BigSqwert Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 If Only We Could All Be Treated As Well As ... Native Americans John Stossel on Fox: "Why is there a Bureau of Indian Affairs? ... No group in America has been more helped by the government than the American Indians." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Hahahaha oh wow. John Stossel needs to get slapped in the head again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Maine's new Republican governor is ordering that a mural depicting working class Americans be taken down because it's "biased against business owners" I'm glad that the Republicans are doing a hell of a job of showing how terrible they are at government. Bust unions, cut corporate taxes, defund NPR and above all, pass anti-abortion laws. They've got their priorities right in line! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Right-wingers, apparently completely ignorant of how arbitration works, are melting down over OMG! SHARIA LAW! in Florida. http://www.fljud13.org/LinkClick.aspx?file...67&mid=1031 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 12:09 PM) If Only We Could All Be Treated As Well As ... Native Americans John Stossel on Fox: "Why is there a Bureau of Indian Affairs? ... No group in America has been more helped by the government than the American Indians." Oh my lord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soxbadger Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Boo people shouldnt be free to contract their own dispute procedures. Booo letting people contract! Yay for more govt interference in contract! I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 04:11 PM) Boo people shouldnt be free to contract their own dispute procedures. Booo letting people contract! Yay for more govt interference in contract! I But its SHARIA LAW! It's the ISLAMIFICATION OF AMERICA! NOW WOMEN CAN BE STONED TO DEATH THANKS TO THIS LIBRUL JUDGE! It's a stupefying amount of ignorance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 The NYT has an excellent long article this morning on the use of tax shelters by General Electric and how it has pretty much keeps them from having to pay a dime in federal income taxes...and gets a few billion back as well. The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies. Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. The fun part? President Obama has a "task force" right now tasked with overhauling the nation's corporate tax code, to cut the overall rate but also remove some of these deductions so that the tax base is widened. The leader of that task force? He has designated G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, as his liaison to the business community and as the chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and it is expected to discuss corporate taxes. “He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy,” Mr. Obama said of Mr. Immelt, on his appointment in January, after touring a G.E. factory in upstate New York that makes turbines and generators for sale around the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 25, 2011 -> 11:29 AM) The NYT has an excellent long article this morning on the use of tax shelters by General Electric and how it has pretty much keeps them from having to pay a dime in federal income taxes...and gets a few billion back as well. The fun part? President Obama has a "task force" right now tasked with overhauling the nation's corporate tax code, to cut the overall rate but also remove some of these deductions so that the tax base is widened. The leader of that task force? Wow, posted three times in two threads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 25, 2011 -> 03:38 PM) Wow, posted three times in two threads. At least mine was first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Since Canadian Conservatives are to the left of U.S. Democrats I'll put this here...Canada's government falls in a no-confidence vote, elections coming in a few weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 26, 2011 Share Posted March 26, 2011 BREAKING NEWS: Geraldine Ferraro, first woman and Italian-American to run on national ticket, dies at age 75 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapkomet Posted March 26, 2011 Share Posted March 26, 2011 Damn. That was quick, wasn't she just out doing stuff in public? It didn't seem like she was in bad health. RIP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 26, 2011 Share Posted March 26, 2011 Talks between Republicans and Democrats at a full-year budget agreement appear to have broken down. There are 13 days left until the latest supplemental appropriations bill expires and the government shuts down if a deal is not reached. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 27, 2011 Share Posted March 27, 2011 I can't even come up with a witty, sarcastic remark on this one, from Nebraska. The elimination one year ago of Medicaid funding for prenatal care for about 1,600 low-income women has had dramatic effects, doctors and health clinic administrators reported Wednesday. At least five babies have died. Women are traveling 155 miles to get prenatal care. Babies have been delivered at clinics, in ambulances and hospital emergency rooms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 "Things that belong in multiple threads". USA Today has taken an in-depth look at one of the schools in Washignton DC that has been held up as a model for national test-based education reform. In just two years, Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus went from a school deemed in need of improvement to a place that the District of Columbia Public Schools called one of