Election Meddling

SpaceNut · 2017-11-25 21:54:16

Well I do have a Facebook, Twitter accounts but never log into them or post or even read the content of others as the computers have always trailed in capability to make use of them so they did not influence my choices either. I do not vote party but listen to what I am hearing from each to make that choice and read between the lines to filter out what people want to hear from what really is said.

kbd512 · 2017-12-15 13:26:43

RobertDyck wrote:

kbd512: Lecturing people for not being rich is inappropriate and not productive. The rich have long manipulated the system to their benefit. The term "rich" is relative, it always means the most wealthy. But medieval standards, every working individual in western society is "rich". Think about it: a rusty pickup truck, separate house with central heat, running water, flush toilet, bath tub, refrigerator, microwave oven. But "rich" means the most wealthy. Charging taxes on the majority of Americans so the most wealthy can pay less, is not appropriate. Everyone has to pay their fair share. And all western countries have a progressive tax system, which charges a higher tax rate for the most wealthy. Screwing over the majority so a select few can benefit is what we're talking about.
By the way, those who will benefit from this tax cut do not replace their own car handles, or do their own plumbing.

My previous post was not a lecture. It's plain unvarnished truth that probably applies to everyone who posts here and you don't like it because even though it's true for 99% of the people in the western world, there are a lot of people who are unwilling to sacrifice whatever else they think is important for economic reasons. That is a choice they make and it has consequences in the world we live in. Decide which consequences you're willing to live with. There are a select few individuals in every society who are disabled, for one reason or another, and I don't begrudge them a cent of what we pay to take care of them and never will. The rest of us need to stop making excuses for our poor performance in life or refusal to learn and prioritize.

I'm sick of the child-like reasoning. I want people who think of themselves as being intelligent to think and act in a rational and responsible manner or stop pretending to be better than everyone else who doesn't share their thought process. You can blame everyone else in the world for your problems, whatever they happen to be, if you choose to do so, but ultimately there is one and only one person who can and should do something about those problems and you're staring at that person every time you look into a mirror.

If you desire money and that is the thing you think is of overriding importance in life, then you need to do things that pay well. If you're unwilling to do things that pay well, then money must not be of great importance to you. I didn't have a penny to my name when I joined the US Navy, but when I left I was offered a six figure salary to do exactly what I was doing. It was literally the easiest job I ever had, and even came with a refrigerated office. I stupidly turned it down, because I thought there were more important and interesting things in life to pursue and didn't have the wherewithal to appreciate what was simply being handed to me on a silver platter. I spent the next ten years of my life learning and toiling away before I was able to earn the salary I make now.

After I left the military, my parents told me I could stay with them free of charge and go to college as a "thank you" for my military service. Again, I stupidly turned them down and wondered why life was so hard working full time and going to college full time. Well, guess what? When you consistently refuse the good advice, experience, and education being given to you, LIFE IS HARD!

If I could go back and change anything, I would apologize to those people for being an ingrate, take what was offered with a smile, and thank them for the opportunities they gave me. I never flipped any burgers because my first jobs were other types of manual labor, but I still did lots of manual labor (painting, chipping paint, sorting trash, cleaning pots and pans, carrying boxes of heavy stuff, cleaning toilets, cleaning the bilge, handyman jobs) and guess what? It doesn't pay very well and the working conditions aren't always the greatest. That said, there were times that the people I worked with made it a joy instead of a chore.

I've had people who have been interested in what I do now that I have offered to teach whatever I possibly could, free of charge. There are lots of job opportunities that multiple companies have passed on because they lack the human resources to complete the work. Thus far, no takers. The moment they find out just how much work is involved, they give up and quit. These are people who already work in the field I work in, but aren't required to do the technical work that I do. They're not incapable of learning, they simply refuse to invest the time it takes to learn what I did.

When I write these things, it's directed at myself as much as anyone else who isn't physically or mentally disabled. If you want to make more money, then you have to invest the time (even if someone is willing to teach you free of charge) to get what you want. Nobody is going to hand you things simply because you're you. You have to pursue what you want.

