Were any of y’all* up early enough to see the snow?
* I have lived in New York, England, or Western Washington my whole life. I don’t know where the hell I would have picked up y’all. I have used it as long as I can remember. I use “you” as a plural word sometimes, but not as much as most people in Seattle.
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
Tweet du jour:
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right.
7:29 AM – Nov 3, 2017
I don’t know where the hell I would have picked up y’all.
I do.
In an extraordinary display of tone-deafness on the same day that it became publicly known that #CrookedHillary had rigged the 2016 DNC primary to benefit herself, this:
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton received a Democratic Woman of the Year Award — who else would it be? — at the Women’s National Democratic Club on Thursday, and the first tears were shed about three minutes after she took the stage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/us/politics/hillary-clinton-award-democrats.html
Think on y’all’s sins.
@ 3
Upon further reflection, I guess they sorta had to. After all, for 2016 TIME magazine named Donald Trump its Person Of The Year.
Your horses have to be fed and fucked before 9 am? They must be thoroughbreds.
Well, you knew this Trump promise would be broken. Warren Buffett will still have a lower tax rate than his secretary. So will Donald Trump and a host of other billionaires.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/03/despite-trump-campaign-promise-billionaires-tax-loophole-survives-again.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: To understand Republican rants against taxes and government, you have to understand that rich people aren’t against all taxes and government, only the ones that apply to them. They want more of both for the little people. For example, they want more regulation of female bodies than we have now; and they want more middle class income subject to taxation, such as the portions going to student loan interest and paying granny’s nursing home bills. Deep down inside, they also want to be addressed as, “Your Majesty.”
*********
Oh, and giving business a free hand to prey on hapless consumers is pretty high on their wish list, too. For example, they’ve already ditched the rule that requires financial advisers to put their clients’ interests above their own, but that’s small potatoes. They’d get rid of all consumer protections if they could.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/03/trump-doesnt-want-to-let-cordray-be-a-martyr.html
You see, what’s going on is populism, all right, but not the kind of populism you think. This is populism for the upper classes.
In the Rose Garden Obama honored a soldier who was subsequently expelled in dishonor.
Last year Obama honored #CrookedHillary…
Your move, libbies.
“Four Jersey City, New Jersey police officers face charges including attempted murder after they were seen on video kicking and dragging a driver who was on fire after a suspect in high-speed chase hit his car, reports CBS New York. …
“But the police union is defending the officers. ‘Mayor Fulop’s statements and actions … show … his thoughts are with politics and not policing,’ said Carmine Disbrow, president of the Jersey City Police Officer’s Benevolent Association. Earlier, the union said the video ‘clearly shows that the officers acted quickly to extinguish the flames, and pull this man out of harm’s way.’
“The mayor said too many mistakes were made. ‘From firing their weapons to the pursuit, to how they interacted with the victim, to having the wrong person,’ he said, ‘it was just poor judgment after poor judgment. So I just think those are people that we don’t want on the Jersey City Police Department.'”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-new-jersey-cops-charged-after-video-shows-them-kicking-dragging-man-on-fire/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I’m not criticizing the police union for defending the cops. Sticking up for its members is a union’s job. I’ve simply never heard of first responders trying to douse the flames on a burning innocent bystander by kicking him in the jaw with hard-toed boots, that’s all. Does that work? For putting out the fire, I mean. Can the cop union shed some light on that? Because I’m as confused as the grand jury was.
@ 8
More than 20 years ago a guy in his late 70s collapsed on a tennis court.
Three of us did CPR. I felt his ribs give when I was doing compressions. He lived.
You would have me charged with battery for my efforts.
i was kind of busy yesterday and the last OT is TLDR at this point so sorry if this is a broken record…
Because of course…
401K contributions for an unborn child would continue to be deductible. Interest payments on Student loans would no longer be deductible.
So if you’re a middle to low income family with spare cash lying around as you’re preparing to have children, by all means take advantage of this tax break.
We’re the GOP and we care about you.
@7 “Your move, libbies.”
Being a Vietnam veteran, I have the experience to handle this.
It’s simple. Bergdahl wasn’t convicted of anything until two weeks ago, dumbass. That makes you an asshole who’s willing to abandon our soldiers on the battlefield. FUCK YOU, you unpatriotic, troop-hating shmuck. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were one of the filthy long-haired hippies spitting on me back in ’70 when I deplaned from The Name.
Like Puddy, you’re leave an American soldier in the hands of the enemy based on nothing more than knee-jerk judgments of guilt or innocence without benefit of evidence or trial. We call you a dumbfuck because you’re no smarter than he is.
That said, I think Bergdahl got off too lightly. While it’s rare for military to get jail time in this day and age, there are aggravated circumstances in this case. I expected him to get three or four years in the stockade. I’m sure Trump is sorely disappointed that he won’t be shot, and we can expect an enraged tweetstorm directed against the military judge any minute now.
