Elisha

But already backtracking? http://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/18363681/russian-officials-backtrack-admissions-state-sponsored-doping

Swoon... Wendy= Firecracker 1.1 An outstanding, exciting, or attractive person or thing: 1. frequently used to describe women who are not afraid to speak their mind, and will often do so at the behest of others. 2. one who is exciting, unpredictable, tough, hard-nosed, and free living. (could be male or female) Then there’s firecracker. You want to be called a firecracker, I think? If you’re a woman, it means that the speaker approves of you. He (it’s usually a he) finds you feisty, energetic, opinionated, and honest. You also may be on the petite side, like a compact paper cylinder packed with explosives. The point is, it’s cute when you yell! http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/01/04/bright_young_thing_firecracker_whip_smart_compliments_that_may_be_backhanded.html http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=firecracker https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/firecracker :kiss :kiss :kiss to Wendy!

Well, except some Americans are more equal than others. A Wyoming resident is much more equal than a New Yorker. I find it amusing that those who rail against the tyranny of the majority are perfectly happy to have a tyranny of the minority. Yes - the 0.01%ers, our rich Oligarchs.

Of course. If the pastor is worth his salt, he'll tell her she needs to repent.

But still 3.1 percentage points more than Clinton in '92. Clinton's percentage win over GWB was 5.56%. That's what "won by" means; the difference between the two. I was addressing your second sentence Trump's 46.1% vs Clinton's 43% WIN in '92 vs GHWB.

But still 3.1 percentage points more than Clinton in '92.

https://amash.house.gov/press-release/amash-and-jones-request-evidence-russia%E2%80%99s-alleged-interference-presidential-election December 19, 2016 The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: Recent reports citing anonymous administration officials suggest that some intelligence agencies believe the Russian government interfered in the U.S. presidential election with the intention of aiding the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump. The reports do not detail specific evidence to support these assertions, and some reports suggest there are disagreements among intelligence officials. Shortly after the initial reporting, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence requested an urgent briefing to resolve contradictions between these new allegations and information previously provided to the committee. The chairman’s request was quickly denied, followed by a statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that Congress will not be briefed until a review you requested has been completed. Less than two days later, with no congressional briefing scheduled, you took to NPR to announce retaliatory action against Russia for “impacting the integrity of our elections.” It is incumbent upon the executive branch to keep Congress apprised of hostile foreign actions in a timely manner, and once an allegation has been made public, it is reckless to allow evidence-free assertions to serve as Congress’s and the public’s only source of information. Members of Congress must be briefed on any evidence the intelligence community has gathered so that we may weigh the evidence and evaluate the conclusions of the separate agencies. Although the ODNI claims the administration has previously briefed members and staff on this issue, those briefings were provided only to a select group, and the information was not disseminated to most of Congress. In light of the conflicting information coming from your administration, the lack of public evidence, and the retaliation against Russia that is apparently already under development, Congress cannot wait to be briefed on this matter. Accordingly, we request that a classified briefing on the evidence being used to support these claims be made available to all members of Congress immediately. Sincerely, Justin Amash (MI-03) Member of Congress Walter Jones (NC-03) Member of Congress

+1. I saw that too. HB2 is just nonsense.

Well, you see it as the concept breaking down but to be quite honest I see a lot of evidence that actually, it is the concept. Oh, and the best part? While the company goes bankrupt while being sued by the Government for corrupt business practices, the taxpayer ends up bailing out the students who were shafted and the executives who perpetrated the fraud get to waltz away with their multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses happily padding their bank accounts. Lovely system. Brilliant system. A lot of people say it's the best system! A lot of CEOs say that, anyway. Well the students getting bailed out would actually be a first, as I don't recall it happening with students going to any private/public universities. You can't even declare bankruptcy to get out of paying student loans. More to this specific situation though, while I'd like to dogpile on DeVry, it seems though that it really isn't so bad with it's big history and many programs that have produced many successful people. Happy to be proven wrong though. I wonder about the career success of those that went to the recently bankrupt long standing ITT Tech as well (real data as opposed to their self reported data).

