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Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Anyway, it's been a while since I posted here. There's that much going on in the UK, sometimes I forget about the USA. We've got another referendum coming our way.
In the last 3 years, I've had 2 referendums, 1 'federal' level election, 1 'state' election, another 'state' level election in 2 months, and another referendum sometime next year.
I''ve got voting forms coming out my rear!
So, yeah, what's the situation in the USA? Trump still president?
The wall been built yet?
Remember when a ton of people were like 'dont elect Trump he will be terrible' and Republicans were like 'nah Trump will be OK because reasons'?
I'll give you one guess which side was right.
We'll see won't we.
And you're waiting for what, exactly, to change the answer here? If it smells like gak, looks like gak and acts like gak...it's gak.
Well if I listened to the Democrat/MSM media freakout, I'd have to be searching in the lake where all my firearms had an accident, getting out the black PJs and start shooting up government operations for freedom. Strangely, I don't see any Nazis on the street corner yet.
The past two administrations have been amateurs and both bad.
So again, we'll see.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
jmurph wrote: Article didn't explain much on Bannon. His father lost a bunch to corporate America, like many Americans, and the Steven Bannon is a wealthy financial type who blames it on the bankers and foreigners. So the solution is to remove safety nets and cut taxes for the top?
Oh wait, he figured out angry and hateful people can be hoodwinked, and it can be very profitable, especially when they swallow whatever you feed them. Carry on.
I think the crux of the story, and the epicenter of Bannon/Breitbart, is a core motivation of fear/fear mongering. I didn't know about his father's experience from the collapse, but fear is always at the genesis of a lot of the ugliness we see in society, i.e. racism, xenophobia, anti-establishmentism, etc. His father's experience left a jarring impact on the younger Bannon's psyche and sorts out, for me anyways, a reason for why he operates from the skewed morass he seems so at home in.
Yeah, I didn't mean to come across as snarky, I just meant the article didn't do a very good job of explaining much. It just kind of barfed out some accounts and seemed too timid to point out exactly what you did. Nor did it do much to underscore the irony of Bannon making his money on precisely the same kind of things he decries. He is a classic manipulator, either amoral or deeply cynical, who preys on fear and ignorance. It's truly reprehensible, and depressing, how his message echoes fascist regimes of the 20th century and now he has become a national figure.
We can only hope that this is a last dying gasp and not a new breath of life.
skyth wrote: Again, making it harder (especially if you don't have rich parents) to get a college education is a bad thing.
Again, thats a statement without backup.
Making it harder for QUALIFIED students is bad. Making unqualified students get a degree for a job that doesn't actually need a college degree is just as bad. We would be far better served revamping our vocational / journeyman training ala Asia and Germany.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
State safety inspectors wouldn’t inspect West Virginia’s coal mines anymore. They would conduct “compliance visits and education.”
Violations of health and safety standards wouldn’t produce state citations and fines, either. Mine operators would receive “compliance assistance visit notices.”
And West Virginia regulators wouldn’t have authority to write safety and health regulations. Instead, they could only “adopt policies ... [for] improving compliance assistance” in the state’s mines.
Those and other significant changes in a new industry-backed bill would produce a wholesale elimination of most enforcement of longstanding laws and rules put in place over many years — as a result of hundreds of deaths — to protect the health and safety of West Virginia’s coal miners.
Opponents are furious about the proposed changes but also fearful that backers of the bill could easily have the votes to push through any language they want. Longtime mine safety experts and advocates are shocked at the breadth of the attack on current authorities of the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training and the Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety.
“It’s breathtaking in its scope,” said mine safety expert Davitt McAteer, who ran the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration and led a team that called for strengthening — not weakening — the state’s mine safety efforts after the deaths of 29 miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine just seven years ago next month.
Senate Bill 582 is billed as legislation “relating generally to coal mining, coal mining safety and environmental protection.”
