Corrupt maga judge Alito perjured himself to congress when he swore the insurrection flag he flew at home in January 2021 was in response to an argument with a neighbor (but the neighbor proved with her police report of the argument that the argument was a month AFTER photographs prove they started flying the insurrection supporting flag, proving with documentation he lied).
On top of that, he took $4 million in bribes…”gifts”… from people with cases before him that he did not refuse from….just like the insurrection case where he has a blatant conflict of interest in.
Maga has invalidated the Supreme Court with corruption to its core, and in next term they will be removed for their corrupt and criminal acts and replaced. The 3 progressive justices have nothing close to that corruption or refusal to adhere to the law and precedent in their record, non have taken millions in gifts from billionaires with cases before them, none failed to report millions in gifts for decades, none have unaccounted for millions in assets gained after being sworn in. All conservative “justices” do, every single one.

Bonus- there’s essentially a warrant out for “special enforcement” of convicted felon Trump in the UK for failing to pay a $300k judgement against him by Christopher Steele! Not to worry, his convictions mean he can never go there again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04DwVPl__Eo

More exposing highly classified documents by Trump…this time the entire multinational investigation into the massive election interference in 2016 by Russia (for his benefit and the nations detriment), including the highly classified methods and personnel we and our allies used to get information out of Russia …that was the highest level of classification, (so sensitive even the notes of agents who viewed it were kept in a secure safe in a secure area of the CIA) that Trump ordered copies of in the last days of his presidency and THOSE COPIES WENT MISSING AND ARE STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR (he obviously sold them to Putin so he could clear house just like the Saudis did, executing hundreds after paying Jared $2 billion).

This is ANOTHER top secret classified document scandal separate from the Maralago scandal of exposing classified documents to our enemies like China and Russia, another outright theft of our nations secrets that does major damage to our national security and our relationship with international allies who have more evidence Trump can’t be trusted with sensitive intelligence, more treason, and one more reason why Trump and his entire treasonous MAGA administration should be in front of a firing squad and not a teleprompter looking for votes and donations.

But I know, no amount of blatant undeniable treason could penetrate your blinders to convince you of Trump’s overwhelming guilt on at least 91 charges of treasonous activities, just as no amount of proof Joe never sold influence to anyone would ever convince you he’s not guilty of something. Facts simply don’t penetrate your thick skull…ever.

No, WE are not.

I don't mind someone making fun of people in the past, but I don't appreciate being associated with the stupidity of the past, which I had nothing to do with.

Your attitude of "WE owe the world some kind of debt" because of the actions of completely different people (and we just happened to be born in the same place and it's somehow our fault.)

This attitude is the reason why Europe now has 1 million+ unaccounted and unvetted people running around and causing trouble.

True enough, I was generalizing.

I'm pretty much the same, except I didn't vote for him the first time around, I think I voted green party (but honestly can't recall). I have been sorely disappointed in his ability to get things done, and more so in his insistence at 'compromising' with republicans, when they don't even know the meaning of the word, much less how to practice it.
If he had pushed single payer for all through when he had the majority, I might have voted for him the second round, but instead he completely caved and gave us a 1/2 assed flawed plan to 'satisfy' republicans, and we know how satisfied they remain.

So I'm not really a 'fan' of the ACA either, but I do think it's way better than what came before it. I wouldn't discard the 'working' for a future 'impossible perfection' that won't ever come...EDIT: and certainly not for the duplicitous, expensive, unaccountable insurance system we had before the ACA...now it's just expensive.

That's a sentiment I've been hearing much more lately.

If enough people start saying it, it's even possible that some changes could be made.

Of course, it's also possible that Europe will just keep muddling through and make the barest concessions required to stop a revolt.

You know, I don't think the unelected part is such a problem, it's all down to the unaccountability.

In theory, I would suppose so.

But in reality, the one entity tasked with enforcing the legal frameworks of the EU, the European Commission, is also the entity behind many violations in the first place. So tough luck, I guess.

