not enough money in politic imho.

dont reply to me

Governor Wolf announced he plans to veto the stupid Medicaid work requirements bill

the PA budget deal the Republicans had has already crashed and burned. Wolf has had it. The Republican leadership blamed Democrats, despite there being more than enough Republicans to pass a budget if they could come together as a party.

s floor debate on the severance tax occupied the House's attention, an unusually combative Wolf called a surprise press conference.
He announced he plans to patch part of the budget deficit himself, by borrowing $1.25 billion against profits from the state Liquor Control Board.
"Too many Republicans in the legislature are more focused on the 2018 elections than on helping Pennsylvania succeed," Wolf said. "They'd rather see me fail than Pennsylvania succeed. They'd rather protect special interests, they'd rather protect lobbyists and campaign donors than do the right thing. I'm not going to play their games anymore, so I'm drawing a line in the sand."
Wolf said the borrowed money will be about enough to pay off last year's deficit.
Going forward, he plans to take undisclosed steps to "manage complements" and "streamline government services," to keep the budget roughly in balance.
He placed specific blame on one caucus for making this necessary.
"House Republicans have again proven themselves incapable of completing their constitutional duty," he said. "So I'm going to manage the finances of the commonwealth until the House sees fit to do what it's supposed to do."

the bolded part is the correct part

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Money in politics is fine.

if property factors into your polity, it skews the "vote power" of some over others in determining how all are governed. There is simply no denying that. it's a "bug" humans have grappled with since people lived in caves

This isn't to say that it's possible to eliminate its effects entirely, but to dismiss the distortional power of wealth in politics is complaisance - at best

Especially in a country that was founded and built on slavery, where even today average white family wealth is ~140k and average black family wealth is ~15k

We have the most income/wealth inequality we've ever had in this country. Financially, judicially, and legislatively there have been no serious consequences for any of the major role players for the 2008 crash. All this ties back to big money in politics being a huge problem

With all the problems int the world today there is a lot of noise being made about the Virginia felony limit set at $200 this political season. I get that this generally is complicating things for lower income, and minorities as it is really easy to hit $200, but at the same time it is an unnecessary distraction to me during an election. Felonies are huge problems socially, including being barred from gainful employment, eliminates the right to vote, etc., thus perpetuating a cycle of disenfranchisement for the individual, and for all those connected with him. However, the noise around it is too easy to generate because it is reasonably repugnant to have any discussion that starts asking, effectively, 'how much are you allowed to steal', no matter how unthinking that question is. The lion is out of the box now so the distraction is available, but I wish the progenitors of this would have waiting until the next legislative session began.

PA AG Josh Shapiro has sued Navient student loan company. GET EEM

The complaint filed Thursday in federal court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, says Navient Corp. and Navient Solutions LLC sold "risky and expensive" subprime loans and damaged borrowers and co-signers by failing to perform core loan servicing duties.

The lawsuit says the companies funneled people into a program that added massive interest costs when they should have been directing them into repayment plans indexed to income.

Navient issued a statement saying the allegations are completely unfounded and that it complies with federal rules for student loans.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Illinois and Washington state also sued over the loan practices earlier this year.

I am not sure if I missed it on the last thread, but the double-double of the DOJ rolling back work place protections on transgender individuals, AND the move to quash the Doe v. Trump suite because there has not been harm to military personnel as there is no policy in place yet, thus there cannot be a law suite as it is baseless. The first is disgusting where the second is a technicality.

Remember Trump loves the LGB community, but clearly has some hatred for the T. Date going sideways? The Crying Game scare the hooey out of him?

it's really sad stuff, thephan

the North Carolina GOP has decided that the solution to their pesky court problem regarding the gerrymandering is to start gerrymandering the court races.

The Trump administration issued a rule Friday that sharply limits the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate, a move that could mean many American women would no longer have access to birth control free of charge.

Its the busy season in DC all of the sudden.

thephan wrote:

The Trump administration issued a rule Friday that sharply limits the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate, a move that could mean many American women would no longer have access to birth control free of charge.

Its the busy season in DC all of the sudden.

Its about time we got back to keeping our women bare foot and pregnant. #MAGA

traderdave wrote:

thephan wrote:

The Trump administration issued a rule Friday that sharply limits the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate, a move that could mean many American women would no longer have access to birth control free of charge.

Its the busy season in DC all of the sudden.

Its about time we got back to keeping our women bare foot and pregnant. #MAGA

they don't want to 'promote risky behaviors'

traderdave wrote:

thephan wrote:

The Trump administration issued a rule Friday that sharply limits the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate, a move that could mean many American women would no longer have access to birth control free of charge.

Its the busy season in DC all of the sudden.

Its about time we got back to keeping our women bare foot and pregnant. #MAGA

this is a literal interpretation of their politics btw.

