Random Politics & Religion #00

Highway Robbery As Banks Prey Upon Poor and Repo Men Turn Off Cars in Intersections & Highways

Like the secret service would ever let a sitting president fly a combat mission... They aren't allowed to drive and Obama is the first one allowed to have a freaking cell phone.

Jassik, you're giving a lesson in how not to take a joke. ._.

Jassik, you're giving a lesson in how not to take a joke. ._.

But Branwdo got what plants crave !

IRS defends giving refunds to illegals who never paid taxes
Link

More taxation without representation yes its real folks.

The IRS a false agency steals from and threatens natural born Constitutional American citizens to give to illegals. Yet for some reason this is acceptable and folks love business as usual and being taken advantage of.

Would you stop engaging him? It's not like anyone with half an ounce of sense agrees with him and the rare few who do aren't going to be swayed. Assuming those rare few aren't just sock accounts, anyhow.

I almost want to make a sock account just to agree with him so he'll feel slightly less pathetic, but I imagine he's too lacking in self-awareness to realize how depressingly sad he really is.

Last week Gravis Insights released a new poll of Minority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nevada) 2016 race and found him trailing two lesser-known challengers: state Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R) and former Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki (R).

Gravis has a poor track record as a pollster, but its results here are in line with other surveys that have repeatedly suggested Reid could be the most vulnerable Democratic senator up for reelection this cycle.

However, operatives on the both sides of the aisle constantly warn against underestimating Reid, a former boxer who is never afraid to deliver surprising blows in his reelection battles. Indeed, veteran Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston said in a February article in Politico Magazine that Reid could never be counted out.

"All other things being equal, Harry Reid cannot win re-election. He is physically and politically battered. He has added more baggage since the miracle of 2010 than has passed through Dulles," Ralston wrote. "But all other things are never equal when it comes to Harry Reid, who specializes in near-death experiences and who always seems down but never is out."

Republicans are most eager to recruit Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) into the Senate race, but the popular and relatively moderate governor has appeared reluctant to challenge Reid so far. According to Ralston, Reid's most likely foe is state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson (R), who was not included in the Gravis poll.

Then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) also faced a tough reelection race in 2014, and polls similarly indicated he was unpopular in his home state. He ultimately won easily against Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) and is now the majority leader.

Would you stop engaging him? It's not like anyone with half an ounce of sense agrees with him and the rare few who do aren't going to be swayed. Assuming those rare few aren't just sock accounts, anyhow.

I almost want to make a sock account just to agree with him so he'll feel slightly less pathetic, but I imagine he's too lacking in self-awareness to realize how depressingly sad he really is.

Being an arrogant *** is about 95% of P and R

5% random stuff not relating to politics or religion.

Am I arrogant enough or should I find another thread. Not sure I want that answered.

Am I arrogant enough or should I find another thread. Not sure I want that answered.

I haven't posted in here in a while. There, problem solved.

The stubborn appeal of the libertarian idea persists, despite mountains of evidence that the free market is neither efficient, nor fair, nor free from periodic catastrophe. In an Adam Smith world, the interplay of supply and demand yields a price that signals producers what to make and investors where to put their capital. The more that government interferes with this sublime discipline, the more bureaucrats deflect the market from its true path.

But in the world where we actually live, markets do not produce the “right” price. There are many small examples of this failure, but also three immense ones that should have discredited the libertarian premise by now. Global climate change is the most momentous. The price of carbon-based energy is “correct” — it reflects what consumers will pay and what producers can supply — if you leave out the fact that carbon is destroying a livable planet. Markets are not competent to price this problem. Only governments can do that. In formal economics, this anomaly is described by the bloodless word “externality” — meaning costs (or benefits) external to the immediate transaction. Libertarian economists treat externalities as minor exceptions.

The other great catastrophe of our time is the financial collapse. Supposedly self-regulating markets could not discern that the securities created by financial engineers were toxic. Markets were not competent to adjust prices accordingly. The details of the bonds were opaque; they were designed to enrich middlemen; the securities were subject to investor herd-instincts; and their prices were prone to crash once a wave of panic-selling hit. Only government could provide regulations against fraudulent or deceptive financial products, as it did to good effect until the regulatory process became corrupted beginning in the 1970s. Deregulation arguably created small efficiencies by steering capital to suitable uses — but any such gains were obliterated many times over by the more than $10 trillion of GDP lost in the 2008 crash.

