I think Republicans have a disconnect on the word "Build" when they talk about Building an Economy. You build from the ground up. You don't build an attic, then put up walls, then floors, and finish with a solid foundation. It starts with that solid foundation. In an economy like ours that rely on people spending, you need people to be able to spend. That means the people at the low end that do more spending than those on the top (per dollar earned anyhow), need to be the ones having disposable income. If they spend 100% or more of their income on living essentials, they can't spend to move the economy. When they finally do spend, then the retailer can hire more people (at least until automation starts taking over low end jobs, which is frighteningly soon), which means more people with income to spend, which feeds into the cycle. Eventually transportation starts picking up, which feeds more money into the economy. Eventually production has to keep up. By punishing those at the bottom, is shooting oneself in the foot. Half the people who work for Walmart qualify for food stamps, though Walmart makes enough to pay everyone a living wage, give them benefits, and still be profitable, but the people conservatives (Christians yet, who Jesus said to help the needy and the poor, and how the rich were going to hell) are mad at, are the poor people working there, rather than the rich owners/operators for not paying living wages. So conservatives seek to punish those workers by taking away something that allows them to spend money on things that actually move the economy forward. 3 people buying a $25k Chevy will do far more for the economy than that rich ass hole who just put $70lk on a Mercedes or Lexus. Their collection of TVs, video game systems and the like, do far more for the economy than that rich guy's super high def, ultra large screen TV. It's such a fucked up world in conservative land... I'm still at a loss how I used to be a part of it.

It gets to what @enoch was talking about above. There are some really good business owners, then there are the winny bitches who say they can't pay living wages... One of the jobs I worked at, complained in a letter to all of us that if Obama won (first time around) he'd have to fire over 350 people if he put his tax plans in place. Come that February, Obama isn't even in office yet, and he fires 350+ people. Then tells the rest of us that the company couldn't afford to give us raises... of course the company at the same time, went out and purchases a private jet for him, and then he purchased a second mansion in the local, Jack Nicklaus, signature golf course gated community... and he already owned the second largest mansion there. But oh, the conservatives are so support him over his employees, and think poorly of his employees for needing help living day to day, and praise him for his business acumen. The problem with conservatives is they LOVE greed. Love it. They worship it more than they do the Christ they say they serve. They just don't want their money going to help others, they give plenty at their church, they give time at the soup kitchen, but God forbid that their taxes help those working for the asshole business owners who chose greed over their employees. Pay your employees living wages, and no, you won't have it on easy street like Enoch's nephew, but I can guarantee you that his son is the far better human... and that's not to say the nephew doesn't give, he very well may, but he chose to take that money for himself than to pay his employees well. It doesn't matter if he gives tons of it away, it was ill gotten, how much could it have helped his employees had he let them keep more of their labor? Sadly, that nephew seems to be the vast majority of businesses in the US.

It is funny... you would think that the ultra wealthy would really benefit from hding their agenda of greed... yet they just can't ever get enough and it is thust revealed.

The crazy thing is i think the Russians got the man they really wanted in Tillerson.

Exon and Russia have untold billions of dollars tied up in sanctions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/world/europe/rex-tillersons-company-exxon-has-billions-at-stake-over-russia-sanctions.html?_r=0

I give it a year, TOPS, before their greed 'trumps' any concerns over perceived impropriety .

radical islamic terrorism is the usage of a rigid fundamentalist interpretation as a justification predicated on abysmal politics.

ill-thought and short sighted politics is the tinder.
hyper-extremist fundamentalism is the match.

ISIS would never even have existed without al qeada,who themselves would not have existed without US interventionism into:iran,egypt and saudi arabia.

and this is going back almost 70 years.

so lets cut the shit with apologetics towards americas horrific blunders in regards to foreign policy.actions have consequences,there is a cause and effect,and when even in the 50's the CIA KNEW,and have stated as much,that there would be "blowback" from americas persistent interventionism in those regions.which stated goals (in more honest times) was to destabilize,dethrone (remove leaders not friendly to american business) and install leaders more pliant and easily manipulated (often times deposing democratically elected leaders to install despots.the shah and sadam come to mind).

see:chalmers johnson-blowback
see: Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard.

or read this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881

so to act like islamic radicals just fell from the fucking sky,and popped out from thin air,due to something that has been boiling for almost 70 years is fucking ludicrous.

radicalization of certain groups in populations have long been understood,and well documented.

and religion,though the most popular,and easiest tool to motivate and justify heinous acts of violence for a political goal,is not the SOLE tool.

nationalism is another tool used to radicalize a population.
see:the nazi party.

but it always comes down to:tribalism of one kind or another.