Now that that's out of the way, I will address the taxation system.

1. You can't tax the means to production without taxing the people who buy or otherwise benefit from what was produced. It really is that simple and no matter whatever else your liberal college professors taught you, that is the plain truth of the matter. All the tax code shenanigans aside, which the people can easily rectify whenever they decide it's important to them, that's all there is to it. People pay taxes. Corporations are ideas committed to paper, not people, no matter what SCOTUS says to the contrary.

2. You're not going to get a job from a poor person and we already charge the people you think are wealthy at a substantially higher rate than the people we define as being poor. If we take every cent from the people who you think are wealthy, we still can't fund these sophomoric ideas like free college tuition, free health care, or free this / that / the other for everyone. That system doesn't work, it never has, and it never will. We're always taking money from one group of people to fund another and it only works when there's money available and the people we're taking from are willing to part with their money. In utopia, the concept of money may not exist, but it does in the world we live in and you can bet your last dollar that people think that concept is every bit as real and serious as a heart attack.

3. I understand the argument that money has a certain utility to it, but as previously stated, you could take every cent from the rich to give to the poor, the poor would still be poor a year later or ten years later, and then we'd just have a society with more poor people to deal with. Society is a hierarchy for a reason. Most humans don't know how to live and operate within other systems of organization. Nobody is stopping anyone else from achieving "better" but the people who think that way.

In our system of governance, which grants considerable power to the people, the people get the government they deserve.

Who voted for the people we most recently elected to office?

In a Constitutional Republic with democratic elections, every man and woman of legal age, with or without any amount of money, gets one and only one vote. There are far fewer rich people than there are people who make less money than the wealthiest among us, so the people you define as less wealthy have voted to keep the rich people rich.

Who continues to vote for the same people who do things that the majority of us say we don't like, year after year?

You can see where this is going, can't you? Maybe all of us "poor people" need to exercise the power we've not seen fit to exercise. Nobody has stopped us from having recall elections or new elections, so we're obviously not living in a dictatorship, yet.

Lastly, who determines what is "fair"? You or other people who want to take more money from other people while you pay less?

Here's a thought. Maybe we're spending too much money and need to cut spending everywhere (military, social programs, government services) and work on paying down the debt. That probably requires too much fiscal discipline and accountability.

RobertDyck · 2017-12-15 14:04:55

So you're only reasoning is the top 1%, or fraction of 1%, of income earners in the US should be allowed to survive. Everyone else should be treated as cattle. These "cattle" can be overcharged, treated as slaves. Healthcare is a prime example, the rest of the world demonstrates how affordable healthcare can be. The US overcharges, corporations extort ridiculously excessive money with the threat of letting you die if you don't comply with the extortion. I've already explained how the Canadian system works. It isn't free, it's insurance with a premium, but it's affordable.

Your idea of cutting spending is absolutely spot on! Of course! But those same rich people who benefit from the latest tax cut are those who demand overspending on military. They want to send anyone who objects to their control off to war to die. And they own arms manufacturers, so want more wars to create a market for their product. Who cares that it doesn't provide security for Americans, who cares that it already caused financial collapse in 2008. Yes, overspending on military is the core of the deficit, Congress didn't want foreigners to control the US so demanded domestic banks find a "creative way" to fund the deficit, what they came up with was junk mortgages, which caused the collapse. None of that would have happened if the tiny surplus (and I mean tiny) from Bill Clinton's administration simply continued, and that was used to pay down the debt.

Did Obama increase spending too much? Yes. But don't blame medicare and medicaid. Remember, I already said the US federal government spends 3.6% of GDP on medicare, plus 3.0% on medicaid, total 6.6%. The Canadian federal government spends 4.0% of GDP on healthcare. HINT! HINT! HINT!

