Politics What is happening????

rogue49 · Aug 5, 2015

I'm all for making money...However, is this good??
new rule could reveal the huge gap between CEO pay and worker pay

I could see it going both ways...at the same time...

redux · Aug 28, 2015

This made my day.

Firefighters in Washington state being thanked by a property owner for saving his house and wearing a typical Tea Party type shirt: "Lower Taxes + Less Government = More Freedom

Big government saves the day.

The Aug. 23 Politics & the Nation article “Easing winds might help firefighters” included a photograph of a grateful Washington state resident thanking firefighters for saving his home from a wildfire. The resident, Brad Craig, was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Lower Taxes + Less Government = More Freedom.” The irony that the firefighters are trained and employed by state and federal fire and forest services seemed lost on the happy resident pictured.

The article mentioned that the National Interagency Fire Center reported that “Last year, federal agencies spent more than $1.5 billion battling widfires.” Too often, opponents of “big government” seem to make exceptions for any government service important to them: for example, Social Security, health subsidies, infrastructure and fire service.

Lower taxes and less government results in more smoldering rubble and a crumbling society. While government should always strive to be more efficient, I am astounded by those who are blind to the practical consequences of low taxes and small government
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rogue49 · Aug 29, 2015

Some people are in denial of reality.

redux · Aug 31, 2015

Obama is officially renaming Mount McKinley to Denali. Alaskan Republicans are supportive, Republicans from McKinley's home state of Ohio, not so much. Will Boehner protest?

President Obama announced Sunday that his administration is renaming Alaska’s Mount McKinley to Denali, the name that nearby natives have long used.

By taking action to officially name the 20,000-foot peak Denali, Obama is taking the Alaska Natives‘ side in a dispute that has stretched on for more than a century.
“Generally believed to be central to the Athabascan creation story, Denali is a site of significant cultural importance to many Alaska Natives,” the White House said in a Sunday fact sheet. “The name ‘Denali’ has been used for many years and is widely used across the state today.”

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the change recognizes that Denali is sacred to many Alaskans.

“The name Denali has been official for use by the State of Alaska since 1975, but even more importantly, the mountain has been known as Denali for generations,” said Jewell, who is responsible for the Board on Geographic Names, the federal body in charge of place names.

“With our own sense of reverence for this place, we are officially renaming the mountain Denali in recognition of the traditions of Alaska Natives and the strong support of the people of Alaska,” she said.

Alaska first formally requested the change when it recognized Denali itself in 1975. Denali means “the great one” in the local Athabaskan language.

Changing the name has often been a bipartisan legislative priority among Alaska’s congressional delegation to rename the mountain. Lisa Murkowski (R), the state’s senior senator and chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which is responsible for the matter, has sponsored legislation in every session of Congress to do so since taking her seat.

She hosted hearing on the bill earlier this year, at which a top National Park Service official said the Obama administration had no objection to the change.
Murkowski welcomed the news Sunday.

“For centuries, Alaskans have known this majestic mountain as the ‘Great One.’ Today we are honored to be able to officially recognize the mountain as Denali,” she said in a statement.

“I’d like to thank the President for working with us to achieve this significant change to show honor, respect, and gratitude to the Athabascan people of Alaska,” she continued.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) have also strongly supported efforts to change the peak's name
...
Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio) introduced a bill in January to reaffirm the McKinley name, calling the mountain “a testament to his countless years of service to our country.”

Obama renames nation’s highest mountain | TheHill
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redux · Sep 1, 2015

Shortly after President Obama announced in August 2015 that he planned to rename Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest mountain peak in North America at 20,237 feet, back to “Denali” (the name by which it had been known prior to 1917) in federal nomenclature, a meme started to spread on Facebook claiming that the mountain’s new name was a “Kenyan word” for black power:

Denali Power : snopes.com
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Those wacky wing nuts.

redravin · Sep 1, 2015

What?!
That's a joke right?
That's not really happening?
Oh fuck me, Snopes actually had to do a counter to it so there are people who believed it.
OMFG.
You know those moments when you can't believe anyone is would be that incredibly stupid?
Well I've gone past that into a black hole and come out the other side.
Maybe it's because I've lived in Alaska all my life and always called the fucking mountain Denali but ..........
It was Republicans who asked him to change it.
I'm totally at a loss here.
I know there are a lot of idiots out there and it's easy to tell myself that but every once in a while...
I weep for this country.

Baraka_Guru · Sep 1, 2015

Wag the dog.