As a convicted deserter, Bergdahl deserves his dishonorable discharge, but it disqualifies him from VA medical benefits, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea. He should get PTSD counseling for OUR protection. Some of these ex-POWs are prone to snap, you know. McCain hasn’t, yet, but could go any day now (e.g., see Trump and pick up a hammer); one or two more tweets from Trump could do it. Prevention is always better than treatment.
@ 10
Regarding the deduction of student loan interest, it is a relatively recent benefit to taxpayers. I paid interest on student loans for 10 years and could never deduct, because the benefit didn’t exist then. The tax law governing deduction of this interest has changed numerous times over the past two decades.
Deduct This: The History of Student Loan Interest
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/06/13/deduct-this-the-history-of-the-student-loan-interest/#1ee4bda33307
You should be aware that the cost to the Treasury after accounting for inflation has doubled in the past decade.
You should also be aware that forgiveness of student loans costs as much as foregone revenues to the Treasury if interest deductibility continues.
Further, the Treasury Department projects that between 2018 and 2026, the cumulative cost of the deduction will be slightly less than $20 billion, roughly comparable to that of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which provides loan forgiveness after 10 years for borrowers working in public service and was targeted for elimination in President Donald Trump’s proposed budget. Estimates of the cost of the program over the 2018-26 period range from $19.6 billion to $24 billion.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/re.....t-tax-code
While wailing that this deduction may be lost, don’t neglect to factor in that the standard deduction would double. So someone deferring loan payments would still get a higher deduction. While not making those payments.
If you are going to cherry-pick, at least try to do a passable job of it, Cz-252
@9 “You would have me charged with battery for my efforts.”
Good on you, doc, but you’re still a dumbass. You have no idea what I would have done. I’m not a trained EMT, but I know that administering CPR can break the patient’s ribs.
Fifty years ago this month, I was hit by a car on a motorbike. Both of the drivers behind me, I was told later, were MDs and administered CPR to me until the ambulance arrived. They didn’t break my ribs.
Sounds to me like you needed more CPR practice. But I wouldn’t prosecute you for being a dumbass. That’s not a crime in this country. Maybe it should be, but it isn’t. If it were, all the Republican voters would be in jail.
Is it okay to kick a doctor, even if he isn’t on fire? Cuz I don’t want a grand jury coming after me. Although I must say, I see nothing wrong with the bunny-thumping Doctor Dumbfuck is taking this morning. After all, he opened himself up to it.
Wow, look at all those Democrats who voted to abolish the ‘Death Panel’ in the Obamacare law.
House votes to repeal ObamaCare’s Medicare cost-cutting board
http://thehill.com/policy/heal.....ting-board
It’s almost as if the GOP had a point or something.
Still, 76 Democrats backed abolishing the board despite the objections of leadership.
This panel would have kicked in right about the time Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit’s prostatic carcinoma will metastasize to his skeleton.
So there’s some additional good news. Mo’ money will be spent keeping Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit in agony for several more months. That guy I did CPR on? His ribs gave under the force of the compressions I was exerting on this thorax. Your ribs, Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit, will fracture merely as a result of your respiratory excursions.
@15 “Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit’s prostatic carcinoma will metastasize to his skeleton”
Now I know who my veterinarian was talking about when he said, “Forget the radiologist. You don’t have cancer,” and then made quacking noises as he left the examining room.
@16 “Your ribs, Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit, will fracture merely as a result of your respiratory excursions.”
I’m not the only one at risk. Don’t think yourself into a fractured skull trying not to be a dumbfuck.
@12
thanks for walking into it….
Under rules forced through to make the tax-abortion pass under reconciliation it has to be “revenue neutral” at only increasing the deficit by $1.5T over ten years.
Without getting into the “deficits are suddenly good” and “$1.5T isn’t actually new debt”
In order to get to that $1.5million not debt magic number the cut in the corporate rate is permanent while the cut to individual filers is scheduled to sunset in 5 years.
So under Speaker Ryan’s own estimate, middle income families will save $5500 (assuming that no services they actually use like, national parks, college tuition, etc. actually go up as a result of a loss of Federal funding and you didn’t lose far more than that by your state/property/sales tax deductions getting capped) over five years and then, YOU GET NOTHING!
And BTW, if you are a person with high medical bills you are screwed because you can’t deduct those expenses anymore. But hey, parents with special needs kids, we killed the $5000/yr you were deducting for their care and meds but we gave you $300 per kid so quit your bitching.
As the old NBC PSA commercial says. “The more you know…
Doesn’t look like Tillerson will have a job much longer. He probably wishes he’d stayed at Exxon.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-jabs-tillerson-ahead-of-crucial-asia-trip/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I have to admit, though, that calling your boss a “fucking moron” doesn’t usually contribute to employment longevity. Even if it’s true.
@12
Don’t think that we don’t notice that to justify eliminating a tax break that effects a wide swath of income brackets while keeping a tax break that largely effects high-earners you reasoning is, “It hasn’t been around long so just kill it. No one will notice.”
Except all the rubes who either are recent graduates or have recent graduates moving back in with them who don’t get any tax relief that the guy they voted for promised them.
