Obama May Announce NSA Reforms Soon, Colorado Estimates $5 Million in Marijuana Sales, Boehner Works on Immigration Reform: P.M. Links

• 

  Credit: Torben Bjørn Hansen / Foter.com / CC BY

  President Barack Obama may announce reforms to the National Security Agency's surveillance programs as early as next week.

• Meanwhile, California legislators have introduced a bill blocking state agencies from cooperating with the NSA, including prohibiting public utilities from providing water and power to their facilities.
• More than $5 million in legal marijuana sales were recorded for its first week in Colorado.
• 3D printers may be coming to a bakery near you to help produce delicious confections.
• House Speaker John Boehner is reportedly working on some immigration reform "principles" he'll eventually be sharing with his fellow Republicans.
• Gabrielle Giffords will mark the anniversary of the mass shooting in Arizona in which she was seriously injured by skydiving.

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Comments

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

3D printers may be coming to a bakery near you to help produce delicious confections.

But can it produce Earl Grey?

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, but only in an iced tea form.

[JW]

This is actually what leads to the formation of the Federation: the interstellar search for hot Earl Grey tea.

[Pro Libertate]

I want some space chai.

[JW]

Duh. The Vulcans have that.

[Pro Libertate]

Mmmm, Vulcan Space Chai. The logical tea. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations of flavors.

[CE]

First, dude. For real.

[Mike M.]

Make it so number one.

[Zeb]

What it can produce is something that is almost, but not entirely, unlike tea.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, right. This is the correct response.

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Barack Obama may announce reforms to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs as early as next week.

Still crafting a reform that can be made to sound sweeping without actually doing anything. Just enough to give lefties an out from criticizing Obama.

[Pro Libertate]

Really, there’s no chance at all of any real reform. Even if it sounds real, it’ll be too secret to actually evaluate.

[Rich]

“The President this afternoon renamed the organization the International Security Agency, in recognition of its ever-broadening mission.”

[Pro Libertate]

He’s going to rename it “Not Sneaking Around” and change absolutely nothing else. Or he’ll shut it down with the prison in Guantanamo real soon now.

[Rich]

“The President this afternoon announced across-the-board pay increases for NSA, to alleviate morale problems the organization has faced as a result of the Snowden allegations.”

[Killaz]

Obama’s constituency is so easy to please that not once in his entire presidency has he missed a round of golf.

[Aresen]

President Barack Obama may announce reforms to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs as early as next week.

This time, he inky-promises to respect civil liberties.

Just trust him.

[Aresen]

That was supposed to be “pinky-promises”, but “inky-promises” works even better.

[BigT]

“President Barack Obama may announce reforms to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs as early as Never

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

For those of you who missed it, Tony showed up earlier today to debate minimum wage. Some great take downs, very entertaining.

[Aloysious]

He killed my few remaining brain cells. I am now more dumber than he is.

[Andrew S.]

That’s unpossible.

[robc]

Pro: I dont see Tony posts due to reasonable.

Con: Its not on my laptop which Im currently using.

[Clich? Bandit]

NO CHROME AT WORK … WAAHHHH!!!!!!

i live, I just let my eyes glaze over for a sec and it is like i didnt see anything.

[MJGreen]

God, that’s hilarious. Acts like one flawed study from the 90s, which documented a modest rise in minimum wage in one state, is proof that nearly doubling the minimum wage nationally would cause no unemployment.

What an asshole.

[Fist of Etiquette]

More than $5 million in legal marijuana sales were recorded for its first week in Colorado.

This is what will start mouths watering in other state capitals.

[Invisible Finger]

Can’t wait to see what happens in Illinois.

My guess is it will be legal to possess but all sorts of existing laws will essentially make it illegal to consume unless you are an invalid (in which case you have to have a straw buyer to get any). And the city of Chicago will outlaw it just like Denver.

[BigT]

“This is what will start mouths watering in other state capitals.”

The money munchies!

Pols hungry for lettuce

[Episiarch]

Meanwhile, California legislators have introduced a bill blocking state agencies from cooperating with the NSA, including prohibiting public utilities from providing water and power to their facilities.

Well, that’s some unusually positive news out of California.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Until the feds threaten to withhold funds.

[Invisible Finger]

Quasi-public utilities will still provide.

[Mad Scientist]

What this tells me is that there are no NSA facilities in California.

[Pro Libertate]

Do they actually know where those facilities are? I thought stuff like that was secret. Heck, the existence of the agency itself used to be secret.

[Mad Scientist]

the existence of the agency itself used to be secret.

Really? That wouldn’t surprise me, but since I have a cousin who works for them I’ve never wondered if they existed or not. If the facilities themselves are secret, it going to be hard to show that the utilities are knowingly supplying them with power/water.

[Rich]

I knew a guy who, upon having a new acquaintance tell him “I work for the Government”, would slap the person on the back and bellow “Oh, for *NSA*, eh?”

It never failed to evoke nervous laughter from everyone around.

[Pro Libertate]

It was secret from the public when founded. It’s obviously been known about for some decades now.

[robc]

mid-80s, IIRC. It was known before then, but the rumors were denied.

[Pro Libertate]

I met an NSA guy at some data security conference in Chicago in the 90s. Nice enough. Wanted to prevent Pearl Harbor from happening again. Now I guess it would be 9/11.

[robc]

Who was the general/admiral who kept warning over and over that the Japanese would attack first, probably at Pearl Harbor?

What good would the NSA have done?

[Pro Libertate]

Admiral Yamamoto?

[Episiarch]

This, or what ProL says. When is the last time we saw a non-empty threat from a state to the feds (other than MJ legalization, that is)?

[Pro Libertate]

What we need is for a state to fucking secede again. That’d wake up some people.

[RBS]

Ya’ll first this time.

[CE]

California billionaire funding ballot initiative to split California into six states:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/…..y-a-state/

Draper’s ballot proposition itself breaks California into six entities: Silicon Valley, West California, Jefferson, South California, Central California and North California.

[Aresen]

Then you can refuse to admit any of them to the union.

[Pro Libertate]

Not seceding from a state. Seceding from the union. States breaking up don’t much threaten the federal government.

[Aresen]

I was thinking that, if California were to become 6 states, wouldn’t all the new states have to apply for entry?

It sounds like a golden opportunity to get rid of California altogether.

[Pro Libertate]

Could Mexico reclaim it, then?

[Aresen]

You could hope.

[Pro Libertate]

Maybe we could force them to take it back. “Sorry, it appears that the title was clouded when we took it from you, so you have to take it and its liabilities back.”

[Juice]

Actually it would make it bigger and more powerful.

[Pro Libertate]

Sorry, Florida already went. I suggest a state like, say, North Dakota. Too much oil there to nuke it.

[The Last American Hero]

Montana threatened to secede if Obama banned guns.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Gabrielle Giffords will mark the anniversary of the mass shooting in Arizona in which she was seriously injured by skydiving.

Ban it. Does anybody really need to go skydiving?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The industry better hope she has a positive experience.

[Rich]

This.

What if her chute doesn’t open and she lands on an elementary school?

[Ted S.]

We’d all cheer?

[JW]

Nobody needs more than one parachute.

[Episiarch]

She was seriously injured by skydiving at that mass shooting?

Do these people even have editors, or take even a single composition class?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Loughner used his barrel shroud–that thing that goes up–to shoot a hole in her parachute.

[General Butt Naked]

…of the mass shooting in Arizona in which she was seriously injured by skydiving.