The GOP’s ludicrous “Mt. Denali” freakout: What this latest “scandal” reveals about the right-wing outrage machine - Salon.com

rogue49 · Sep 2, 2015

Well, I guess the GOP is just going to have deal with it...and get their vocab straight.
but the way Obama has played them these past few years, they're lucky some of his fans aren't calling him, "Denali"....
They would explode like St. Helens

rogue49 · Sep 4, 2015

Are the tectonic forces shifting?? In our lifetimes?
Big Oil Pulls Back From Washington?

Obama Gains Leverage on Saudis as U.S. Oil Dependence Declines

It may be a whole new world in 10-20 years...at least for the US and Canada

ASU2003 · Sep 4, 2015

Natural gas: The fracking fallacy : Nature News & Comment

We still import oil, and there is no way to produce enough domestically to fuel the US unless we reduce the amount left in the ground that is available after the next decade or two. It is a calculus problem.

Oil has gotten cheap enough that they probably can't afford all the lobbyists and exploration that they were doing. Cheap and dirty shale oil really messed up a bunch of stuff though from politics to changing society for the better. Some of us don't want to live in a world run and controlled by the oil cartels and family dynasties tied to the fossil fuel empire. The problem is most people don't care and want to drive their big trucks and SUVs 80 mph down the highway.

redux · Sep 6, 2015

Sarah Palin is campaigning to be Trump's Sec of Energy because she know how to manage "those thing that God has dumped on this part of the earth for mankind's use" -- eliminate the Dept of Energy!

Palin eyes Energy secretary job in Trump Cabinet | TheHill

rogue49 · Oct 11, 2015

Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-Up

Ok, I'm this is what I've said for a long time...
I'm not a conspiracy theorist...never have been.
Over time and experience, I've found most conspiracies happen after the fact...from groups trying to cover up or save face. No Machiavellian plan beforehand, people are always too disorganized to pull off anything.
Most are unbelievable and silly.

But this answer has been stated again and again, but simple ignored and looked over by the public.
Even ABC news put it out there some years ago.
But people can't see the forest thru the trees.

It's the easiest answer, makes the most sense...and I fully agree with the actions taken to repress the info, whether actual or not.
Why?? It was to protect us from ourselves.

Look how the public and the US reacted after 9/11...we were angry, we lashed out, we went to war with TWO nations (whether legit or not...Afghanistan and Iraq)
How do you think the public and politicians would have reacted back then??
To find out that Castro may have been involved with assassinating our beloved president. (true or not)
This would have triggered chaos and an attack on Cuba.

We had just been thru The Cuban Missile Crisis
Almost started a nuclear holocaust and WWIII with USSR.
Russia would have attacked immediately...with nukes.
Our top leaders were scared to death of triggering a Mexican standoff.
So, to keep it chill...they lied.
To keep us safe from our own temper or insanity, they lied.

It's a fact, there is a whole currently Federal budgeted department dedicated to the release of John F. Kennedy information, and called this.
I've seen it. (although it is not Secret, it is Public and Confidential - I didn't delve further, it wasn't my business nor was I authorized. I know what I can and cannot say, so being instructed by policy.)
Why? Why would they need a whole dept dedicated to this in this day and age??
But it is implied, there needs to be some massive control that goes beyond normal Archive or FOIA activity.

And I say thanks for this.
The public can panic...or get up in arms.
Sometimes you have to protect someone from themselves.
The repressors are heroes in my eyes.

It makes sense, it's logical, it's very sane.
The only thing I don't get...is why they don't come out and say it officially and formally...even after all these years.
But at least they're not restricting it anymore...because this formal article exists as well as the ABC televised program.
But I also wonder, why the media as a whole hasn't noted it nor the public?
Interesting how myths and mindsets keep going even after the truth is well known.

But I do know this....after all these years working for the government.
Staff and mgmt are just as infallible as corporate structure...they are human.
Shit happens, business decisions get made.
Often bad ones...and just ANY other entity, things are done to cover the mess and save face.
Sometimes, this is for good reason, sometimes bad.

In this case, it's great reason.
We still have a world and billions alive because of it.

But I also know reality and politics...and there's a reason I'm saying this here in a little known board under my alias and not using the Facebook link in the article to my personal space and face.
I like my job and I'm no fool.
Why poke the bull?? Why wave a red cape??
Let the myth continue...until people can absorb it. And the powers that be don't smash bugs about it.
Shit, sometimes I think I work for the Men in Black
But I prefer to not get neurolyzed.

rogue49 · Nov 29, 2015

Hang them all...including ourselves.
The Self-fulfilling Prophecy of ‘Government Doesn’t Work’

Spot on...voters have a responsibility too.
Many just don't vote until the presidential general election...just once every 4 years.
The rest is done by the ideologues.

