Source?

I know these are bullshit statistics Bob, because there have been 212 already this year with over 250 deaths in 5 months. Nice try, another easily debunked lie.

Edit: There we’re another 9 killed (and 63 more injured) in 14 mass shootings just this weekend, including 6 kids under 15 in just one.

the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey puts the number of citizens who prevent crimes by using guns much lower than 2.5 million the NRA often claims -- about 67,740 times a year….and in the vast majority of those they never shoot those guns.
Edit: The CDC report you cited said maybe 108,000 times per year guns were used in defense, not 750000- 1.5 million….but noted the statistics they used were incomplete and unreliable….and also noted that accidents and suicides alone vastly outweigh any positive statistic.

the Violence Policy Center statistics showed that in 2012, there were 259 justifiable self-defense homicides in which victims turned the tables, not 2 million.
They also show the theft of about 232,000 guns each year -- about 172,000 of them during burglaries. That’s a ratio of one justifiable homicide for every 896 guns put into the hands of criminals. Is that what you call “successful policy”?

By the end of 2019, there were 417 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which tracks every mass shooting in the country. Thirty-one of those shootings were mass murders. What is your definition of “mass shooting” because it’s clearly not any time 3 or more are shot by one person.

Abortions account for 0% of deaths each year….but it was targeted with outrageously regressive misogynistic laws that make women incubators without any rights including no rights to contraception. A bit more draconian than having to get a background check to buy guns, don’t you think?

On average, more than 360 people in the USA are shot every day and survive – at least long enough to get to a hospital.
In 2017, some 39,773 died from gunshot injuries, an average of nearly 109 people each day. Per capita, this is significantly higher than in other industrialized countries. The rates of gun homicide are much higher in states with higher gun ownership. More guns equate to higher crime and murder rates, not lower. That is consistent over time.

No, bob….that’s according to the NRA, not the CDC….unless you count any crime stopped or caught by police because they all have guns, but that’s not what you claimed.

900 mass shooting fatalities in what timeframe bob?

Where do you get these insane statistics bob? Your behind?

Bob, no country slaughters more of its citizens than the US thanks to guns.

It’s almost 3 times as likely someone in your home will be shot if you have a gun.

In 2020, 54% of gun homicides are suicides. (Pew)

Again, cite your sources. I know you can’t because it would be too embarrassing for you to admit they came from THE NRA, Glen Beck, or some other nut job liar….or straight from your own ass.

The gallery has been accused of providing a platform for fascist, neo-Nazi and Islamophobic speakers and individuals who promote white supremacy and eugenics.

In the summer, it held a “Neo-reaction conference” which included a talk by Brett Stevens, a white supremacist who has lauded the “bravery” of Anders Breivik - the Norwegian white supremacist who killed 77 people in 2011.

Mr Stevens' writing was said to be an inspiration to Breivik.

After the attack, Mr Stevens, who edits a far-right website called Amerika, wrote: “I am honoured to be so mentioned by someone who is clearly far braver than I, no comment on his methods, but he chose to act where many of us write, think and dream.”

Mr Stevens comments on his blog, Amerika, where he says the “neoreaction conference” was hosted behind a “veil of secrecy", confirming the secret agenda of the gallery because you can't have a beneficial discussion of these issues when the discussion is hidden from one side of the issue. Clearly then this isn't an effort to facilitate “a dialogue between two different and contrasting ideologies” when the event is hidden from all but one ideology, right?

The gallery has leaked the identity of artists who exposed its activities to the far-right neo-Nazi website, Amerika.

The gallery has also hosted, Peter Brimelow, a high profile American anti-immigrant activist. He has been described as the “new David Duke” – the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Mr Brimelow founded website VDare, which the Southern Poverty Law Centre describe as “a nonprofit that warns against the polluting of America by non-whites, Catholics, and Spanish-speaking immigrants.”


Ms Diego, the owner, described the left as “more like a fascist organisation than the real fascists”“I’m not even sure if I disagree with the Muslim ban. I see it also as a temporary measure in order for America to get sorted while they transition to another form of government,” She said: “Our position has always been that the role of art is to provide a vehicle for the free exploration of ideas, even and perhaps especially where these are challenging, controversial or indeed distasteful for some individuals to contemplate." But her actions, holding far right racist events in secret exposes that statement as pure bullshit.

I can't speak to the student/Jordan Peterson thing without knowing all the facts or I might end up as wrong as the title and description of this video, which is pure lies btw.
I feel it's likely the video she played actually promoted hatred and violence directly, not just that it included one person who had a different political affiliation like you indicate, but I don't know.

After how you erroneously described this event/video, I'm not so sure I can trust your explanations. Sorry.

Again, all this info is in the links provided.