I thought some wacko shot her in the head, who cares what some dumbass with a broken parachute has to say about gun control?

[Fist of Etiquette]

3D printers may be coming to a bakery near you to help produce delicious confections.

Can’t I already 3D print an Easy-Bake oven?

[PD Scott]

Yes, but you can’t print the light bulb.

[db]

Frig!

[Entropy Void]

Only if it is a CFL.

[db]

Sure, but can you print an incandescent light bulb to power it, smart guy?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yeah, I was wondering what will become of my 70’s era lava lamp.

[PD Scott]

Lots of Lava Lamps use appliance bulbs, which AFAIK can’t be replaced by CFLs, etc. Hopefully they’ll still be around.

[Mad Scientist]

And only $25 per bulb!

[Irish]

Left-wing writer clutches pearls over the fact that Mein Kampf is a bestseller on Kindle.

Of course, the reason Mein Kampf is a bestseller is for the same reason that I happen to own a copy: Because it’s a historical curiosity, tells you the thinking of a very evil man, and is generally worth reading for anyone interested in history.

The first paragraph of this article is a work of art, assuming that by ‘art’ I mean ‘Bizarre left-wing propaganda.’

You won’t see Adolf Hitler peering back at you from the featured display tables at Barnes & Noble any time soon. But browse the most popular e-book stores these days and Der F?hrer’s mug is seemingly unavoidable. For a year now, his magnum manifesto has loomed large over current best-sellers on iTunes, where at the time of this writing two different digital versions of Mein Kampf rank 12th and 15th on the Politics & Current Events chart alongside books by modern conservative powerhouses like Sarah Palin, Charles Krauthammer and Glenn Beck.

Um…

[a better weapon]

2014 will be a record-breaking year for Godwining.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

He godwin’d his own blog in the first paragraph.

[Pro Libertate]

Ye gods.

[cw]

Just reporting the facts. No sneaky little narrative here.

[Brett L]

And modern liberal powerhouses like… someone help me out. Does Hillary have a book out?

[JW]

modern conservative powerhouses like Sarah Palin, Charles Krauthammer and Glenn Beck.

Ze master race!

[Episiarch]

Well, the solution is to ban certain books! Just like the Naz…oh wait.

[SusanM]

Sarah Palin is a “powerhouse”? A brick shithouse, maybe…

[John]

She moves a lot of product. So in the publishing industry she certainly is.

[RBS]

I wonder how many progressives by her books just for the hate?

[John]

Not many. Most of them are functionally illiterate and buy books for how they look on the shelf. And a Prog is certainly not going to buy a Palin book to do that.

[Irish]

It is interesting how many books by conservatives reach the bestseller list. If I were a dick, I might point out that this makes it seem as if many left-wing constituencies don’t really read.

[Mad Scientist]

They have no need, once they’re part of the hive mind.

[Brett L]

Dan Savage for one.

[John]

I think he buys them to secretly jerk off too. He has a lot of issues.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Chris Faraone is the News and Features Editor of DigBoston. His most recent book, I Killed Breitbart, has been getting spanked by Mein Kampf on Kindle and iTunes for the past three months.

So Faraone is having a hissy fit due to his entire worldview being nothing more than a popularity contest.

I am willing to bet cash money that all ten of these books which feature dinosaurs having sex with human women also “spank” Faraone’s book on Kindle and iTunes.

I await Faraone’s stentorian diatribe against sauropod/primate sex.

[John]

Because a book that brags about the death of a man who left behind a wife and children is what reasoned discourse is all about.

[Irish]

The World Jewish Council comes off terribly in that article.

Rather than petitioning for philanthropic reparations, the international organization is now asking the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon, to stop selling Mein Kampf and other hate books altogether.

“Amazon is a powerful and iconic company,” says WJC CEO Robert Singer, who emphasizes theirs is not a call to ban the book, but rather a “corporate responsibility campaign.”

“Amazon chooses not to sell many titles, such as pornography and books promoting incest, because some find that material offensive,” says Singer. “We’re just asking the company to stop profiting from the sale of other offensive materials.”

We’re not asking that the book be banned, we’re just putting pressure on people so that it won’t actually be available.

I wonder if the people calling for this ban realize the irony of trying to ban a book written by someone who burned books.

[C. Anacreon]

Amazon chooses not to sell many titles, such as pornography and books promoting incest

That’s a lie.

[Irish]

Also, this guy sounds like a real charmer.

So, the first time we met, you told me this story of your telling the now-late Andrew Breitbart to “Stop raping people.” Care to refresh my memory? What happened there?
CHRIS FARAONE: I was on the big conservative station in Boston, arguing with one moron caller after another. After about 10 minutes, during commercials, they asked if I wanted to stay. I was promoting my new book about Occupy at the time, so I obliged, only to find out that Andrew Breitbart was calling in for some weekly segment that he did with them. It took me by surprise, to say the least, but I snapped out of the shock within a few seconds, and started screaming right at him, ‘Stop raping people! Stop raping people!’ After that, we scrapped for another 10 minutes. He more or less got the best of me, especially measuring by his goal posts, but I was a formidable enough opponent that he agreed, at the urging of the hosts, to debate me again on the same station, at the same time.

What does this even mean? This guy is so incapable of rational arguments that he started screaming ‘Stop raping people’ for no reason?

If you’re screaming ‘Stop raping people!’ at a political opponent, I don’t think you’ve snapped out of the shock.

[tarran]

Dude, you weren’t a formidable opponent… he just wanted to curb stomp you, and needed a little time to go dig the hobnailed, steel-toed boots out of his closet. 😀

[Juice]

but I was a formidable enough opponent that he agreed, at the urging of the hosts, to debate me again on the same station, at the same time

I don’t think inviting you back means what you think it means.

[Entropy Void]

He is just pissed that Das Kapital is not on Books-On-Tape yet.

[BigT]

Didn’t sales of Atlas Shrugged jump up a few years ago when the Tea Party was started? Since Dems don’t read, I’m wondering if folks are looking for Obama-Adolph parallels.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Global warming devastates America

See that white stuff floating down past the orange trees and landing on your alligators and manatees, Florida? That’s global warming, that is.
See that frozen white thing by the harbor that used to look a green woman with a spiky headdress, New York? That’s global warming, that is.
See that chilling solid yellow stream extending upwards from the snowy ground to your shrivelling blackened member after you made the very wrong call to take an al fresco leak, Chicagoans? That’s global warming, that is.

The rest is pretty amusing.

[Irish]

It’s also pretty moronic because weather does not equal climate.

Weather does not equal climate when liberals try to use a random hurricane as proof of climate change, and it doesn’t equal climate when conservatives try to claim cold temperatures disprove global warming.

[Apatheist ?_??]

He’s satirizing the people who are making the argument that not only is this not weather but it is in fact proof that global warming is real. Then he cites people who say this is a normal weather phenomena. I don’t see how that is moronic.

[a better weapon]

It’s not right either way, but I am appreciating the left having the most market disruptive agenda doused in ridicule.

Also, it’s not necessarily as balanced considering the left would point out 1 hurricane in an otherwise historically uneventful storm season as proof. This cold snap is pretty robust and record-breaking. While, it’s also only within one, single year and no way indicative of a trend, it completely devastates their previously unchallenged assertions that our kids would never see snowfall in the US as adults.

[Killaz]

‘Will our children even experience snow?’

