Yes, that kind of clearance, Mr Know Nothing. He had clearance to have every document in his personal possession when he received them, unlike Trump who illegally and secretly stole them from secured facilities. His mistake was trusting his staff to properly forward them to the archives when they packed his senate, and later VP offices.

No, ex senators and ex presidents both don’t have clearance to KEEP classified documents, correct. Trump did not ever have clearance to remove nuclear secrets and other highly classified material from a SCIF, not as president and not after, and it endangers the nation that he did so. It requires written declassification by the DOE, the president cannot declassify nuclear secrets under any circumstances.

The DOJ report indicated Biden did not know his staff had stored a few (6) unlabeled low level classified documents at his secure locked think tank office and personal handwritten notes at his guarded and locked home library (namely a few daily briefs on Afghanistan and some handwritten notes he had made, nothing at all designated top secret), indicated he himself (or attorneys at his instruction) looked for them and immediately reported finding them to the FBI, and allowed them to search that and other properties without requiring a warrant.
The DOJ report also indicated Trump DID know he was illegally taking and retaining highest sensitivity most stringently classified top secret documents by the truckload, not just a small part of one box, refused to return them when asked by the archives, lied about having any, required a warrant for a search, actively hid them when searched, lied again about having MORE, lied about showing them to multiple other parties including foreign agents but was caught red handed on tape, claimed personal ownership (of nuclear secrets), kept them unsecured in public areas, tried to destroy video evidence, claimed they were planted, obstructed Justice multiple times…
…must I go on for you to see the difference, or comprehend why one faces no charge and the other treason?
I’m certain the answer is yes, you haven’t heard enough to admit the situations are completely different despite the fact that one is staff improperly packing up his office when he left it, the other one individual intentionally stealing hundreds of state secrets for personal gain at the nation’s expense…you can never hear enough evidence to admit that.

Is Maddow still on? Sorry Charlie, like I’ve told you a hundred times but you can never recall, I’ve never watched CNN beyond short YouTube clips, not before they went right wing certainly not since. In fact, I think it’s likely that you watch more CNN than I do, you sure like to post and quote them now. If she’s still on and is saying the same things I’m not surprised, she was a smart wonky cookie last I saw.
It’s hilarious when you don’t know my sources, because when you can’t try to impugn the source over nonsense you have no argument at all, just rambling nonsensical insanity spewed from your mouth like explosive diarrhea.

Me thinks you have too little brain in the brain.

😂 Talk about projection! What a confession. 😂

Everything Trump said in that idiotic speech was a lie about Biden and an admission of what he himself did.
I won’t insult your minimal intelligence by pretending you actually believe the delusional ramblings you just posted, they would make a good case for insanity if he believed it, but we all know he doesn’t.
Every word of that insanity was a total fabrication of a delusional mind.

The presidential records act absolutely doesn’t give him the right to take top secret classified documents home when he leaves office, or retain them, or lie under oath about having them, or defy warrants for them, or show them to otherS, NONE OF THAT IS LEGAL UNDER THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT.
Trump obstructed Justice at every possible turn, destroying evidence hiding documents, he still has an unsearched secret room in his bedroom not disclosed when the FBI searched, so likely has MORE stolen documents still. Biden cooperated more than fully with the investigation, which even the political hack Trump appointed special prosecutor admitted.
…and Biden had a grand total of 20 documents or notes designated “classified”, none top secret…Trump had over 325 well marked classified FILES containing multiple classified documents each including I think a dozen or more of the highest most secret files the government has, files never supposed to leave a SCIF and not declassifiable by the president under any circumstances.
Not one word he said was true, and you know it, fool.
That speech if not intentional lies is proof Trumpist Alzheimer’s has progressed to the point of total delusion.

PS- Still waiting.

What do real scientists say?
...the one's he worked with all said Lindzen is totally wrong, and his views are not held by the vast, VAST majority of other scientists that actually work in climatology. He's a political shill now, working for 'conservative think tanks' to deny climate change.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06032017/climate-change-denial-scientists-richard-lindzen-mit-donald-trump

Note, his graph at the beginning that appears to show no significant rise because as usual they start in late 97-98, a super hot El Nino year (the hottest on record) typically used as a starting point to pretend that temperatures aren't rising as fast as they are. Start at any other time to see how different the results are. This graph contains the hottest 15 years in recorded history over a period of the last 19 years. That's pretty telling by itself.