“It’ll all be fine. As long as we say it only effects the brown people they’ll go along with it.” GOP
@18 What did you expect? Robbing the poor is how these people make their living.
@3 The latest in a thousand or two admonishments posted here by a fascist traitor who is in the tank for Putin, for loyal, patriotic Americans to think on their sins.
Dumbfuck much? Looks like.
Another Responsible Gun Owner (TM). This one shot his dick off while robbing a hotdog stand.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shoot-penis-hot-dog-stand_us_59fc8f64e4b0b0c7fa39d30f?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Probably an NRA Life Member and Trump voter, too.
I called it.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-berghdal-sentence_us_59fca437e4b0baea263188ba?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
“I called it.”
Putin’s two favorite stooges, the moron traitor in the WH and the treasonous Doctor Dumbfuck, will both be disappointed that an Army deserter won’t be doing more time. Makes sense, I suppose, if one is a dumbfuck traitor.
@ 25
Trump called the decision “a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military”.
Which actually makes the decision appropriate, because so is Bowe Bergdahl.
25,
Cowards with”bone spurs” calling for blood.
The overwhelming majority of enlisted deserters receive straight punitive discharge – usually the Duck Dinner.
These Russian puppet cowards are just using Bergdahl as a stand-in for the one “uppity” black man they always longed to take out but couldn’t.
Thousands of enlisted personnel desert every year. A little less than one out of every 100.
Only a very small percentage are prosecuted, usually fewer than a hundred. Most enlisted deserters are classified as such after 30 days AWOL. Most of them are rehabilitated and reintegrated into their units. Of those, about half complete their enlistment contracts, and ultimately receive an honorable discharge with benefits. Others continue to experience difficulty integrating into the normal routines of unit service and receive OTH discharge.
Hangings and firing squads are simply the bizarre violent projections of draft dodgers and cowards.
@ 27, 28
Misbehavior before the enemy.
This wasn’t a simple miss-my-mommy desertion case.
29,
Those are stats relevant to the GWOT.
Certainly desertion from a unit deployed to a battle theater is regarded more seriously. Nevertheless, lots of enlisted fuck off and get chrged with nothing at all. In the context of the neverending deployments in Afghanistan, a DUSTWUN was a serious and very public black mark on a troubled unit pursuing vague, and poorly designed objectives. It’s no surprise to anyone (other than Bergdahl) that his desertion would result in a court-martial. But only you borscht-soaked lunatics were yearning for his blood.
How many times?
How many times did social media programmed meat bag trolls on HA link, copypasta, and treason hashtag the ravings of the Russian FSB?
Was it 4000?
@26
Which part?
Bergdahl as a soldier or an Army that has a Coast Guard “DO NOT REENLIST” record in his pentagon file and enlisted him anyway?
Unlike our Draft-Dodger-in-Chief (That’s a phrase that has gone out of fashion in GOP circles) I think the Bergdahl resolution is just about right.
BTW, if you still haven’t listened to season 2 of the Serial Podcast it is really fascinating.
So I’m seeing some independent analysis of the tax plan that say if you are a single filer earning between 45-90K you won’t see a dime and if you live in the wrong places where some of your old deductions no longer exist your tax bill will go up.
Hmmm, single filers between 45k-90k? Sounds like recent college graduates who are just becoming the age bracket of reliable voters until they die. Exactly the people the GOP wants to push away, right?
In the most recent national poll only 41% of voters were opposed to removing Fuckface from office.
So much winning.
33,
Nothing is more fucked up about this global-corp/Russian inspired plan than the way it has been produced. Cooked up in secret negotiations behind locked doors with global corporate, energy, and Russian/Ukrainian lobbyists getting the final say.
Tax policy has consequences – First ten years of Republican tax cuts under Reagan. Steady declines in full time earnings accompanied by massive explosion of the debt.
Yes. Of course. It is bad policy. And that alone is bad enough.
But there are alternatives. None of which are being mentioned or considered in this environment. The greatest failure in this fiasco is the shocking failure of the media to point out how this tax proposal was cooked up in a panicked rush, in secret, and with input only from a very select handful of elite global corporate interests.
The loon’s kindred spirit…
“Las Vegas mass shooter was a Trump supporter”
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/las-vegas-mass-shooter-was-a-trump-supporter/
Any of our trolls want to still talk about the labor participation rate?
It was all the rage just a few short months ago.
Tap, Tap, Tap….is this thing on?
Another of the loon’s kindred spirits.
“Man who killed three in Colorado Walmart was ‘angry’ loner with no furniture but stacks of Bibles”
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/man-who-killed-three-in-colorado-walmart-was-angry-loner-with-no-furniture-but-stacks-of-bibles/
The snow is still hanging here in Bellingham. I saw if start last night and then it covered the roads. Thought it would melt off in the rain or today, but it’s almost four in the afternoon and it’s still hanging out.