Trump first.
He has lived in New York longer than AOC has been alive. He has the resources to effect positive change there, but did nothing in the way of public service and instead cheated on his taxes and charities, running pyramid schemes, hiring and underpaying undocumented immigrants, repeatedly taking from those who could ill afford it to line his own pockets for decades. Trump had a significant hand in making New York the shit hole city it is today, and has done nothing whatsoever to fix it, he's worked to make things worse as president too, because New York didn't vote for him, just like his multiple (failed) attempts to hurt California and our economy out of spite.

AOC, after graduating Cum Laude (Trump has gone to great lengths to hide his embarrassing transcript), had the resources of a bartender trying to save her mother from foreclosure, yet she launched Brook Avenue Press, a publishing firm for books that portray the Bronx in a positive light, and worked as lead educational strategist at GAGEis, Inc. Ocasio-Cortez also worked for the nonprofit National Hispanic Institute, serving as the Educational Director of the 2017 Northeast Collegiate World Series, a five-day-long program targeted at college-bound high school students from across the United States and other countries, where she also participated in the panel on the future of Latino leadership.

In her few years as an adult with minimal resources, AOC has done infinitely more than Trump, with all his inherited advantages, to fix their city.

*facepalm

Bakker is a loon but the video cuts off before he makes his point. I can only assume RWW shortened it to meet some agenda point.

However, don't let this get in the way of some good'ol'fashioned Christian bashing.

BTW, Churches are tax-exempt because they are nonprofits. However, they receive higher scrutiny from the IRS than other nonprofits and must provide more detail than other nonprofits to keep the status. Most rich preachers leverage their nonprofit fame to generate income in for-profit taxed ventures (books, videos, etc.). It's deplorable and immoral (IMHO) but not illegal.

I tried to look up some information on this Charlie Kirk....

This guy holds no credibility, and is basically a laughing stock all over the internet.
He is essentially a "Culture Warrior" bought and paid for by the Koch Brothers. His job is to create fictitious propaganda which benefits the Koch agenda and seed it in as many places as possible.

Even Conservative groups are speaking out against him. (Young America’s Foundation) “The long-term damage TPUSA could inflict on conservative students and the Conservative Movement can no longer be ignored..."

Turning Point USA, Charlie's pet project, is an astroturf nonprofit funded by the Koch brothers in order to make old conservatism look cool and appealing to millennials by sharing/posting/reposting cringeworthy memes and image macros.

Charlie Kirk was born into a wealthy Illinois family.
-His father, Robert W. Kirk, was the project architect manager for Trump Tower in New York.
-Charlie became politically active c. 2010, when he joined the Tea Party.
-He is an evangelical Christian, who believes that atheism leads to socialism.
-Kirk blames much moral failure in communist countries on atheism.
-Charlie claims that undocumented immigrants don't have rights because they aren't citizens. About a month earlier, while delivering a speech, he said that rights don't come from governments

Have I mentioned how much I like reading pieces by Thomas Frank?

He had a piece in the Guardian two days ago about the Podesta emails and it's just brilliant. Excerpt:

This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids, points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she appears to think that any kind of bank reform should “come from the industry itself”. And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another’s careers, constantly.

Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.

But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it’s all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren’t part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don’t have John Podesta’s email address – you’re out.

Your video, Nonprofit Creates Halloween Costumes For Kids In Wheelchairs, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Nonprofit Creates Halloween Costumes For Kids In Wheelchairs has been added as a related post - related requested by newtboy on that post.

I was wondering why they can't take donations from those 4 states, but apparently those states don't allow soliciting unless the nonprofit/church is registered there (https://www.reddit.com/r/lastweektonight/comments/3h9ram/august_16_2015_last_week_tonight_with_john_oliver/cu5jhkc, while one can question the validity of the reddit answer, it seems likely). That same thread also seems to indicate that donations from those states would have to be returned. I do like that they are donating all the funds to Doctors Without Borders.

According to a January 2014 report by the nonprofit organization State Budget Solutions, Michigan had a state debt of over $142 billion. Gotta get that money back one trumped up charge at a time!

Very little in science is black and white. Big upvote for NDT's follow up though. Here is an extremely thorough rundown of many of the issues at hand written by an unbiased reporter: http://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/

In article #2 he writes about FDA safety testing of GMO's, which, while "voluntary" are always performed. According to an FDA policy analyst he interviews, "(I) frankly cannot really envision any circumstances under which anybody placing a ‘bioengineered’ food on the market would have the temerity NOT to consult with (the FDA).”

In the next article, he writes about the perception that GMO's are the product of for-profit corporations and meets with plant scientists at UC Davis; a nonprofit, publicly funded university.

If you don't have time to read the entire series, then at the very least read his final article. His conclusions are well-tempered and thoughful.

While I see where you're coming from, I have a few issues with what you're saying:

1. The organization you're referring to is staffed, has offices and overheads. Assuming it isn't corrupt and skimming and holding multi-million-dollar appreciation nights and galas (and we probably shouldn't assume that it isn't), the money you're giving this organization still gets portioned off quite a bit. Your point about helping on the systemic level is quite valid (provided you are channelling your concern into actually doing so), but I'd look more into local community health centres or the nonprofit down the street, and still, that money isn't guaranteed to reach the person in front of you. Much as a social worker can help him connect to essential services, advocate for fair and affordable housing, counsel him on trauma, etc, he will still need money for a lot of basic needs.