Various lobbyists and advocates, even many lawmakers, are still trying to sort out and understand its many provisions, which range from language rewriting the state’s program for holding mine operators responsible for cleaning up abandoned strip mines and properly classifying streams that are trout waters to consolidating existing state mine safety boards into one panel and creating a new mandate for state-funded mine rescue teams.
A legislative committee lawyer indicated that some provisions intended for the bill didn’t make it into the initial text, including a rewrite of language in water quality standards that has been the subject of much litigation aimed at reducing water pollution from large-scale surface mines. Those provisions would have to be amended into the bill or added through a committee substitute, the lawyer said.
The heart of the legislation is a section that simply eliminates the ability of state mine safety office inspectors to issue notices of violation or levy fines for mine operators or coal companies for any safety hazards unless they can prove there is an “imminent danger” of death or serious physical harm.
Language in the bill offers somewhat confusing answers about what inspectors would do if they found imminent danger. One part of the bill maintains the current law, which says that inspectors must issue an order to pull all miners out of the affected part of the mine until the hazard is corrected. Another section, though, refers to a new type of process involving a “notice of correction,” that appears to carry no monetary penalty.
One thing that is clear is that the bill would maintain and encourage the use of “individual personal assessments,” which target specific mine employees — rather than mine operators or coal companies — for violations, fines and, possibly, revocation of certifications or licenses needed to work in the industry. In addition, the requirement for four inspections every year for each underground coal mine would be reduced to one compliance assistance visit for each of those mines.
And, the bill would require that, by Aug. 31, the state rewrite all of its coal mine safety standards so that, instead of longstanding and separate state rules, mine operators would be responsible for following only U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration regulations. The list of areas covered by this provision includes electrical standards, mine ventilation, roof control, safety examinations, dust control and explosives.
“It completely guts the state law,” said Josh Roberts, international health and safety director for the United Mine Workers union. “You’re taking back decades of laws.”
Roberts and McAteer agreed that the notion of deferring almost all state mine safety standards to the federal government is especially concerning, given the promises made by President Donald Trump to remove regulations the coal industry says have been hampering production and employment. McAteer noted that West Virginia led the nation in coal-mining deaths last year and has had two deaths already in 2017.
“It is shocking that, after all these years and the numbers of West Virginians who have died in the mines, for the state to even consider this,” McAteer said Monday, after reviewing the legislation. “The state needs to be involved in making sure we are protecting our citizens. This should be one of the primary goals of the state government.”
Word that the coal industry was planning to have one of its supporters in the Legislature drop such a bill has been circulating since the start of the session in early February.
Chris Hamilton, senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said Tuesday that he isn’t sure that his organization fully supports the reduced enforcement authority spelled out in the legislation.
Asked if that meant the industry feels the bill goes too far, Hamilton said, “We’re okay with it the way the bill is, but we just think it can be tweaked and maybe improved on.”
Hamilton said federal inspectors spend plenty of time at West Virginia’s coal mines and that having state inspectors doing the same thing is duplicative.
The current version of the bill was introduced during a Senate session on Saturday. The lead sponsor is Sen. Randy Smith, R-Tucker. Smith chairs the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee and is employed as a safety manager for Mettiki Coal. Officials from Mettiki’s parent corporation, Alliance Resource Partners, were major contributors to Smith’s campaign. Alliance bills itself as the second-largest Eastern U.S. coal producer. It’s Mettiki arm operates a large underground mine in Tucker County.
On Tuesday, with a near-packed committee room full of industry officials and some rank-and-file coal miners, and with the legislation on the agenda, Smith announced that he was sending the bill to a three-person subcommittee that would be chaired by EIM Committee Vice Chairman Dave Sypolt, R-Preston. Other subcommittee members will be Sen. Chandler Swope, R-Mercer, and Sen. Glenn Jeffries, D-Putnam, Smith said.
In an interview, Smith said he doesn’t necessarily support all provisions of the bill he introduced. For example, he said he doesn’t really support taking away so much of the state mine safety office’s enforcement power.