@5 Come on it’s how you wealthy Capitalists invest back into the economy making your gains trickle down to the little people. You rich bastards have to go spend money. Now take up a hobby and put back into the economy you Corporate Democrat. And yes do say that as Franklin Roosevelt would say it, and he welcomes your hate.
Bergdahl got a dishonorable discharge from the Army. That is a punishment the is going to last a life time. He’s fucked.
“…affluent, elite, healthy, and highly educated coastal progressives.”
As far as taxes go, a single, flat-rate system is what is fair to everyone. All this conniving and bullshit is what makes for an unfair fax code.
“…affluent, elite, healthy, and highly educated coastal progressives.”
@6 That is because the last time the Democrats had control they did not do a tax over hall to address that inequity. It’s not reasonable to expect the Republican tax bill to reflect anything. but what most Republicans like. Lower taxes for those in the club they are members of and you aren’t a member (or are you RR?). So the Republicans are doing the expected, and it will be sometime before Democrats can do squat. Of course one has to be willing to say that after a certain point additional income to a rich person is meaningless, and they should be able to live well within a certain income. And most or all of the income after some arbitrary line should go to Uncle Sam. To be redistributed, to pay for the roads rich people use to deliver products, ect. We need a F-35 fighter as a certain bank robber said you gotta go where the money is. That is you and your rich Capitalist buddies. We need your money to build the fighter., ship. bomber, missile bomb, and we need your children to use these tools. Unless you would rather it be spent on protecting marginal land from farming, or keeping residences out of flood prone areas, stuffing CO2 back into the ground, ect.
@25 Trump is reviewing his extralegal options.
@26 “Trump called the decision ‘a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military’.”
Sez the traitor who sold our country to Putin in exchange for some high-interest loans and kinky sex.
38,
the most important thing to know is that he was not a terrorist and we don’t need to send him to Gitmo.
Lone Wolf!
Angry Loner!
Mentally Ill!
Just consider how much work has been put into the effort to describe Stephen Paddock as mentally ill.
Here’s Sheriff Lombardo on the teevee this week:
“This individual was status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family,. So, obviously, that was starting to decline in the short period of time, and that may have had a determining effect on why he did what he did.”
I’m no gambler. But as I understood his method of play, it was designed to lose money. About a 0.93% return. But by playing incessantly with high stakes he earned patronage and perks from the casinos that more than compensated for the losses. Lombardo, apparently secretly board certified in psychiatry, diagnoses the brother as “manic” (bound to be in the DSM somewhere) so that proves he was cra cra.
It’s pretty simple: White people are basically good and only do terrible things because of bad brains; non-white people might possibly be good, but as soon as they do something bad, or even suspicious (or even perfectly innocent, but what the hell) then it proves they are fundamentally bad, bad, bad, and a danger to society. This is why when the pathological liar troll gets pulled over at night for driving in the wrong trailer park, police make him show his hands at all times, exit the vehicle slowly, walk backward toward the sound of the officer’s voice with his hands above his head, etc.
Who can blame them? What with all the missing goats and such.
@28 “Hangings and firing squads are simply the bizarre violent projections of draft dodgers and cowards.”
The same people who want Puddy dead, by and large.
@29 I doubt Trump dodged the draft out of affection for his mother. It had more to do with his own ass.
@7 Obama politically screwed up on that one. Not on the prisoner exchange, but in not knowing how to handle the backlash, which would have involved taking a page out of President Truman’s play book and telling the military he is being awarded this medal, there will be a ticket tape parade, or three or four high ranking Army Generals will be turning in retirement papers. That would have stopped a lot of the bs right there.
The troops would have been out there hunting for Bergdahl even if he was a traitor, and the effort might have been greater if they thought he had information to give the terrorists.
And yes the military could have gotten a similar result by non judicial punishment or the basic court marshal. So millions were spent needlessly on a guy that should have just medically discharged. Wow for the moment he cannot get VA benefits, but he has a book deal. Now they can fight over what this may have been about the whole time and that is the mans back pay, which frankly he should have been paid on his return.
And with the guilty plea there may not be an appeal, but if there is that could be very interesting, as the judge may have erred in accepting the guilty plea. And because of the back pay issues the fat lady has not yet sung.
@32 “Bergdahl as a soldier or an Army that has a Coast Guard “DO NOT REENLIST” record in his pentagon file and enlisted him anyway?”
They’re blaming Obama, of course.* I’ve also seen some Trumpies wonder in other blogs how Obama wriggled out of Vietnam.
* Based on the fact Bergdahl joined the Army before Trump was president. In point of fact, he enlisted before Obama was president, too — in 2008, on Dubya’s watch.
50,
And like that, POOF! Another one of Shortbus’ cherished delusions is burst.
@8 Officers had flashbacks to the Terminator movie they saw during training and thought the suspect was a Terminator unit about to cause havoc on officers as only a Terminator could survive the crash and fire.
Well the actual response to your question is the victim failed to comply with officers orders, and they were following the guidelines. And officer safety is paramount. And they were trying to save tax payer money as injuries to officers cost taxpayer money and a dead victim costs little to none. And we just cannot have public nudity in this New Jersey community.
