How's that Texas economy doing? Finally getting past 5% budget cuts to project a $750 million surplus....California, which isn't losing population despite right wing claims of an exodus, had $75.7 BILLION surplus....only >100 times better.

Texas population might be growing, it's economy is stagnant at best and it's infrastructure is horrendous, just criminally awful, actually so bad it's killing Texans.

Ahhh, so this is all uninformed opinion from a foreigner who has no clue about Texas or America, arguing with an informed Texan native and US citizen about America and Texas. I should have known, you really don't have a clue, and biased internet news isn't going to help you be informed.

Lol. Really. Such delusion. Who's circling? What war, we just ended one. What draft, our military is oversized, bigger and better equipped than all others combined, and has no fighting missions to complete. What the fuck are you talking about?

Those are decent points, but have absolutely zero to do with the mass abandoning of their positions. It was 100% due to one of their own being charged after beating nonviolent protesters. They originally admitted exactly that, and now that they aren't being supported in their walkout, they are coming up with excuses that didn't matter to them the day before the officer was charged.

I think they should have to pay for the training and equipment they now refuse to use.

What are you talking about? You think budget cuts caused time off to be cancelled?! It costs double to not rotate in other officers, because you pay those on duty overtime, it doesn't make it cheaper. Budget cuts were not the issue when these cops were doing crowd control, only now that they're suddenly called to account for their own actions. No time off temporarily, because of extreme circumstances, was not an issue until one of their own was charged. It's certainly not abnormal, and absolutely not because of budget cuts, it costs more.

No prosecutions is the norm, if I recall, over 98% of charges levied at protesters have been dismissed nation wide, mostly because police had no evidence to back the charges they brought. You might note, as described in the article, "Mr. Schmidt immediately announced that he would focus on prosecuting cases of violence or vandalism; protesters who simply resisted arrest or refused to disperse after a police order would not necessarily be charged." They are taking a stand against anarchic violent protesters, but not the peaceful protesters with a legitimate gripe about violent, racist, deadly police acting as an anarchist gang that believes rules only apply to you, not them.

There are few prosecutions in large part because police declare riots when all participants are peaceful and not causing damage, and police are almost always the one's giving the orders to remove the people they declared "rioters", and in most cases they have zero evidence to back up their declarations, and are as violent as possible, beating peaceful videographers and reporters who were trapped and could not disperse, then charging them with refusal to disperse and resisting arrest, even violence against police for attacking police batons with their faces.
(Edit: remember the freeway shutdown when they marched on the freeway, and police blocked them from exiting or continuing while a second group of police came from behind, forcing them into a small fenced in area with no exit, then charged them all with refusal to disperse and the few that tried to disperse were charged with attacking police officers who blocked every escape route, violently attacking anyone trying to leave...all on live tv?)
Many peaceful protests became riots only after police moved in to violently disperse protests, fully 1/2 were riots because counter protesters and bad right wing actors like proud and boogaloo boys were planting bombs, shooting crowds, starting fires, driving through crowds, and murdering police in an effort to paint protesters as violent anarchists. That is verified fact directly from the DOJ investigation.

It's not a Portland only thing, police abandoning their communities because, as they indicated to the DA, "“It was like, ‘There’s our team and there’s their team, and you are on their team and you’re not on our team. And we’ve never had a D.A. not be on our team before,’” Police assume they are on a team against citizens, and won't do their jobs if, by doing them wrong with bias and malice, they might be prosecuted. They are used to immunity, and don't know how to do their jobs without it because they are abusers of power.

One day after charges were levied they quit in solidarity with the criminal abusive cop, and came up with fake excuses later.

You seem to have missed "the Justice Department said that the city’s Police Bureau was violating its own use-of-force policies during crowd-control operations, and that supervisors were not properly investigating complaints." part.

*scifi *90s *history

"Hollywood has had its fair share of historically troubled productions. Whether it was casting changes, actor deaths, fired directors, in-production rewrites, constant delays, budget cuts, or studio edits, these films had every intention to be a blockbuster but were beset with unforeseen disasters. Sometimes huge hits, sometimes box office bombs.

Of course, this week's movie is one of the HUGE HITS we're talking about, with Groundhog Day being a top-tier classic in Bill Murray's filmography. Brilliantly directed by the late Harold Ramis, this is a movie that's spawned many imitators (including the recent Palm Springs) but, in the minds of many, will never truly be equaled..."

So, you're ignorant of the fact that most forests, approximately 60% in California, are national/federal forests under federal control, with only about 3% being state controlled? The rest are privately owned.
You're likely also ignorant of the fact that your messiah has cut the already wholly inadequate funding to manage them by around $2 billion per year nation wide, threatening to drop that to zero in California, all the while ignorantly claiming it's the state who is not managing it's responsibilities.
California, conversely, has budgeted >$2 billion to manage state run forest lands.
Requests to the national forestry department for better management of overgrown and unmanaged federal forests have been met with threats from Trump to remove all federal funding.

The nation's forest service is so poorly funded under Trump that they can't even afford a spokesperson to answer those accusations, there's just a recording saying there's no staff due to budget cuts.

So much for the promise to fix the nation's infrastructure.