“I’m the committee chairman, and we always introduce a bill and then we go through it and try to get something that everybody is good with,” Smith said. “If I could do it, I would conform with state laws and do away with federal laws, but that’s not going to happen. I would 10 times rather have the state agency telling us what to do instead of the federal.”
“This is a huge bill,” Smith said. “Some of it will be in there, and I”m sure some of it won’t.”
Last year, the UMW agreed to a bill that weakened several mine safety protections in an effort to avoid industry-pushed legislation that the union viewed as even worse. In 2015, then-Gov. Early Ray Tomblin signed legislation that weakened mine safety protections, despite a union call for a veto of that bill. Three years before that, in 2012, Tomblin’s legislative response to the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster — where drug use by miners was not an issue — was a bill that focused on drug testing the state’s coal miners.
Tomblin’s legislation also called for a report that examined ways to improve the state’s mine safety program. That report was published in 2013, but lawmakers have never fully implemented its recommendations.
and they won't even have health insurance if they are injured.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Anyway, it's been a while since I posted here. There's that much going on in the UK, sometimes I forget about the USA. We've got another referendum coming our way.
In the last 3 years, I've had 2 referendums, 1 'federal' level election, 1 'state' election, another 'state' level election in 2 months, and another referendum sometime next year.
I''ve got voting forms coming out my rear!
So, yeah, what's the situation in the USA? Trump still president?
The wall been built yet?
Remember when a ton of people were like 'dont elect Trump he will be terrible' and Republicans were like 'nah Trump will be OK because reasons'?
I'll give you one guess which side was right.
We'll see won't we.
And you're waiting for what, exactly, to change the answer here? If it smells like gak, looks like gak and acts like gak...it's gak.
Well if I listened to the Democrat/MSM media freakout, I'd have to be searching in the lake where all my firearms had an accident, getting out the black PJs and start shooting up government operations for freedom. Strangely, I don't see any Nazis on the street corner yet.
The past two administrations have been amateurs and both bad.
So again, we'll see.
Just as we'll invariably see 'whataboutism' in arguments feebly attempting to polish the turd that is the Trump administration.
State safety inspectors wouldn’t inspect West Virginia’s coal mines anymore. They would conduct “compliance visits and education.”
Violations of health and safety standards wouldn’t produce state citations and fines, either. Mine operators would receive “compliance assistance visit notices.”
And West Virginia regulators wouldn’t have authority to write safety and health regulations. Instead, they could only “adopt policies ... [for] improving compliance assistance” in the state’s mines.
Those and other significant changes in a new industry-backed bill would produce a wholesale elimination of most enforcement of longstanding laws and rules put in place over many years — as a result of hundreds of deaths — to protect the health and safety of West Virginia’s coal miners.
Opponents are furious about the proposed changes but also fearful that backers of the bill could easily have the votes to push through any language they want. Longtime mine safety experts and advocates are shocked at the breadth of the attack on current authorities of the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training and the Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety.
“It’s breathtaking in its scope,” said mine safety expert Davitt McAteer, who ran the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration and led a team that called for strengthening — not weakening — the state’s mine safety efforts after the deaths of 29 miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine just seven years ago next month.
Senate Bill 582 is billed as legislation “relating generally to coal mining, coal mining safety and environmental protection.”
Various lobbyists and advocates, even many lawmakers, are still trying to sort out and understand its many provisions, which range from language rewriting the state’s program for holding mine operators responsible for cleaning up abandoned strip mines and properly classifying streams that are trout waters to consolidating existing state mine safety boards into one panel and creating a new mandate for state-funded mine rescue teams.
A legislative committee lawyer indicated that some provisions intended for the bill didn’t make it into the initial text, including a rewrite of language in water quality standards that has been the subject of much litigation aimed at reducing water pollution from large-scale surface mines. Those provisions would have to be amended into the bill or added through a committee substitute, the lawyer said.
The heart of the legislation is a section that simply eliminates the ability of state mine safety office inspectors to issue notices of violation or levy fines for mine operators or coal companies for any safety hazards unless they can prove there is an “imminent danger” of death or serious physical harm.