A third grotesque case of market failure is the income distribution. In the period between about 1935 and 1980, America became steadily more equal. This just happened to be the period of our most sustained economic growth. In that era, more than two-thirds of all the income gains were captured by the bottom 90 percent, and the bottom half actually gained income at a slightly higher rate than the top half. By contrast, in the period between 1997 and 2012, the top 10 percent captured more than 100 percent of all the income gains. The bottom 90 percent lost an average of nearly $3,000 per household. The reason for this drastic disjuncture is that in the earlier period, public policy anchored in a solid popular politics kept the market in check. Strong labor institutions made sure working families captured their share of productivity gains. Regulations limited monopolies. Government played a far more direct role in the economy via public investment, which in turn stimulated innovation. The financial part of the economy was well controlled. All of this meant more income for the middle and the bottom and less rapacity at the top.

Clearly, a more equal economy performed better than a more unequal one. Families with decent incomes could recycle that purchasing power back into the economy. Well-regulated financial institutions could do their job of supplying investment capital to the real economy rather than enriching their own executives with speculative schemes — ones that left the rest of the society to take the loss when the wise guys were long gone. In the case of labor, there was not a single, “accurate,” market-determined wage for each job, but a wide range of possible wages and social bargains that would attract competent workers and steadily increase the economy’s productivity.

The free market doesn’t live up to its billing because of several contradictions between what libertarians contend and the way the real world actually works. Fundamentally, the free-market model assumes away inconvenient facts. Libertarians presume no disparities of information between buyer and seller, no serious externalities, no public goods that markets can’t properly price (Joan Fitzgerald’s piece in our special report in the Winter 2015 issue of The American Prospect magazine discusses one — water), and above all no disparities of power. But in today’s substantially deregulated economy, bankers have far more knowledge and power than bank customers (witness the subprime deception); corporations have far more power than employees; insurers have more power than citizens seeking health insurance. Labor markets can’t compensate for disparities of power. The health insurance “markets” created by the Affordable Care Act can’t fully address the deeper problem of misplaced resources and excessive costs in our medical system.

The conditions of the idealized market model do describe ordinary retail markets, where there are plenty of restaurants, supermarkets, dry cleaners and hardware stores, and consumers are competent to shop around for price and quality. They don’t accurately characterize the markets in health, education, labor, finance, or technological innovation, to name just five. (What is efficient about a hedge fund mogul taking home $2 billion, or a life-saving pill that retails for $5,000 a dose?)

To produce an economy that is more equitable as well as more efficient, government uses a variety of tools. It regulates to counteract market failure. It taxes to provide revenues to pay for public goods that markets under-provide at affordable prices — everything from education to health to research and development. Sometimes government passes laws to sustain other elements of a social contract, such as the laws protecting workers’ rights to form unions and to collectively bargain.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have violated federal records laws by using a personal email account for all of her work messages, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The newspaper said the likely Democratic presidential candidate conducted all her official business during her four-year tenure at the State Department on a private email account.

It added that Clinton, who stepped down as secretary of state in 2013, recently handed over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department in response to a department effort to comply with record-keeping practices.

Federal law says letters and emails written and received by federal officials are government records that must be retained, according to the paper. Regulations at the time Clinton served as secretary of state called for emails on personal accounts to be preserved as well, the paper said.

The Times said most experts believed private email accounts should only be used for official government business in emergencies, according to the Times.

A spokesman for Clinton told the Times that Clinton was complying with the "letter and spirit of the rules" and had expected her emails would be retained. He declined to detail why she chose to conduct business from her personal account, the Times said.

Responding to the report, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department last year asked former secretaries of state through their representatives to submit any records in their possession to improve record-keeping and management.

"In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the department with emails spanning her time at the department," Harf said in a statement.

Clinton's spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

Clinton is widely considered the front-runner for next year's Democratic presidential nomination if she decides to enter the race.

Her inner circle is currently discussing accelerating the formation of a campaign organization to April or May instead of waiting until the summer.

With no definite opponents to the democratic presidential nomination, Clinton has felt no rush to jump into the race, but having a campaign team in place would allow her to respond forcefully to various accusations fired her way.

It would also allow her to raise the millions of dollars needed for a campaign.

For the record onorgul this is the only account i use.

And for those who agree with me, at least they are not suckers of satans ***.

Well posted. I think the main difference between president Obama and myself is i keep my promises and don't make promises I can't keep. If I was in his shoes

1. Instead of creating laws that limit freedom I would be repealing laws because we do not need a bigger government we need a smaller government.

2. I would set in motion a plan to rebuild America. It could include reforming us banking, reforming the us tax code , reforming both education and health care. I would repeal all free trade acts and set a motion to bring back tens of thousands or more factory jobs overseas. I would end all foreign aid and invest it in the 50 states. I would close a good majority of the military bases of the 130 ish around the world and focus on America domestically protecting our soil and coasts and interest. I would disband the United nations I do not support world governance I believe nation's should govern themselves and take care of themselves.