilify encryption in the public eye will be done. At this point it seems like the CIA leak may be used to help do this as a way to get some benefit of the leak, and I don't believe that this was some sort of false flag but probably an insider. So I would recommend keeping an eye out for vilification of encryption or those who are pro encryption (Friday March 10th 2017 stream of the Brokaw Report sounds strangely like a short calm version of InfoWars with Tom Brokaw playing the part of Alex Jones).

Any time you deal with the cops, you've already lost. Hell, in some places in the US, they send kids to jail and then bill their parents for the jail stay when the kid is found innocent. And inner-city cops have a saying: "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride".

Of course, if this were in the US, the police might just seize everything anyway, hold a trial against the property (instead of against the photographer) and then auction it off for profit.

And the saddest part is, this is still well above average for a justice system.

The fact that WaPo is a reputable source isn't based on them being infallible in their reporting. Everybody makes mistakes. It's based on the fact that they put accuracy above an agenda rather than the other way around. One way to tell real news from fake news is what happens when they make a mistake. WaPo printed a correction. They're not trying to defend the originally wrong story. Using your standard, any news source that ever made an honest mistake would be in the same league as the celebrity gossip tabloids. This is nonsense. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

I like the bit where you go "I don't know if what I'm saying is true, but it is true cause it is supported by my hate."

Cause that is where you both fuck up ANY credibility your data might have (cause you don't give a fuck about data) - AND you cement your judgment in hate and prejudice.

Guess what?
Republicans held those positions since Obama's second term, enlarging them from the lead they had since his first term.
If you think it's the "witch" - how come Republicans GAINED AND KEPT GAINING seats under Obama, starting from the last population census?

Two words.
Jerry and mandarin.
Oh and BTW, Democrats actually ended up with a net gain chamber-wise while most governor positions weren't even up for election.

But you just go on believing in witches bro. And enjoying yourself. After all, Trump won.
Why are you still so hung up on the other side losing? Get over it already.
Sing Hallelujah, come on, get happy... and all that jazz.
Don't be such a sore winner.

An interesting question. I've never had anyone questing the 'common knowledge' before and it occurred to me that while I've heard this I never bother to google it.
Although If i had cared before I probably would have and I would suggest you do when you have such questions.

https://www.americanexpress.co...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.thebalance.com/pol...

I didn't cherry pick these these were just on the top of the relevant results in google. Before you react it is good to research.

More like from the 1950s...

Except that whole "Operation Wetback" thing.
It didn't work then, apart from causing all the civil rights issues that it did, and it would work even less now.

Being an unfiltered loudmouth is the last thing you want to be in that situation.

Apparently nearly half the voters in the country do want an unfiltered loudmouth in that situation. They knew how he was when they voted for him.
Seriously, America is made up of opinionated loudmouths, on the left and right. Why would you be surprised when one becomes president? He certainly represents.

Dems would have voted for him too, if he'd run on the blue ticket instead of the red. Remember, he was a democrat until fairly recently.

But I'm also cognizant that separating domestic from foreign activities is no longer a good way to define the various agencies' behavior.

It is when your couch is more likely to murder you than a terrorist. You're falling into the same authoritarian mindset that you have to surrender your Constitutional rights because it means somewhere, sometime, some pedophile might get away with it if law enforcement can't search his computer with a warrant.

Stop doing that. And that's putting the fact that the worst purveyor of violence and terrorism in recent worldwide history is the United States aside entirely.

This dude Flake represents a massive gerrymandered district

This is a perfect example of what I was referring to...the federal court in Richmond found that the primary purpose of North Carolina's "voter ID" laws wasn't to stop voter fraud, but rather to disenfranchise minority voters. The judges found that the provisions "target African Americans with almost surgical precision."

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

Red states' wet dreams involve small independent farming families sustaining themselves by the sweat of their brow independently.

If it helps pass good laws, sure. But it's worth pointing out that such people are myths now if they weren't always. There are two million farms in the us, and they're mostly mega corporation farms now. In a nation of 300 million people, that's really an insignificant part of the US.

I would guess that there are orders of magnitude more people who would be interesting in being able to fix their iphone screen than there are small farmers who are just trying to replace the parts on pa's old tractor with money and parts from under the old feather mattress.

Pass a bill saying "except for farm equipment." John Deere lobbyists will back off, the vast majority of Minnesotans will be able to fix their electronics, everyone wins except for some mega farm corporations who can afford it anyway and big tech. Not the most satisfying outcome, but seriously, give it up with the small farmer bit. They're not worth worrying about even though the right wing acts like they're the only true Americans.

