and the Republicans have abused the filibuster to grind any sort of progress to a halt.

You don't have to have the white house to abuse the system and it goes way fucking beyond DC.

Republicans have been gerrymandering the elections drawing and redrawing district lines in many key states such as Florida trying to steal elections. When I lived in Daytona I never moved but I voted in 3 different districts due to gerrymandering.

Abortion, Gay rights.. ect..ect.. All are ways the Right tries to force it's views and ideals on the majority.

Fucking creationism is being taught in PUBLIC schools.. Need I really say more?

As far as I'm concerned the Right is at war with this country. I no longer have any tolerance for them. I don't give the Left a free pass, I don't agree with their stance on immigration, taxes and overly strict gun control as well as various other things but at least they don't try to take my freedom away and force religious ideology on me.

:2 cents:

genius on the government part, or big business?

it's funny how every conversation focuses on 'government'; when really these are just paid actors doing a job

That is only your opinion. You have absolutely no way of knowing what is going on (neither do I)

All I know for a fact is: I've seen the govt. take DOWN some big businesses when it wanted to. And only the govt. can make laws that regulate or don't regulate big business.
I vote for govt. officials. Not big business managers.

So in my OPINION, it's the crooks in Washington (and local govts) who are to blame.

The "big business" guys are only doing what they should be doing: trying to gain a competitive edge.

That is NOT what our govt. officials are supposed to be doing. But yet, there they are with their greasy hands out to collect as much money as they can.

Do I think "big business" is the real power? Nope. But again, that's just my opinion.
I base it on the fact that so many people spend tens of millions of dollars to get elected to Congress...which pays $174,000 a year.

Think about that.

with that logic, wouldn't everything be an opinion?

enron is a great example of 'big business just trying to get the edge'.. yet that state is almost broken due to the amount of deregulation that occurred

would this still be the fault of just the state-level government?

Reagan voiced against the Briggs initiative backing Harvey Milk

Abortion shouldn't be part of either parties strategy, it should be controlled by the states.

Redrawing districts has been done by both parties

http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/ima...g/audience.gif

No, just a FACT that two guys like us with no inside knowledge of the subject can only speculate (opinion)

And as you know...opinions are like assholes, everybody has one & they all stink.

As for the decades old Enron subject...YES, it is the politicians who TOOK the money and allowed that company to do things that were dangerous.

Dude...you can only buy what is for sale. The politicians JOB isn't to be for sale. But that is what they are doing. :)

the.. subject of government?

anyways, i agreed with what you said about divide and conquer.

Yeah, the subject of the shady behind closed doors illegal deals that politicians do every day with the highest bidder. We have no way of knowing what is going on. We only see the results.

And your perspective is that it's "Big Business" who is at fault.
Mine is that it's the Govt. with all the power and they sell their power to the highest bidder.

In the end, we all get fucked...I'm just surprised at how successful the govt. has gotten at manipulating the population.
Back in the 1960's/early 1970's people protested against our govt.

Now...nothing. Hell, the media (who are supposed to be the watchdogs of govt.) haven't even shown any inclination to do what was once referred to as "investigative journalism".

These days they just go to the press room, get a copy of the official White House statements...and report it as fact. :(

Instead of "embedding" with the troops in Iraq and scrambling to be the biggest ass kisser to the White House so they could get the "good" assigned "embeddment"...they should have been investigating the Bush admin's claims that there were "Weapons Of Mass Destruction".

After that embarrassment, I would think they would have straightened up. But no...they continue to NOT do their job with the Obama administration.

The govt. seems to have it all wrapped up from my point of view.

Nobody is questioning them or holding them accountable. The media doesn't. And the people argue amongst themselves (like we are doing).

Textbook example of misdirection. Penn & Teller couldn't do it any better.

Then let them target non profit status, not the Tea Party. It as a whole should not be targeted solely because they spoke up against what they believed was wrong by the people they are speaking up against.

No one should be targeted for speaking up

People protest now.. Look at OWS, but the cops shut it down with abusive force. In a sense even the Tea Party was a protest but it was much more politically motivated and took the side of the right, not the side of the United States.

The media on the other hand is fucking useless..

They aren't being targeted because they are speaking up. They are being targeted because such non profits are notorious for breaking the laws. Groups like this should be watched very closely. I think such groups are horrible - It's a legal way for them to hand off money to political candidates.

This isn't Democrats against the tea party. The fucking Democrats do this shit too. They all do.

the original article is an admission from the irs the problem is due to overzealous bureaucrats.

fuck me the loons are out again - but this is gfy after all where the misanthropes and malcontents tend to congregate

illegal deals are illegal deals.. the fact that these 'deals' continue taking place, without any oversight, should tell us a great deal.

and that highest bidder is big business, so really we are agreeing, yes?

they do today. we call them lazy entitled fucks who should be concerning themselves with working (unless they're students, and the reasons for their not protesting get really muddled) we attack them with riot police, tear gas, illegal detention, political pressure (IRS)

looking at the beehive colony collapse, is another 'clue' on who holds power here

like angry muslim protests? look what happens, today, if one were to ask questions about that?

yea, im sure the military would have loved that. my understanding is they were intercepting and 'detaining for their safety' anyone from the US travelling there to 'document'.. only way to, realistically, be a reporter there, is to embed

comes down to who owns the media companies, and how those are connected to who owns the universities


yea, almost everyones point of view. Funny how the bad guy is 'big government', yet we just invade countries that make big business money

Us arguing amongst ourselves is the biggest steps we can take, as a species, towards fixing the problems of today and creating the problems of tomorrow. In the day of the internet, ignorance is no longer a viable excuse.