Side note, Paradise Ca is in conservative Butte county....burned to nothing. ($16.5 billion and 85 deaths) That fire started on federal land.
Redding is in conservative Shasta county, badly damaged (>$21 billion with 8 deaths.) That fire also started on federal lands.
But keep blaming liberals, it's all you're good at. *facepalm

Your video, After Mueller Report, Trump Lies About Budget Cuts, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

What would you recommend for an alternative here? There are inevitably going to be seniors who don't have family available to help them, and who reach a point where they're unable to care for themselves. I can only think of four options at that point:
1) Hope there's a local charity that is willing to take care of them, has adequate funding to do so, and isn't abusive. If this is unregulated there's a high likelihood of abuse occurring, and if it is regulated then you have government involved, which appears to be something you'd oppose. There's also the issue of unequal access - if it's charitable then it's inherently not mandated, so it's nearly certain some people will not have any such charity in their area (see #3).
2) Somehow have private, non-charitable entities handle it? I've no idea how this would work, as any non-charity is pretty much by definition motivated by profit, and a profit motive plus caring for the elderly is certain to lead to abuse (perhaps not in all cases, but I'd expect it to be quite common).
3) Nothing / good luck, oldies.
4) Government intercession.

In this case, a safety net facilitated by the government strikes me as the best of the available options. The problems highlighted in the video seem likely to stem from insufficient oversight and planning. I'd wager that's due to lack of funding, as this is exactly the sort of program which would be seen as a low-risk target when budget cuts come around, at least from an electoral perspective. After all, if the people impacted by this are those who don't already have people in their life who care for and can advocate for them, and being put under guardianship removes their voting rights, then where's the harm to a politician in reducing the funding?

It seems to me that a well-funded guardianship program, with proper oversight in place, would have the best chance of minimizing the suffering of elderly individuals who can no longer care for themselves. I can understand the libertarian preference for minimal governmental interference in the lives of the public, but this strikes me as a case where that simply doesn't work. If you can think of a viable option #5, or can make a case for 1, 2, or 3 being legitimately more helpful than a well-run option #4 (which is clearly NOT what's discussed in the video), I'm absolutely open to considering it. At the same time, implementing #4 in a way which doesn't leave it vulnerable to budgetary volatility is also a not-insignificant challenge.

Damn, I'm procrastinating really well tonight. That was long.

Trump Signs Bill Authorizing NASA Budget, Mars Exploration. Increasing their budget instead of his budget cuts he had proposed. It does however cut NASA programs dealing with climate science http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nasa-mars_us_58d14dc9e4b0be71dcf849e3

So Tsipras promises to sell half the government cars, and one of the three government jets, and that the politicians will set the example of frugal living. Despite these and other promises Greenspan, and almost everyone else, is predicting the Grexit.

I only found a single solitary article that was positive, and I'd be a lot happier if I thought he might be right - http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/08/greece-debt-deal-not-impossible

I found another quote that I liked, but unfortunately I can't find it again... it was something along the lines that as Syriza are promising a budget surplus it's time to stop calling them radical left: They're really centre left.

The only radical thing about them is their promise to end the kleptocracy and for the budget cuts to include themselves (in my experience this is extremely rare among any political party).

It's just bad legislature towards the role of a police force creating poor incentives to earn revenue rather than 'serve and protect'. I'm sure state budget cuts of late given the low growth rate have been an additional squeeze. The Economist had an article about this practice at federal/state level, particularly with the Justice Department essentially now being seen as profit centre.

Bit off topic, but the article itself is an interesting take on how back door settlements (particularly with banks recently) have not been in the public interest when they have circumvented the legal system (without establishing precedent and on dubious grounds having never actually been presented publicly as evidence) and have usually led to nobody personally prosecuted and no admission of guilt through a plea deal.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21614101-corporate-america-finding-it-ever-harder-stay-right-side-law-mammoth-guilt

These sequester budget cuts are really starting to hurt.

Thats why: “Belgian firemen were protesting against national budget cuts for the fire department in Brussels on Monday. Firemen from all the country gathered in front of Prime Minister’s office with fire trucks and blocked traffic in Brussels’ ring road. They burned tyres in the streets and sprayed water and foam towards police guarding the protest. At some point police officers stood knee-deep in foam on the street. Talks are ongoing on the ministerial level on the new Belgian budget, and firemen are protesting against cuts in their insurance benefits and insufficient staffing.”

Yes... because people and political parties don't change, even over hundreds of years.

Looks like the budget cuts to Education are working out well for the right wing in America. Don't teach people shit about anything and they'll believe whatever lies you feed them.

The first thing we should do is decide, in the wake of these tragedies, what we should be talking about instead providing a knee jerk reaction.

I would have said the discussion should center around mental-health and the need for it. On that, both men have spoken, Obama through the Affordable Care Act, and Romney through the Massachusetts Health Reform Act.

BUT, in the case of the Colorado shooting, James Holmes' psychiatrist went to local authorities with concerns about this mentally unstable person. Michael Page, responsible for the most recent Wisconsin shooting, was already being watched by authorities.

The question I propose is: Why were these men who should have been monitored closer able to develop and execute elaborate plans to massacre innocent people if the authorities already knew about them?

I'll leave it at that with this final comment: an overstaffed, underworked police force was not a problem in either instance. And funding or defunding local municipalities through the raising or lowering of taxes is something both candidates have spoken on frequently.

What about Americans afraid of aliens?!?!?! and bears?

Looks like it could be a good show. Wondering what the reason will be, stopping chemical reactions in non-living things or virus permeating non-living things (I really hate virus story lines, especially inanimate affecting strains).

Don't think nature would take over the world so much in just 15 years as they show in a few of those clips, especially urban paved areas. Nor would a car be a complete rust bucket in that same amount of time.

If it ends up being good, it will be canceled. Sci-Fi and non-family oriented comedies don't make it past season 1 much anymore, or spend the rest of their seasons continually being threatened and budget cut until they suck enough to take off the air.

Edit:

Im with dag on this though, I like these types of topics. But I don't hold much hope for television anymore to produce sci-fi or fantasy shows that aren't kid oriented. They were bound and determined to end Fringe, I am shocked it got one more season. Game of Thrones....just waiting to see what they do to ruin it.

6 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.