1)the climate is always changing-but according to natural cycles, we should be in a cooling period, not a warming period.
2)so at least in his mind, everyone agrees CO2 is a greenhouse gas that causes warming...that's better than most deniers.
3)"little ice age"-During the period 1645–1715, in the middle of the Little Ice Age, there was a period of low solar activity known as the Maunder Minimum. The Spörer Minimum has also been identified with a significant cooling period between 1460 and 1550 (it was not caused by low CO2 levels), and CO2 is produced more in warmer temperatures than cold, so starting shortly after then you can claim the CO2 levels have been rising since well before the industrial revolution...which cherry picked like that may be technically true but is again misleading by starting at an unusually low level following a low level solar period, but the level of that rise has consistently risen since the industrial revolution, and is incredibly higher than any natural mass releases besides rare massive super volcano eruptions that caused mass extinction events.
4) just plain not true, and not agreed on by scientists.
5)What they actually said-
Improve methods to quantify uncertainties of climate projections and scenarios, including development and exploration of long-term ensemble simulations using complex models. The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. Rather the focus must be upon the prediction of the probability distribution of the system�s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive and requires the application of new methods of model diagnosis, but such statistical information is essential.

Confident prediction of future weather is not possible, weather predictions are based on statistical probabilities too. Because they aren't perfect doesn't mean they're wrong, useless, or should be ignored until they're 100% right every time. More funding for more study will improve the predictions consistently, but we are intentionally defunding them instead.

Religion channel? As in the religion of climate change denial? That's not what that channel is.
Philosophy channel? What?
Learn channel, only if the viewer looks into his BS elsewhere to learn the truth.
Lies, yep...controversy, yep....politics, yep....conspiracy,OK. His ilk are steeped in those, but you left out money, the driving force for all the deniers controversial, political lies and crazy conspiracy theories. ;-)

ok,first off?
this is heritage foundation,a right wing think tank.
this by itself is not terribly damning.

however.

bridgette gabriel is a spokeswoman for the FRC:family research center.

the FRC,along with james dobson's "focus on the family" ,were both funded with seed money from the families of betsy devos and erik prince,the amway pyramid scheme dynasty.

so what enoch?
what's the big deal?

well,when you understand the underlying religious philosophies of the the devos/prince family.you know that they are christian supremacists who wish to install an amercian government that adheres to "christian" laws and "christian" values.

yeah..you know that whole "sharia" law that has rightwingers pissing themselves? same thing,but this is with JESUS,so it has to be good,right?

and what this gabriel woman does is utter revisionist history to fit her own narrative and agenda.i am talking fucking blatant,but since most americans don't even know their OWN history,never mind the history of a religion they profess to love and worship,they just lap this womans bullshit up as if it were spoken from god's own lips.

because let us be frank,and clear.

christian right wingers literally piss themselves at the thought of muslims.and this woman hand feeds that fear.

this woman is a fucking disgrace.
9/11!
benghazi!

this woman feeds on your ignorance.
stop being a fucking tool to demagogues like this fucking twat waffle.

@newtboy
you were not the only one who put me on the defensive for supporting chis hedges.
so if you feel singled out,i apologize.

the point of this post is put into light an adored spokesperson for the left,and a commentator who is also left leaning (and many of his upvoted videos can be found on the sift) to make a point.

and by your comment,you are struggling to reconcile the two.
but you DID reconcile,and you did so by giving maddow a tacit pass and condemning kyle for being a "complete bombastic liar".

when the truth is:
they both are...kinda..sorta..

they both are approaching,and making their points by using biased and slanted data to influence you,and i for that matter,into adopting their viewpoint.

these are not outright and pernicious lies.they are lies that serve a purpose and i find maddows far more egregious,because it is far more subtle..and you appear to have bought it.