You rant about working hard. I took computer science in university. I worked my way up to senior computer positions: senior systems analyst, technical architect, information systems specialist, etc. But I ran for politics, won the nomination for my electoral district for the federal election with one of the two major parties. That's when my problems began. I was screwed, lost my job. Still haven't gotten descent work. I have a home business doing computer repair, but that'll never earn enough to live on. In the last couple months got work doing installs of point-of-sale systems for large retail chains. It's better, but still not what I had. I keep sending out job applications, but they're ignored. Someone is blocking me. That's illegal, but I haven't found who's responsible.

This started about tax. The tax rate for those same hard working Americans you talk about, those trying to get ahead, has to be fair and has to allow them to succeed. The system is rigged to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. And those middle class working people doing the things you recommend will only get poorer. They have to work harder and harder to get less and less, no chance of success.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2017-12-15 14:11:32)

kbd512 · 2017-12-19 15:44:37

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Who is going to invade the United States? Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Mexico or Canada?

As long as we have the most powerful military on the planet, probably no one.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

If invaded by Russia or China that would mean the almost immediate destruction of the United States and the invading nation via nuclear war.

It really is too bad that the most powerful military on the planet is all over the planet. That must be a real drag for people who want to invade the US.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

And the UnitedStates has a domestic military force of over 100 million people. Plus we have the regular army, navy, air force, coast guard and national guard.

Are we including illegal immigrants, infants, and people in wheel chairs in this 100 million strong domestic military force?

EdwardHeisler wrote:

And invading army would have trouble taking over any major American city in block to block fighting, much less the entire nation.

Let's hope we never have to find out. The liberals who infest our cities run around screaming like toddlers who have had their favorite toy taken away any time they see someone with a gun. A good number of them think everyone else who works for a living should be giving them handouts for simply breathing and taking up space. Every snowflake is special, after all. Good luck getting a group of them to pick up rifles and shoot in the same direction.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Don't worry, the Russians aren't coming .... nor are the Chinese, or Koreans, or Kurdistanians. But look out for the Kardashians!

We're not worried. We have the most powerful military on the planet. That's why we're not worried.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

The United States spend more money for war and the military than all other nations of the Earth combined.

I'm not too sure about that. We sell a lot of weapons. That's part of the reason we're still in business.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

European nations and Canada spend only a tiny fraction of their budget for the military-industrial alliance because they are not trying to police the world and they are not paranoid. They are not shaking in their boots or hiding under their beds scared to death of Russians and those oriental people. They are not so easy targets of extreme right-wing zenophobic, racist and anti-science propagandists.

All this time I thought Canada was arming and training the Ukrainians to bring about world peace. You know, right after they murder those ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. I'm only upset that we're not selling them the bullets. Someone's going to make a buck or two off that war and it might as well be US!

Only the liberals are scared of the Russians. That's why we keep hearing about those evil Russians interfering in our elections. In any event, all those peace loving liberals are an absolute riot... especially after their favorite candidate loses an election.

SpaceNut · 2017-12-24 19:00:56

reposnse to post #1208 kbd512 the "unemployment rate goes down" for other factors that are not mentioned such as in many states you are removed from the list once the limit of weeks for collecting are met, other states make a requirement of job searches to get benefits to which if you are in the fail requirement you are not counted again as you are on the removed list even thorough you are still searching, seasonal unemployment rates are also not included as these do not make the quarterly requirement to be in the full time employment status, Part time wage earners are also not counted and the list goes on for what is counted and not.....Seasonal part time employment signs will end soon and most that have taken these jobs will be let go soon and unable to be counted as unemployed as well.

"The idea that we can tax the means to production and somehow achieve economic prosperity for the average worker" comes with the trick down not being applied nor are minimum wages and unions to make wages rise... when an employee can not even buy the products that they are making should tell you something about the greed going on....Corporate greed has created so many ways to not pay there taxes that its not funny......such as putting people into the less than part time employment just to not pay or creating a satelite office with below the states limit for the warn of unemployment impending to avoid paying the penalties.....