Remember those headlines from the 90s? I have a copy of a The Omni Future Almanac. The predictions that have come and gone based on global warming theory as it stood in the early 80s is amusing to say the least. The prediction that designer cocaine will be purchasable in vending machines gives me a sad though.

[Azathoth!!]

Weather most certainly does equal climate when liberals try to use a random hurricane as proof of climate change–this is a constant.

Weather does not equal climate when anyone who is skeptical of AGW/CC points out a pattern of weather events that appear to refute the climate change hysteria.

[Ted S.]

Climate change predicted more extreme weather!

[Pro Libertate]

It snowed here? Where, in the Panhandle?

[Andrew S.]

It flurried once when I lived in Tallahassee. Everyone on campus (FSU) looked to be in awe.

(I don’t think it snowed anywhere in FL with the polar vortex, though it was fairly cold by Florida standards. Going to be 80 here in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow though)

[Pro Libertate]

We had a record low high yesterday for this time of year. The previous record was 50?F. Now it’s 47?F. That record was over 100 years old.

I lived in Tallahassee for a while as a kid, and we got a fairly decent snowfall. Back in the 70s.

[PD Scott]

Ah, the Seventies, when the alarmists were worried about global cooling?

[Pro Libertate]

That seems more likely to me, since the latest ice age is supposedly not over.

[Zeb]

We’re just in a brief interglacial period. As long as there are permanent polar ice caps, the ice age is not over.

[Pro Libertate]

Are you telling me to get used to colder weather in Tampa? Screw that.

[Zeb]

Yep. Sometime in the next 10,000 years or so, you’re in for it.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

More like next couple of thousand. We’ve already overstayed our welcome in the current holocene. But it’s OK if a mile of ice covers New York and Chicago because it’s natural(tm).

[Pro Libertate]

You laugh, but what if we have life-extension that allows me to hang around that long?

[Entropy Void]

ANYTHING that kills fucking manatees is OK by me.

[Pro Libertate]

How can you hate manatees?

[seguin]

They write Family Guy

[Entropy Void]

They look like my Ex-wife.

Seriously, tho, they are the most over-protected, useless pieces of meat I cannot eat.

[tarran]

Come see the violence inherent in the system!

[Rich]

President Barack Obama may announce reforms to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs as early as next week.

This kind of bullshit “news” is really a thing now, I suppose.

“TSA may change this, FAA may look into that, ….”

Why not “The world may end as early as next week”?

[Invisible Finger]

This is why I call the 10 O’clock news the “Ten O’Clock Speculation”.

[seguin]

I would watch that show.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

WaPo: Government is “literally the only reason” poverty has decreased

A recent study from economists at Columbia broke down changes in poverty before and after the government gets involved in the form of taxes and transfers, and found that, when you take government intervention into account, poverty is down considerably from 1967 to 2012, from 26 percent to 16 percent

While that doesn’t allow us to see how poverty changed between the start of the war in 1964 and the start of the data in 1967, the most noticeable trend here is that the gap between before-government and after-government poverty just keeps growing. In fact, without government programs, poverty would have actually increased over the period in question. Government action is literally the only reason we have less poverty in 2012 than we did in 1967.

What’s more, we can directly attribute this to programs created or expanded during the war on poverty. In 2012, food stamps (since renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) alone kept 4 million people out of poverty

Yeah, free trade, advances in technology and more affordable consumer goods have nothing to do with a better standard of living.

Without government the poor would dying in the gutters while libertarians ride by in their Rolls Royce.

[Irish]

The poverty rate collapsed between 1930 and 1965 and has gone virtually unchanged since the War on Poverty began.

Why did poverty drop before the War on Poverty and not fall afterwards?

[Pro Libertate]

It’s all so simple. Let us be the fucking economic megatron we can be. That’ll do more to make poor people less poor than anything the government will ever do.

[Ted S.]

Because fuck you, that’s why? 😉

[Rufus J. Firefly]

http://globalnews.ca/news/4329…..in-canada/

Montreal (Quebec) has always suffered from chronic poverty (and lower home property values in Canada) in a province that spends most on social and welfare programs.

Funny that.

But heaven forbid they shift their mentality a little away from the belief the government can actually “solve” poverty.

[Entropy Void]

FROGS.

That is all.

[KDN]

Why did poverty drop before the War on Poverty and not fall afterwards?

Partly because the government games the statistics in order to keep the antipoverty bureaucracy gainfully employed?

[Ted S.]

When can we get rid of government so I get my Rolls-Royce?

[PD Scott]

“…while libertarians drove over them in their monster-truckized Rolls-Royces.”

FTFY.

[seguin]

Screw Rolls. I’m all about Avions-Voisin.

[John]

Government action is literally the only reason we have less poverty in 2012 than we did in 1967.

The fact that global trade has exploded, technology has made essentials and good thought to be luxuries just a few years ago affordable, has nothing to do with it. Nope. It was all government.

[Pro Libertate]

It’s all the free market, fetters and government meddling notwithstanding. There, I said it.

[C. Anacreon]

We will always have poverty as long as the Government defines poverty as a specific percentage of the average salary. It’s a moving target. By third-world definitions, there’s actually no such thing as poverty in the USA.

They should actually promote that there is almost no true poverty here if they wanted to show anything positive from LBJ’s War On Poverty. But to do so would make the vast majority of the Democrat voting base ineligible for free stuff. So they need to keep saying X million are in “poverty” with their air-conditioned homes with flat screen tvs, cable, computers with internet, and cars and other vehicles, so they can qualify for poverty-level defined benefits. Go tell the people who literally live in makeshifts shacks within garbage dumps in Brazil what we call poverty, and see what they would think about that.

[John]

Poverty is a cultural condition not a monetary one. Think about it. Most middle and upper middle class people were pretty much broke in college. But you would never think of them as being in poverty. In contrast, go to any ghetto and you find people driving nice cars and spending money on any number of things that could only be described as luxuries. But they are most certainly, poor. That is what liberals don’t get. You can’t get people out of “poverty” by giving them money since lack of money is not what is making them poor.

[Michael S. Langston]

Not just that – but global poverty is down too.

I assume lowering poverty in China and Africa were due to US War on Poverty as well?

Or maybe it’s what others here have stated – freedom and trade?

Nah – only government can do important things, like solve societal issues, be the moral arbiter of all societal issues, and of course, grant only those rights deserved to only the deserving.

[Jordan]

Meanwhile, gargantuan barriers to entry which make it impossible for the vast majority of people to start a business and make it prohibitively expensive to hire people or expand operations, and a central bank which funnels wealth from the lower classes to the wealthy and the financial sector has had no effect on poverty, I’m sure.

[cw]

More than $5 million in legal marijuana sales were recorded for its first week in Colorado.

Expect to see more “horror stories” attributed to reefer madness.

[Brett L]

I expect the less brain-dead state legislators to figure out that you can buy a lot of votes when there’s that kind of money to divide. By rough estimate a proportional amount of pot would produce (if limited only to residents with a DL like CO does) approximately $65M/year in FL just with the base sales tax. Even if there wasn’t a state sin tax like cigarettes and gas have.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Yeah and CO has two sin taxes (at both the wholesale and retail levels) on top of the normal sales tax.

[Pro Libertate]

I signed the ballot initiative petition. It was funny, because the guy taking the signatures was giving me all sorts of nonsense reasons for signing it, when I cut him off and said “Government’s got no business telling people what they can do” and he responded, “I agree, but I have to say all of that to get old people to sign.” Interesting.

