Billionaire Koch Brothers Have Given More Than $100 Million to right wing causes...

[PomonaCA]

Yes.... I'm completely exaggerating.... Because I'm exasperated by some of these free marketeers.
I mean, some so-called free marketeers support a private police force. I think that's insane.
I think, too, firefighters NEED to be public. Police, too. Again, there are some who say we should privatize everything. I mean, well, if you support that I guess there isn't anything I can say/write to deter you from that thinking. (They say that the level of care would go up. Because of private ownership. Ya know, if you own a car, well, ya care about that car. Same with a house. That then is an argument for slavery. If you own someone you are going to care about them. So let's bring back slavery.
It means private ownership over a person brings up the level of concern about that "property" ownership. Therefore you'll care about them.)

"Completely exaggerating" is another play on emotions.

See, you can't make a point without misrepresenting the other guys point. That's why you exaggerate.

[trish]

I wish the politicians would stay out of business, namely taxing and regulating it to death. That might save a few jobs.

Isn't this also an exaggerated and extreme way of characterizing U.S. tax policy and U.S. regulatory policy?

Our taxes are so low (compared to the rest of the western democracies) we don't have enough revenue to maintain our infrastructure. Our regulatory system (policy and enforcement) are so poor we can barely stabilize our economy or keep our food disease free. Meanwhile Tea-Partiers hold sign's that say, "GET YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE." Ben's example of slavery is an excellent demonstration that the people (as a government) have an interest and a moral obligation to regulate commerce.

[tsafficianado]

Isn't this also an exaggerated and extreme way of characterizing U.S. tax policy and U.S. regulatory policy?

Our taxes are so low (compared to the rest of the western democracies) we don't have enough revenue to maintain our infrastructure. Our regulatory system (policy and enforcement) are so poor we can barely stabilize our economy or keep our food disease free. Meanwhile Tea-Partiers hold sign's that say, "GET YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE." Ben's example of slavery is an excellent demonstration that the people (as a government) have an interest and a moral obligation to regulate commerce.

wow, making it up as we go along there Trish?
Actually, the average and top corporate combined tax rates for corporations in the US are higher than those for ANY nation in the entire friggin world except Japan, and their TOP rate is 40% and in the US it is combined 51%. And no i'm not gonna cite it for you, Google national corporate tax rates.
As for the concerns about food-borne illness, most of it is due to poor preparation. Perhaps we need to pay someone from the FDA to work each fast food slop shop at about $100,000 a pop to reduce this incidence of people having to hustle to the can. Of course, that would up the cost of those 79 cent burritos you and yer pals like to scarf down at Taco Hell.
And as for the poor underfunded regulatory agencies, maybe they would get more work done if they weren't spending most of their time surfing porn sites. By the way Trish, you dun work at the SEC do ya? Just sayin
SEC Porn Problem: Officials Surfing Sites During Financial Crisis, Report Finds


SEC Employees Exposed Downloading, Uploading Pornography at Work



The Securities and Exchange Commission is the sheriff of the financial industry, looking for crimes such as Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, but a new government report obtained by ABC News has concluded that some senior employees spent hours on the agency's computers looking at sites such as naughty.com, skankwire and youporn as the financial crisis was unfolding.
Report exposes financial regulators surfing for porn on government time.


"These guys in the middle of a financial crisis are spending their time looking at prurient material on the Internet," said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland and former director of the Office of Economics at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
"It's reckless, and indicates a contempt for the taxpayer and the taxpayer's interest in monitoring financial markets," Morici said.
The investigation, which was conducted by the SEC's internal watchdog at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, found 31 serious offenders during the past two and a half years. That's less than 1 percent of the agency's 3,500 employees but 17 of the alleged offenders were senior SEC officers whose salaries ranged from $100,000 to $222,000 per year.
Related



The SEC would not comment on any specific cases, but said it takes inappropriate use of government resources seriously and deals with abuses on a case-by-case basis.
Some of the big offenders are still on the job, according to sources.

Eight Hours a Day Spent on Porn Sites

One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn, according to the report, which has yet to be released. When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.
An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive.
Another SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit videos onto porn websites he joined.
And another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.
In one case, the report noted, an employee tried hundreds of times to access pornographic sites and was denied access. When he used a flash drive, he successfully bypassed the filter to visit a "significant number" of porn sites.
The employee also said he deliberately disabled a filter in Google to access inappropriate sites. After management informed him that he would lose his job, the employee resigned.

[Amsterdamage]

so...we're actually expected to believe that highly paid employees of a top security agency, like SEC is, are so stupid that they think they can access porn sites thru their work computer without being monitored?

please, i'm insulted by whoever came up with this bogus report

[tsafficianado]

well gee, if you can actually read it's right there in the report, as reported by among others National Public Radio, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, ABC News and others.
and judging by yer pic i seriously doubt this is the first time you've been insulted

[yodajazz]

so...we're actually expected to believe that highly paid employees of a top security agency, like SEC is, are so stupid that they think they can access porn sites thru their work computer without being monitored?

please, i'm insulted by whoever came up with this bogus report

I think the problem with such stories, is that a few bad people does not mean everyone, or even a large number of other people were doing it. People get fired from jobs everyday, in every industry. Some police take bribes, some teachers have sex with their students. But the overall functioning of police and education, has little to do with these incidents.

However, I admit that the 16,000 times in one month, looks a little suspicious. That would be like 800 times a day at 5 days, times 4 weeks.

[Ben]

Who's Defending The Billionaire Brothers Buying Our Democracy?

[yodajazz]

Giving to the arts, is good. Undermining democracy is not. The real job for the government is to benefit the most people, and to promote the common good. When you have people with an too much influence, subverts the process.

[trish]

The post-modern deconstruction of the First Amendment is well underway. Money is speech. (Voting is not, since it's perfectly fine to suppress the vote).

http://nyti.ms/1pQzTFN

http://nyti.ms/1fwnYLU

http://nyti.ms/1fwqnGu

[buttslinger]

Those Damn Coke Bros got a ton of my cash,........

I'm selling my vote on eBay. Is that legal? (call me, Koch bros)

Obama is sometimes mistaken for the BOSS of the country, he is actually a civil servant, and is constrained by his job description.
When it comes to two people haggling over the price of a brand new Chevy, Obama can't take sides.

Obama can ask Americans to be good citizens, but the Koch brothers can make people do absolutely anything for money.

It's kind of good "The Brothaz" spend their dirty money here. They could take their 100 million to Haiti and practically own the whole government.

Some of our Wall Street Tycoons make Putin look like Pollyanna. That's got to make you Proud to be an American. Admit it.