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

We all know there are ties. To think not is just hiding your head in the sand. The problem is, we just don't know how far the rabbit hole goes with these ties.

As for Flynn,he got caught lying under oath to Congress, about communications with the Russian Ambassador. If you even think we don't bug every foreign official's phone in this country you might need to catch up. We've been recording foreign phone calls for generations now. They are legal as it is in many states as long as one party consents. State rules do not apply federally. Your state may vary. Where did you find your "non-investigated US citizen" thing from? Anyone calling a known suspect is now, automatically, an unknown suspect.

I think the President needs to put up some proof also if he has claims to make.

But not this one apparently.

While the press corps was distracted and the cable channels aired footage of Trump surrounded by a bipartisan group of smiling women, behind closed doors and with no fanfare the president quietly signed a measure that killed a regulation enacted by the Obama administration to tighten gun background checks.

The rule required the Social Security Administration to send over the names of people who receive government checks for being mentally disabled and others who have been deemed unable to handle their own financial affairs to the FBI office that runs the national background check database. This is a universe of about 75,000 people.

The Daily 202: What Trump didnâ(TM)t want you to see him signing

If you think Chicago is bad, in California we have politicians who are anti-gun because legal gun sales conflict with their illegal gun-running business.

Now, what would you expect someone that was trying to avoid scrutiny to do, at this point, when they received the first official request for those emails? I'm pretty sure the answer is anything but "promptly and immediately start handing them over."

This is a convoluted way to say "When asked for the emails, Hillary Clinton promptly and immediately handed them over." And I can only say: [citation needed]

If you are going to claim this, please provide references documenting this prompt and immediate handover.

I claim the opposite: that Hillary Clinton did not promptly and immediately hand anything over, but late and grudgingly. And I will provide references.

The gold standard is Sharyl Attkinson's timeline:

https://sharylattkisson.com/hillary-clintons-email-the-definitive-timeline/

The Benghazi incident happened right before the election in 2012. Judicial Watch filed an FOIA request immediately after this, and Sharyl Attkinson filed one as well in December 2012. These FOIA requests included requests for Hillary Clinton emails related to Benghazi. So our clock starts ticking in November 2012.

February 2013: Judicial Watch sued the State Department for failing to respond to the FOIA requests.

August 2013: the Congress subpoenaed Benghazi-related documents.

2014: Judicial Watch files another FOIA request, then files another lawsuit when it gets no response.

Now, the key happened in December 2014. I'll quote it exactly instead of paraphrasing:

Dec. 5: Clinton privately turns over copies of 30,490 "work-related" emails to the State Dept. totaling 55,000 printed pages. No date has been provided as to when she deleted her "private" emails, but it is presumed to be around this time frame.

So two years after the first FOIA requests, Hillary Clinton finally turned over emails... printed on paper with minimal email header information. She and/or her team deleted literally tens of thousands of emails and then wiped the server. She claimed that these were personal emails, not work-related, but wiping the server was highly improper (actually illegal, I'm pretty sure, but nobody took action against her for it).

Note that the federal document retention laws required her to turn over copies of all work related communications on or before her last day as Secretary of State. She did not turn anything over until forced to, two years later, and she turned over printed paper. If she had simply used the government email system, the government would already have had all her emails; that's why she was supposed to be using the government email system. (She never asked for or received permission for deviating from the normal way of doing things, but those who knew what she was doing never did anything to stop her.)

And then, the FBI revealed that they had found another 15,000 work-related emails that Hillary Clinton had failed to turn over (she turned over 30,000, so that's not a small number of emails). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/22/the-fbi-found-15000-emails-hillary-clinton-didnt-turn-over-uh-oh/

In the 30K emails turned over (printed on paper) there weren't any emails related to Benghazi. In the 15K emails recovered by the FBI, 30 Benghazi-related emails were found. That means Hillary Clinton deleted Benghazi-related emails rather than turn them over, and of course the original FOIA requests were specifically looking for Benghazi-related emails.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/293837-fbi-recovers-30-clinton-emails-involving-benghazi-attack

Quote from that article:

Or the Washington Post!

The use of a private email account is not prohibited by law in Indiana.

The use of a private email account is not prohibited by law in Indiana.

JESUS H. FUCKING CHRIST AND YOU WONDER WHY TRUMP WON