We have a saying in Germany that fits the activities since the beginning of the crisis rather nicely: "legal, illegal, scheissegal". Legal, illegal, who gives a shit.

Just a few appetizers:

- EU parliamentary inquiry says troika acts outside of legal framework, without any oversight
- Special Rapporteur: cuts in Greece would have never passed EU parliament, had to be done outside of any democratic control
- Portuguese Supreme Court rules cuts unconstitutional, European Commission calls court a group of activists
- Troika forced an end of collective bargaining in Greece, in violation of ILO agreements
- Troika forced Greek minister to use decree to cut minimum wage, circumventing parliament entirely
- EC and ECB violate law by being part of the troika
- Eurogroup acts as enforcer for EC wherever law needs to be violated
- Troika forced sale of Portuguese BPN (bank) under extremely shady circumstances
- Bailout, nationalisation and later privatisation of four largest Greek banks equally shady
- Cyprus/Piraeus
- Just about everything the Spanish government has done in the last couple of years

Nevermind all the treaty violations vis-á-vis financing/bailouts, etc. But you won't find a court willing to touch any of this. Nobody wants to destabilize this mess even further, despite all the gross violations. TINA, all the way.

Frankly, I'd be satisfied if these calls were made by parliaments instead of unelected and unaccountable officials.

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

Man, Nabokov's prose could punch the balls off of anything Dickens ever wrote. You're seriously gonna hold up the language of Dickens as a shining example? The guy who wrote such memorable purplitudes as:
"And in this particular period, the skiey influences seem to tincture the animal life with their own mysterious and wayward spirit of change. The birds desert their summer haunts; an unaccountable inquietude pervades the brute creation; even men in this unsettled season have considered themselves, more (than at others) stirred by the motion and whisperings of their genius. And every creature that flows upon the tide of the Universal Life of Things, feels upon the ruffled surface, the mighty and solemn change, which is at work within its depths."

The problem is with grouping people into "drunk drivers" - as if they are a monolith.
You wouldn't say "black people commit more crimes, so black people are harmful" ... that would be considered racist - because it characterizes all the individuals of a group as the same as the worst individuals of the group.
But people who drink and drive don't get that measure of consideration. Across the board they are treated as if they had done harm, whether or not they actually did.


Simple matter really.

Drunk drivers that do harm, do harm.
Sober drivers that do harm, do harm.
Drunk drivers that don't do harm, don't do harm.
Sober drivers that don't do harm, don't do harm.

The harm is in the harm, not in the drunk.


Jail, etc. is real harm to a person's life.
Lost time, lost payments (leading to lost house/car), lost relationships, etc.
If they didn't do any harm themselves, then the punishment is not justified.

Sober drivers get a hand-wave for the harm they cause, as if not drinking or not being on a cell phone makes you unaccountable for your actions.


Drinking is fundamentally a personal matter. It involves only ones's self.
Running into another person/property and damaging them/it involves other people (ergo society), so society has moral domain to intervene to help the victim(s).

There's a certain perversion to persecuting people who behave in a disliked manner (and did no harm and had no victim), and then neglecting the plight of victims when whoever harmed them hadn't been behaving in a disliked manner.

We are all individuals, morally responsible for our individual actions.
We should be accountable for our real actions.
Not theoretical "actions that could have been, had things gone differently".


I'm not a fan of people driving drunk, but I would never harm someone for doing it without doing any harm themselves, just because I don't like it.

I'm also not a fan of people failing at their obligation to maintain control of their vehicle, and injuring/maiming/crippling/killing people, and then not being held accountable for the damage they caused because "it was an accident".
Why should the victim be accountable for paying for the damages? They didn't do the damage.

Instead of playing big brother and approving/disapproving of personal behavior, we should be focused on helping victims get justice.
"IMO"

-scheherazade

This has more to do with the fact public education has (somehow) become the enemy than with any hidden agenda against science specifically. Public schools are underfunded (nothing new there), public teachers are (purportedly) overpaid and unaccountable (oh, and lazy!), and grossly frivolous funding is allocated to sports programs instead of actual learning materials.

