1)Yes, but it's the recourse when your expectations aren't met that I'm discussing. Also, the base level of service is lower for Uber than a licensed taxi, no?

2)Yes, that's exactly what I mean...they aren't regulated taxis, they are basically operating illegally everywhere, but abused loopholes and used misrepresentation to gain a foothold, then grew too fast to control...or just were ignored until they took enough work from licensed taxi drivers, and now they're being considered 'too big to fail' and still allowed to operate in most places (not all). I would never use them for exactly that reason...as essentially black market taxis, I would expect little insurance against improper service or damage. It's not JUST the drivers, they also treat the rule of law with contempt. Why would one not expect them to treat customers with the same distain and carelessness?

For starters, I have to oppose the implied thought that Saddam's reign of terror was preventing this sectarian violence. His rule through the Suni minority to wage genocides against the Kurdish and Shia majority and decades of brutal repression of same all served to make the sectarian hatred and violence worse. Tally up the hundreds of thousands he killed through genocide, the million plus he killed in the Iran-Iraq war and everyone that died by direct execution or deliberate starvation level poverty and compare it doesn't stand out as starkly and objectively a desirable alternative to today.

Now if you ask what would I do differently it depends on what level of power I've got to act with. Ideally, we can go back to first Iraq war and have Bush senior march on Baghdad. This would've aborted one of Saddam's genocides. Equally importantly, this would have kept the Shia Iraqi population's view of America as a liberating force. The standing in the desert and watching Saddam slaughter them thing still carried their mistrust of American forces after Saddam's actual removal later. That singularly stupid move of leaving Saddam in power, at the urging of most of the planet, drove the Shia population of Iraq back to Iran as their sole sympathetic ally.

Next step, after the removal of Saddam, whether we can do it back then, or only a few years ago as it really happened is to truly setup an occupation government. You don't bring stability to a region by immediately trying to transition to a democracy before the shooting has even stopped. The occupation government would be run by somebody with actual knowledge and experience with Iraq, rather than as Bush senior did by sending in a guy with zero experience and a two week lead to brief himself. The task you should place on this leader, is to setup a federated Iraq, with distinct and autonomous Shia, Sunni and Kurdish states. The occupation government would dictate things after taking input from Iraqi's rather than holding them to the tyranny of the majority as Bush and co allowed. The occupation would setup an initial constitution defining what laws and agreements spanned all three Iraqi provinces/states and what extent of autonomy they had to define their own systems of government. The American military's job would be to enforce this very basic constitutional framework. Each Iraqi state/province would be aided in setting up their own governments with a transition plan again dictated not voted upon. The transition plan would define the point in time when each state transitioned from occupation rule to a self determined future and rule of law.

The above plan on the whole would work, but Bush and co couldn't have managed post Saddam Iraq more poorly if they had actively tried to.

If zero time travel is allowed and we are to 'fix' things today, you need a lot MORE power. You need an army the size of America or Russia's and the political will to spend several years doing things the public will hate you for. The end game is still the same as above, a federated Iraq kicked off under a dictatorial occupation. To get there from today though you need to create stability. You need to take an army and march it across the entire country. As each city is cleared of militants you take a census of everybody and keep it because you need it to track down future militants. In entirely hostile locations like were ISIS has full rule, you bomb them into the stone ages before marching the army in. The surviving population is given full medical treatment. Now, as for sorting militants from civilians though, you do NOT use American style innocent until proven guilty justice. Instead, any fighting age males are considered guilty until proven innocent. This level of rule of law needs to remain in place until stability can be restored. You of course guarantee lots of innocent arrests, but your trying to prevent massive numbers of innocent deaths so it's required. As you stabilize the nation you can relax back to innocent until proven guilty and work on re-integrating the convicted.

You'll note that although the methods I'd declare necessary above are by any count 'brutal', they do not extend into Saddam's usage of genocide, torture and rape as the weapons of choice.

"Can [They] be so insanely sheltered that they think her 'answers' help her?"

If you piece together all of her statements on a plethora of different topics, it is inescapably obvious that they (!) truly have no connection to anyone or anything outside their bubble. Surrounded by sycophants as the Clintons are, people have wondered, and justifiably so, whether she cares or even knows that she's lying on a regular basis. One might make the case that the entire concept of an objective "truth", connected to reality, has no meaning for them.

Additionally, she really does suck at campaigning. But that's not punishable by extended prison sentences, unlike, I don't know, sending Special Access Program (SAP) info through your own bloody email server.

