Newt, you don't know the half of it. The reason they need a bail-out? Two words, my friend: stock buybacks.

Back in '16, good ol' AA was ~$20 BILLION in debt. Yes, their DEBT was larger than the GDP of some nations. Bad situation, right? What to do, what to do -- HEY! I got it! Let's spend NINE FUCKING BILLION on stock buybacks. In doing so, they turned $5b in reserve cash into $550 million. Trump himself couldn't have fucked this up worse if he tried.

It gets worse. Here, I will quote from Forbes:

"The numbers boggle the mind. American Airlines spent nearly three times its current value on stock buybacks over the last six years."

It gets even worse from there.

Over the last ten years, AA spent ~$13b on stock buybacks. You know what their free cash flow was over the same 10-year period?

-$7,935 million.

That's not a typo. Their free cash flow, unique among all major airlines, is NEGATIVE. The number on their -negative- cash flow is greater than the -positive- cash flows of Jet Blue and Alaska combined.

Guess where that money went?

Shareholders? Nope.
Employees? Nope.
Improvements to the business as a whole? Nuh-uh.

If you guessed "The CEO's pocket", you win a $4 Snickers bar. If you also suspect that any bailout will end up in the same place, I'm throwing in a free Baby Ruth or an Abbazabba (your choice).

That's right: your tax-paying American ass is going to bail out these cocksuckers not to save jobs -- no fucking chance in Hell that's going to happen -- but to make Doug fucking Parker, an asshole of utterly legendary proportions who made $11.5 MILLION in 2019 thanks to those buybacks, even fucking richer.

There's not enough Prep-H in the world to compensate for that level of ass-fucking. And you WILL smile when you're getting raped, otherwise it's getting stuffed in your mouth afterwards.

(BTW: when they started this financial cocksuckery, AA was ~$60 a share. On Friday, it closed just below $13. Dough Parker still made money. The funds, including pension funds, who invested in AA @ $60? Not so much.)

Why aren't (some) officials questioning the pension liabilities? In many cases it could be because Republicans at least tend to let the pensions go bankrupt then allow agencies off the hook for the retirement packages many worked a lifetime to earn, so why worry? Oddly, when it's multi million retirement packages for CEOs of companies being bailed out, the same people insist it's a contractual obligation that can't be ignored.

Apparently what you get if you marry a lawyer and then fight him.

How and why does a video like this get on the internet, is it so her kids and their friends can see?

For slapping a grown up man? Well a grown up lawyer anyway? This? And then he has to come and pay bail and drive her home.

And part of me thinks is this just a publicity stunt? Would that be even worse?

What I don't like about "NOW THIS" videos, is everythiung is paraphased, and video is chopped from the original "found" video.
No names are given.

So here is more info.
Zach Wester, 26, was arrested on felony charges of racketeering, official misconduct, fabricating evidence, possession of a controlled substance and false imprisonment.

The one-time Jackson County deputy faces misdemeanor charges of perjury, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said.

He was arrested by FDLE agents and taken to the Wakulla County Jail, where he is being held without bail.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/10/former-jackson-county-deputy-zach-wester-arrested-drug-planting-probe/1693260001/

I don't travel TO work. I'm AT work 24 hrs. a day, 6 days week. I'm getting paid right now to reply to you. Someone would literally have to die to pull me away from replying to you right now. (not a compliment, just fact)

Then I will travel to the scene, pick up the deceased and take it just shy of its "final destination."

If I should happen to get pulled over for going 10 mph over the speed limit, the officer would gladly let me go or give me a police escort depending on the situation.

It is my job and a privilege to do my job which includes driving. As I stated earlier, it is also my right to travel as a licensed driver.

I also have verifiable proof of my pristine driving record.

Post my bail. I'm not falling that old trick again.

Go travel to work and get pulled over with out an ID and see what happens. Claim you Constitutional rights then call me and I'll post your bail

Sorry to hear that. As I have mentioned before (in a couple of different posts), I also grew up in a household that was deeply troubled and violent. My grandfather was a wonderful man when sober, unfortunately he was more often than not inebriated.

I experienced multiple styles of punishment, depending on the situation. If my grandfather was drunk, he was like as not to hit me. I still have a physical reminder of that method, in that he broke my nose once. I too learned to be elsewhere when he was drunk and to fear that version of my grandfather.

In times when he was sober, or when my grandmother was able (she suffered from MS), I received spankings. I learned that if I did not do certain things, I would not get spankings. So I stopped doing those things.

Same in school, I used to be a little shithead, very sarcastic and mean. I quickly learned that if I did things against other kids, I would get a paddling. The paddling didn't actually hurt that much, but the knowledge that other kids knew I was getting swats was very effective in making me stop acting out.