[cw]

Honestly, even if it gets a result I like, I really hate the “but think of all the tax money!!!” argument offered for drug legalization. It’s not even a good utilitarian argument, at least from the point of libertarianism.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

What about saving money by not locking people up? Even if you don’t like the tax money at least we get some big savings on law enforcement and prisons (well until the police unions get involved).

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Anyone use T-Mobile?

T-Mobile Offers to Cover Termination Fees for Switchers

[cw]

I switched to Straight Talk from Verizon. I’m now paying the same for unlimited talk, text and data, which is pretty awesome. And it uses the same cell towers as Verizon, so I get the same cell coverage. Pretty awesome.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I thought Straight Talk used AT&T and Sprint networks?

[Jordan]

That was my understanding as well.

[cw]

According to the Walmart associate who activated my phone, she claimed it was the Verizon towers. But given AT&T’s coverage is pretty good, I’d be OK with her mistake.

[Sudden]

Juggalos suing FBI over gang member designation

But we all know the truth, they’re actually hoping to learn how fucking magnets work during discovery.

[Sudden]

How the fuck did this end up here?

Fucking threading, how’s it work?

[cw]

Juggalos, dude, those juggalos are sneaky AT&T users.

[Brett L]

Its weird, but they switched at some point.

[Brett L]

I tried to bring my AT&T iPhone over back in March or so and despite all of their ads saying they could do that, when I requested the micro-SD, they said they couldn’t do that anymore. I think its all dual-radio and CDMA, so I assume they use Verizon now. Still, $50/month for “unlimited” talk, text and data (which I’ve read is actually 3GB of data, then they throttle you)

[A wild THANE appeared!]

I tried to bring my AT&T iPhone over back in March or so and despite all of their ads saying they could do that, when I requested the micro-SD, they said they couldn’t do that anymore.

1. Micro-SIM, not MicroSD. (and it’s nano-SIM for 5 and above).

2. Was your iPhone carrier-unlocked?

[A wild THANE appeared!]

Oh, and they definitely still use AT&T and T-Mobile.

[A wild THANE appeared!]

I thought Straight Talk used AT&T and Sprint networks?

They use all four major networks, depending on what phone and (for SIM-compatible phones) SIM you are using.

They are most well-known for their service atop AT&T and T-Mobile, though.

[Jordan]

I use T-Mobile’s prepaid plan. It is fucking great. I pay $30 per month (less than half what I was paying with AT&T) for 100 minutes, unlimited texts, and unlimited data. The minutes aren’t a problem since I use VoIP calling with Google Voice.

[Jordan]

It sucks that I just missed this deal, though. Would have been sweet to have them pay my early termination fee.

Obviously, prepaid means I have no contract with them. As far as phones go, I bought a Nexus 5, which comes unlocked and is way cheaper than most smart phones and is pretty much the best Android phone on the market.

[cw]

Somehow I ended up with month-to-month with Verizon, so I had no termination fee. But your deal sounds pretty rad; I pay $90 a month for both myself and my wife.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

My problem is I have an iPhone 5 and my wife has a 4s, both through Verizon. I am off contract now, but she is still on through September.

Finding a no-contract plan with a CDMA phone seems to be basically impossible. My only option would be Page Plus, but their equivalent T-Mobile/Straight Talk plan is $55/month. Sounds better than Verizon in theory, but me leaving and having my wife ride out her contract saves us no money.

[Jordan]

Straight Talk supports CDMA phones.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Hmm, when I do this: http://stbyop.com/straighttalk/index.html
it says my phone is compatible.

When I then try to get a code from this: http://www.straighttalk.com/wp…..gistration
it says my phone is not compatible.

[Jordan]

Oh, well I dunno then.

[Brett L]

As above, their site is shit. However, since I was out of contract, I figured that I would be ahead after 15 months if I just bought a new iPhone 5 (the middle size) and saved $60/month in phone bill. So I guess I break even in June. Its nice that my wife and I pay less for two iphones than I did for one last year at this time.

[JW]

Fuck T-Mobile. In the ass. With a flaming dildo.

That is all.

[Juice]

Why? They’re the best cell company overall. Period.

[kinnath]

I fell off the wagon:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/mon…..there.html

So imagine a single mom earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. She’s got $14,500 a year in income which leaves her and her daughter below the poverty line. Now she meets another single mom who’s in the exact same financial situation. The two of them fall in love, and since they live in an enlightened state they are able to get married. Now instead of two separate two-person households each earning $14,500 and being poor we have a single four-person household earning $29,000, which is well above the poverty line for four. They could even adopt a fifth child and still not be poor. Which is to say that marriage “lifts” families out of poverty not by increasing their incomes but by reducing what the federal government assumes their expenses to be.

How does this guy tie his fucking shoe laces in the morning?

[Irish]

It never occurs to this idiot that there are costs that do not change when you have four people or two.

[John]

He doesn’t. He has velco laces.

That said, I wish someone would explain to these mendacious retards that not every working person is single source of income for their household and will be working the same job for their entire life. Pretending that they are is so stupid and dishonest it has gone past the point of annoying to become full on criminal stupidity.

[kinnath]

My wife and I worked opposite shifts for a year or so early in our marriage. Two incomes with no childcare costs. This his how you lift your way out of poverty.

[John]

Yes it is. Or if you have kids, they start working after school at a young age to contribute. My father worked after school and in the summers from the time he was 14. Those were the wages of being the son of a widow back then. It is almost as if Leftist don’t want that happening or something.

[Mad Scientist]

They’ve made most every kind of work for kids illegal. They do not want those families climbing out of the hole.

[John]

No they don’t. They really are evil.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

I recently saw that something like 1% of people earn the federal minimum wage. Something tells me that not all people earning the federal minimum wage marry someone who also earns the federal minimum wage.

[Pro Libertate]

And how many of them are kids in high school or college? Total bullshit issue.

[Apatheist ?_??]

The poverty line is arbitrary in the first place so it doesn’t really matter. Hell, on a global level our federal poverty line is ridiculous.

[C. Anacreon]

something something brilliant minds….

[Sidd Finch]

If that state what married the two bi chicks is so “enlightened” why doesn’t it have a higher minimum wage?

He’s right about conservatives quoting stats without understanding the accounting, but he’s still fucking crazy for thinking that explains the entire discrepancy.

[kinnath]

No. Conservatives say getting married gets you out of poverty because long-term commitments actually mean something.

Sadbeard changes the subject to say that marriage is all about cost efficiency.

Sadbeard is both stupid and dishonest.

[Sidd Finch]

Here’s Rubio’s quote: “The truth is, the greatest tool to lift children and families from poverty is one that decreases the probability of child poverty by 82%.”

I don’t see how this isn’t, to some extent, an accounting gimmick of the sort Sadbeard explains.

[kinnath]

Well, the quote extracted by sadbeard ignores about a decades worth of talking points from the conservative movement. And the conservative movement says that traditional families and traditional family values (getting married before you have kids and staying married while you have kids) dramatically reduces the probability of children living in poverty. And this effect has nothing to do with dual incomes. The effect holds for marriages with a single wage earner.

[CE]

Expenses like rent, TV, water, phone, etc? Aren’t those actually lower for 2 people living together than for 2 people living separately?

[Juice]

Yeah, I’m as confused as you.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Enjoy.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new…..-1.1568664

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Man, the NYPD is some sort of special.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Michelle Rodriquez gets hammered at Knicks game, puts on show with lingerie model galpal

Everyone wants to snuggle with a Victoria’s Secret model, right? This time it was Michelle Rodriguez, who with Cara Delavingne drew attention canoodling and otherwise having a good time courtside at Tuesday’s New York Knicks game.