she did so by using the innocuous word "might",yet her inferrence cannot be mistaken.they call it the "dog whistle".this is a wink and a nod that those dirty ruskies own our new president.

wink wink...nudge nudge..know what i mean?

now kyle is not exactly lying either.
he is using russias reaction to the new deployment from putin himself.who has stated that there was an agreement that there would be no new encroachment after the GDR,but that simply reveals the cleverness and political saavy of putin.

the real truth is this:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/

or is it?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
from 2009?

maybe this is the truth?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160530-snap-story.html
from 2016.

well,personally i am going with the LAtimes and der spiegel.
brookings is a right wing think tank with deep tentacles in the pentagon and DoD.

but CNN reports that poland LOVES the new troops:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/14/europe/poland-us-troops-nato-welcome/

look,
while i will agree that putin is a vicious thug,who murders political opponents and tortures dissidents.that he is ruthless and relentless political player.

i do not see any evidence of russian hacking influencing our elections,nor do i see a new russian empire pushing for those cold war expansionism days.

the only entity/country i see pushing for expansion and a renewal of the cold war..is us..the pentagon and the department of defense,and those juicy juicy defense contracts!

i feel my time on the sift is coming to a close.
having to defend my admiration for a pulitzer prize winning,war correspondent and author is just...weird.

at least i know i am biased,but i do my best to self-correct.

@worm
you do realize that you literally just made @Januari 's point...right?

and i get it...government spending BAD.
government can't do anything blah blah blah...gotcha.

but instead of using the VA as an example of government malfeasance and incompetence,why not use medicare/medicaid?

the VA is run by the DoD and considering that during rumsfelds tenure they lost over a trillion american dollars..POOF..where is that money? nope..can't find it.the pentagon is a mess.

medicare/medicaid is run by the dept of health,which runs on a 3% overhead,has the ability to negotiate with pharmacuticals,and is a system that is already in place AND we all already pay in to.

see,
i am not a fan of obamacare.
i think single payer is the way to go,and the only way to go.
people like to make the comparison of obamacare insurance with car insurance.
forgetting that driving is a privilege...
breathing is not.

so if we take the "profit motive" out of health care.then the majority of people NOT covered would not wait until something dire or life threatening was going down with them to head to the doctor.preventive care has been shown to reduce medical costs dramatically.
see:norway
see:denmark
see:france
see:britain

while i understand many liberals defense of obamacare,i see it only a half measure that can easily be remanded and/or gotten rid of all together.however unlikely that may be.the threat will be enough.

people forget that obamacare was basically written by the heritage foundation in 1992.a right wing think tank and not much was changed (though the pre-existing clause was a positive).

they forget that then Governor mitt romney implemented a similar health care system in massechusetts.which saw steady increases in premiums yearly.

and here is the thing that really eats at me.
it is mandatory.

so here is my prediction:
obamacare is not going anywhere.
while it may be used as apolitical football and health insurance companies will use (and already HAVE used) the threat of leaving due to little or no money (this is a lie) in order to force the government to raise their subsidies.

this is corporate welfare on a scale that over-shadows the bank bailouts of 2007.which at final tally was over 17 trillion.

so obamacare is going nowhere because it is the goose that lays the golden egg,and the gift that keeps on giving.

oh there will threats,and over-politicizing,and wringing of hands,and committee meetings.

but that will be just for show.
we put the fox in charge of the henhouse,and the fox is gonna make damn sure it is going nowhere.

I love him, hate political correctness, media is ignoring the over 400 rapes and murders dubbed "the femicide" in Juarez in border, none of the perps caught, they run into US get welfare, timestamps, HUD housing and pay zero taxes.

Liberals enjoy sheltering rapists with tax money but every day more found dead in Juarez as young as 6.


I hate political correctness, and voting Trump. Already voted him in primary and my neighbor is Guatemalan he became a US citizen legally and his entire family and cousins voted Trump at primary but Guatamalans tend to hate what cartels are going at border and know exactly what's going in more than any kids online believing what is said on television..

Hell the exit poll in my town was awesome Trump got 62% black vote , 78% Guatemalan vote (large population)

Folks are absolutely fed up with hypersensitive sissies , we need blunt directness .