Later, as I became close to 18, both the school and my grandparents moved to a more hands off style. The school because, even in Texas, people were trying to get schools to stop using corporal punishment. My grandparents because they were older, sicker, and I was larger. My grandfather basically told me that I was close enough to being a man that I was going to make my own mistakes and he wasn't going to bail me out from them. I still got punished after the fact, but it wasn't physical.

Maybe I am an outlier, but that period was probably when I was the most wild. I got in trouble with the law, made terrible decisions, and probably would have done some serious time but for the guiding principles of my eventual wife when we started dating. I feel that if my grandparents and the school had been more strict during that time, I might have not had as many close calls as I did.

In any case, I would say that both of our experiences with earlier punishment would be taking it to the abuse level. I feel that corporal punishment, justly applied, is still better than not doing it. Fortunately we all can have our own opinion on the topic, so I can understand your viewpoint as well.

As far as the screwdriver, I wouldn't use it because it is completely ineffective. However, if I did not have a lug wrench and had a tool that could apply the proper force (say a crescent wrench or lockjaw pliers) I would use that tool.

Sure....then you just get killed in custody or framed and jailed for life.
Even in the highly unlikely event you find an honest police department, you have to fight the charges they think you might deserve with money and lawyers you don't have (the one they give you will have 200 open cases and 3 minutes to work on your case and will tell you to plea guilty), all after sitting in jail for years waiting for trial because you don't have $200k for bail.... sounds great.....after you. (You have to be black or Latino first though).

You know how you fix that, prosecute every small infraction any officer might be guilty of and remove the criminal cops permanently, like once fired for cause you get bared from any law enforcement job for life. We'll have to replace 2/3 of them and retrain the rest, but we still should, the police as they are are a gang of armed thugs that every now and then do a good deed so they can point to helping grandma get home when caught shooting kids in the back and pretend the former excuses the latter.

I watched this live since it was in my neck of the woods and it got even crazier. I can't find the footage but this wasn't the only innocent car they followed. There was a couple that unknowingly gave a ride to the female passenger who bailed out of the suspect car.

Not news...barely opinion. and don't forget lies

hmm all of the other countries that are part of this are going to continue with the treaty including Iran

inspectors have shown that all of the goals were being met and they are drastic goals

trump is just garbage; it's been suggested that he bailed to drive up oil prices which help his russian buddies; I doubt it was intentional because he's an effing moron, but they are benefiting

Research better...$7.5 Trillion+- not $10, and mostly due to lost revenue and excess spending from the Republican caused depression. (Caused by lax and removed bank regulations, then bail outs by Bush with federal funds). Also, let's not forget the Iraq war, kept off the books by Bush, then added to Obama's deficit numbers.

Where was I? Here, stating it's ridiculous to raise the military budget by $100 Billion/year (what Republicans call a huge cut to the military) when our economy is tanked.

By percentage, republicans have consistently raised the deficit/debt more than Democrats, who actually lowered it under Clinton. Reagan was by far the worst.

Wow, is he backwards.

Trump...loyal? He's got to be kidding. Trump is loyal to himself and absolutely nothing else. You don't force taxpayers to bail you out at least 8 times if you're loyal to your nation or stockholders (or if you're a decent businessman). You would be hard pressed to find a single person who's ever done business with Trump that would call him "loyal".

I just dropped 3 IQ points by watching the whole thing....I better go watch a NOVA marathon before it becomes a permanent loss.

Only a $25000 bond for attempted murder?!? On her third violent case?!? That seems excessively small. I've known people with 20 times that bail amount on non violent cases where no one was hurt and no one tried to hurt anyone...she shot at him twice and hit him, then drove away and left him to die. WTF?!
And her pops is trying to portray her as the victim...yeah. I sure hope that doesn't fly in court. Maybe if she had called an ambulance, but leaving him bleeding in the street, nope. Innocent victims simply don't do that.
Glad he's going to live...I hope he gets enough press out of it to make a living. It's not my style of music, but he's good at it.

We've always got room to improve though because as a fellow Canadian I don't feel my country men are all similarly free.

Mike Ward, a comedian up here was sued for $35k because of a joke he made on set.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-verdict-1.3688089

Greg Elliott disagreed with a feminist blogger over twitter and was hit a three year criminal trial over criminal harassment, including a bail condition throughout the trial banning him from internet access. His job relied on that internet access so even though he was cleared of all charges...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Elliott

You aren't supposed to dress up as Mulan unless you are Asian, or even worse as Pocahantas unless your first nations.
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/universities-crack-down-on-offensive-halloween-costumes-at-campus-parties/wcm/b1b50639-0157-4a7d-b7fc-fd45718c4d6d

If you run want to run a Women's only naked spa, you still must allow those with male genitals entry or face a human rights commission complaint which is still in progress:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/body-blitz-transgender-policy-1.4158397

Those a re recent examples easy to mind, but this is pretty frequent.