@transmorpher

so when you use this "ISIS themselves, in their own magazine (Dabiq) go out of their way to explain that they are not motivated by the xenophobia or the US fighting wars in their countries. They make specifically state that their motivation is simply because you aren't muslim. You can go an read it for yourself. They are self confessed fanatics that need to kill you to go to heaven. "

to solidify your argument,all i see is someone ignoring the history and pertinent reasons why that group even exists.

you may recall that ISIS was once Al qeada,and they were SO radical,SO fanatical and SO violent in their execution of religious zeal..that even al qeada had to distance themselves.

because,again...
religion is used as the justification to enact terrorism due to bad politics.
but the GOAL is always political.

you may remember that in the early 90's the twin towers were attacked and it was the first time americans heard of al qeada,and osama bil laden.

who made a statement back in 1993 and then reiterated in 2001 after 9/11 that the stated goal (one of them at least) was for the removal of ALL american military presence in saudi arabia (there was more,but it mostly dealt with american military presence in the middle east).

but where did this osama dude come from?
why was he so pissed at america?
just what was this dudes deal?

turns out he was already on the road to radicalization during the 80's.coming from an extremely wealthy saudi arabian family but had become extremely religious,and he saw western interventionism as a plague,and western culture as a disease.

he left the comforts of his extremely wealthy family to fight against this western incursion into his religious homeland.he traveled to afghanistan to join the mujahideen to combat the russians,who were actually fighting the americans in a proxy war.and WE trained osama.WE armed him and trained him in the tactics of warfare to,behind the scenes,slowly drain russia of resources in our 50 year long cold war.

how's that for irony.

osama was not,as american media like to paint the picture "anti-democratic or anti-freedom".he saw the culture of consumerism,greed and sexual liberation as an affront to his religious understandings.

this attitude can be directly linked to sayyid qtib from egypt.who visited the united states as an exchange student in 1954.now he wasnt radicalized yet,but when he returned to egypt he didnt recognize his own country.

he saw coco cola signs everywhere,and women wearing shorts skirts,and jukeboxs playing that devils music "rock and roll".

he feared for his country,his neighbors,his community.
just like a southern baptist fears for your soul,sayyid feared for the soul of his country and that this new "westernization" was a direct threat to the tenants laid down by islam.

so he began to speak out.
he began to hold rallies challenging the leadership to turn away from this evil,and people started to take notice,and some people agreed.

change does not come easy for some people,and this is especially true for those who hold strong religious ideologies.
(insert religion here) tends to be extremely traditional.

so sayyid started to gain popularity for his challenge if this new "westernization",and this did not go un-noticed by the egyptian leadership,who at that time WANTED western companies to invest in egypt.(that whole political landscape is totally different now,but back then egypt was fairly liberal,and moderately secular).

so instead of allowing sayyid to speak his mind.
they threw him in prison.
for 4 years.
in solitary.

well,he wasn't radicalized when he went IN to prison,but when he came OUT he sure was.

and to shorten this story,sayyid was the first founder of the muslim brotherhood,whose later incarnation broke off to form?

can you guess?
i bet you can!
al qeade

@Fairbs ,@newtboy and @Asmo have all laid out points why radicalization happens,and the conditions that can enflame and amplify that radicalization.

so i wont repeat what they have already said.

but let us take dearborn michigan as an example.
the largest muslim community in america.
how many terrorists come from dearborn?
how many radicals reside there?
how many mosque preach intolerance and "death to america"?
how many imams quietly sanction fatwas from the local IHOP against american imperialistic pigs?

none.

becuase if you live in stable community,with a functioning government,and you are able to find work and support your family,and your kids can get an education.

the chances of you become radicalized is pretty much:zippo.

the specific religion has NOTHING to do with terrorism.
religion is simply the means in which the justifications to enact violent atrocities is born.

it's the politics stupid.

you could do a thought experiment and flip the religions around,but keep the same political parameters and do you know WHAT we find?

that the terrorists would be CHRISTIAN terrorists.

or do i really need to go all the way back to the fucking dark ages to make my point?

it's
the
politics
stupid.