Personally, I'd make election day a holiday (a Monday) and have a some type of penalty or bonus for voting (maybe like a tax credit)

ASU2003 · Nov 30, 2015

Why Monday? People would just take a three day weekend and probably forget about voting or be traveling back.

I would be OK with having a half day vacation for the holiday. Let non-workers vote early, and those with jobs vote in the afternoon.

rogue49 · Dec 1, 2015

ASU2003 said: ↑

Why Monday? People would just take a three day weekend and probably forget about voting or be traveling back.

I would be OK with having a half day vacation for the holiday. Let non-workers vote early, and those with jobs vote in the afternoon.
Click to expand...

That's too complicated...you're expecting people in volume to be organized...they aren't
It needs to be under the KISS principle.
Holidays in the middle of the week throw people off...bosses aren't cooperative...nor is any other entity. We just experienced this with Veteran's Day this year. Whole govt schedule was thrown off.

Mondays would make it all a 3-day voting period...give time. Or at least, 2-day build up...then a day off for the hordes.
The key is to make it more convenient to vote...allow for schedules, logistics, chaos, kids, shit happening...everything that interferes with people's lives. (examine hanging chads...)

Give people time to breathe...adjust...think.
Get it into their mindset.
Not just every 4 years...but EVERY year.

This would affect every election...time, location, type and roles (federal down to local)
People would have time and mind to care more.
Now, they're inconvenienced and harried.

Who ever said it had to be ONE fuckin' day??
Oh yeah, the founding fathers.
Well, this is the one thing they fucked up.
Ok, two...2/3's of a person is pretty messed up.

rogue49 · Dec 4, 2015

Pentagon Opening All Combat Roles in Military to Women

This is huge, a long time coming.
GI Jane, where ever and however she is needed.

rogue49 · Dec 22, 2015

The abuse by corporations happening in the US courts vs citizens is astounding
They need to make some protections...some of this is outright theft.

Congress and State Legislatures need to make some protections against this...but they're often in the pockets of the same businesses
Or there's so much going on, so fast...they can't react.

Take look at the whole arbitration abuse series the NYT is doing... (below the article)

Debt by a 1000 cuts
And no way to stop the bleeding...

Sued Over Old Debt, and Blocked From Suing Back
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and MICHAEL CORKERY DEC. 22, 2015

Clifford Cain Jr., a retired electrician in Baltimore, was used to living on a tight budget, carefully apportioning his Social Security and pension benefits to cover his rent and medication for multiple sclerosis.

So Mr. Cain was puzzled when he suddenly could not make ends meet. Months later, he discovered why: A debt collector had garnished his bank account after suing him for about $4,500 the company said he owed on an old debt.

Mr. Cain said he never knew the lawsuit had been brought against him until the money was gone. Neither did other Baltimore residents who were among the hundreds of people sued by the collector, Midland Funding, a unit of the Encore Capital Group, in Maryland State Court. Some of them said they did not even owe any money, or their debt had long expired and was not legally collectible, according to a review of court records.

In any case, the Encore subsidiary was not licensed to collect debt in Maryland.

Yet when Mr. Cain brought a class action in 2013 against Midland Funding, the company successfully fought to have the lawsuit dismissed.

If the plaintiffs wanted to try to recover their money, they would have to do so in private arbitration. And because class actions are banned in arbitration, Mr. Cain and the others would have to fight the unit of Encore — one of the largest debt buyers in the country with vast legal resources — one by one.

“I can’t for the life of me understand how this is allowed to happen,” said Mr. Cain, who could not afford to pursue his case alone in arbitration.

In short, Encore and rival debt buyers are using the courts to sue consumers and collect debt, then preventing those same consumers from using the courts to challenge the companies’ tactics. Consumer lawyers said this strategy was the legal equivalent of debt collectors having their cake and eating it, too.

The use of arbitration by the companies is the latest frontier in a legal strategy orchestrated by corporations in recent years. By inserting arbitration clauses into the fine print of consumer contracts, they have found a way to block access to the courts and ban class-action lawsuits, the only realistic way to bring a case against a deep-pocketed corporation.

Their strategy traces to a pair of Supreme Court decisions in 2011 and 2013 that enshrined the use of class-action bans in arbitration clauses.

The result, The New York Times found in an investigation last month, is that banks, car dealers, online retailers, cellphone service providers and scores of other companies have insulated themselves from challenges to illegal or deceptive business practices. Once a class action was dismantled, court and arbitration records showed, few if any of the individual plaintiffs pursued arbitration.