And to be doubly clear, there is no fundamental dichotomy between "chance" and "design". Chance needn't exist for a God or Godless universe, and "design" (as a vague concept, not specific theory) seems to exist either way too (though it could be illusory). I believe that I design things - so as an explanation for "how things are", most people are going to invoke design as a mechanism either way.

Of course there is a fundamental dichotomy between chance and design. Let's look at the definitions:

Chance

: something that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention or observable cause
b : the assumed impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings : luck -an outcome decided by chance-

c : the fortuitous or incalculable element in existence

1
: to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan : devise, contrive
2
a : to conceive and plan out in the mind -he designed the perfect crime- b : to have as a purpose : intend -she designed to excel in her studies- c : to devise for a specific function or end -a book designed primarily as a college textbook-

A design was deliberately caused by a mind, whereas chance just happens. Either existence as we know it was deliberately caused by a mind, or it wasn't. Whether the Universe is deterministic and things had to happen this way has no bearing, because that says nothing for the reason of the original configuration, or how it got that way. Either there is no particular reason and it just happened to be that way, or it was set into motion by an intelligence. Design is planned and chance is unplanned, and that is the dichotomy.

If you want to speak about what is arbitrary, then you have to consider that everything is equally unlikely from the standpoint of one who is unsure about everything. You may suspect there is a truth, because things appear to happen for a reason, but be unable to grasp it. This is like a black hole for the mind, and there is no escape from uncertainty.

You have to make a couple of assumptions to even begin to reason. The first is that you are real. The second is that the Universe is not inherently deceptive. The first, because you cannot reason without assuming you exist, and so assuming the contrary will only lead to absurdity. The second, because again, if you cannot trust anything then you cannot trust your own thoughts either. Therefore, you have no route to reason and again it leads to absurdity.

This isn't to say you couldn't be deceived about the Universe. It is to say that there is always some route to the truth. Therefore, the truth is something tangible and can be grasped. However, you are still in the quandary of being a subjective being with limited knowledge. There may be a route to the truth, but it requires you to be omnipotent. This is where most people stop and say, well, we just can't ever know what the truth is, but this isn't true. Even if you are not omnipotent, an omnipotent being could tell you what the truth is. That's my claim.

God is also the simplest explanation for everything, which can account for absolutely everything we see, feel, or experience, and that is precisely why some people don't like it. They don't want an ultimate answer like God because He interferes with their personal autonomy. They want to be free to imagine that it could be any number of things, so therefore they have the ultimate freedom to live however they please. To say there is any particular answer, especially a personal one, restricts their personal freedom and makes them accountable to specific outcomes.

I'm not saying this universe is in any way likely or that it should compete with your current understanding of the world. So to clarify: my question to you is "do you agree it's not absolutely impossible that is the case". If you're leaving your answer to this clarified question as "no", what possible evidence could you have to rule this situation out? What evidence or experience couldn't be falsified by a devious supernatural agent? What if they could mess with your very process of reason (and I see no reason why they couldn't - again just as hypothetical)?

Well, you've agreed with me that God could reveal Himself to someone in such a way as they could be absolutely certain about it. Such a person could justifiably consider all other outcomes to be absolutely impossible, and be absolutely certain about that. That's my claim. Can I prove that I am that person, even to myself? Not entirely, but I have faith that it is true. This is not a blind faith, it is faith based on my personal relationship with God, which is experiential. Faith is the *substance* of things hoped for, because although I do not see God with my eyes, His Spirit dwells within me.

I do believe there is another supernatural power in this world, a kingdom of darkness which is a lesser power, but powerful enough to deceive human beings. Satan does want you to believe in God; the wrong God. Satan actually doesn't care what you believe, so long as it isn't in the Lord Jesus Christ. Another reason is that I have personal experience with demons; I have been around demon possessed people, and I have spoken to them when they manifested themselves in those people. They are professional liars (actors), the like you have not imagined.