29 comments, most of them rather long and more-or-less well reasoned, yet none about the content.

I get if you don't trust RT. It's a propaganda outlet of a foreign government, after all. But RT is not Chemical Ali style of propaganda: it is solid, well-researched reporting on many topics, subtly slanted on others, and completely balls-to-the-wall denial of reality on others again.

You want to take that as a reason to ignore it entirely? Knock yourself out.

I won't. Which isn't saying much, because I prefer text over video.

Anyway, they regularly offer a valuably "Korrektiv" with regards to reporting in the mainstream media. Of course I would prefer if I could get that from a less-dubious outlet like, maybe, the Indepedant, or the NZZ, but I can't.

Let's talk about the content of this clip, shall we.

Hedges references the Prop-or-Not pieces run by the WaPo. Does anyone here disagree that those were a total and utter smear job? Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive. Yves Smith and Glen Ford as mouthpieces of the Kremlin... my ass cheeks.

On the other hand, quite a lot of journalists in the US seem to have embraced the Red Scare with open arms, seeing as it gives an excuse as to why their previous HRC lost against the orange-skinned buffoon. Kyle illustrated it nicely with Rachel Maddow.

Second point: they had James Clapper present the report. Seriously? The fucker was caught lying under oath during the initial stages of the NSA revelations. Wasn't the fuckface also in charge of the satellite reconnaisence prior to the Iraq war, who could have presented imagery that debunked the claims of WMD "factories", and decided not to? He is just as trustworthy as Chemical Ali, but less entertaining.

Third: half the report was about RT. Why? I thought it was meant to outline how they "hacked" the election? What does their propaganda outlet have to do with that? And the critique they presented... has anyone read the passage about the "alleged Wall Street greed"? They are having a laugh, and people take it seriously.

Fourth: it distracts from the aspects of HRC's loss they don't want to be a subject of public discussion: class issues. They offered nothing for the working class, who got a shoddy deal over the last decades, and tried to focus entirely on identity politics, completely denying even the existence of class issues. Which is also why it's now the "white, male worker" who is to blame. Nevermind that >50% of white, female workers also voted Trump. Nevermind that significant portions of non-white working class folks also voted Trump. Can't be. According to the narrative, these people are minorities first, working-class second, and identity politics always trumps class politics. Except it didn't.

All this rage at the "deplorables", the "less educated"... it just reeks massively of class bigotry. Those plebs decided to vote for someone other than our beloved Queen HRC? How dare they...

And finally, RT's own part of this segment, about the credibility of the intelligence community's claims. Any disagreement on this? Anyone? Anyone think the torturers at the CIA are trustworthy enough to take their word without hard evidence?

https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/american-unintelligence-on-russia-op-ed-56746

I know it's the Moscow Times, but still, the content is valid. And it's the only place I've seen, outside the blogosphere that is, where a prominent piece points out just how ridiculous it is for the DNI report on hacking to focus so much on RT.

And not only that, but to paint RT's coverage of inequality, excessive surveillance and police brutality in the US as a sign of it being a tool of the Kremlin... that's just hilarious. The line about "alleged Wall Street greed" (RT, 31 October) on the other hand was too much even for me.

These two cut through the shit rather well, I'd say:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/01/intelligence-report-on-russian-election-influence-is-a-flop.html
http://bit.ly/2i4UOwS

I don't know about the rest of the world, but the UK has had our Sanders moment and our Sanders (Jeremy Corbyn) won. He's had it very tough, receiving nothing but bad coverage from a very establishment controlled, rich elite controlled press. They lie about him or things that he has said either by omission or commission and establishment politicians within his own party try each week to cook up another scandal to weaken his leadership.

Getting them elected as a candidate is only the first very small step, but at least we did that. I believe that some other European countries have recently seen a surge in popularity for left-leaning candidates and/or have just managed to defeat a right wing candidate into power.

Having said all that, i think it was a joke. But if America finds itself in a position where it has a choice between idiocy and corruption it is only because of economic policy and the power/money/greed cycle which has led us to crony capitalism and neo liberalism. America led the developed world during that time period, so of course they would see the most extreme effects.