I'd rather have Bill Hicks, as a President :-P

But when John Cheeseof Monty Python says political correctness and liberalism in America has gone too far and he's joined all other comedians in banning tours at colleges and he hopes Trump will end political correctness sissiness you know the country is about to destroy the Democrats just like they did in 1968.

In 1968 the time called "white riot" but whites and blacks rioted and Democrat convention shut down and Democrats lost the next 10 elections. Over political correctness.

Proof that history has repeated itself. The liberals collapse every 60 years. 60 years before this Richard Henry Pratt the man who invented the word "racism" out of thin air as a slur when he invented political correctness and attached individualism, claiming individualism is racist, that all cultures should be forcefully eradicated and forced to mix , be caused the genocide of Indians and extinction of dozen languages until violently stopoed.


1968 white riot ending all Democrat for decade
https://youtu.be/epxmX_58tOo


Think tank Industry social change political correctness rule maker director gives speech how just like Germany and Sweden to destroy America
https://youtu.be/nFAQNjqH1zA


I do hope Trump can win and stay blunt, cuss out the retard media and idiot corporate owned government and at least get folks back to those of us of generation X who were adamantly Anti political correctness, to quote Rage Against The Machine "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me"



-grin-

@Babymech
jesus holy christ...

were you truly unable to discern my tongue firmly planted in cheek?

and then take issue with pay gap discrimination?
ok-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Pay_Act_of_1963

/cue rainbow

which you may take issue that i used wiki as a reference,which is pretty much your counter-position to my links.

which is just utter weak sauce.

oh that study was by a conservative think tank and therefore they have an "agenda".nevermind that christina hoff sommers is a feminist,nevermind that you didnt refute the numbers..lets just stick with "agenda" to refute any and all statistics that do not coincide with your narrative.

should i gather by implication that christian hoff sommers is not a feminsist?even though she identifies as one? or is she just the "wrong" kind of feminist?

come on man,are you really that blinded by your own bullshit?

and then you proudly attempted to dissect the rest of my comment taking positions i never took,but was rather using to express that in much of our dialogue..i was fucking agreeing with you.

you literally wrote one big,massive and utterly useless straw man.while i was actually trying to have a conversation.i may have indulged in some smart assery but that is mainly due to my perception of you.that i respected you enough not to treat you like a precious little flower or some fragile snowflake.

maybe you see this is as a right/wrong dynamic.

but here is the cold,hard truth:context matters.
and if you insist on viewing this situation in such a narrow and myopic way,the larger context will ALWAYS be unavailable to you.

so until you are ready to evaluate,without bias,new information.that may possibly contradict your current narrative,then you will always be stuck in your own self-delusion.

you were challenged.
your response was lack luster and a straw man.
and i can only assume by your words that any contrary evidence or contradictory opinions that may conflict with your own will be met with similar straw men,presumptions,deflecting and goal post moving.

because if ya cant beat em,
berate and belittle them.

First of all, statistics aren't a game Not all of the internet is about being a tough guy winner, and sometimes some of us are just trying to explain ourselves.

Secondly, I'm not giving you links because I like links, but because I like sources. Not all sources are equal. A blog post by a conservative think tank employee and right wing activist isn't as neutral as the CDC or the US Census. Nothing is 100% 'neutral', but numbers gathered by the Labor Department are a little more transparent than a blog post by Christina Hoff Sommers. Say what you will about her, but her agenda is always very clear.

Thirdly, can you clarify your point about illegal discrimination? I don't think anybody talked about illegal discrimination, just the actual wage gap. Illegal discrimination is not necessary to establish oppression - nobody is illegally preventing women from becoming president, but we still have a historic gender gap in the oval office. Things can be shitty and in need of change even if it nothing currently illegal is going on (like the pew research polling you linked to shows). Illiteracy, for example, is a shitty phenomenon for citizens and bad for democracy, but it's not illegal; the wage gap is bad for citizens and for democracy, even when it is not illegal.