Lastly, Joe mentions Powell (6:16 onwards). When Colin Powell was SoS, his office was connected to the internal system, but had no connection to the internet or the outside world in general. You can't get shit done that way, not in this day and age. That's why he had additional gear set up to at least send and receive emails. This was done separate from the internal network and, if I remember correctly, his entire staff was not only open about it every step of the way, they applied for and received special permissions before they touched anything.

Clinton didn't give a jar of cold piss about the rules that are meant to safeguard access to sensitive information. It was inconvenient to her, and since the rules and laws only apply to plebs, she and her posse set up their own system.

A whole lot of people have to adhere to tedious rules and procedures, with severe punishment looming just around the corner. One guy was in the press for receiving three years of prison after he placed a document on the wrong desk. So, if the FBI drags out the investigation or even buries it, you can bet your ass that a lot of people at different agencies are going to be fuming. And between the FBI, the NSA and CIA, a lot of people have access to the remaining emails from Clinton's server. That opens Clinton up to blackmail, a lot of it. Can't have a compromised president. Not to mention that someone's going to take the data and just drop it over at WikiLeaks or the Intercept.

Hmm... Democrat failure of 8 years? I seem to recall the Republicans have controlled the budget, more or less for 6 of those 8 years, and solidly for the last 2. I seem to recall we were in a budget surplus before Bush Jr took us out of it for an unjust war built on, at best misinformation, and very possibly lies. All the while the same people crying about the deficit now said then that deficits don't matter. What happened is a failure of Obama, it's a failure of the Republican policies as Obama's weren't even given a shot as the modern day Republican doesn't want a democracy, what they want is a dictatorship where they dictate the rules and compromise with the other side of the isle, formally known as politics, is bad and it's my way or the highway mentality is the rule of law for the party. Hell, the party abandoned its very own plan for affordable health care and now call it one of the worst things ever... their own plan... the same plan, funded the same way with the same penalties for not participating, that they tried to pass into federal law 3 times is now one of the worst things that our government has ever passed.

Cruz and Trump will isolate America from our allies, especially if Trump won. None of our allies (save perhaps Israel) would want to associate with us. They are already mad at us for Bush's wars and both Cruz and Trump want to escalate those wars and "carpet bomb" millions of innocent people to get to a few bad people? Trump wants to kill their families, which will make it easier to radicalize more and more people... and before one says that is the brutality of that religion, which religion is the one wanting to carpet bomb innocent people to kill a few guilty people and torture people and other crimes that their Christ would never support? Of course everything the Republicans want to do is exactly what ISIS has publicly stated they want other nations to do, so perhaps the Republican party is in league with ISIS?

Their policies, especially Trump's, regarding items made out of the country (jobs sent overseas by the same people that Republicans love... the same people who take for themselves while they refuse to pay living wages to their employees for pure greed reasons) would result in an economic melt down in the US as countries and businesses refuse to do as much business with us... or they move from the US dollar as the standard currency as retribution, which again wrecks the US economy.

Of less importance is that a Trump presidency and likely a Cruz as well would result in a guarantee that we'd lose the bids for the 2024 Olympic games and the 2026 World Cup, both of which we have a decent lead on as of now, but if men of hate and discrimination get in, then why would games of peace come? Trump wants to refuse to let Muslims even visit, and that would make a huge percentage of those who'd come for either or.

Anyhow to the subject of Bernie. Yes the Republican's would block everything as they do with Obama, but the conversation is moved and advanced for the people. I'd fear that if Clinton got in, the Republicans would spend all their time trying to impeach her rather than go about the process of governing. Bernie they'd just try to ignore and then get caught off guard as the nation caught onto his ideas and wanted to run with it and gave him a congress that would work with him.... of course a Trump nomination means they'd likely lose the Senate anyhow... which will be hilarious, doesn't matter if it's Clinton or Sanders in the office, because moments after the election, Obama pulls the moderate Supreme Court Justice nomination that the Republicans asked for by name before it became a political issue, and they instead get a more liberal justice... (I'm further amused by how they say they just want American's to vote on it... they did folks, 4 years ago, everyone knew there'd likely be an opening or two during his terms and he still won.)

It seems like it's time to petition the white house to go after ANYONE named in the papers, and let them prove in court that they weren't really evading taxes and that they had a legitimate, legal reason to have their money there, or go to jail for tax evasion like Capone. If 95% of what they do there is tax evasion, it's reasonable to presume their customers guilty until proven innocent.
If we aren't going to prosecute these people for clearly and massively stealing from the country, then there is no rule of law and it's already Mad Max times, and the Koch brothers are really the Lord Humongous and Immortan Joe .