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.)

you have people living in artificial environments that use tons of power because they want to, because they like it, not because they REQUIRE it. native americans lived in southwest USA for a thousand years just fine without the need of AC or diverting rivers.

go read up on the absurd agricultural subsidies tied to the colorado river- that isnt a problem created because farmers need to produce food to feed the world, its a problem created because politicians want money making businesses to tax, and because people are willing to spend money to eat what they like instead of what there is, a lot of money is made.

same with trawling- nothing to do with feeding all those people, everything to do with money. trawling has been going on for over a hundred years, well before the world population was even a 3rd of what it is currently- fishermen trawl because they want to be efficient because that makes them more money, not because they are concerned about how they are going to feed undernourished people.

the problem isnt getting people to eat insects. the problem is getting the developed world to stop eating so much, especially so much meat. there is an obesity epidemic around the world, over 3000 tons of food are discarded every day, and you want to tell me the problem is not enough food?

and lets not be disingenuous about nuclear waste, nuclear technology was invented as a weapon, not an energy source. you're telling me that if tomorrow a terrible plague wiped out 90% of the earths population, that nuclear armed states would give up their nuclear weapons? bs.

the video is on point. the environmental crisis is caused by greed, not because there are too many people on the planet. and if you feel so strongly that there are too many people on the planet, I assume you are relieved when your family members die? Unless you are willing to volunteer yourself and your family to die for the greater good, overpopulation is a facile bogey man to mask what you really want to say- lets get rid of all those "other" people so *I* dont have to change my own lifestyle.

Any movie that has Deepwater Horizon in the title and is not a documentary about corporate corruption, neglect, greed and massive environmental damage seems embarrassing. The whole idea seems distasteful and kinda turns my stomach.

Vote as you like, but I think you missed the important point being made (agreed, made excessively poorly, even disingenuously by Cenk) that this was an intentional squandering of the perfect time to remove the offending, illegal portions of the law, and leaving them in may (I'm no legal scholar, but often if one part is invalid, the entire document is invalid) invalidate the whole thing and require another re-write, taking more time, money, and effort, all of which are in short supply.

Is it a BIG deal, no...at least I hope not. There's always the possibility that they'll actually try to use it again to prosecute homosexuals, forcing them to 'prove' they aren't sodomites in court (an impossibility, btw) or go to prison or at best be forced to publicly re-address and re-litigate it over and over as they appeal up to the supreme court, destroying them professionally and financially, as has been done many times in the past.
Please do note that most 'homosexual behavior' has been illegal in the South in the past, and those laws have been repeatedly used to destroy people's lives and families, often based on false accusations, and despite their unconstitutionality and immorality. Leaving those laws on the books, even when they've been deemed unenforceable, leaves many people in a legal limbo. They can never feel safe in their own state and there's the reality that every time a new public official is elected they have to wonder if they'll have to fight this fight once again. Many times states have decided to enforce unconstitutional laws, and while in the end they were struck down, those they are applied against in the mean time are often destroyed.
Also, because they can't successfully prosecute someone for this unconstitutional law doesn't mean they can't use it to 'out' them, or investigate them until they find something they can prosecute, as has also happened in the past.
...But I don't think Cenk tried to make any of those points, he was just pointing out this blatant hypocrisy, which is representative of Republicans spending their exceedingly limited legislating time, effort, and money doing ridiculous, illegal, meaningless things, but completely fail at doing anything helpful, meaningful, or even legal like removing the offensive, unconstitutional part of the law when you're already re-writing and re-voting on a law, or maybe finding a way to get Flint non-poisoned water, or finding a way to put those responsible for poisoning an entire community (whether by negligence or out of greed) in prison, and it's representative of their complete hypocrisy about the party platform, which is conveniently completely forgotten when 'out of control government intrusion' is on their side.
I do completely admit he could have been far clearer about what really happened rather than imply they wrote this in as an amendment, bad Cenk.

I stick to people who believe in America.

Voodoo the fetus that got away from the abortionist.


You can stand with Pedophile Bill and criminal Hillary or an a bum named Bernie who never had a real job till he was 40,


http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/bernie-sanders-the-bum-who-wants-your-money/


Bernie Sanders, The Bum Who Wants Your Money


2016: Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Monday his parents would never have thought their son would end up in the Senate and running for president. No kidding. He was a ne’er-do-well into his late 30s.