It comes back to the Universe being inherently deceptive. You can't reason that way; you have to believe there is a route to truth. Neither can Satan completely deceive you; God gives everyone the opportunity to know the truth and to break free of their slavery to sin.


>> ^jmzero

@Lawdeedaw "But I won't judge."

Not judging people is good for issues that are private or on which reasonable people can disagree, but if he was really avoidably putting others lives at risk, I think we might be erring on the unaccountability side if we refuse to judge.

I think someone who takes pride in their accountability and stakes their reputation on it would make a point to prominently address the above concerns in their press release related to their lawsuit.

He's so right in the end. Who is the unaccountable imperial leadership now? The answer is abundantly clear.

In short - the problem is this...

•Corrupt labor unions are monopoly personnel providers for state and local governments
•Corrupt labor union leaders force all union members to donate to unaccountable, unmonitored union budgets
•Corrupt union leaders use union dues to hire lobbyists to agitate for greater government spending which will result in a need for more union employees
•Corrupt union leaders use the union dues to donate to the campaigns of corrupt politicians who support the corrupt unions
•Corrupt union leaders then personally negotiate with thier pet-elected corrupt politicians to freeze unrealistic pay, benefits, and work rules for unions
•The higher they get these union contracts, the more money they have to buy votes and perpetuate the whole mess.
•At no point in this process is the VOTER WHO IS PAYING FOR IT ALL given a chance to throw the brakes.

Until this cycle of corruption is broken (dare we say, BUSTED?) the taxpayer will continue to get rogered by these corrupt unions, their corrupt pet politicians, and the stupid union dupes who go along with it all because it give them fat & sassy benefits.

Look, the problem is not that there is a different opinion out there, the problem is that FOX is not, as it were just a different opinion, its a network of dishonesty. Its lying and distorting facts, it denies and undercuts reality itself, All while claiming to be the "fair and balanced" alternative.

This kind of opinion can only be aimed at the FOX commentary side of the equation such as Beck, Hannity, et al. It does not apply to the "news" side. Most cable news programs have a distinct division between "News" (updates of current events) and "Commentary" (talking head opinion programs). I have seen nothing in FOX News' "news" that in any way is described by your litany of grievances. The only stuff that fits your description is the "commentary" side.

But talking about OPINION programs as "dishonesty, distortion, denial, undercutting reality", belies the nature of what you are implying. You are implying their NEWS lies, distorts, denies - when in reality you are grumping at COMMENTARY that (based on your bias) you interpret as lies, distorts, and denies. Must you not freely acknowledge that MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, NYT, AP, USA Today, and innumerable other news outlets are equal violators in that regard? How is the foaming commentary of Chris Matthews any better than Sean Hannity? How are the inane distortions and exaggerations of Beck any different than Maddow's?

FOX didn't start the birther movement. That started because Obama first refused to release his birth certificate, and then Hawaii refused to release it, and then they released a digitized copy, and finally released a document that does not necessarily rule out the possibility of being foreign born. FOX News didn't do all that. And the whole East Anglia corruption scandal is not FOX News' fault. Again, I only see this as you complaining that an critical voice is applying some strict standards of accountability to an organization that your personal bias prefers being given a free pass to lie. It isn't dishonesty - it is a rare application of journalistic standars to an otherwise unaccountable group caught red-handed cooking their books.

Try finding comparable examples on Olberman or Maddow, you wont. Because while they are opinionated, biased and crtical, they also care about the facts

Bullcrap. Madddow & Olbermann prove they are only interested in left-leaning slant every time they open their mouths and flap their yaps. Someone with a right-leaning slant will say the exact thing about Beck or Hannity and you cannot argue the point because they are using your same logic. They can say that Beck 'cares about facts' too - as long as they reinforce his position. Maddow cares about facts - if they make her opinions look good. Neither of them tell the whole story, and both of them deliberately hide facts that contradict their narratives.