Italy:
Renzi is creating the conditons for a new bubble? Through deficit spending on... what? Unless they start building highways in the middle of nowhere like they did in Spain, I don't see any form of bubble coming out of deficit spending in Italy. The country's been in a major recession for quite some time now, with no light at the end of the tunnel and a massive shortfall in private spending. But meaningful deficit spending requires Renzi to tell Germany and the Eurogroup to pound sand -- not sure his balls have descended far enough for that just yet.

Referendum in Switzerland:
"Vollgeld". That's the German term for what the initiators of this referendum are aiming for: 100% reserve banking. It's monetarism in disguise, and they are adament to not be called monetarists. But that's what it is. Pure old-fashioned monetarism. Even if you don't give a jar of cold piss about all these fancy economic terms and theories, let me ask you this: the currency you use is quite an important part of all your daily life, isn't it? So why would anyone in his or her right mind remove it entirely from democratic control (even constitutionally)?
If you want to get into the economic nightmares of it, here are a few bullet points:
- no Overt Monetary Financing (printing money for deficit spending) means no lender of last resort and complete dependence on the market, S&P can tell you to fuck off and die as they did with PIIGS
- notion that the "right amount of money in circulation" will enable the market to keep itself in balance -- as if that ever worked
- notion that a bunch of technocrats can empirically determine this very amount in regular intervalls
- central bank is supposed to maintain price stability, nothing else -- single mandate, works beautifully for the ECB, at least if you like 25% unemployment
- concept is founded in the notion that the financial economy is the source of (almost) all problems of the "real" economy, thereby completely ignoring the fact that decades of wage suppression have simply killed widescale purchasing power of the masses, aka demand

Visegrad nations:
From a German perspective, they are walking on thin ice as it is. The conflict with Russia never had much support of the public to begin with, but even the establishment is becoming more divided on this issue. Given the authoritarian policies put in place in Poland recently and the utter refusal to take in their share of refugees, support might fade even more. If the Visegrad governments then decide to push for further conflict with Russia, Brussels and Berlin might tell them, very discreetly, to pipe the fuck down.

Turkey:
Wildcard. He mentioned how they will mess with Syria, the Kurds and Russia, but forgot to mention the conflict between Turkey and the EU. As of now, it seems as if Brussels is ready to pay Ankara in hard cash if they keep refugees away from Greece. Very similar to the deal with Morocco vis-a-vis the Spanish enclave. As long as they die out of sight, all is good for Brussels.

I would add France as a point of interest:
They recently announced that the state of emergency will be extended until ISIS is beaten. In other words, it'll be permanent, just like the Patriot Act in the US. A lof of attention has been given to the authoritarian shift of politics in Poland, all the while ignoring the equally disturbing shift in France. Those emergency measures basically suspend the rule of law in favour of a covert police state. Add the economic situation (abysmal), the Socialist President who avoids socialist policies, and the still ongoing rise of Front National... well, you get the picture.

Regarding the EU, I'll say this: between the refugee crisis (border controls, domestic problems, etc) and the economic crisis, they finally managed to convince me that this whole thing might come apart at the seams after all. Not this year, though, even if the Brits decide to distance themselves from this rotten creation.

Yes, an apology is more than most countries offer when they do this kind of thing....just ask Russia.
That said, an apology is NOT accountability, explanation, or even honesty. Independent investigation is needed every time something like this happens, otherwise there basically is NO international rule of law, and we should stop pretending there is.
But...the president is certainly NOT the person who gave the go ahead to bomb a known hospital. He would likely not have charges levied against him no matter what.

It is a sign of guilt when any organization insists they, and only they, can investigate their own clearly bad actions....I'm looking at the cops here....and 'self investigation' is no investigation.

I said it on the other video on this topic, and I'll say it again....we won't accept self investigation when a major hospital in the US blows up. Not for a second. If it's not good enough for us, how can we pretend it's good enough for everyone else? That's just plain self serving BS.

Motherfucker. Corrupt with authority.

His rule of law is: keep running your mouth and see what happens.

He doesn't like that they're speaking and he's also ordering them by royal decree to vacate the area. Being disobedient deserves you getting your head slammed to the concrete.

He cannot work in this line of work ever again. Those kids are lucky the other officers were there or that fucker may have shot them for no fucking reason.