In the last few years, debt collectors have pushed the parameters of that legal strategy into audacious new territory. Perhaps more than any other industry, debt collectors use the courts while invoking arbitration to deny court access to others. The companies file lawsuits seeking to force borrowers to pay debts. Because borrowers seldom show up to challenge the lawsuits, the collectors win almost every case, transforming debts that banks had given up on into big profits.

Other industries have tested the boundaries of arbitration in different ways. Auto dealers, for example, successfully lobbied Congress in 2000 to make sure that they could go to court when they had a dispute with their manufacturers. Today, though, dealers regularly require their customers to go to arbitration, while they can still sue manufacturers in court.

In the case of debt collectors, the arbitration clauses that companies are invoking are often in contracts that borrowers presumably agreed to with their original lenders — not with the debt collector. Additionally, debt collectors often cannot produce a copy of the agreement in court, according to records and interviews.

Consumer advocates argue it is not fair for debt collectors to enforce an arbitration agreement a consumer signed with a different company. Debt collectors counter that they are buying loan contracts, and the terms come with them.

Because the tactic is still in its early stages, there is no data tracking the cases. But The Times, examining thousands of state and federal court records, and interviewing hundreds of lawyers, plaintiffs, industry consultants and judges, found that debt collection companies have already used the strategy to great success.

In the cases that The Times examined, judges routinely sided with debt collectors on forcing the disputes into arbitration.

In Mr. Cain’s case, Midland Funding, the unit of Encore Capital, persevered despite originally lacking a copy of a Citibank arbitration agreement they said he signed in 2003. Instead, the debt collector presented as evidence a Citibank contract that one of Encore’s lawyers signed when he opened an account.

In Mississippi, Midland Funding won a court judgment to compel Wanda Thompson to pay more than $4,700 on a debt that was too old to be collected under state law, court records show.

When Ms. Thompson filed a class-action suit on behalf of other state residents, Encore invoked an arbitration clause to have the lawsuit dismissed. Ms. Thompson’s lawyers argued that the company had clearly chosen court over arbitration when it sued her to collect the debt. By going to court, the lawyers said, Encore waived its right to compel arbitration.

Unpersuaded, the judge ruled that Encore’s lawsuit to collect the debt was separate from Ms. Thompson’s case accusing the company of violating the law.

“It’s beyond hypocritical that the companies can use arbitration to avoid being held accountable in court, all the while using the courts to collect from consumers,” said Peter A. Holland, a lawyer who ran the Consumer Protection Clinic at the University of Maryland’s law school.

In a statement, Greg Call, Encore’s general counsel, said the company “has a longstanding commitment to operating ethically and treating consumers with respect.” Responding to the specific cases, he said the judges “carefully reviewed the parties’ evidence regarding whether the creditor and consumer had agreed to arbitrate and whether arbitration was the appropriate forum to resolve a dispute, and followed federal law and Supreme Court direction when ordering the matter to arbitration.”

In the consumer credit ecosystem, debt collectors are at the bottom rung. They buy huge bundles of delinquent debt from banks for pennies on the dollar.

The Federal Trade Commission, which examined 5,000 portfolios of debt purchased by the nation’s largest debt buyers, found that only 12 percent included documentation.

The debt collectors do not just use the courts to collect on the money, they flood them. In 2014, the industry filed roughly 20,000 lawsuits in Maryland and more than 67,000 in New York, according to court records.

Philip S. Straniere, a civil court judge in Staten Island, called some of the cases that crossed his desk “garbage.” Some debt collectors, Judge Straniere said, have sought to recoup payments from the wrong person.

Little of that matters, because many defendants do not show up to defend themselves. Some never read nondescript legal notices informing them of the lawsuits. Others who do are too intimidated or ill-equipped to go to court.

Once it begins, the litigation machine is virtually impossible to stop. When defendants are absent, judges have little choice but to find in favor of the debt collectors, according to interviews. Industry consultants estimated that collectors win 95 percent of the lawsuits.

Their practices have attracted state and federal scrutiny. In September, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Encore and a second debt collector, the PRA Group, for trying “to collect on debts they should have known were inaccurate.”

Mr. Call, Encore’s general counsel, said that litigation was “always a last resort” and was used only to collect on less than 5 percent of the debts the company owned. He added that, like the C.F.P.B., Encore wanted “to ensure that consumers are treated fairly.” A spokeswoman for the PRA Group declined to comment.

But even when borrowers bring class-action lawsuits over practices that regulators have determined to be illegal, the cases are being thrown out because of arbitration clauses, court records show. In Maryland, Midland Funding reached a $1.2 million settlement with the state’s financial regulator, which found that the company had “engaged in unlicensed collection,” the very issue that Mr. Cain could not bring to court. In Kansas, borrowers did not fare any better when they sued Midland Funding, accusing the company of not being properly licensed. Mr. Call said Midland was “appropriately licensed.” A judge granted the company’s motion to compel arbitration.