@33 Oh, c’mon, they don’t have to think about this and neither do you. It isn’t complicated. It’s a payoff to the GOP’s big donors. It was never intended to help the middle class. That’s who pays for it.
Sun sets at 5:48 pm tonight!
Will we have a countdown? Will HA HEROES watch the babbling butthole freak go *poof*…
Yours truly loves that! Really brightens up the darker days!
@9 Valid point, and a guy on fire may not be very cooperative and panicked. The video was not available, so the police union may just show the city went to far in the firings. Or did not provide sufficient training. And training is very much the real issue in a lot of these cases. The rich people who have stuff to loose are unwilling to pay for sufficient training for police officers at all levels. Cops in the US get the level of training a mall security guy or gal should have. Their training should take a minimum of a year if not two years. Police in most European nations and many other nations are trained to a higher level than our police in nearly all areas. So this New Jersey city probably is not providing its officers with sufficient training. Hopefully they do know CPR and are proficient. Though I would expect them to have more first aid training and some basic training to take statements like “I need my medication,” I can’t breath.,” seriously.
@34 And 59% think this is “the lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember,” according to a new American Psychological Association poll.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/11/1/16589590/apa-poll-stress-in-america
“Worse than Watergate”
52,
Do you really see a question @8?
I suppose you see dead people, mailbox stickers, and fake birth certificates too?
@36 We all realized that on Day One. Who else hoards bump stocks?
@39 Bellingham is in a different weather zone than Seattle.
@41 What’s the connection between
“Bergdahl got a dishonorable discharge from the Army. That is a punishment the is going to last a life time. He’s fucked.”
and
“…affluent, elite, healthy, and highly educated coastal progressives.”
?
Bergdahl certainly isn’t a product of the educated coastal progressive elites. He’s a product of blue-collar Idaho and homeschooling.
55,
“Cops in the US get the level of training a mall security guy or gal should have.”
Not exactly true. As usual.
What is true is that there are no uniform standards for training or certification for sworn law enforcement. While some states are better than others, there are no national standards at all. And as much as statewide standards may vary in theory, in practice each individual agency is entirely on its own to apply those standards once an officer is sworn. Consequently the level of equipment, education, training, and supervisory support in even immediately adjacent jurisdictions can vary enormously.
In some states cosmetologists must meet higher educational, training, and supervisory standards for licensing than law enforcement. And while truck drivers, bus drivers, and freight conductors, and even some high school athletes, are regularly and routinely blood draw tested for every conceivable substance, almost no law enforcement agencies at any level conduct testing after hire.
@42 “As far as taxes go, a single, flat-rate system is what is fair to everyone. All this conniving and bullshit is what makes for an unfair fax code.”
Are you kidding? Republicans would never go for it. Not regressive enough. They don’t want to pay anything, and if the estate tax is repealed, many of them won’t.
@32 Trump got four deferments and then a medical deferment for his feet (probably flat feet) which means he would have had a hard time getting into the military even if he volunteered. In order fro Trump to have gotten in he would have had to make an effort probably through his congressman to get in despite the medical reason the military would not take him. He would have been a VIP in basic training if he had, and a very unusual cat in 1968, but some insist they wish to serve in the military, and he choose not too. Though he would have been an officer, just think RR you could have served under Lt Donald Trump. Well you passed your physical.
“I think the term of art is he’s stupid. This kid was foolish.”
“That group was slap dash put together in a way another campaign wouldn’t do it. Papadopoulos had no business being there.”
For once, I believe the traitors.
@1 “I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right.”
See, Trump finally admitted he cheated. He ran and won, therefore he must have cheated. He just got the person he was going to run again wrong. Lock him up!
@61 No state or federal agency comes close to the minimum requirements for the English Bobby. or the German police. The Canadian Mounties (true they are a federal police force) requirements are higher as is British Columbia.
Even the time officers will spend in on the job training and in some sort of not yet a full officer status is years longer than anywhere in the US.
We Americans are unwilling to pay for it at all levels of income. We don’t want our tax money going to doing these things. We would rather it go to supporting a bloated prison system.
66,
That’s just ridiculous and you probably know it. But god knows you’ll never admit it. FBI agents are some of the world’s most highly trained, highly qualified, and aggressively supervised law enforcement.
I have to suspect now that you are merely another Russian FSB controlled bot seeking to discredit all federal law enforcement for the sake of keeping your treasonous plot from being fully discovered.
You are too late. We are coming for you. MAGA*
*Make Attorneys Get Attorneys
Looks like one of the Treason Troll’s favorite discredited Russian FSB media sources has hired another white supremacist*.
*Pedophile too! Which is nice, isn’t it?
@11 Come on RR Berghdahl was not convicted of anything until today. I don’t think he should have plead guilty, and the judge should not have accepted the plea, as he still claimed he intended to walk 20 miles and go to the commanders office. Stupid, yes, desertion no, and he still claimed the army charge was only good until he was captured.