If men of GOD trip and fall, they're usually landing penis first in other men or children.
I loathe gay clergy not for staying in their closet of self-hatred, I loathe them for actively speaking out against their own nature and therefore making it harder for those who chose not to be liars.
I chose to discard the bible because of the immoral, unethical, cruel and simply made up stuff that's written in it. That should be reason enough.
I detest christian churches for supporting pedophilia and actively covering up pedophile's crimes while having the gall to tell me what I should or should not do sexually. I detest them for claiming the authority to make up rules of morality when they refuse to obey the rule of law and human decency. The Duggars are just a recent example of that.
The reason society won't allow sexual relationships with children is simply because we recognise that children aren't able to make informed choices regarding sexual consent. That's why the world frowned on Courtney Stodden and Doug Hutchinson, because everyone knew it was a shitty idea made by weird, creepy people.
Consent is something grown ups can give. And millions of gay men do it all the time, without your approval or not. All they want is equal treatment.
If pedophiles wanted that (and they did try in the past), we tell them to go fuck themselves because the people they want to, are simply too young to make that choice. There's a legal limit for drinking, driving and fucking and it's there for a reason.
If they claim "I was born this way!", which they often are, we tell them we have therapies for that. They don't go there because their sexuality is weird, out of the norm or gross, it's because it always hurts the other people involved. Always.

You are the one ranting "But what if you take away the rule book?! Goats will rape our children!" You seem to be the one worried that all goes Mad Max if we're not threatened with eternal damnation anymore.
I for one are not worried any place turns into Sodom and Gomorrah. You want to know why? Because I have all those gay, lesbian and transgender people to remind me that everybody deserves respect. They can walk up to me and start a conversation and don't have to worry I will yell "Abomination!" and start throwing my own poop.
Maybe I can learn something from their expirience. Maybe even somebody like you could. I hope somebody you truly love turns out to be gay, it would be quite educational for you to know what they know.
And you're right, I don't know anybody called Jack. I can only offer a Johannes but he was an idiot.

Many people seem confused about our government's origins.
Wiki- Treaty Of Tripoli-unanimously ratified by congress and President John Adams 1797
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

"By their actions, the Founding Fathers made clear that their primary concern was religious freedom, not the advancement of a state religion. Individuals, not the government, would define religious faith and practice in the United States. Thus the Founders ensured that in no official sense would America be a Christian Republic. Ten years after the Constitutional Convention ended its work, the country assured the world that the United States was a secular state, and that its negotiations would adhere to the rule of law, not the dictates of the Christian faith. The assurances were contained in the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 and were intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers.[15]

The constitution and bill of rights were based on English Common Law, which existed long before the Romans brought the idea of Christianity to England....so if people insist our laws are based on religion, remind them the religion in power where/when they came from was Pagan religion, and they should be worshiping Odin.

I didn't say they were killing millions, I said they were trained to kill...

US police conflict resolution is at the point of a gun as the first step. Most other countries where a reasonable rule of law exists teach conflict resolution prior to drawing weapons on people.

APC's, body armour, fully automatic weapons etc are not the tools of a police force, they are the tools of an army, but somehow small towns now feature APC's and heavily armed under trained SWAT or tactical response forces. Even US military personal have made the comment, all of the equipment, none of the training or discipline. If you are armed to the teeth and taught to shoot first/ask questions later, it's no surprises that your death by cops tally is so high...

For example, total Australian police shootings in the period 2008-2011 (for a population of 25 odd million or 1/13th of the US) came to /drumroll .... 14

And 7 deaths in Victoria over that time raised eyebrows.

http://theconversation.com/shoot-to-kill-the-use-of-lethal-force-by-police-in-australia-34578

US police, on the other hand, eclipse that total every single year, often by more than the per capita average (often by much more than the per capita average).

2015 (total: 150)
2014 (total: 625)
2013 (total: 342)
2012 (total: 611)
2011 (total: 165)
2010 (total: 227)
2009 (total: 63)

And it's just amazing in how many of those cases, the words "cleared of wrong doing by the district attorney, city paid out to a civil trial for wrongful death" appear. Or "shot while running away", "shot while unarmed" etc.

And to be absolutely clear, I have nothing but respect for most of the people that choose to bear that duty, but they are being trained to go to the gun first and foremost. If that is the first and last tool to resolve conflict, it's no wonder there are so many deaths...

How fucking broken does the police force need to be for this to happen to an elderly, skinny man? HOW FUCKING BROKEN?!

The police are not there to give out punishment. They are there to bring the guilty before the courts. They have certain powers to issue tickets, but beyond that it is not their place to decide if someone is to be punished or not. That's the court's job.

Even if they had watched the guy do something illegal, if they have hold of him and he is no threat to them there is no reason, at all, for them to use any force beyond what is necessary to get him before the courts. None. This guy was no threat at all physically. Even if he was swearing and abusive, even if he called the officer's mother a whore, or his kids fucking retards it doesn't matter. The police should be above that. They should record it, make sure there's evidence of it and bring him, safely and with as little force as necessary before a judge.