Fourthly, if you are willing to accept that there's a pervasive and destructive culture of rape of women by men outside of prison, I will also concede that there's a pervasive and destructive culture of rape of men by men in prison. In fact, I'll go ahead and concede that anyway. Which is fucking awful, but doesn't mean that feminists are wrong for railing against the situation outside of prison. The are two different sectors of society, and the factors that create a rape culture in one sector do not apply so much in the other. Still awful though.

fifthly, you ended on some stuff which might just have been random thoughts, because I don't see how they fit in anywhere:

"[the existence of self-perpetuating unjust power structures] does not automatically equate to men getting a free ride" - was not said by me, ever. We should get rid of injustice even if not all men get a free ride, I think

"in fact i would posit that this obnoxious behavior works against the very thing they are trying to convey" - can be said about all sorts of uppity oppressed groups

"this woman has received death threats and threats of physical violence from other feminists!" - doesn't make her right, and it doesn't make her wrong, and it doesn't 'ruin' all of feminism.

"at the end of the day this is actually a human issue,and a valid one and we all have a right to our own opinion,but not a right to impose it upon another. feel free to disagree." ...nobody can disagree with this because it means nothing. It's a Hallmark card. I tried to give you actual facts and you countered with "we are all humans so everything is like, always a human issue and like, opinions, man."

Hmm. Bring me what you have so far and I'll have my research team think tank it and focus group it before I can get back to you with a firm yay or nay.

First of all, Flassbeck is the only(!) prominent economist in Germany arguing strictly against the madness of austerity. But he's living in the border region between France and Switzerland, so he's a European more than a German.

Among all the economic think tanks in Germany, only the union-sponsored IMK makes a credible case against this madness. Everyone else is more or less in line with the neoclassic perspective. Not a Keynesian in sight, much less a post-Keynesian group.

But now to the meat of the issue. There will be no major political shift in Germany in the near future. As Flassbeck stated, only a single party opposes the financial inquisition commonly known as the Troika. Unfortunatly, it's the socialists, and despite overwhelmingly popular policies, they are still an absolute no-go for large swaths of the demos thanks to the authoritarian regime in East Germany. Sucks, but it is what it is.

So it's up to the French people once again to save the continent from itself. Noone else has the balls or the influence to put an end to this misguided union. How likely is it for the French government to openly challenge German hegemony soon? I wouldn't bet on it. Which means the Greeks are fuuuucked².

In any case, what would it take for Greece to stabilise? And by stabilise I'm talking about a return to a manageable level of unemployment, a working healthcare system and social safety net. A conservative guesstimate would be a public deficit of ~10% of GDP for at least 5 straight years. Alternatively, the EIB would have to prop up Greece with €50b a year for the same number of years. To get a working bureaucracy, to undo four decades of nepotism, Greece would basically need a generation to reestablish itself as a state – and it would require appropriate financing.

Now remember which of Syriza's demands is painted as most controversial right now: debt restructuring. Debt restructuring, while neccessary at some point, is entirely pointless as long as the fiscal policy remains contractionary. Greece needs austerity to stop, right the fuck now. Greece needs to provide income-generating jobs for its people. All the talk about debt is utterly pointless, because at 25% unemployment, we're looking at permanent damage in every way imaginable. The social toll alone should be completely unacceptable within Europe if we truly gave two shits about human dignity.

So, even if Syriza get their way tomorrow, Greece would still be flushed down the shitter. Syriza's proposal is contractionary. Any primary surplus in this situation is contractionary.

Greece is done within the Euro. The use of a foreign currency makes it impossible to use appropriate fiscal policy on their own. Unfortunatly, but also intentionally, the currency issuer, the ECB, is placed outside the democratic control of the European Parliament, or any national parliament for that matter. Fiscal policy within the EZ was taken out of the control of our elected representatives to ensure that the neoclassic/neoliberal approach was irrevocably built into the system. We can thank Germany for that, by the way.

There is a shortage of spending in Greece. There is a shortage of spending in Spain. There is a shortage of spending in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, France. There is a shortage of spending in Germany, for fuck's sake. Put the ECB under control of the EP, add full employment (2-3% unemployment) to its mandate, and have them finance the appropriate programs at the national level. The output gap in Europe is so massive, the un(der)employment so vast, they could spend a trillion Euros and inflation would still not reach the agreed upon target value of 2%.