The “Fast and Furious” and “Lost” actress, 35, looked a bit hammered after a while in photos that showed her and the Victoria’s Secret Angel, 21, cuddling, kissing, whispering into each other’s ears and generally acting in an outrageous manner.

The two also puffed e-cigarettes and took selfies, which as of Wednesday morning were not posted on either woman’s Twitter or Instagram accounts. However, Delavingne did post a shot of her just about licking the face of actor Kellan Lutz at the game. “Get out the licks for the Knicks,” she captioned it.
[…]
Rodriguez has also stated that while she’s not gay, she has no problem hooking up with men or women.
“I’ve gone both ways. I do as I please. I am too … curious to sit here and not try when I can,” she told Entertainment Weekly in October. “Men are intriguing. So are chicks.”

And she’s pro-gun.

[Episiarch]

“I like the pole and the hole, and right now I’m as moist as a snack cake down there.”

[Heroic Mulatto]

And pro-market…though it will take me forever to find her twitlonger post praising free enterprise.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Ah, here….

‘You know what I love about capitalism… It’s color blind, it’s gender blind and predictable on its resilient journey towards the upside’.

Between her and Big Boi, we got the coolest celebs.

[Jordan]

I’m seriously in love.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Admit it. You are her, posting incognito!

[Jordan]

*Sighs wistfully*

I’ll never be that much of a fuckin boss.

[Calidissident]

What I would give for a threeway with her another girl of my choice (or hers, but I’m not really feeling the girl she was with here)

[BiMonSciFiCon]

I voted for Gary Johnson, bitch!

[The Other Kevin]

Gabrielle Giffords will mark the anniversary of the mass shooting in Arizona in which she was seriously injured by skydiving.

Why was she skydiving at a mass shooting? Was it in a plane? If it was on the ground, it seems that skydiving in order to escape wouldn’t be a very good plan.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yeah, there was a lot going on in Arizona on that fateful day.

[Episiarch]

Jesus, dude, I covered this way upstream.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Technically he did his first.

[Sudden]

Proof that neither Democrats nor women should be allowed to operate firearms

[Aloysious]

[inappropriate sexist comment redacted]

[PD Scott]

“I’m a gun owner. It happens,” she said Wednesday.

Um, I’ve been a gun owner for a while now, and I’ve never accidentally fired a shot while trying to unload the gun. Also, why was she trying to unload it in her office?

Keeping your finger off the trigger has been found to be an excellent way to avoid shooting.

[Killaz]

The same here. I have never fired a shot that went beyond a few inches of where I intended it to go. I have no tolerance for those who can’t do the same.

[playa manhattan]

I’ve never accidentally fired a shot while trying to unload the gun.

[db]

Huh? I know some really, really good female shooters. I got to shoot with Julie Golob (back when she was Julie Goloski) at the 2006 USPSA Limited Nationals. There are lots of seriously good female shooters.

[Sidd Finch]

There are lots of seriously good female shooters.

Interesting. Up until this comment I was entirely persuaded by Sudden’s proof, but now I learn that not every woman who handle’s a gun shoots herself. Conflicted …

[Sudden]

I think it is female Democrats that are the issue. A non-Democrat female is capable of properly operating a firearm. A male Democrat is capable of properly operating a firearm. But if you put a firearm in the hands a female Democrat, all hell breaks loose.

[Entropy Void]

“That damn shoulder thingie keeps sticking up!”

[CE]

Wasn’t there one named Annie Oakley who was pretty good?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Oakley

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught upwards of 15,000 women how to use a gun. Oakley believed strongly that it was crucial for women to learn how to use a gun, as not only a form of physical and mental exercise, but also to defend themselves.[9] She said: “I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies.”

[John]

And she was cute too.

[Clich? Bandit]

She was quite literally no fucking joke. In a shoot out should would dominate the people of her day.

[Tejicano]

Annie Oakley learned to shoot as a child when she went out with a single shot 22 rifle to hunt wild birds which she sold to help support her family. She got so good taking them with head shots (body shots often ruin too much meat) that it was boring so she made it more fun by jumping in the air and take them while both she and the bird were in motion.

In her shooting demonstrations she would often lay the rifle on her shoulder, aiming backwards through a mirror.

[Rich]

You can’t fool *me*, Sudden.

That article is from The Onion.

[PD Scott]

Saw this on the local news last night: due to recent thefts at the Atlanta water department, employees’ vehicles are being subject to searches upon leaving.

Maybe they could securely separate the parking from where the materials are kept, then they wouldn’t need to search the cars?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Apparently progs are taking the War on Poverty anniversary pretty seriously

The federal government spent $411 billion just on the four largest tax benefits last year — capital gains, pensions, homeownership and inheritances. The Congressional Budget Office reports that the entire bottom 40 percent of earners received less than three percent of these benefits. The top one percent of earners took in more than a third — $148 billion.

Why should a household that earns $650,000 a year get nearly 500 times as much support to build wealth through these benefits as a family making less than $77,000 a year?

Because they already pay a shit-ton in taxes and are responsible with their money?

As we continue efforts to fight poverty and improve financial security, turning these upside down tax and budget policies right-side up should be at the top of our nation’s political agenda. For all families to benefit from these policies, we must develop products and services, such as universal Children’s Saving Accounts, that give low-income families the tools to save for college, buy a home, start a business and invest in our nation’s economic growth. Perhaps then we will truly achieve the War on Poverty’s ultimate goal: replacing despair with opportunity.

So are you for charter schools, less regulations, and more free trade?

[John]

Sadly, the stupid party will never do this. But God damn I would love to see the country have a national conversation on the war on poverty. Lets talk about the trillions of dollars we have borrowed or stolen from working people and given away to poor people and what that has gotten us. I am thinking the Progs might not like where that conversation goes. And I also think the majority of Americans who still work and pay taxes might not be too happy to hear about how they are not doing enough to help after they just got fucked out of their health insurance.

[db]

“Just think of how bad it would be if we hadn’t started the War on Drugs/Poverty/War/The Weather!”

[Pro Libertate]

We could’ve terraformed the Moon and given it to the poor for the money spent.

[Mad Scientist]

The federal government spent $411 billion just on the four largest tax benefits last year — capital gains, pensions, homeownership and inheritances.

This is what progressives actually believe!

[Pro Libertate]

Wait, what?

[Rich]

Really. It should be invested.

[PD Scott]

Not taking is giving, PL, you should know that by now.

[Mad Scientist]

NOT taxing me (inheritance/mortgage deduction) is in no way the government spending money….unless you’re a progressive who believes the government owns everything and is nice enough to let you have a piece of your income.

[Pro Libertate]

I have trouble even conceiving that line of thinking.

[Mad Scientist]

Oooo, on re-reading that it sounds wrong. I meant the general “you” up there, not you specifically, Pro L.

[playa manhattan]

It’s true. They actually don’t understand who the money belongs to.

[Entropy Void]

The federal government spent $411 billion just on the four largest tax benefits last year — capital gains, pensions, homeownership and inheritances.

So where the fuck is my share of the $411 billion of inheritances?

Assholes.

[Ken Shultz]

“President Barack Obama may announce reforms to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs as early as next week.”

This is the way our laws are made now. The president simply announces them.

Let’s hope he doesn’t announce a pogrom against libertarians.

P.S. There’s already a reform of the NSA’s surveillance programs. It’s called the 4th Amendment.