Language in the bill offers somewhat confusing answers about what inspectors would do if they found imminent danger. One part of the bill maintains the current law, which says that inspectors must issue an order to pull all miners out of the affected part of the mine until the hazard is corrected. Another section, though, refers to a new type of process involving a “notice of correction,” that appears to carry no monetary penalty.
One thing that is clear is that the bill would maintain and encourage the use of “individual personal assessments,” which target specific mine employees — rather than mine operators or coal companies — for violations, fines and, possibly, revocation of certifications or licenses needed to work in the industry. In addition, the requirement for four inspections every year for each underground coal mine would be reduced to one compliance assistance visit for each of those mines.
And, the bill would require that, by Aug. 31, the state rewrite all of its coal mine safety standards so that, instead of longstanding and separate state rules, mine operators would be responsible for following only U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration regulations. The list of areas covered by this provision includes electrical standards, mine ventilation, roof control, safety examinations, dust control and explosives.
“It completely guts the state law,” said Josh Roberts, international health and safety director for the United Mine Workers union. “You’re taking back decades of laws.”
Roberts and McAteer agreed that the notion of deferring almost all state mine safety standards to the federal government is especially concerning, given the promises made by President Donald Trump to remove regulations the coal industry says have been hampering production and employment. McAteer noted that West Virginia led the nation in coal-mining deaths last year and has had two deaths already in 2017.
“It is shocking that, after all these years and the numbers of West Virginians who have died in the mines, for the state to even consider this,” McAteer said Monday, after reviewing the legislation. “The state needs to be involved in making sure we are protecting our citizens. This should be one of the primary goals of the state government.”
Word that the coal industry was planning to have one of its supporters in the Legislature drop such a bill has been circulating since the start of the session in early February.
Chris Hamilton, senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said Tuesday that he isn’t sure that his organization fully supports the reduced enforcement authority spelled out in the legislation.
Asked if that meant the industry feels the bill goes too far, Hamilton said, “We’re okay with it the way the bill is, but we just think it can be tweaked and maybe improved on.”
Hamilton said federal inspectors spend plenty of time at West Virginia’s coal mines and that having state inspectors doing the same thing is duplicative.
The current version of the bill was introduced during a Senate session on Saturday. The lead sponsor is Sen. Randy Smith, R-Tucker. Smith chairs the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee and is employed as a safety manager for Mettiki Coal. Officials from Mettiki’s parent corporation, Alliance Resource Partners, were major contributors to Smith’s campaign. Alliance bills itself as the second-largest Eastern U.S. coal producer. It’s Mettiki arm operates a large underground mine in Tucker County.
On Tuesday, with a near-packed committee room full of industry officials and some rank-and-file coal miners, and with the legislation on the agenda, Smith announced that he was sending the bill to a three-person subcommittee that would be chaired by EIM Committee Vice Chairman Dave Sypolt, R-Preston. Other subcommittee members will be Sen. Chandler Swope, R-Mercer, and Sen. Glenn Jeffries, D-Putnam, Smith said.
In an interview, Smith said he doesn’t necessarily support all provisions of the bill he introduced. For example, he said he doesn’t really support taking away so much of the state mine safety office’s enforcement power.
“I’m the committee chairman, and we always introduce a bill and then we go through it and try to get something that everybody is good with,” Smith said. “If I could do it, I would conform with state laws and do away with federal laws, but that’s not going to happen. I would 10 times rather have the state agency telling us what to do instead of the federal.”
“This is a huge bill,” Smith said. “Some of it will be in there, and I”m sure some of it won’t.”
Last year, the UMW agreed to a bill that weakened several mine safety protections in an effort to avoid industry-pushed legislation that the union viewed as even worse. In 2015, then-Gov. Early Ray Tomblin signed legislation that weakened mine safety protections, despite a union call for a veto of that bill. Three years before that, in 2012, Tomblin’s legislative response to the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster — where drug use by miners was not an issue — was a bill that focused on drug testing the state’s coal miners.