With the plea, not a bad sentence, but the army could have gotten most of that with a Article 15 hearing in front of his commander at hi base in Texas(no politics in this at all.) though one could argue time had tolled on AWOL.
I do recall there were issues around POWs in Nam. The army generally was unsuccessful in using the behavior in front of the enemy charge, and it almost was pulled from the UCMJ, but the Congress did not do that but tried improving the UCMJ. Successful? Perhaps not as the charge can be criticized,
@12 We should be paying at the state level sufficiently that our students get free college or nearly the whole cost is subsidized. This would mean the near elimination of college loans in Washington state, and the cost of providing the education would be recouped over the students working career.
And certainly the interest should be tax deductible if we are forcing students to take on the debt, rather than taxing corporations sufficiently so we can provide people with the expertize they need, and insist corporations provide their workers OJT to their employees when a degree really is not necessary for someone to do the job. Yes if you want someone with the equivalent of tens years experience then offer more than a first job salary. Yes someone with a two year degree should make more than a Starbucks barista. Having a high school diploma should be sufficient and it should be a living wage.
@13 Of course we don’t really know what you would have done had you been the Mayor of that New Jersey town, though you do seem to suggest being in favor of the mayors decision.
And since many places in the US don’t have good Samaritan laws it has happened do gooders have been charged for doing CPR, including criminal charges. Though police, firemen, public safety employees are usually exempted from civil or criminal action.
@23 I would think the moral of the story a Democratic gun owner or even a Communist gun owner should take to heart is set the damn safety on your gun so you don’t shoot your dick off.
On Berghdale. It’s not yet over. The convening authority could upset Trump by reducing the punishments (unlikely) and the case will be automatically reviewed after the convening authority is done, The appeals court could find the army played dirty pool by stationing Berghdahl in Texas and having the court martial at Ft. Bragg rather than in Afghanistan or at least in Central Command….ie that the court had no jurisdiction, unlikely, but there are irregularities that may come out and the appeals court may piss off a lot of people. And yes that statement the Coast Guard put in his jacket may embarrass the Army.
@33 Shhhh not so loud the Republicans might hear you, and many on here would rather they don’t hear you. So ummmm yeah the 45000 to 90000 liberal black prisoners in Washington states prison will never have their voting rights restored. These are not the voters you are looking for. Go about your business.
Shit got real.
Kaepernick’s lawyers filed for discovery including all emails and cell phone records and depositions of 10 NFL owners.
To prove collusion all they need is any “blackball” communications between at least three owners or any single owner and commissioner Roger Goddell.
As we’ve seen, dumb insulated people put stuff into emails they never intend anyone to see. The NFL will settle because if this ends up in court, all that becomes public record and what are the odds that among ten ‘my grandparents generation’ white dudes there’s a ton of racist shit that the NFL can never let get into a public record?
I’m popping some corn. Gonna be a helluva show.
74,
I dont recall any shortages of “liberal” voters in your state, at least not in any of the areas outside of prison that “the blacks” are allowed to live.
@67 You are obscuring the debate, The basic requirements are higher to be a special agent, but the training at Quantico is 20 weeks.
https://www.fbitraining.org/washington/
And do you know what the requirements are for individuals hired onto the FBI police force are? Which would at least be more equivalent. Since a bachelors is not going to be required.
While in Great Britain police officers receive 14 weeks training an 18 month probationary period followed by 2 weeks of advanced training, and if they want to handle firearms that is weeks of additional training.
So our the FBI agents barely get more training than your average bobby.
@76 There are Republicans here though, best to be quiet as some maybe upset for the primaries come tax time. There really are more not so rich Republicans that are going to get hosed by the tax bill so shhh try not to give them a heads up here. Sit back and enjoy the post tax plan show when they do their taxes and realize they are paying more as the real Republicans who are rich got a much smaller bill.
Though it does seem Chuck ought to be being a lot louder up on the hill than he is, insisting these guys can afford to pay more and any relief should be at the bottom and corporate loopholes need to be closed.
So if you want to talk like a New Deal Democrat or a progressive cool. Still don’t tell them yhat their policies may hurt their base and they could loose voters, don’t tell the Republicans that.
Interesting you have admitted you are in Washington, sounds like you aren’t in the Pacific Northwest. You Easterner trying to tell us Pacific North westerners what to do. That is so Russian of you manipulating us. Sjhame on you. We will have to sic a tree frog or two on you. We got killer whales too.
(But the sprit of the grizzly took a hit in British Columbia so you are safe from the spirit of the grizzly.)
77,
Boy, you said NO state or fed. If you’re gonna turn chicken shit and try to weasel out why not cherry pick ICE or CBP?
Typical.