[Coeus]

Ways the GOP is trying to undermine Obamacare

3. Raising concerns over “security.”
This Friday, House Republicans will vote on an Obamacare “security” bill that would require federal officials to inform consumers of any data breach that occurs on any of Obamacare’s statewide or federal marketplaces. The bill is ostensibly meant to give Americans peace of mind about their personal information, such as Social Security numbers. But the lack of any actual, serious security breaches on Obamacare’s portals calls the legislation’s motives into question.
“No person or group has maliciously accessed personally identifiable information from the site,” said Obama administration spokesman Aaron Albright last Thursday.
Some Republicans have also previously argued that the Internal Revenue Service could use Obamacare as a platform to delay or deny politically conservative Americans from getting timely medical treatment ? even though the IRS will have zero access to actual medical records and has no part in the actual administration of health care under the law.

[John]

Wreckers and saboteurs. I love how a spokesman’s word that nothing bad has happened is taken as the Gospel truth. Just ignore the various IT security experts who have publicly stated the web site is a giant identity theft machine.

[Jordan]

But the lack of any actual, serious security breaches on Obamacare’s portals calls the legislation’s motives into question.

Yeah, and all those people who buy fire extinguishers before their house burns down? What a bunch of morons! Am I right?

[Andrew S.]

Well I’m convinced. Since there haven’t been any security breaches (that they’ve told us about) to this point, clearly there won’t be any in the future.

[John]

If you don’t know about a breakin, then it didn’t happen, right?

[Ken Shultz]

If you really believe it, then it’s true.

[Monkey's Uncle]

If you like your break-in, you can keep it.

[A wild THANE appeared!]

No person or group has maliciously accessed personally identifiable information from the site

And they know this how? Data breaches often go undetected until the information hits the black market.

[Coeus]

This is great too. Proggies against licensing:

4. Targeting the people helping Americans sign up for Obamacare.
“Navigators” are the people who staff Obamacare’s call centers and assist uninsured Americans looking for coverage under the law. They are also the target of Republicans’ ongoing state and federal efforts to undermine a crucial Obamacare resource.
On Monday, GOP leaders in Texas proposed strict new requirements on the people who can be certified as navigators. Hospital officials and advocates for the poor have argued that the proposed rules are so broad that just about anybody who tries to educate people about their insurance options could be forced to comply with strenuous training and registration requirements. “The navigator rules are overly broad and may be interpreted to require registration of anyone ? family members, neighbors, co-workers, a member of the clergy, even my own legislative staff,” said Sen. Sylvia Garcia (D) in an interview with Dallas News.

[Ken Shultz]

Your dog points to magnetic north when it poops.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw…..-magnetism

I’m just sayin’.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Eat shit.

http://web.orange.co.uk/articl…..poo_564332

[Jordan]

Outstanding. That would make a great response for those bakers who are forced to bake cakes because of bullshit non-discrimination laws.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Would love to see the Cake Boss would snap and do the same thing.

Could you imagine the pile of shit he’d come up with!

[Ken Shultz]

Reminds me of a video…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KHRpzVXRGU

Best found sound opening to a song evar!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Gonna shut that nigga up?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/b…..ced-698432

[John]

You can’t slap people’s kids, no matter how badly they deserve it.

[John]

And he should have slapped the mom. It is not the kid’s fault she never made him behave.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The kid was 19 months old.

[John]

His methods were a bit unsound.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yeah, usually when you slap kids, it makes them cry harder.

[playa manhattan]

He looks like Martin Short in the mugshot.

[Juice]

Ok, you should never slap anyone’s kid. I got that. But federal prison?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

It’s War on Poverty Wednesday! Next up, Joan Walsh

Sen. Rand Paul is advocating “enterprise zones on steroids,” what he calls “economic freedom zones” in places like Detroit with high unemployment.

Of course, every reputable study of enterprise zones has found their impact on urban poverty “negligible” to nonexistent.

That’s because they were never really tried in earnest. And just why is Democratic New York trying the zone strategy today if they don’t work?

Bill Clinton’s anti-poverty agenda was a stealthy one. With one hand, he ended welfare as we knew it with the 1996 reform act; with the other hand, he funneled billions to poor people by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit ? a Republican idea ? as well as eligibility for food stamps and Medicaid. That lifted millions of Americans above the poverty line ? but most Americans didn’t know he did it. Democrats from Jimmy Carter to Clinton to Barack Obama have contributed to the belief that “we fought a war on poverty, and poverty won,” by refusing to either take credit for existing programs that fight poverty or advance a bold new agenda to update them.

Or because, like that WankBlog post linked above, it’s too absurd even for Democrats to claim their programs worked when we’ve seen free trade and technology improve lives in the last 30 years.

[John]

It is no like there is any reason to think that the war on poverty failed. I mean, it is not like we don’t have cities full of multi generational dependence and dysfunction or anything.

[CE]

Dysfunction? What dysfunction? They’re voting as intended.

[CE]

Funny that her hero Obama just announced a policy of…. enterprise zones.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…..s-21458197

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Something tells me she will love them if Obama embraces them.

[BigT]

They won’t be on steroids, probably crack.

[np]

http://www.internationalman.co…..=20646_226

Though it seems farfetched, the prospect of being extradited to North Korea is a chilling thought.

Consider the thought experiment below and see if a similar scenario is as implausible as it initially sounds.
. . . .

Obviously the story above is improbable presently?that is, unless we switch the names of the countries involved. Then it not only becomes a distinct possibility, but something that has recently happened.
. . . .

This is in fact exactly what happened recently to Raoul Weil, a Swiss citizen who was the #3 executive at UBS.

Raoul had been charged by US authorities for allegedly helping Americans evade US taxes through Swiss bank accounts. An international warrant for his arrest was issued in early 2009.

Raoul is not a US citizen. His alleged crimes did not take place in the US, nor are they considered criminal offenses in his native Switzerland, where he continued to live freely despite the international arrest warrant.

However, Raoul recently went on vacation with his wife to Italy. After checking in to a hotel in Bologna, the couple had some unexpected guests?the Italian police?who come knocking at 2 in the morning. Raoul was promptly arrested, extradited, and is now awaiting trial in the US.

[John]

That is fucking horrible. All we are doing is setting this shit up to happen to our own people. Of course, I seriously doubt Obama and the DOJ would give a shit if it did.

[Tejicano]

Yeah, I see this as a really, really bad precedent. The fact that somebody can commit a “crime” – which is only defined by US standards – in a different country and then be arrested in a third country for it bends the definition of sovereignty.

I also wonder just how the international search warrant was issued. Was there nobody in the process who might question the mere idea that a legitimate businessman (or anybody for that matter) should be prosecuted under these conditions?

[Coeus]

Man killed by atomic wedgie

That’s when Davis apparently pulled the 58-year-old St. Clair’s underpants up his back and over his head during the struggle, and the older man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and asphyxiation.

“I’d never seen this before, but when we first looked at our victim seeing the waistband of his underwear was around his neck,” said Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth.

[Sidd Finch]

I always thought atomic wedgies were an urban legend. Apparently not.

[Ken Shultz]

In boarding school, I was kind of an atomic wedgie black belt.

If you’re going with briefs (and if you’re in a dorm, you really shouldn’t), you wanna stay away from the ones with a a lot of polyester and plastic in them. ’cause fellas ain’t stoppin’ until it breaks.

Or go with boxers!