Tomblin’s legislation also called for a report that examined ways to improve the state’s mine safety program. That report was published in 2013, but lawmakers have never fully implemented its recommendations.
and they won't even have health insurance if they are injured.
Clean coal, don't ya know...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/15 13:33:16
Moar people die in the mines == more vacancies in the mining jobs market.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Just as we'll invariably see 'whataboutism' in arguments feebly attempting to polish the turd that is the Trump administration.
Mmm yes and I am sure you will have an ubiased viewpoint.
Anyone predicted the doom or victory of an administration 50 days in is clinically insane.
Re: WV-mining has always sucked balls, but thats especially delicious. Where's a Wobbly* when you need one?
*And today's test about whether you paid attention in class brought to you by Kelloggs.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/15 13:46:52
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Just as we'll invariably see 'whataboutism' in arguments feebly attempting to polish the turd that is the Trump administration.
Mmm yes and I am sure you will have an ubiased viewpoint.
Anyone predicted the doom or victory of an administration 50 days in is clinically insane.
Re: WV-mining has always sucked balls, but thats especially delicious. Where's a Wobbly* when you need one?
*And today's test about whether you paid attention in class brought to you by Kelloggs.
Unbiased? I could care less about bias, just the games played to defend a weak position, i.e. whataboutism. A man could rise from a 10 year coma, review the Trump presidency from a cold perspective and call it out for the dumpster fire that it is. Keep that buffer tuned, you're gonna need it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/15 13:55:40
On her Tuesday show, Rachel Maddow teased a scoop: She had Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns. It was the first time his federal returns would be released.
Small digression: MSNBC's Maddow didn't have them. Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston got them, and went on her show to talk about it.
Anyway, when she finally revealed what was in the taxes, it was not a huge deal. Trump earned about $150 million in income in 2005, and paid $38 million in taxes, thanks to the alternative minimum tax, which he wants to kill.
This gives Trump an effective tax rate of about 24 percent, which Johnston pointed out was roughly equal to what he and his wife, who are an upper middle class couple, pay.
And, sure, for a billionaire, you can argue that he should pay more in taxes. But, $38 million is a big number. As is $150 million in income.
For the next news cycle, we're likely to see this story dominate, giving Trump some breathing room as the media had been laser focused on the GOP health-care bill's flaws.
On Maddow's show, Johnston suggested that Trump may have sent the tax returns to him. It seemed like an odd thing to say. But, when you look at how this is really good for Trump, maybe it's not so crazy after all.
Just as we'll invariably see 'whataboutism' in arguments feebly attempting to polish the turd that is the Trump administration.
Mmm yes and I am sure you will have an ubiased viewpoint.
Anyone predicted the doom or victory of an administration 50 days in is clinically insane.
Re: WV-mining has always sucked balls, but thats especially delicious. Where's a Wobbly* when you need one?
*And today's test about whether you paid attention in class brought to you by Kelloggs.
Unbiased? I could care less about bias, just the games played to defend a weak position, i.e. whataboutism. A man could rise from a 10 year coma, review the Trump presidency from a cold perspective and call it out for the dumpster fire that it is. Keep that buffer tuned, you're gonna need it.
Whats this "you" gak? You living in binary land again?
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Now raise your hand if you think it's the Trump peeps who leaked a favorable-at-first-glance Trump's tax return?
*raises hand*
Is that too-Tin-foily??
What's funny, is that in that year, his effective tax rate was 25%... whereas Bernie Sanders had a 13.5% tax rate. Hmmm... guess Trump paid his "fair share" afterall.
Re: WV-mining has always sucked balls, but thats especially delicious. Where's a Wobbly* when you need one?
*And today's test about whether you paid attention in class brought to you by Kelloggs.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/15 14:17:39
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Just as we'll invariably see 'whataboutism' in arguments feebly attempting to polish the turd that is the Trump administration.