All it would take to change the rules is consent from every national parliament in the union. Might as well go skinny-dipping instead.

Terrorist attacks are more multifaceted.

First, they are an opportunity to generate work for the defense industry.

Second, they are usually for a reason. Often some angst over our own actions in foreign countries. For example, the news says AQ is a bunch of crazies that hate freedom, however AQs demands prior to 9/11 were to get our military out of the holyland. While that's not an offense that deserves blowing up buildings, it is definitely not the same as some banal excuse like hating freedom.

Thirdly, they are often perpetrated by some persons/groups that we had a hand in creating. We install the mujahedin in Afghanistan, knowing full well what they'll do to women, and then use their treatment of women as one excuse to later invade. Saddam worked for us, was egged on to fight Iran, was egged on to suppress insurgents (the 'own people he gassed'), and we later used his actions as one excuse to invade.

At the time, the mujaheddin was useful for fighting Russia as a proxy. At the time, Saddam was useful for perpetuating a war where we sold arms to both sides. Afterwards, they were useful for scaremongering so we could perpetuate war when otherwise things got too quiet and folks would ask about why we're spending big $$$ on defense.. (In the mean time hand-waving the much more direct 9/11 Saudi connection).

... Plus if on the off chance things do 'settle down' in areas we invade, that creates new markets for US companies to peddle their wares. You can reopen the Khyber pass for western land trade with Asia, you can build an oil pipeline, and you can prevent a euro based oil exchange from opening in the middle east. All things that benefit our industry.

So in practice, as far as big industry is concerned, there's a utility in 'fighting terrorism' (and perpetuating terrorism) that just doesn't exist with internal shootings. As such, unless another 'evil empire' shows up, the terrorism cow is gonna get milked for the foreseeable future.

Sure, there's a rhetoric about preventing terrorism, but our actions do nothing to that effect. It's just a statement that's useful in manufacturing consent.

There's a particular irony, though. That is, that while such behavior is 'not very nice' (to put it mildly), it does however provide for our security by keeping our armed forces exercised, prepared, and up to date - such that if a real threat were to emerge, our military would be ready at that time. While that seems unlikely, when you look back in history at previous major conflicts, most were precipitated rather quickly, on the order of months (it takes many years to design and build equipment for a military, and the first ~half a year of any major war has been fought with what was on hand). So in a round-about, rather evolutionary way, perpetuating threats actually does make us safer as a whole.

To clarify the word 'evolutionary' : Take 10 microbes. All 10 have no militant nature. None are made for combat. It only takes 1 to mutate and become belligerent in order to erase all the others from existence. If some others also mutate to be combative, they will survive. The non combative are lost, their reproductive lines cut off. As there's always a chance to mutate to anything at any time, eventually, there is a combative mutation. So, all life on earth has a militant nature at some layer of abstraction - those that exist are those that successfully resisted some force (or parried the force to its benefit. Like plants that use a plant eater's dung to fertilize the seeds of the eaten fruit).

The relationship holds true at a biological level, interpersonal, societal, national, and international level. Societies that allow the kind of educational and military development that leads to victory, are those that have dominated the planet socially and economically. For example, Europe's centuries of infighting made it resistant to invasions from the Mongols, Caliphates, etc, and ultimately led to the age of colonialism. For the strengths built with infighting, are later leveraged for expansion. As such, the use of "terrorism" to perpetuate conflict, is ultimately an exercise in developing strength that can later be leveraged.

Our national policy is largely developed in think tanks, and those organizations are planning lifetimes ahead. So these kinds of considerations are very relevant.

TL/DR : Yes, agreed, the terrorism thing is B.S. on many levels.

-scheherazade

Then why do cops get off scot-free whenever they murder and unarmed innocent person?