Remember the % percentages are not weighed for the income that on can create and or get as a 2% raise on $30,000 is not the same dollars when you say the rich get a 2% raise on $1,000,000 and that is what we are seeing for the entitlements versus congressional raises that they vote for themselves to recieve when they are not doing there job....so do not worry they will be ousted in the next elections.....

"I thought everyone who went to college and passed Economics 101, Introduction to Business" not for most degree programs and only for the Batchelers in business which is for the most part a BS degree just like the liberal arts degrees they are worthless.....Also associate degress do not cover these as well....

RobertDyck your posts that follow are talking about the buying power of your currency as well as ours shrink and that is just one of the problems created via a world economy to which the poor become working slaves to the rich and are forced to survival modes to keep alive and trying to be happy in life. To which we are seeing the eroding of the dream that America had for so long....

kbd512 the economics that was driving the US before corporate greed push its head from the rich versus poor is just the battle that the North and south fought about to which was one where the employer rewarded a carreer with pensions and stability for the success that they had but that is long gone and the greed has taken over....

kbd512 · 2017-12-27 00:01:59

Rob,

The issues of donations and government spending are tied together. Liberals start talking about taking more money from the rich and the rich start paying more to purchase those politicians via campaign funding. It's just a form of implicit quid pro quo. Billionaires don't pay millions of dollars to the campaign for Dudley Do-Wrong for Mayor because they feel so strongly about who the Mayor of Dopeyville happens to be. They only care about one thing and it's not you, me, or even the person they bought off during the election cycle to look out for their interests.

You still seem to believe that you can simply use the power of government to take money from these millionaires and billionaires and that those people have absolutely no influence in how that money is spent. All evidence to the contrary, which you pointed out, says that they can and do use their money to influence how that money is spent.

SpaceNut · 2017-12-31 18:43:05

What do you think of your president when this is what he is saying.. Trump Says He Has An 'Absolute Right' To Control The Justice Department

This why we have 3 branches of the government...he is not the emperor, or king or dictator....

Then you think that you are all set to vote in electionand you go to the place to do so only to find out not so fast... as the voter registries have been corrupted and you have been purged from them...sound firmilar..

Ohio's move to toss inactive voters from rolls goes to court

Joseph Helle was expecting a different sort of reception when he returned home from Army tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and showed up to vote in his small Ohio town near Lake Erie.
His name was missing from the voting rolls in 2011, even though Helle had registered to vote before leaving home at 18 and hadn't changed his address during his military service.

SpaceNut · 2018-01-01 18:46:13

This is a bit hard to believe that Election hacking help a nine month wait for some states seeking help from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The reason there’s a waitlist is because a lot of states want it done because they do it at no cost.

21 states were hit by Russian hackers in 2016

A jailed Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, claims he was ordered by Russian intelligence to hack into Democratic National Committee (DNC) networks says he can prove he was behind the breach. Specifically, Kozlovsky said he left a .dat file with his passport number and the number of his visa to Caribbean island St. Martin on the DNC’s internal server. That would pretty much prove and undercut Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated denials the Kremlin was behind the hacking campaign targeting the 2016 U.S. election.

To make matters worse the lazy code writers of the FBI fingerprint software could contain Russian code a subsidiary of the French firm Safran Group secretly purchased code from the Russian cybersecurity company Papillon Systems.

Papillon Systems regularly works with law enforcement agencies in Russia, including the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia's modern-day spy agency. U.S. intelligence agencies say the FSB was linked to efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Earlier this year, the Trump administration issued a memo banning all software from another Russian company with alleged links to the Kremlin, Kaspersky Labs, from being used on government computers.
“The Department is concerned about the ties between certain Kaspersky [Labs] officials and Russian intelligence and other government agencies, and requirements under Russian law that allow Russian intelligence agencies to request or compel assistance from Kaspersky [Labs] and to intercept communications transiting Russian networks,”

SpaceNut · 2018-01-03 21:16:09

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein meets with Paul Ryan over Russia investigation with FBI Director Christopher Wray

GOP leaders on the House panel are eager to wrap up the investigation soon, with influential Republicans saying the exhaustive review has dug through thousands of documents and interviewed virtually every major witness and has found scant evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives to meddle in the 2016 elections.