Anyway, it’s rare that you can get ’em up that high over someone’s head without ripping. And I don’t know why a 58 year old guy is still wearing briefs. At some point, you gotta expand your horizons, if you know what I mean.

[Tejicano]

I never made the transition to boxers.

I had to during boot camp because that was the only option. But I hate having my junk moving around like that. I get enough distraction just from testosterone – no need to have to fight additional stimuli.

And I guess wedgies are not a hispanic thing either because I never heard about them until long after I was out of college.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Guess Who

I regularly see anti-woman trolls celebrating when they think they’ve successfully driven a woman off the internet. This isn’t a joke or an abstraction?it is a direct politically-motivated action to silence women’s voices. The volume and intensity of harassment is only magnified for women of color and disabled women and trans women and other intersecting identities. And when you complain, you’re told you’re being “oversensitive” or “focusing on the negative” or “letting the trolls win” or, the classic, “destroying freedom of speech.” (Hey, um, quick aside: I know your “freedom” to send me rape threats without having your feelings hurt makes up MOST of the text of the First Amendment, but what about my freedom to use the internet safely? The way that straight white dudes?the people with the most freedom in every way that you can possibly quantify “freedom” as a concept?have managed to appropriate the idea of freedom to limit the freedom of other people who are trying to assert their freedom is FUCKING BONKERS. And now I never want to see the word “freedom” again.)

[Irish]

The way that straight white dudes?the people with the most freedom in every way that you can possibly quantify “freedom” as a concept?have managed to appropriate the idea of freedom to limit the freedom of other people who are trying to assert their freedom is FUCKING BONKERS. And now I never want to see the word “freedom” again.

Marcotte. This sentence is too terrible to be written by anyone else. She also loves her parenthetical asides.

[Coeus]

KhaleesiULindy West21L
Helen Lewis had a piece in the New Statesmen today about two of the people convicted of sending abusive tweets to Caroline Criado-Perez, the woman spearheading the campaign to get Jane Austen on the ?10 note. Interestingly they aren’t the MRA asshole you’d expect – they were, respectively, a mentally unstable man and a woman with alcohol abuse problems (not that either of those things excuse the behavior, just stating facts). Neither one of them seem to have had any kind of agenda, anti-feminist or otherwise. The woman convicted said that “I didn’t even know who [Caroline] was until I was arrested and told by the police what she was about. Of course, I support woman’s rights, being one myself.”

I’m certainly not disagreeing with Lindy’s post and in fact, I don’t really think I have a point at all right now. I just thought it was interesting and was hoping to get some insight from the Jezzies on this bizarre situation. Today 1:13pm

[A wild THANE appeared!]

STOP JAQ-ING OFF

[BiMonSciFiCon]

The “FUCKING BONKERS” gives it away as West/Jezebel.

[Pro Libertate]

The freedom to submit to the government is the most important freedom of them all.

[John]

The oppressive fascistic people there are, and all they can talk about is how everyone is trying to silence them.

If you go back and look at the really vicious movements of the 20th Century, they all thought they were the victims.

[Ken Shultz]

The obsession, the archiving, …

It’s really creepy.

[Ken Shultz]

I mean, how long has it been?

It’s been over a year, now, right?

People get over divorces faster than that.

[Rich]

intersecting identities

Nice band name.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

The correction answer is…Lindy West!

[Coeus]

The lack of self awareness in the comments is priceless.

Too much to even highlight in that comment thread. And from multiple posters.

[Coeus]

Fox guest slams the minimum wage: Abolish the ‘Black Teenage Unemployment Act’

Comments from proggies in the comments are priceless.

[Rich]

So these racist douchebags are saying that they think Black people aren’t worth $ 8 bucks?

Again: The Republicans should propose a $50 minimum wage.

[MJGreen]

I read some of the comments.

How can you take this, Coeus?

[Coeus]

Consider it a form of political mithridatism. Thus allowing me to engage and systematically refute enormous amounts of idiocy when the need arises.

[Coeus]

I think hell just froze over…

A new bill introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) would shine a light on corporate wrongdoing by allowing the public greater access to terms of settlements they reach with the government.

“When government agencies reach settlements with companies that break the law, they should disclose the terms of those deals to the public,” Warren said.

She said federal agencies should disclose the key terms and conditions of agreements reached with corporations at the close of investigations, and she also argued that tax deductions and other credits built into the settlements should be publicly disclosed.

[Episiarch]

Well, I could get behind that. Not Warren, the proposal, you sick fuck!

[Sidd Finch]

I’ll move her down a couple places on The List.

[andarm16]

By the time something like this got through the sausage factory, there’d be exceptions that you could drive a container ship through.

[Invisible Finger]

The problem is the non-disclosure is part of the agreement. If you make disclosure a necessary part of the agreement, the government will then find that a lot of the targets are willing to spend the money to fight in court and then the government MUST expose it’s flimsy reasoning and all its side deals.

The non-disclosure protects the government even more than it protects the target. I’m not thrilled about the prospect of government taxing me more to pay the defense lawyers on all the cases it has botched.

[A wild THANE appeared!]

high standards

[Brett L]

Can someone read this and digest it for me? Because it sounds patently false.

When Claudia first learned about the Affordable Care Act, she was hopeful that the law would portend what its name implies.

But a few months ago, she arrived at a community meeting at the Irving public library to find that because she makes less than the federal poverty level, she does not qualify for the federal government’s subsidies to buy insurance.

People making LESS than 100% of the Federal poverty level have always qualified for Medicaid.

[Rich]

I’ll posit “the federal government’s subsidies” refers here to Obamacare specifically.

But, what do I know — IANANavigor.

[Rich]

Not a *Navigator*. Out.

[BakedPenguin]

Well, you’re not a Navigor, either.

Also, yeah, that can only be b/c she has to sign up for Medicaid. Unless Ocare is even more fucked than we know.

[Jordan]

How fucking stupid do you have to be to have 7 kids when you work a shit job? I’m supposed to feel sorry for her?

[Apatheist ?_??]

7 kids is way past the oops factor. One accidental pregnancy ok, some sympathy, 7 no fucking way.

[playa manhattan]

“I found out that Rick Perry had denied Medicaid,” Claudia said.

Yep, made up. Real Claudia doesn’t even know who Rick Perry is.

[Brett L]

Thanks for the books. Reading through them already.

[playa manhattan]

No prob. I have about 30 more, but I assume you are too busy with the baby to be experimenting in the kitchen everyday.

[Brett L]

Actually, I’m wrong about the poverty qualification. Her kids qualify but she doesn’t.

[Coeus]

As with Clinton, most of the attempts are laughable, amounting to nothing more than empty code words that conservatives will hope somehow snowball into an actual scandal. With Clinton, it was “Whitewater” and with Obama it’s “Benghazi”, and with both it’s idiotic.

[Apatheist ?_??]

I’m sure he’ll make it next year but Biggio being out of the HOF again is a disgrace.

[CE]

Biggio should have earned more votes than Frank Thomas.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Tim Raines belongs.

That is all.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

not sure, CE. Thomas was pretty dominating.

[John]

It is because they all think he was on the juice, which he probably was. Biggio not getting in shows the insanity of the entire thing. Either don’t let anyone from the era in or let everyone in. The worst thing to do is just randomly refuse people because some douche bag sports writer suspects he was using.

[Apatheist ?_??]

I’ve never heard of anyone claiming that Biggio was juicing. That’s certainly the reason why Bagwell is being dragged down but not Biggio.

[John]

I confused the two.