Brought to you by the party who had a member resign yesterday because he knocked up his mistress (the incredible irony given he contraception debate) and then asked her to get an abortion. Truly what needs to happen next is a local restaurant, flower shop, supermarket, whatever, to refuse him or Ms. Edwards service on religious grounds due to their admitted adultery.

Nice twist @traderdave. I like it. When you have an affair, you are violating 2-3 commandments (depending if you think it dishonors your parents), so bring it on. If there is no wedding cake, maybe the local grocer can take exception with you on moral grounds. Of course I am thinking of the hateful hypocrites that need to have a drink of their own bathwater. There is no limit on who you could roll into those bins.

maybe we wouldn't have enough people to staff the military bases in the 150+ countries we're in (which is fine, Milty. it's good to spend all our money on that.).

youseff, im with you on the kochs obviously but i've seen you say clinton cash has some points. but it's completely mercer (who are worse than the kochs imo) financed and breitbart approved. it's basically been completely discredited by actual journalists and the FBI looked into it after the mercers put it out and found nothing of substance? they're as big of a reason as anyone as why we have donald trump in the white house today.

yes, the clintons got very rich. they are not abnormal politicians in that they cashed in while one or the other was not serving, but perhaps to a larger than normal extent. but that's not anywhere near the same as selling state department access to saudis for clinton foundation donations.

yes, i read this thread and associated articles today https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/ ... 5700090880

JUburton wrote:youseff, im with you on the kochs obviously but i've seen you say clinton cash has some points. but it's completely mercer (who are worse than the kochs imo) financed and breitbart approved. it's basically been completely discredited by actual journalists and the FBI looked into it after the mercers put it out and found nothing of substance? they're as big of a reason as anyone as why we have donald trump in the white house today.

yes, the clintons got very rich. they are not abnormal politicians in that they cashed in while one or the other was not serving, but perhaps to a larger than normal extent. but that's not anywhere near the same as selling state department access to saudis for clinton foundation donations.

yes, i read this thread and associated articles today https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/ ... 5700090880

it's not 100% Brietbart media, it's that non-profit whose name eludes me right now. A. Brietbart figured he could have his hysterical media with Brietbart News, but in order to make an impact on the narrative nationally, you'd have to have well sourced stories. If you had a well sourced & credible story, you could feed it to major news publications and they'd do your dirty work for you. that's what that non profit did. it was a hit job, and you're right it's a big reason why we have Trump.

the AP which generally is viewed as very credible, did that story on the confluence between the Clinton Foundation & who she met with as Secretary as STate. I don't think the Uranium thing is a story, and honestly I don't think compared to what we see elsewhere it was that unusual or egregious, but I do think there was some credibility there and the hubris of the Clintons just pisses me off. even if it's not completely unethical, you have to manage the optics if you are going to set it up so no one else of consequence cept Bernie runs for President so you can be the presumptive nominee. I'm always willing to change my opinion as I'm presented with new info but that's where I've landed.

btw that Mercer yacht is fucking gorgeous.

Youseff wrote:

JUburton wrote:youseff, im with you on the kochs obviously but i've seen you say clinton cash has some points. but it's completely mercer (who are worse than the kochs imo) financed and breitbart approved. it's basically been completely discredited by actual journalists and the FBI looked into it after the mercers put it out and found nothing of substance? they're as big of a reason as anyone as why we have donald trump in the white house today.

yes, the clintons got very rich. they are not abnormal politicians in that they cashed in while one or the other was not serving, but perhaps to a larger than normal extent. but that's not anywhere near the same as selling state department access to saudis for clinton foundation donations.

yes, i read this thread and associated articles today https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/ ... 5700090880

it's not 100% Brietbart media, it's that non-profit whose name eludes me right now. A. Brietbart figured he could have his hysterical media with Brietbart News, but in order to make an impact on the narrative nationally, you'd have to have well sourced stories. If you had a well sourced & credible story, you could feed it to major news publications and they'd do your dirty work for you. that's what that non profit did. it was a hit job, and you're right it's a big reason why we have Trump.

the AP which generally is viewed as very credible, did that story on the confluence between the Clinton Foundation & who she met with as Secretary as STate. I don't think the Uranium thing is a story, and honestly I don't think compared to what we see elsewhere it was that unusual or egregious, but I do think there was some credibility there and the hubris of the Clintons just pisses me off. even if it's not completely unethical, you have to manage the optics if you are going to set it up so no one else of consequence cept Bernie runs for President so you can be the presumptive nominee. I'm always willing to change my opinion as I'm presented with new info but that's where I've landed.

I guess theres no surprise to me that other countries and people from them donated to the foundation while she was SoS. I just think they had the proper walls up to ensure she would be influenced as little as possible, if at all, by those donations.

They probably thought that the overall benefit to the world by having a charitable foundation attached to them would outweigh any issues arising from what looked like conflicts of interest. Turns out they were wrong and probably should have shut it down while she was SoS.