Sounds like they are looking at the wrong people when yu look at the endictements handed out already....

Of course the same results are happing here with the voter fraud as well and Trump signs order disbanding voter fraud commission amid infighting, legal threats and information denials. With a dozen states refusing to comply with the commission request for reams of personal voter data, including voters' names, voting histories and party affiliations.

SpaceNut · 2018-01-03 21:27:59

New York state will take Washington to court to challenge the new Republican tax overhaul, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo: State will sue to block federal tax overhaul

"Our federal government is working to roll back so much of what we have done,"
"We cannot, we must not let those things happen... In the immortal words of John Paul Jones, we have not yet begun to fight, my friends."
The new tax law caps a deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000, a move that will increase federal tax liabilities for many homeowners in high-tax states like New York. Cuomo says the change could increase tax liabilities for some New Yorkers by as much as 25 percent, potentially prompting some to leave for cheaper states and making the state less competitive economically.

So really not happy with the federal taxation changes but here is what is coming from the states wish list

A look at some of the measures he's already announced:
VOTING CHANGES: New Yorkers would be allowed to cast a vote up to 12 days before an election under Cuomo's voting reform proposal. He also wants to change voter registration rules to allow for same-day registration and the automatic enrollment of new voters when they visit a motor vehicles office or other state agency.
ONLINE POLITICAL ADS: Cuomo says voters deserve to know more about who is behind online political ads. His proposal would require ads to contain the name of the group paying for the content, and direct platforms like Facebook to maintain a public file containing greater information about campaign ads.
STEWART AIRPORT UPGRADES: Cuomo is calling for a $34 million investment to upgrade, expand and modernize Stewart Airport, north of New York City, to handle more international flights
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Anyone convicted of a domestic violence crime would have to surrender any firearms under another proposal from Cuomo. The governor's proposal was drawn up following the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Texas, where Cuomo said the gunmen in each shooting had a record of violence against women or threatening violence against women.
FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT: Cuomo wants to see New York state's pension fund get out of investing in fossil fuels.
BAIL: Cuomo has introduced legislation to eliminate the longstanding practice of requiring defendants to post monetary bail in misdemeanor and non-violent felony cases. He says it's unfair, since it allows suspects with financial resources to go free while those without must wait in jail until their trials begin.

SpaceNut · 2018-01-05 21:32:02

The disbanding of the Trump voter fraud has led to plan B for revenge it would seem Trump’s New Plan To Uncover Voter Fraud Is Just As Alarming As His Old Plan

Department of Homeland Security can take information collected by the commission and run it against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement database of non-citizens to identify people illegally on state voter rolls.

They noted that voter fraud does not fall with Homeland Security’s expertise and that efforts to cross-match voting rolls with Homeland Security data in the past have resulted in high numbers of people being incorrectly identified as non-citizens.

Such large numbers of fradulent voters....
Kansas election chief charges 2 more with voter fraud

Kobach charges 2 people with double voting, bringing total number of voter fraud cases to 15

2 GOP senators urge criminal probe of Trump dossier author
Just another way to waste tax payer money. Just like the new Hillary foundation investigation.....

Terraformer · 2018-01-15 05:13:54

SpaceNut wrote:

The American people do not want $18 billion to fund the border wall expansion project as Sanders said: ‘I am not sure why' Trump is pushing for a wall Mexico won’t pay for. The president has demanded that funding for the wall, one of his key campaign promises, be included in a deal to provide a fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. What the American people do want, is to provide legal protection to 800,000 Dreamers and a path toward citizenship for them.

About half of the American people (who voted...) voted for Trump. I think it's quite clear that they *do* want the border wall. Though my preference is for a border canal. Put those nukes to good work.

SpaceNut · 2018-01-30 20:17:10

A second Dossier hasbeen found in the hands of the FBI on possible Trump-Russia collusion with the same allegations.