At what point did America hand over the rule of law to the police? At what point did they make it OK for the police to dole out physical punishment? Even if the guy had done something illegal they can't just choose to hurt him.

The fact that not only had they not seen him doing anything wrong, and the call to them didn't allege any crime, just a suspicious person, and that person turned out to be a skinny Indian granddad who had done nothing wrong and posed no threat at all and the TRAINING OFFICER felt it was OK for him to throw the man to the ground shows the system is completely and utterly broken.

I hope this guy gets the book thrown at him. I hope his life is fucked. I hope this piece of shit goes to prison and gets his fucking ring torn to fucking shreds.

But most of all I hope that that isn't seen as and end to it. I hope that cases like this will lead to real reform of the police service in America because it fucking needs it. I've heard the 'few bad apples' bullshit and it's bollox. This guy did an appalling thing, right out in the open. He clearly believes that it's OK and that he won't get in trouble for it. We can all speculate as to what would happen with this case if there hadn't been video footage of it, and you can believe they'd still be prosecuting if you like. Good for you, you fucking idiot.

All police need to be held to account all the time. they need to be wearing cameras, and there needs to be strong sanctions against those officers who's cameras just happen to have been left off, or keep breaking or whatever else they come up with.

I'm definitely not seeing any actual legitimate censorship issue and no legitimate point or argument--and certainly no censorship "rule." There is no rule or law against showing nipples on the internet. The decision to blur the photograph was made entirely by this V Magazine at their own discretion for their own reasons.

Compared to many western countries, the United States is relatively light on censorship precisely because of the codification of the first amendment. There are very few circumstances in which the federal government uses criminal law to enforce censorship, and using civil law to do likewise (such as in cases of libel) is relatively hard. Naturally, the truth on the ground is always more complex, because of all of the ways you can sneak sort-of-censorship into local and state laws such school boards determining public school curriculums, shady contracts, and discriminatory public decency laws. That last, which is really more what this guy is arguing about in a ham-fisted way.

I certainly don't believe there should be different laws for men and for women. If a bare-chested man in public is acceptable, I believe a bare-chested woman should be just as acceptable. In this case, I'd go so far as to say I believe that should be federal law, but that can likewise backfire in ways I don't agree with (eg, I believe wether to allow concealed handguns should be a local decision), so I'm not quick to make blanket statements.

Certainly the US is socially and psychologically backward in many, many ways, but it's also better in that respect now on balance than it has ever been in the past.

my comment was pointed directly at the government,corporations do not create laws.

since you acknowledge the perversion of the rule of law i can only assume you are referring to an idealized memory of said rule,which no longer exists in reality.

so when i read your answer to the question "which side are you on"? it comes across as "the idealized version from beginning of our country".
which,according to your own commentary is pure fiction...it has been perverted.

i actually agree with the tenor and flavor of your comment,i just dont understand choosing a fantasy side when this video draws a pretty clear line in the sand.

this video really touches me for that very reason.incredibly powerful,yet simple message.i love how dolan uses depression era union organizing folk music to accompany his ridicule and disdain for the fake and ineffectual person who thinks wearing a t-shirt or colored ribbon is somehow helping the plight of the common man.that it is time to choose sides.

my jesus reference was not intended to shock or offend,but rather point out a hypocrisy i am encountering daily,and with increasing frequency.jesus walked with the oppressed,the disenfranchised and the abandoned.his ministries were directed at these pockets of humanity.he was an insurrectionist,a radical and a dissident.he was always on the side of the powerless.

so how i look at it,to choose the "other" side is to choose an ever-increasing authoritarian powered elite that is systematically stripping you of the very ideals you propose to support.the very power structure that robs and steals your grandkids future,commodifies human beings and criminalizes the poor.

or a more apt analogy:you have chosen the plantation owner and the slave master.

which is why my reaction is a visceral one.

my faith has always dictated my politics,and i cannot,in good conscious,choose a side that seeks to crush my fellow man for its own continued:greed,luxury,social status,political influence and social relevance.

the price they demand is too high.
it is time to choose sides.

as for being vulgar piece of trash..yeah..i dont see it.
maybe the music is not your thing or the video production value is low,but "vulgar piece of trash"?

sorry man..just dont see how this music video can be placed in that category.

You point the finger at wall street when you government is at fault.
The rule of law have been perverted year over year since the beginning and been sliding ever so fast the last 100 years.

Vote for Joe lunch bucket next time time around, Forget Hillery and any of the mainstream Republicans. That are all puppets.

But the people are more concerned for their single issue than the betterment of America. Corporations are no different but they have the $ to hedge their best by playing both sides.


And yes the video is still a vulgar pile of trash.