@63
Because a teen who went to a military school and was by his own account a star athlete but came from a wealthy family couldn’t possibly have been diagnosed with bone spurs unless they were real and totally disappeared without treatment. Or, by his own account, a “temporary condition.” I have a migraines. Here’s $500 for my medical marijuana card…
@69
The Army wants this over. The Pentagon wants this over. They don’t want to answer questions about why a diagnosed paranoid patient with a “DO NOT REENLIST” in his pentagon file ended up in a shit assignment in Afghanistan. They definitely don’t want the General in charge of his debriefing to testify he should not go to prison. It ends here with a whimper, or what civilian courts would call a plea bargain. Quietly the Joint Chiefs are telling the President to drop it. We’ll see if he does. If he doesn’t….well the leaks about what he says in “private” will just keep happening.
As I’ve said before, tactical error by the Obama administration. The Rose Garden was a mistake. Get him back, put it in a Friday news dump and move on. NO ONE wanted this case to happen. No one wins. But leave no man behind.
@78 Just a side note The RCMP basic Cadet training is 26 weeks. And then new Mounties are in 6 months of training at their first unit. Even these friendly Canadians seem to believe cops need an extended amount of training.
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/cadet-training
The herd of Trump defenders is thinning.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/03/.....index.html
@63 Trump SHOULDN’T have been in the military. He can’t pass the character test.
@64 None of them had any business being there, the candidate least of all.
@67 “That’s just ridiculous and you probably know it.”
Mark knows nothing about anything. He shoots from the lip.
@69 “Come on RR Berghdahl was not convicted of anything until today.”
Wrong. He was convicted upon entering a guilty plea on Oct. 16, 2017. Here’s a bit of advice: Don’t try to be an armchair lawyer. Above all, don’t lecture a real lawyer. You’re not smart enough.
@70 “And certainly the interest should be tax deductible if we are forcing students to take on the debt … ”
The interest WAS tax deductible until 1986, the last time GOP “tax reform” screwed the middle class. Now it’s GOP “tax reform” time again. How are they going to pay for their billionaire tax cuts if they don’t take it from students, sick people, and elderly folks in nursing homes? They certainly don’t intend to take it from themselves.
As the article linked @12 points out, Reagan took away the interest deduction in 1986, and it wasn’t restored under Bush41, another Republican, of course. Don’t wait on those guys to do anything for struggling students. That runs against their grain. A deduction, of sorts, for student debtors was restored to some extent under Clinton, a Democrat, in 1997. Now that they control Congress and the White House again, Republicans are eager to get rid of it. Because it’s in their DNA to fuck over poor students and everybody else who wasn’t born with a silver spoon. These people are monarchists at heart. They yearn to be a hereditary royalty presiding over a vast peasantry, and want to keep the peasants ignorant and gullible so they’ll go along with it.
81,
What the fuck is that? A magic incantation to wipe the shit off your chin?
Bottom line, Team Fuckface and all the traitors who voted for them are good and fucked. The FBI and Team Mueller/AMERICA have taken down smarter conspiracies. The lying GOP/Russian smear job is useless.
@71 Even you should be able to figure out that a cop kicking a car crash victim rolling on the ground on fire in the jaw with his booted foot is neither rendering CPR nor being a Good Samaritan.
The fact he was an innocent bystander, and suffered horrific injuries as a direct result of a reckless police chase, only makes it worse. This is what he looked like after the cops worked him over:
https://www.gofundme.com/miguelfeliz
If he lives, the city and its insurers probably will pay him around $5 million. If he dies, his family likely will get about $2.5 million. For once, the cops have been criminally charged. That usually doesn’t happen in this cases, and a cop has to really work at it to get criminally charged for beating to death (or nearly to death) a civilian they’re supposed to serve and protect. But it remains to be seen whether ANY bully hiding behind a badge, no matter what he does, can be convicted in this country.
@72 You think the moral of this story is that armed robbers should worry about gun safeties so they don’t hurt themselves?
@73 It’s over. The Army is rid of Bergdahl and Bergdahl gets to go home. Trump and the internet’s armchair generals get to fulminate against “the traitor Bergdahl” to their hearts’ content. Everybody is happy. Nobody is going to touch this with a ten foot pole.
@78 “Sit back and enjoy the post tax plan show when they do their taxes and realize they are paying more as the real Republicans who are rich got a much smaller bill.”
It will be better for everyone if they realize this before it passes.
“Though it does seem Chuck ought to be being a lot louder”
How loud do you think he should be? It’s not like he’s been silent. See, e.g.,
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor.....ealth-fare
It seems to me this has more to do with which media you’re reading or listening to.
@81 Well, then, we should copy them, yes? Clearly we need to train our cops better. But you can’t “train” the racism out of racists. Some people shouldn’t be cops, and police agencies must do a much better job of weeding them out in the hiring process.
Dominoes keep falling.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hamilton-fish-new-republic-resigns_us_59fccfc8e4b04cdbeb333476
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/netflix-kevin-spacey-harassment-allegations_us_59fd2373e4b0c9652fff7673?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Thank you, Trump, for inspiring this mass purge of gropers and rapists in high places, even though that wasn’t your intention. Can we say you’re next?