Written by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s.
Unlike Steele, Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election.
However, the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the ‘Shearer memo’ and is pursuing intriguing leads.

SpaceNut · 2018-02-06 21:32:43

Defeating Devin Nunes won't be as easy as bashing his ties to Trump

What a load of crap to think that this time was ok when Russia to face 'consequences' if it meddles again: Tillerson

SpaceNut · 2018-03-05 22:21:10

Had the unpleasant experience of Sharps (hypo with needle) laying on the laundramat floor, a mother called the local PD about the danger and after they left my family was still there with no response what so ever to have it removed properly. So much for correcting the illegal drug use.

Escort Says Audio Recordings Show Russian Meddling in U.S. Election

Ex-Trump aide: Trump ‘may very well have done something during the election with the Russians’

SpaceNut · 2018-03-11 22:25:15

I find this as hillarious to hear that Trump met with Clinton's impeachment lawyer to assist in Russia probe

Funny must have found some dress stains....

There would be no winner in any trade war between China and the United States, but Beijing can handle any challenge, China's commerce minister said Sunday. "Trade war has no winners, it will only bring disaster to the economy

SpaceNut · 2018-03-13 13:06:10

The quality of american products from the 80's -to 90's is just one of the reason why we stopped buying american while the other was the cost to buy the same quality product for less which caused the start of the inequity of trade. It is hard to change the minds of people when they know the difference is not worth the added cost.

Shuffling the players in the game again.... Trump ousts Tillerson, will replace him as secretary of state with CIA chief Pompeo

Tillerson Firing Tells U.S. Allies That Russia Comes First

John McEntee, longtime Trump aide, fired over security clearance issue

SpaceNut · 2018-03-13 19:31:22

There is desent in the GOP about stopping the colusion investigation with witnesses yet to interview and questions left unanswered.Schiff blasts GOP over premature Russia probe shutdown but of course Democrats fuming after House GOP ends Russia probe not to unepected seeing the watered down report....

Manafort 'faces very real possibility' of life in prison, court order says

Kris Kobach Gets His Turn To Defend Kansas Proof Of Citizenship Law Expert Won't Support Claim That Trump Really Won The Popular Vote. It's Not Going Well. The birth certificates were not used for home births born in Arkansas. So just how many more states that are the same? With citizens that do not have birth certificates to prove that they are American are Trump's illegals that voted.

SpaceNut · 2018-03-14 15:05:18

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pushing FBI director Chris Wray to oust two key officials who are privy to critical events in the Russia investigation and is said to be deciding whether or not to fire former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe based on his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server..

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Wednesday he would oppose President Trump's nominations of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to be secretary of State and CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel to lead the spy agency.

Assuming every Republican senator but Paul supports Pompeo, as they did for his current CIA post, and every Democrat opposes, Senate would split 50-50.
The absence of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer and hasn't voted in months, could further complicate Pompeo's nomination.
If McCain doesn't return and Paul votes no, that would leave Republicans short, at a 49-50 vote, forcing them to win over Democratic support.

Larry Kudlow on Wednesday accepted an offer from President Trump to head the White House’s National Economic Council, Lawrence Alan "Larry" Kudlow is an American conservative commentator, economic analyst, television personality, and newspaper columnist.
Not credible for the position.....

The White House is trying to distance itself from a poor showing by the Republican candidate in the Pennsylvania's special election Tuesday night. President Donald Trump campaigned for state Rep. Rick Saccone in a weekend rally outside of Pittsburgh and the GOP spent millions on the race to prevent an embarrassing defeat in a district Trump won handily.

Republicans are not conceding and not ruling out pursuing a recount or other legal action in a special U.S. House of Representatives election in Pennsylvania in which Democrat Conor Lamb is leading Republican Rick Saccone by a thin margin, a Republican Party spokesman said on Wednesday.

House Republicans are deflecting the stinging results in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, discounting Conor Lamb’s strong performance as an aberration and not a bellwether heading into this fall’s congressional midterms.