“It’s certainly something that I don’t think they ever believed would’ve happened,” the unabashed socialist remarked during CNN’s Democratic town hall forum, as polls show him taking the lead in Iowa and New Hampshire.


He explained his family couldn’t imagine his “success,” because “my brother and I and Mom and Dad grew up in a three-and-a-half-room rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, and we never had a whole lot of money.”

It wasn’t as bad as he says. His family managed to send him to the University of Chicago. Despite a prestigious degree, however, Sanders failed to earn a living, even as an adult. It took him 40 years to collect his first steady paycheck — and it was a government check.


“I never had any money my entire life,” Sanders told Vermont public TV in 1985, after settling into his first real job as mayor of Burlington.

Sanders spent most of his life as an angry radical and agitator who never accomplished much of anything. And yet now he thinks he deserves the power to run your life and your finances — “We will raise taxes;” he confirmed Monday, “yes, we will.”

One of his first jobs was registering people for food stamps, and it was all downhill from there.

Sanders took his first bride to live in a maple sugar shack with a dirt floor, and she soon left him. Penniless, he went on unemployment. Then he had a child out of wedlock. Desperate, he tried carpentry but could barely sink a nail. “He was a shi**y carpenter,” a friend told Politico Magazine. “His carpentry was not going to support him, and didn’t.”

Then he tried his hand freelancing for leftist rags, writing about “masturbation and rape” and other crudities for $50 a story. He drove around in a rusted-out, Bondo-covered VW bug with no working windshield wipers. Friends said he was “always poor” and his “electricity was turned off a lot.” They described him as a slob who kept a messy apartment — and this is what his friends had to say about him.

The only thing he was good at was talking … non-stop … about socialism and how the rich were ripping everybody off. “The whole quality of life in America is based on greed,” the bitter layabout said. “I believe in the redistribution of wealth in this nation.”

So he tried politics, starting his own socialist party. Four times he ran for Vermont public office, and four times he lost — badly. He never attracted more than single-digit support — even in the People’s Republic of Vermont. In his 1971 bid for U.S. Senate, the local press said the 30-year-old “Sanders describes himself as a carpenter who has worked with ‘disturbed children.’ ” In other words, a real winner.

He finally wormed his way into the Senate in 2006, where he still ranks as one of the poorest members of Congress. Save for a municipal pension, Sanders lists no assets in his name. All the assets provided in his financial disclosure form are his second wife’s. He does, however, have as much as $65,000 in credit-card debt.

I always find it bewildering that the majority of republicans don't even have that much money but they tow the party line; while the staunch uber-wealthy hate taxes as if they hate US democracy.

The thing is, the uber-wealthy are the ones that have made 1000%+ wealth gains for decades while wages have remained stagnant for the rest. They are the ones that own businesses and have perpetuated this warfare. If they paid *a little more tax* they wouldn't even feel it. But, for the working class a two dollar raise is fucking huge. The system we have needs more regulation, more services, more taxes in order to create checks & balances and to be put on track for more equal standards of middle-class living (you know the class the upper class has all but wiped out with their disgusting satan-esque greed with a Martha Stewart twist) for a vaster amount of the populace.

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
The drug costs $0.10 in India but, thanks to the prohibitive restrictions imposed by the FDA on the manufacture of more generic medicines like Deraprim, it's unavailable to Americans for less than $750. It's true that there are likely to be quality issues with Indian generics, but Pyrimethamine is widely available in Europe and an approval elsewhere ought to translate with reciprocal approval here. It used to cost $1 million to bring a generic to market; now it costs $10 million and that's the direct result of big pharmaceutical companies lobbying the FDA to make it cost prohibitive to bring competitive generics to the market. This is the consequence of government-created monopolies, so this is not so much a issue of "price gouging" and "CEO greed" as it is about government greed and its pursuit of an ever increasing expansion of its political power. But haters gonna hate based on preconceived biases and there's no reasoning or common sense among irrational people.

TFB are disingenuous scammers at worst, and blinded by greed at best.
Claiming this as a community focus is deceptive.. unless suppressing and ripping off the community counts, in which case, touché.

Their next attempt will be to trademark the notions, occurrences and content of "an idea", "a thought", "a feeling" and just to cover everything else off and be proper dicks "a thing".

Link to their decreasing subscriber count, every downwards tick = a smile
http://www.livecounts.x10host.com/?channel=Fine%20Brothers%20Entertainment