You know full well cops, lawyers and Judge work closely together, are sometimes friends, and will lie, misremember, or "not recall" shit to cover one another.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/police-rarely-criminally-charged-for-on-duty-shootings-1416874955

" New research by a Bowling Green State University criminologist shows that 41 officers in the U.S. were charged with either murder or manslaughter in connection with on-duty shootings over a seven-year period ending in 2011. Over that same period, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 2,718 justified homicides by law enforcement, an incomplete count, according to experts. "

"The think tank’s researchers tracked allegations of misconduct involving nearly 11,000 police officers in the U.S. from April 2009 through December 2010. They found that 3,238 of those cases resulted in criminal charges, and 1,063—or 33% of those charged criminally—resulted in convictions. In felony cases against the general public in 2009 in the country’s 75 largest counties, 66% were convicted, according to the Justice Department’s research arm, the Bureau of Justice Statistics. "

So as a cop, you're unlikely to get charges brought against you.

If you do, you're only half as likely to get convicted.

Cops are scumbags.
They might not start they way, but they definitely all become that way.

And if you don't get corrupted; the rest'll harass you, stick you with filing paperwork, take your cruiser.

You're like a child Lantern.
You're naive as Hank Hill, I tell yuh h'what.

Like you can't understand that Power Corrupts. Cops have Power.
Therefore many cops become corrupted.

"What are you talking about Genji, no one would just go on the internet.. and LIE like that."

"What do you MEAN there's no toothfairy Genji?! Where did all my children baby teeth go then?!"

No anti-global warming think tank 'advocates'?
That's *quality

I keep coming across report after report (from respected financial and economic institutions all over the world) that discredit trickle-down economics. For example http://warincontext.org/2014/12/09/oecd-reports-on-the-failure-of-trickle-down-economics/

But i simply can't find the one i was looking for. However if you google "report failure of trickle down" you get report after report from myriad different experts - including one report by the Congressional Research Service, a bipartisan think tank established a century ago to give information to Congress without spin or political bias, which was covered up by the Republicans.

It is widely accepted that trickle down economics doesn't work amongst those who are in a position to judge.

@dannym3141, I understand that you are "stepping out of the debate," but, for your edification, I'll respond here... And, for the record, I am not "funded" by Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Solar, or Big Green. Nor am I a professor of climate or environmental science at a State University (and don't have a political agenda around this issue other than to help promote sound reasoning and critical thinking). I do, however, hold a doctorate and can read the scientific literature critically. So, in response to what climate change "believers" say, it's worth noting that no one is actually taking the temperature of the seas. They simply see sea levels rising and say "global warming," but how do they know? It's a model they came up with. But far from certain, just a theory. Like Antarctica melting, but then someone finds out that it's due to volcanic activity underneath, and so on.

And also, why is the heat then staying in the water and not going into the atmosphere? So, they then have to come up with a theory on top of the other theory... So the heat is supposedly being stored deep below where the sensors cannot detect it. Great. And this is happening because...some other theory or another that can't be proven either. And then they have to somehow come up with a theory as to how they know that the deep sea warming is due to human activity and not to other causes. I'm not denying that any of this happens, just expressing skepticism, meaning that no one really knows for sure. That folks would "bet the house on it" does not serve as any proof, at all.

The discussion on the sift pivots from "global warming" to vilifying skeptics, not about the original skepticism discussed, that there is catastrophic man-caused global warming going on. Three issues yet to be proven beyond skepticism: 1) that there is global warming; 2) that it is caused by human activity; 3) that it's a big problem.

When I ask about one, they dance around to another one of these points, rather than responding. And all they have in response to the research is the IPCC "report" on which all their science is based. And most if not all published "believers" say that the heat "may be hiding" in the deep ocean, not that they "certainly know it is" like they seem to claim.

They don't have knowledge that the scientists who are actively working on this do not have, do they? It's like the IRS saying, "My computer crashed." The IPCC says, "The ocean ate my global warming!"

Here are some links worth reading:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304636404577291352882984274

And, from a different rebuttal: "Referring to the 17 year ‘pause,’ the IPCC allows for two possibilities: that the sensitivity of the climate to increasing greenhouse gases is less than models project and that the heat added by increasing CO2 is ‘hiding’ in the deep ocean. Both possibilities contradict alarming claims."