2. You are vastly oversimplifying the needs and situation of every person on the street. That person may actually depend on money from strangers to make rent (being that welfare barely puts a dent in even the lowest affordable housing costs), feed kids, buy food that isn't McDonald's or canned food, get a haircut, or a million other things that everyone needs money for.

3. Even if that person intends to spend some of your money on oxy or crack, it is not in your right to judge that. While addiction can very generally be called "bad", this person may suffer from chronic pain, trauma, mental illnesses, or some combination and short of governments finally realizing that housing and caring for the poor is cheaper than incarcerating them and treating emergency health conditions, self-medicating is the only reasonable way they can continue functioning for another day. This isn't even an unlikely scenario; think how easily someone can go from your (or my) comfy life to homeless, poor and desperate. It isn't always "bad decisions"; you could be a contractor that falls and gets a serious injury, hit by a car, stricken with a mental illness you have no control over, traumatized earlier in life, born into a high-risk environment or social strata, or anything else, and then start sliding from there. You develop an addiction, your income comes to a screeching halt, your loved ones can't or get too tired to support you, bills that were routine become suffocating, and there you are on the street, pain exploding relentlessly in your body/mind, on the other side of the decision, seeing chins turned up and eyes turned away from you and hearing people mutter "Don't give anything to him; he's just gonna use it to get high," to each other.

4. Not a single person in the video (and really, in just about every situation you see on whatever street you're on) speaks to or even looks at the guy.

While I wouldn't expect that everyone gives money to folks on the street (I myself have only done it a few times), it frustrates me to hear people insist that nobody should. "He's just going to use it for drugs/booze" is a presumptuous and ignorant statement and mindset.

One more thing: if you really care about urban poverty and those suffering from it, the biggest thing (IMO) you can do is vote for politicians/parties who openly and strongly support social services and welfare, then hold them to their promises. I don't make a ton of money, but I am happy to pay higher taxes and lose some luxuries if it means people who need help just to get by get it.

I used the 2012 budget (~$3.8T, look it up wherever), the most recent figures for total income and total taxes paid of the top 1% (which are from 2010) from the Tax Foundation, which are $1.52T and $350B, respectively, so I did a little rounding. So you can adjust my $1.2T to $1.15T, if you want.

The top 1% in wealth owned 34% of the US's total wealth, in 2007, according to Wikipedia citing a Forbes article citing this article which cites this paper by Edward Wolff of NYU. The 2010 numbers cited are 35%, but I rounded down to 30% to be safe. Then I just looked up the total US household wealth--which is harder to do than you might expect.

Wikipedia reports ~$54T for the total US household *and non-profit* wealth in 2009 (Graph), which gets its data from the Federal Reserve. If you go to p. 104 of the 2011 document, you can see that this went up to $60T. I don't know how much of that is non-profits and how much is households, so I looked at the Census data.

Unfortunately the most recent is from 2007, which is pre-crash but which gives the mean household wealth as $556k. There were about 110M households in 2007, so that gives us about $61T total--but this was pre-crash. So we can kinda compare with the Wikipedia chart and see that in 2007 the total household+nonprofit wealth was $66T. So let's just assume ~$5T is nonprofits, so households had around $50T in 2009 and maybe closer to $55T in 2011, give or take. 30% of $50T is $15T. I had made slightly higher estimates before to get my $16T (didn't see the 'nonprofit' thing there).

So all told, the data's from the census and the Fed, and I'm kinda rounding down everywhere I can. I did some extrapolating here and there because I can't find a consistent data set from any year after 2007, and it wouldn't be fair to your side of the argument to use 2007's numbers. If you can find better data or if there's something egregiously wrong, please correct me.

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@bcglorf I agree with the military advantage, it makes government presence in space exploration justifiable in my opinion, at least where the military edge is concerned.

@direpickle, I also really like the way @TheFreak explains the difference between profit-seeking and nonprofit-seeking enterprises, but I wonder if his characterization might be a bit short-sighted.

Suppose that, in the interest of advancing human development, I decided to spread atheism by forcibly taking control of the major media outlets, internet and schools using them to spread that ideology. I'd finance this endeavour with taxpayer money of course. Sure, not everyone (or every taxpayer) would agree with my goals, specially those backwards people still hopelessly stuck in their petty religious mindsets, but I see the bigger picture here, a paradigm shift for society that would propel it into the future.

My goals are noble, I seek no immediate profit, not everyone will agree with me, but imagine the long term benefits of getting rid of religion, a a much needed paradigm shift that wouldn't otherwise happen if I didn't force society to use its resources a certain way.

Would that be justifiable?