SpaceNut · 2018-03-18 20:01:54

Colleges and other places have solved the toileting issue with what is called a family room for either or niether to make use of....

This comes as not much of a surprise..... Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said Sunday the
House Intel Republican says panel did not investigate collusion

Sort of hard to find evidence of collusion in the 2016 election when you are not doing so....

More trouble with the family Kushner family business submitted false paperwork with New York City over rent-regulated apartments
Donald Trump Jr.'s Wife Vanessa Files for Divorce

SpaceNut · 2018-03-26 20:09:31

Cambridge Analytica accused of violating US election laws in new legal action

Amid mounting accusations that data firm Cambridge Analytica misused the Facebook data of up to 50 million user profiles, the U.K.-based firm and its top executives are now also under fire for alleged violations of U.S. election laws.

Found this was quite interesting in that 1957 Russians Were Once Banned From a Third of the U.S.

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Legal troubles increasing as more lawyers say no Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan Latest Lawyers To Decline To Join Donald Trump's Legal Team

kbd512 · 2018-03-28 11:00:33

SpaceNut,

The good news is that our knee-jerk liberal types will delete their FaceBook, Twitter, and InstaGram profiles for a day. The haze of that self-imposed and self-aborbing brain drain I call "antisocial media" will be lifted just long enough for them to discover that there's a real world out there. They might actually talk to other people or learn something. In a moment of absurdly hilarious irony, the zombie masters have finally been attacked by their own machinations. Sadly, the addicts will just as quickly return to their "virtual world" when they realize their social skills are on par with a kindergartner.

My solution is quite simple. Turn it all off. Stop using social media, watching the news, or depending upon anyone else with an agenda to tell you what to think based upon what they believe. None of them have any solutions to offer to anyone and little to no evidence. They're astonishingly good at distracting people from the real world, though. In the real world, no independently verifiable evidence equals no news. In the real world, social media should simply be a tool to share information, for what little it's likely to be worth.

SpaceNut · 2018-04-10 20:33:27

Trump’s art of the deal: Win at any cost and its that Win-at-any-cost mentality which is eroding American life. Collusion is an agreement between two or more parties, sometimes illegal–but always secretive–to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage. Corruption is a form of dishonesty undertaken by a person entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire personal benefit. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries. Where you scratch my back and I will do yours....

The idea of the common good was once widely understood and accepted in America. After all, the U.S. Constitution was designed for “We the people” seeking to “promote the general welfare” – not for “me the selfish jerk seeking as much wealth and power as possible.”

Yet today you find growing evidence of its loss – CEOs who gouge their customers, loot their corporations and defraud investors. Lawyers and accountants who look the other way when corporate clients play fast and loose, who even collude with them to skirt the law.

Wall Street bankers who defraud customers and investors. Film producers and publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they depend on is sexually harassing and abusing young women.

Politicians who take donations (really, bribes) from wealthy donors and corporations to enact laws their patrons want, or shutter the government when they don’t get the partisan results they seek.

And a president of the United States who lies repeatedly about important issues, refuses to put his financial holdings into a blind trust and then personally profits off his office, and foments racial and ethnic conflict.

GW Johnson · 2018-04-11 08:23:59

Hi Elderflower:

There are a lot of things the British do that we in the US don't want to do. That's why there was a revolution. But there are two things the Brits do that I wish we over here in the US would adopt, adapt, and improve.

One is no private money is allowed for political campaigning. Everybody gets the same budget to campaign, from tax money. That has the very beneficial effect of enabling the ordinary person to run for office, something virtually forbidden by the high costs over here. I seem to remember 2-4 years ago the case of a British MP removed from office and jailed for violating the no-private-money law.

The other is strict limits on the window for campaigning. That window is proportional to the importance of the office and the size of the constituency, but even the Prime Minister has but several weeks to make his case. I presume the penalties for violating campaign window limits are similar to those for violating the no-private-money rule. The very beneficial effect of this is that public office holders spend most of their terms on the job, instead of out campaigning interminably, as they do here in the US.