[Apatheist ?_??]

The Killer Bs. As a lastros fan having the two of them enter together would be a dream but because of what you described Bagwell may never make it at all. Biggio was only 2 votes short, he’ll definitely make it next year.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Same here.

Biggio will get in.

Even Di Maggio missed the first cut.

I find the excuses from baseball writers about keeping guys out absurd. If they had done their effen jobs in the first place maybe I’d sympathize. Instead, all I hear are sanctimonious blowhards act indignant. They’ve become insufferable.

Rose, Bonds, Clemens – they’re Hall of Famers.

[Invisible Finger]

Every sports writer is a douche bag and they have ALWAYS refused to vote for people on personal hatred grounds rather that merit or lack thereof.

Halls Of Fame are staffed by morons for morons. Nothing but Bowdlerized history. I got enough of that in compulsory education.

[Brett L]

Eh. He and Bagwell consistently faded down the stretch when actual HOF contenders come through. They wasted more good pitching than any three teams during that era.

[Apatheist ?_??]

He’s one of the best second basemen of all time by many statistical measures and was a great catcher before that too.

[Invisible Finger]

And a pretty good center fielder too. Is there any player in history than demonstrated starter-level skills at 3 of the 5 middle of the diamond positions?

[BigT]

Robin Yount

[A wild THANE appeared!]

Speaking of phone carriers, I found this brilliant comment on a piece about the potential T-Mobile / SoftBank (Sprint) merger:

SOAPBOX: We really do need a national unified network where all carriers play on. Take the pipe out of the equation. If you could guarantee that wherever Verizon worked ATT and Sprint would work just as well they would have to compete on a different front. (Hardware and services that play on that network.) But of course that will never happen because OMG socialism! AHHHH! 😐

Why yes, they would have to compete on a different front than, say, how many hundreds of millions of dollars they invest in infrastructure.

[Mad Scientist]

But of course that will never happen because OMG socialism!

If it’s such a good idea, why doesn’t this douchebag raise several billion dollars, roll out towers all across the country, pay thousands of employees to maintain them, and then give them to the government for free?

[Episiarch]

But of course that will never happen because OMG socialism! AHHHH!

Well, there’s also but of course that will never happen because OMG your idea is fucking retarded!

[Killaz]

If you could guarantee that wherever Verizon worked ATT and Sprint would work just as well they would have to compete on a different front.

Guarantees to established interest. Why doesn’t this surprise me?

[Juice]

I guess this is the new comeback? Whenever someone trots out an argument for socialism they just say, “But it would be bad because OMG SOCIALISM!” Better to put a z on it. SOCIALIZMZ!

It works. Someone shows you why your socialist scheme is immoral and unworkable and all you have to do is mock them as if they were a toothless redneck screaming, “OMG SOCIALIZMZ!!” After that they don’t have an counter-argument, do they?

[Killaz]

He’s trying to sell the idea that socialism is a sensible solution that has never been tried. Maybe the DNC puts your name up on the board if you can get some of those models out of the lot.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

TNR: Brain Schweitzer is dangerous for his ties to the NRA

The problem is that the story he is selling about his own career is based on lore, not reality. While liberals may like the bolo ties and screeds about hating Washington, Schweitzer will have a difficult time selling his conservative record on guns and the environment to a primary audience.

Becoming famous as a “blue man in a red state,” Schweitzer compromised on core liberal commitments to gun control and allied himself with the NRA. In his 2008 run, Schweitzer was endorsed by the NRA with an “A” rating and a personal visit by Wayne LaPierre for a campaign rally. Schweitzer signed an array of NRA-backed bills into law, including a 2009 “stand your ground” bill that the NRA called a “victory.”

At the time, the County Attorneys association opposed the law, but Schweitzer was unwilling to part ways with his NRA supporters. The law was featured in a major New York Times investigation after the Trayvon Martin trial about Montana’s inability to prosecute a man in Kalispell, Montana for killing the husband of the woman he was having an affair with because of the stand your ground law. The Times failed to acknowledge that it was the popular Democraticic governor who signed the bill into law.

Let him enter the primary and make everyone else tack hard-left on losing issues.

[John]

Nothing is better than a gun control bender. Those retards cannot help themselves no matter how badly it hurts them.

[Episiarch]

It really is like a drug to them. A drug that always leaves them feeling fucking horrible. Oh god, it’s just so delicious. If only we could find a way to harness their butthurt and despair.

[Pro Libertate]

I have an idea. Make and release a movie in the next six months about how great guns are.

[Irish]

The problem is that the story he is selling about his own career is based on lore, not reality. While liberals may like the bolo ties and screeds about hating Washington

Since when do screeds about hating Washington appeal to liberals? Don’t they want as much power as possible centralized in the Capitol?

[Winston]

Since when do screeds about hating Washington appeal to liberals?

When Republicans are in power?

[A wild THANE appeared!]

wait wut

cute girl though

[Apatheist ?_??]

She has to dance?

[Pro Libertate]

Dude, you need to read the ACA.

[PD Scott]

She’s a slave to the rhythm!

[JW]

She can’t resist the phat, patriarchal beats.

[BakedPenguin]

Of course. She can’t feel the heat coming off the street.

[Killaz]

Not cute enough to make up for that puss face and bad attitude. Seriously, fuck her.

[Killaz]

Feminism in its current manifestation is an excuse for privileged women to behave like assholes in public.

[Calidissident]

I wasn’t aware people were forced to go to clubs that play certain types of music

[Irish]

Why is the other side of this never considered? The same songs that treat women like sex objects assume that men are sex crazed hedonists incapable of going two seconds without trying to bang some girl.

Admittedly this stereotype is largely true, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling othered.

[Juice]

cute girl though

Urm, she looks like a dude to me.

[Calidissident]

Some more Reddit insanity for you all. In this edition, people support the idea of giving the government the power to control who can and can’t have children. For the children, of course.

“This presupposes a few things, that are all wrong in my opinion. Firstly it presupposes that this sort of requirement would be intended to control birthrates in some form, when that isn’t the idea. The idea at play is helping children have the best possible lives.

Sure there’s a chance this could happen, but the same goes for jails. Innocent people get put in prison on a regular basis, is that reasoning to not have a prison system at all?”

“What if that child is almost 100% likely to be born into a life of poverty and abuse?

to be clear, I don’t think this will ever happen, but I would support very minor limitations on the right to bear children. It seems like common sense. 90%+ of people wouldn’t even have any concern that they wouldn’t be allowed, and 90%+ of the remaining 10% would still be allowed.

That’s just how I see it.”

“Yes but eugentics is a position on GENETIC human improvement.

What this sort of idea is has nothing to do with genetics whatsoever, and everything to do with economics.

It only even begins represents Eugenics at all if you argue that genetics are a determining factor in a person’s economic capability, and I don’t believe that argument holds any water.”

[Calidissident]

“You’re missing the point.

This isn’t, at all about creating “better people”. Its simply about not having children born into lives of poverty. This isn’t a position stemming from Eugenics, at all, and genetics need not play a roll. Its an economic position.”

To be fair, there are more comments against than for it (and the meme posted was an Unpopular Opinion Puffin), but there are still a frightening number of comments like these. I found all these in the first 50 or so, and none of them were downvoted.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Advice…..l_believe/

[Sidd Finch]

It only even begins represents Eugenics at all if you argue that genetics are a determining factor in a person’s economic capability, and I don’t believe that argument holds any water.

At least the eugencists weren’t immoral and retarded.