Here's the entire piece from emeritus Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, Dr. Richard Lindzen: http://www.thegwpf.org/richard-lindzen-understanding-ipcc-climate-assessment/

And take your pick from all of the short pieces listed here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/08/is-gores-missing-heat-really-hiding-in-the-deep-ocean/

And http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/ipcc-in-denial-just-so-excuses-use-mystery-ocean-heat-to-hide-their-failure/

"Just where the heat is and how much there is seems to depend on who is doing the modeling. The U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center ARGO data shows a slight rise in global ocean heat content, while the British Met Office, presumably using the same data shows a slight decline in global ocean heat content."

http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/10/03/the-ocean-ate-my-global-warming-part-2/#sthash.idQttama.dpuf

Dr. Lindzen had this to say about the IPCC report: "I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to a level of hilarious incoherence. They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase."

http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/10/01/the-ocean-ate-my-global-warming-part-1/#sthash.oMO3oy6X.dpuf

So just as "believers" can ask "Why believe Heartland [financier for much of the NPCC], but not the IPCC," I can just as easily ask "Why should I believe you and not Richard Lindzen?"

"CCR-II cites more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers to show that the IPCC has ignored or misinterpreted much of the research that challenges the need for carbon dioxide controls."

And from the same author's series:

"Human carbon dioxide emissions are 3% to 5% of total carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, and about 98% of all carbon dioxide emissions are reabsorbed through the carbon cycle.

http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg04rpt/pdf/tbl3.pdf

"Using data from the Department of Energy and the IPCC we can calculate the impact of our carbon dioxide emissions. The results of that calculation shows that if we stopped all U.S. emissions it could theoretically prevent a temperature rise of 0.003 C per year. If every country totally stopped human emissions, we might forestall 0.01 C of warming."

http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/08/01/climate-change-in-perspective/#sthash.Dboz3dC5.dpuf

Again, I have asked, repeatedly, where's the evidence of human impact on global warming? "Consensus" is not evidence. I ask for evidence and instead I get statements about the consensus that global warming happening. These are two different issues.

"Although Earth’s atmosphere does have a “greenhouse effect” and carbon dioxide does have a limited hypothetical capacity to warm the atmosphere, there is no physical evidence showing that human carbon dioxide emissions actually produce any significant warming."

Or Roger Pielke, Sr: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/20/pielke-sr-on-that-hide-and-seek-ocean-heat/

Or Lennart Bengtsoon (good interview): "Yes, the scientific report does this but, at least in my view, not critically enough. It does not bring up the large difference between observational results and model simulations. I have full respect for the scientific work behind the IPCC reports but I do not appreciate the need for consensus. It is important, and I will say essential, that society and the political community is also made aware of areas where consensus does not exist. To aim for a simplistic course of action in an area that is as complex and as incompletely understood as the climate system does not make sense at all in my opinion."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/meteorologist-lennart-bengtsson-joins-climate-skeptic-think-tank-a-968856.html

Bengtsson: "I have always been a skeptic and I believe this is what most scientists really are."

What Michael Crichton said about "consensus": "Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."

Will Happer on the irrelevancy of more CO2 now: "The earth's climate really is strongly affected by the greenhouse effect, although the physics is not the same as that which makes real, glassed-in greenhouses work. Without greenhouse warming, the earth would be much too cold to sustain its current abundance of life. However, at least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player. There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration will be a small increase of the earth's temperature -- on the order of one degree. Additional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can. It is like putting an additional ski hat on your head when you already have a nice warm one below it, but your are only wearing a windbreaker. To really get warmer, you need to add a warmer jacket. The IPCC thinks that this extra jacket is water vapor and clouds."

Ivar Giaever, not a climate scientist per se, but a notable scientist and also a skeptic challenging "consensus": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8786565/War-of-words-over-global-warming-as-Nobel-laureate-resigns-in-protest.html

Even prominent IPCC scientists are skeptics, even within the IPCC there is not agreement: http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/08/21/un-scientists-who-have-turned-on-unipcc-man-made-climate-fears-a-climate-depot-flashback-report/

And for your research, it may be worth checking out: http://www.amazon.com/The-Skeptical-Environmentalist-Measuring-State/dp/0521010683