Our adaptation would have to address the two-step nature of our elections. It would have to apply to party primaries as well as the general elections.

Just intriguing notions, but I do suspect they might help our paralyzed-by-corruption government.

GW

GW Johnson · 2018-04-12 08:25:22

Kbd512:

I suspect you still view me through politics-tinged glasses. You said "Earlier in this thread you said you haven't voted for a Republican in the past 30 years.". That IS NOT what I ever said. That's just a reflection of what you want to believe about me.

What I said was that over the last 5 decades I voted on average 3:1 GOP:Dem until the last several elections. Since rise of extremist right-wing elements in the GOP around 1980, I have voted roughly 2-or-3:1 Dem:GOP. Before the rise of the extremists, my GOP:Dem ratio was higher than 3:1 in order to lifetime-average 3:1. Those stats reflect a lot more than just presidential choices.

Now a 3:1 or any other ratio DOES NOT mean I don't ever vote for the slim-side candidates, because I have and I do! I NEVER vote straight party ticket! I vote for the candidate I judge might do more good than harm, at all levels from national to local. That is exactly what any citizen should do! I voted for Reagan and both Bushes, actually. I also voted for Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. And Obama.

In view of a record like that, now do you see how improper it is to characterize me as "Regarding which way you voted or didn't, you're an "independent" who only votes for Democrats" (those are your quoted words)? You are simply quite wrong about me. I do NOT share your far-right wing politics, but I am not a far-left type, either.

At the time, I too was angered by the failure of political will to win in Vietnam. They weren't teaching the full history at that time. Plus, at that time, this country had yet to experience the aftermath of asymmetric warfare as it relates to foreign occupations. I have since learned much more about Vietnam and the geopolitics that led up to it.

As it turns out, we should have backed Ho Chi Minh against the French, just as our OSS agents in SE Asia recommended. It was our refusal that sent him to Russia, and set up the debacle that ensued. Had we won, and we almost did, we would still be embroiled there trying to stabilize things against a "throw out the foreigners" opposition, much like what has happened to us in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The real lesson here is not to get embroiled in no-way-out stuff like that. The neo-cons surronding Bush 43 never learned the lesson from Vietnam. That's why we are still bogged-down in the middle east today. Afghanistan had no oil, only heroin. That's really why we got into Iraq: for the oil, which we never got. Which was stupid, because we needed Saddam's Iraq to hem-in Iran. And THAT is why Bush 41 left him in power after the 91 Gulf War.

By the way, Saddam was a paid CIA employee from 1953 until the 91 Gulf War, except for a few years in the early 1960's when he was a paid employee of the KGB. That's where and when he got all the Mig 21's. The US gave him the chemical weapons he used against Iran and his own Kurds, so that he would not lose the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. 6 of those lost in the sand were the only such weapons ever found in Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation. They had "made in USA" stamped on them, which is why Dick Cheney's announcement "we found the WMD's" died the very next day. Proof of "managed news", by the way!

Most of the time, the real facts about any given situation or issue are far more complex and more adverse than any political agenda. That's really why I don't believe in such nonsense anymore. Too many still do.

As for LBJ, his Great Society may have been a failure, but at least he tried, when no one else in power would. That says less about what he accomplished or didn't accomplish, and more about the basic internal character and motivation of the man. In the case of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, he actually succeeded, driven by those same internal motivations.

His passion for manned space is why there were any Apollo landings on the moon at all. None of his successors ever had that sustaining passion, which is why most of NASA has never gone anywhere but LEO ever since. The exception being JPL's planetary unmanned probe program. Yet we are all flawed, and so was he.

He fell prey to domino theory thinking and escalated Vietnam, when internally, he really actually wanted to end it. We all know where that led. The fall of South Vietnam to the North without the other dominoes falling over disproved that very popular political theory 4 decades ago. As I said, real life is far more complicated and adverse than any sort of politics-driven thinking.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-04-12 09:02:34)

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