I took Vskydiver to her HS reunion a few years back. Not 10 feet from the rental car before I met the first of many guys who had a "thing" for her. She even had a former stalker come up and confess to following her through all of her classes.. . She pretended to remember him. Wow that's funny.

The fault in Iraq was not the fault of the intelligence agencies. The fault was in the cherry picking of data by certain members of the Bush Administration. It's a discussion for another time and place. If so, then how can we know the current situation isn't similar? Especially since no evidence or reasoning is provided in these "The Russians did it!" responses. Just like with past times being wrong, I very well think it's possible that this situation could be similar.

Insane? No...I'm sure they know exactly what they're doing. Acting like crybabies and making a**hole moves? Totally. Gawd I hate politics.

In a way, Rush's statement points out a problem that goes far beyond this specific discussion; distrust of proof in general. Now, I'm not going to blame Rush himself for this, the far right AND far left have at various times had reasons to mistrust the government going at least as far back Nixon and for some other people going back to the Eisenhower speech about mistrust of the military industrial complex. And not without good reason, I'll grant you that. This affects virtually everything from mistrust of global warming data, to things like this current issue. All of the above said, at some point, we, the general public not able to view classified intel, have to take at face value certain technical bits as filtered through government agencies. We don't have to trust them 100% and I'm sure some people never will, but the fact is there is no way possible to conclusively prove to some people certain things have happened. What "proof" would convince a person such as Rush and how, even it it were declassified, could Rush himself ever hope to really understand it without analysis provided by others, which he'd also have to trust? For this reason alone, I don't think there is anything that could ever be shown to some people which would convince them. Rush is saying he, "will wait for the proof" but (and this is in no way a slam against him) I don't think he'd technically be able to recognize it as such if it was right in front of him. Has there ever been any announcements/corrections from the Whitehouse or government agencies when history HAS proven them wrong? Take "Bush lied, people died." we've all heard. Maybe I just need to refresh my memory, but the WMDs the CIA and others said Sadam Hussein had were never found, Iraq was invaded, still not found, etc....has there ever been an announcement saying "We were wrong and we shouldn't have invaded" or "The prior administration was wrong and we shouldn't have invaded"? And rhetoric leading up to elections doesn't count. I'm talking about formal announcements/apologies. ITSM that our government just doesn't do them. It's just "Trust us; we know and we know what's best for you."

Haha, in first! A friend posted it on FB before me.

+1 here. Talk about childish!

Bring your popcorn.... This opinion piece is awesome. I love this turnabout quote: "Even if the Russians did want Trump to win, what difference, at this point, does it make?" http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443034/russia-election-hacking-charge-vladimir-putin-influence-american-elections

+1!!! I'm thinking the guy is probably excited that Nat is giving him a second chance. +1

Parroting bullshit does not make it true. http://www.snopes.com/trump-won-3084-of-3141-counties-clinton-won-57/ Using this map, I counted ~40 blue counties just in CA, WA, and OR: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president I think it was the Allen West website/blog I saw this on....sounds like rather preliminary numbers within 24-48 hours of the election before many counties had officially reported. Still, the overall point is there - far more red counties and square milage won than Hillary.

And Yahoo! told me earlier that Trump has sold off the final few shares of the DAPL or whatever.

Sample size too small in the first example to have any credibility. Second example bigger, but still low credibility.

Most important? I said "at least", which implies a possible marginal "good thing". There's no "most important" implied anywhere.

Yeah, I'm sure the deal stinks...but at least Mexico isn't happy about it! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mexico-disappointed-carrier-agreement-keep-232858468.html

I look at the Kaepernick kneeling protest as similar, but lesser degree thing. Sure, he has the right, but 1) is it effective? He might as well kneel until world peace happens. He could do much more positive things instead and 2) doing more positive things would be much better for him in his own professional image and not just make him look like a foolish douchebag. I personally care even less than a flag burning a**hat.

I'm not so bothered by flag burning, but I think it is very close to "hate speech" in the eyes of many - very justifiably so. Maybe all POC need to just get over themselves then when anything even perceived as offensive or discriminatory is directed at them.

Exactly!