I agree, but i think it comes down to the 'pyramid'. That structure has been alive and well for some time. Considering who owns banks etc, it's not a far (or crazy), assumption that the first 'powerhouse'.. still has power.

an IRS official admitted the group subjected Tea Party-related groups' applications for tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny.

ADDITIONAL SCRUTINY

This is a way for the democrats to go after the funds of the republicans. You of course know that there are many democrat funding groups, are they under additional scrutiny?

It sucks that the Tea Party and Conservatives groups were singled out -- but they're kind of a bunch of assholes. When you look at some of the underhanded bullshit they try to pull during election season.... well fuck 'em, they deserve to get hassled.

extra scrutiny, yeah right, dam conspirasy theoriss!!

http://randomdrake.com/tinfoil-hat.jpg

Cray bastards! Always thinkin a conspracy is there when there aint one!

The irony of it all is Rubio calling for the IRS commissioner to step down when there hasn't been one for awhile. The last one was a Bush appointee holdover who was overseeing the IRS when this happened.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...27926612_n.jpg




:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh



.

And now the DOJ is in trouble for getting the phone records of AP reporters.

This is like the Nixon administration all over again. :(

Not sure where you live, but being an asshole is not grounds for being denied.

If not worse.

This is what kills me about you. You see EVERYTHING from a political standpoint. You see "Obama going after Republican funding". Doesn't matter that Obama had nothing to do with this, that's what you see.

I want every non profit of a political nature to get "extra screening". Any non profit that raises money for any political party - be it Democratic or Republican or Green Party or Red Party or the fucking Nazis - to have extra screening. All of these political non profits are using them as a smoke screen to hide donors to political candidates.

Better yet, why doesn't Congress do their fucking jobs and shut down these loopholes. Oh that's right, they don't want - because they are the ones benefiting from it.

And, BTW, if it is found out that Obama ordered such actions by the IRS... Not only should he be impeached, he should be arrested. Period.

Funny, I watched a news report about this issue this morning... And it turns out this was allowed to happen because of the Patriot Act.

Fine target all of them, it's this one time they targeted just the Tea Party

You noticed before the last election he didn't talk too much about a transparent administration. Apparently he's having too much fun with dirty tricks and power mongering. :thumbsup

No, that is an incorrect statement.

The IRS, during the normal course of business, noticed a new trend that was suspicious and investigated. In this case it was a political group... But I am guessing that the IRS sees suspicious trends and intentionally calls for new screening for certain key words on a regular basis. In other words, if there was an 80% increase for non profit organizations that benefited the "Northern Mariana Islands", the IRS would be interested in "further screening".

This seems suspicious to people unless they've run a non profit. My wife does - she runs my kid's sports league - and they recently lost their non profit status which was a huge issue for us. Seems the IRS is cracking down on suspicious activity because too many youth sports league don't follow the rules - which is understandable being as the people who run these do so on less than a part time basis during their free time and aren't accountants.

If we discover that anyone from the Democratic party ordered this, heads should roll. And if it leads all the way up to White House and to Obama boy, great, we should impeach him just like we did Nixon, and he should resign in disgrace. (In fact, I would love to see this just because the news has been rather dull recently.) But at this point it seems to be nothing more than the IRS doing it's freaking job.

Yet not a peep from any of you when Bush was doing it...........:1orglaugh



The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov.../me-allsaints7


In 2004, the NAACP was hit with an audit over accusations of improper political activity for criticizing the Bush administration.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...004-91284.html

:upsidedow:upsidedow

It's funny how when Bush was the guy in charge the righties never had a problem with all those embassies getting attacked and Americans getting killed.

They never had a problem with the patriot act.. It was "hey if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about."

They never had any issues with starting two wars or spending billions upon billions of dollars..

Meanwhile soon as a black Democrat gets elected suddenly everything is an outrage.. I would have voted for Al Sharpton had I known you guys would flip out like this.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I have an idea.. How about all you Righties that don't want to pay taxes, don't want no govt or no EPA telling you what to do. All you righties that think you should own any fire arm you want.. How about you all move to fucking Iraq or Afghanistan.

It's pretty much your fucking utopia. Quit trying to turn this country into a third world shit hold.. Move to one that's already how you want it.

Or he figured someone might mention that he had promised that before. But yeah, I think he has definitely gotten used to this power trip he is on.

I don't blame the guy, what's the fun of having absolute power if you can't abuse it from time to time.

Bush sure did.

The odd part of all that, he supposedly got so stinking rich from robbing the country blind. and he ends up retiring in a ranch house in Texas. I would've figured with all that loot he would be living it up Oprah style.

Funny picture you continually attempt to paint....

This was in 2006.

Bushes' Assets May Top $20 Million; Cheneys', $94 Million
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051501638.html

There are a number of guys who post here that have assets more than Bush. I know it may be a lot of money to you, but in the bigger picture it's not that impressive.

Cheney's $94 million is not that impressive? Like I said, funny picture you attempt to paint of both yourself and the world around you.

it's still 90 million :2 cents:

People that tend to present themselves as having it all do it because they usually don't. Minte is obviously a 12clicks disciple.