The Republican tax bill is even more vicious than you thought:
“Republicans slipped anti-abortion language into the draft of the tax reform bill they released on Thursday. … Buried on page 93 of the 429-page tax proposal is a provision that would allow fetuses to be named as beneficiaries of college savings accounts known as 529 plans … ‘This is a back-door attempt to establish personhood from the moment of conception,’ Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said in a statement. …
“Ostensibly, the idea is that parents can get a leg up on saving for their kid’s education before he or she is even born. However, it takes care to define the terms ‘unborn child’ and ‘child in utero,’ in what appears to be a naked attempt to establish so-called personhood for fetuses, a popular anti-abortion tactic.
“Abortion foes believe that if fetuses were legally considered people, then abortion would have to be outlawed. State and federal legislation attempting to classify fertilized eggs, human embryos and fetuses as people has failed repeatedly over the years. The tax reform provision appears to be a sideways attempt at something similar.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-abortion-tax-bill_us_59fca946e4b0baea2631965f?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Ooops
“WASHINGTON — Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, met Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip he took to Moscow, according to testimony he gave on Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee.
Shortly after the trip, Mr. Page sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide describing insights he had after conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives during his time in Moscow, according to one person familiar with the contents of the message. The email was read aloud during the closed-door testimony.
The new details of the trip present a different picture than the account Mr. Page has given during numerous appearances in the news media in recent months and are yet another example of a Trump adviser meeting with Russians officials during the 2016 campaign.
What the GOP’s tax scheming is REALLY about (as if you need to be told). First, some historical background:
“The United States is the richest country in the history of the world. Last year, the genius and muscle of the American people generated more than $18.6 trillion in wealth. This year, our brains and brawn will combine to create well over $19 trillion. Despite all the debt theatrics of the Republican Party during the Obama presidency, we owe just $6.2 trillion to other countries ― less than four months of our collective labors at their present value.
“Under these circumstances, the question of what the American government can afford is functionally meaningless. If any nation has ever been able to afford quality housing, education, health care, parks, museums ― anything ― the United States can. And we don’t need to tax anyone, rich or poor, in order to afford these fine things. The wealth — the fruits of our labor — already exists.”
Now some perspective:
“Taxes are a way of managing the bookkeeping system, of setting national priorities for the distribution of wealth created by good ideas and hard work. That’s key: Our country’s wealth is created by everybody. It’s not created by rich people. Rich people are what happen when the bookkeeping units we use to keep track of that wealth — the dollars ― get stuck on particular individuals. …
“There is much more than math at stake …. There is no economic law that governs how the $19 trillion we produce each year must be distributed. Figuring out who should get how much of that $19 trillion is a political choice — and the Republicans’ choice is to give much of that money to a few hundred financial dynasties.”
And now the GOP’s scheme, unmasked:
“The GOP says its plan is an effort to ‘fix our broken tax code,’ and there can be no doubt that the code is broken. Our fabulously wealthy nation is mysteriously plagued by poverty. More than 40 million Americans currently live in poverty, including 11.5 million children … [and] 78 percent of U.S. households report living paycheck to paycheck. …
“[But the] GOP tax plan won’t resolve any of those problems. Republicans have assembled a host of tax changes that will ensure that more and more of the nation’s wealth goes to the people who already have most of it. It’s a strategy to inflate existing fortunes, increase profits on Wall Street and enhance the social dominance of people who make their living from investments over people who make their living earning wages and salaries. The heart of the Republican plan is a permanent cut to the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. The benefits of that will accrue to people who own corporations. …
“No trained economist seriously believes that shoveling unearned benefits to people who just happen to own or inherit financial assets is good for growth, productivity or anything else. … Cutting the corporate tax rate down to 20 percent doesn’t encourage anything except a one-time jolt to asset prices. …
“When Republicans dole out big tax cuts, they typically offer something for low- and middle-income families to make the process a little less unseemly. It’s not clear if they’ll be able to include those perks this time around, and the slapdash, piecemeal approach to helping everyone outside the capital class makes their priorities perfectly clear. When the tax framework was released Thursday morning, [they] talked up a slightly more generous child tax credit and some additional deductions for middle-class families … countered by the elimination of other popular deductions. … Republicans on Thursday couldn’t promise that their bill wouldn’t ultimately raise taxes on middle-class families. …
“So never mind the budget deficits and growth projections. The GOP tax plan is a simple political statement about who matters more in American democracy: the heirs to hedge fund fortunes or everyone else in the country. Trump and the Republicans have chosen the dynasts. This is not a necessity; we could easily afford a different set of priorities. Social domination by the financial sector is a choice.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-tax-plan-who-matters_us_59fc8ed4e4b0b0c7fa39d222?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Roger Rabbit Commentary: What I’ve been saying all along, but the article brings their ulterior motives into clearer focus. It’s not a done deal yet; for now, the country still has a choice. These people do listen to angry mobs when there are enough of us. But hey, if you want to make Roger Rabbit and Doctor Dumbfuck richer, don’t call or write your congressman and senator.