its "shining stars." Standardized test scores improved dramatically. In 2006, only 10% of Noyes' students scored "proficient" or "advanced" in math on the standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Two years later, 58% achieved that level. The school showed similar gains in reading. Because of the remarkable turnaround, the U.S. Department of Education named the school in northeast Washington a National Blue Ribbon School. Noyes was one of 264 public schools nationwide given that award in 2009. .... A USA TODAY investigation, based on documents and data secured under D.C.'s Freedom of Information Act, found that for the past three school years most of Noyes' classrooms had extraordinarily high numbers of erasures on standardized tests. The consistent pattern was that wrong answers were erased and changed to right ones. Noyes is one of 103 public schools here that have had erasure rates that surpassed D.C. averages at least once since 2008. That's more than half of D.C. schools. Erasures are detected by the same electronic scanners that CTB/McGraw-Hill, D.C.'s testing company, uses to score the tests. When test-takers change answers, they erase penciled-in bubble marks that leave behind a smudge; the machines tally the erasures as well as the new answers for each student Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 08:31 AM) "Things that belong in multiple threads". USA Today has taken an in-depth look at one of the schools in Washignton DC that has been held up as a model for national test-based education reform. The Trib has a similar story that followed classes where there was 6 to 7 standard deviation increases in scores, and then huge drop offs in the next years. Big picture, the cheating that goes on in these things is massive. Test scores are a stupid way to rate children. Unfortunately with the continued federalization of education, this is the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 10:08 AM) Big picture, the cheating that goes on in these things is massive. Test scores are a stupid way to rate children. Unfortunately with the continued federalization of education, this is the future. My guess is that this explicit problem isn't caused by scores being used to rate children here as much as the scores being used to rate the effectiveness of teachers and schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 From a discussion elsewhere, thought it was worthwhile to repost: what i mostly find worrying how many people think that a deficit is the biggest issue to address in a recession, not unemployment, the resultant overworking and underpaying of those who remain employed, a general decline in quality of life, and from a macroeconomic perspective, demand destruction deepening the economic slump in a self-reinforcing spiral of s***. all of that is supposed to work itself out by killing social programs and cutting taxes for billionaires. the nitty-gritty of political football and funding allocation schemes are a far on the horizon when this is the prevailing understanding of political economy. This is a bit a political chicanery which would almost be admirable if the result wasn't so devastating to the country. 1). Run record-setting deficits for 8 years to fund unwinnable imperialistic wars which only benefit defense contractors (from which you personally profit). 2). Your political opposition complains for 8 years about "the deficit" funding the war. Say the deficit is the price of freedom. 3). The opposition gains the Presidency and short-term control of the Congress inheriting a manufactured recession, the unwinnable wars, and the record deficit. 4). Blame the deficit on the opposition and demand a solution. The solution of course is the dismantling of the oppositions political base and all social safetynet programs. 5). #winning! Much of this is the Democrats fault for being played so soundly at every turn. Machiavelli couldn't have written a better script. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 11:49 PM) From a discussion elsewhere, thought it was worthwhile to repost: The dems did get universal healthcare and a lot of other things. But hey, whose counting passing a policy they've tried to get done for 60 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 They got UHC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 i misspoke, but the healthcare act was so much bigger than anything the republicans accomplished in 2000 or 2010 and it's not even close. Establishing collective bargaining and what not when the dems regain power will be pretty easy, dismantling ACA will be much much harder. They'll have to hope for the supreme court to overturn it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Gingrich fears the US could become "“a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists" wtf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 05:58 AM) Gingrich fears the US could become "“a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists" wtf This is where the GOP has gone even more bats*** crazy than the Dems, and why my formerly pretty reliable GOP votes have migrated somewhat left in recent years. People make cartoonish statements to characterize politicians in the extreme here in The Buster, and its done from both sides... but the actual "leaders" of the current national level GOP are a lot closer to those caricatures than their Dem bretheren. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 I dunno, I would have struggled to make a caricature that said something that asinine. A secular-atheist country dominated by radical Islamists Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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