Once their class actions were dismissed, few plaintiffs pursued arbitration, data analyzed by The Times shows. Encore and its subsidiaries faced 38 arbitration cases from 2010 to 2015 and the PRA Group faced 15, the data shows.

Fred W. Schwinn, a consumer lawyer in San Jose, Calif., thought he had a winner when he brought a class action on behalf of a woman who said she had been improperly sued to collect an old credit card debt. Predictably, Mr. Schwinn said, the debt collector, a unit of SquareTwo Financial, asked the judge to order the case into arbitration.

But Mr. Schwinn discovered an agreement that the SquareTwo unit had entered with the credit card company from which it bought his client’s debt. The agreement stated that the debt collector “shall not use arbitration for collection of debt.”

A judge in the case still ruled in the debt collector’s favor, saying the agreement did not prevent the SquareTwo unit from using arbitration clauses when facing lawsuits from consumers, as opposed to when it was trying to collect those consumers’ debts.

Such decisions are leading lawyers to believe they may have found, in the words of one law firm, the “silver bullet” for killing off legal challenges. In an industry podcast, two lawyers discussed the benefits of using arbitration to quash consumers’ lawsuits. The tactic, they said, is emerging at an opportune time, given that debt collectors are being sued for violating federal law.

The beauty of the clauses, the lawyers said, is that often the lawsuit “simply goes away.”
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BEWARE THE FINE PRINT

Examining how clauses buried in tens of millions of contracts have deprived Americans of one of their most fundamental constitutional rights: their day in court.

PART 1 - Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice - OCT. 31, 2015

PART 2 - In Arbitration, a ‘Privatization of the Justice System’ - NOV. 1, 2015

PART 3 - In Religious Arbitration, Scripture Is the Rule of Law - NOV. 2, 2015

Efforts to Rein In Arbitration Come Under Well-Financed Attack - NOV. 15, 2015

Bipartisan Bill Would Protect Service Members’ Right to Avoid Arbitration - NOV. 20, 2015

redravin · Dec 22, 2015

Thanks, now I start my day pissed off.

Chris Noyb · Dec 22, 2015

One of my sisters still has to jump through hoops every time one of her old debts is purchased by a new collection agency, despite having bankruptcy "protection." One of my former bosses previously worked for a company that 'bought paper" (her term) and she eventually got disgusted by how those companies managed to keep old debts alive. The new debt holders were strongly motivated by the fact that they paid very little for the old debts and stood to make nice profits if they managed to collect the full amount owed.

There are people out there who do really stupid things with their money, namely getting into massive credit debt, and then rely on time to eventually worm out of paying. That does not excuse the actions of collection agencies who go to great lengths to keep old debts "alive" and the methods they resort to in order to collect.

The legal loopholes and the indifference of the courts towards how they're abused doesn't surprise me. There should be, if there isn't already, federal guidelines with a statute of limitations and with very strong requirements for notification of the parties being pursued.

rogue49 · Dec 22, 2015

Chris Noyb said: ↑

One of my sisters still has to jump through hoops every time one of her old debts is purchased by a new collection agency, despite having bankruptcy "protection." One of my former bosses previously worked for a company that 'bought paper" (her term) and she eventually got disgusted by how those companies managed to keep old debts alive. The new debt holders were strongly motivated by the fact that they paid very little for the old debts and stood to make nice profits if they managed to collect the full amount owed.

There are people out there who do really stupid things with their money, namely getting into massive credit debt, and then rely on time to eventually worm out of paying. That does not excuse the actions of collection agencies who go to great lengths to keep old debts "alive" and the methods they resort to in order to collect.

The legal loopholes and the indifference of the courts towards how they're abused doesn't surprise me. There should be, if there isn't already, federal guidelines with a statute of limitations and with very strong requirements for notification of the parties being pursued.
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It's called "Zombie Debt"

I use shotguns to get rid of zombies
That or I'm verwy verwy quiet so they don't know I'm around.

Seriously, once the original company writes it off as a loss...then it's not legit.
Problem is, many don't know this.
These companies live off guilt and harassment...and legal mumbo-jumbo

Actually, there's a good documentary called "Maxed Out" that shows the industry tactics.
Did you there are TWO credit groups??
One for normal joes & janes
The other for VIPs...which they keep clean, so they won't go after credit companies with their authority and influence.

It's all a scam.

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