Mmm yes and I am sure you will have an ubiased viewpoint.
Anyone predicted the doom or victory of an administration 50 days in is clinically insane.
Re: WV-mining has always sucked balls, but thats especially delicious. Where's a Wobbly* when you need one?
*And today's test about whether you paid attention in class brought to you by Kelloggs.
Wobbly! Well, I think most of their ilk have been systematically discredited by the right-wing since Wilson, so I don't think many people look to them for much of anything now. You know...."Socialism" and all that... sniff....
Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing
Just as we'll invariably see 'whataboutism' in arguments feebly attempting to polish the turd that is the Trump administration.
Mmm yes and I am sure you will have an ubiased viewpoint.
Anyone predicted the doom or victory of an administration 50 days in is clinically insane.
Re: WV-mining has always sucked balls, but thats especially delicious. Where's a Wobbly* when you need one?
*And today's test about whether you paid attention in class brought to you by Kelloggs.
Wobbly! Well, I think most of their ilk have been systematically discredited by the right-wing since Wilson, so I don't think many people look to them for much of anything now. You know...."Socialism" and all that... sniff....
Easy E gets three internet cookies!
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Prestor Jon wrote: I don't disagree with the other points you made but I still think you're underestimating the impact Federal loans have on the price of tertiary education. Yes it is difficult to assess the true value of getting a degree from one school versus another and getting a BS or BA is never going to hurt your job prospects so its worth getting but even if you could create an accurate metric for determining the value of a degree from a given school there still wouldn't be any pressure on schools to make tuition affordable.
There would be, because it would become possible to compare two colleges and contrast their relative benefits and relative costs. If one school gives $200k in overall benefit and cost $100k, and another school gives $220k in overall benefits and cost $180k then people would pick the cheaper school. This would place a downward pressure on prices, in a market where the benefit of a more expensive college is minimal, which is the situation in the US today, I believe. But the issue is that no decent benefit analysis is possible, so people are left to guess, and typically they associate price with value, and thereby assume the more expensive school must have some kind of value to justify its price.
If the Federal govt stopped providing FAFSA loans a significant plurality of college students wouldn't be able to afford to attend the school they're enrolled in. If you want to replace your Mazda with a new expensive car then regardless of whether or not the new car gives you good value for its price your ability to get a car loan to buy it is dependent on your income, if you can afford a down payment, your credit score, etc. With college loans the govt is giving you a loan to cover the cost of tuition at the school you got accepted to even though you have no income, no guarantee that you'll earn a degree there and no guarantee what income you'll earn at whatever job your get after you graduate if you do graduate but you'll still have to repay the govt tens of thousands of dollars. There's no pressure on schools to make college affordable for people straight up, like there is with cars. I can't get a car loan to buy a Bentley but I can get a loan to buy a Camry. With college students they can all get loans to go to a Camry school even if it charges the price of a Bentley. While attending Harvard or Ohio State should cost more than attending a local community college it doesn't need to cost so much that graduates face crippling student loan debts but that won't ever change under the current system.
You make a good point, and explain it really well the with line about giving a loan to attend a Camry school, even if it charges the price of a Bentley. That's a point I missed from my earlier answer, and it should have been in there - government loans should have a review process in which they assess whether the loan they are asked for can be justified by that school, given the performance of its past graduates. That analysis would probably also need to be down to the course/career level, and probably also include some assessment of the student. But this is politically very unlikely, late in the Obama administration they looked to police the accreditation system more closely, and even picking out schools that were all but scamming kids was a big political mess.
I'm not sure what the other alternatives might be? Maybe just a straight up rule that college loans will only be paid for tuition up to a certain level per semester?
For several administrations now we've seen every new President clear out most or all of the US attorneys appointed by the previous administration. Usually its somewhat delayed because their replacements have to appointed and confirmed but all of the US attorneys serve at the discretion of the PotUS so dismissing holdovers from previous administrations is normal. Is the hiring freeze about limiting expansion of new Federal hires or just any Federal hiring at all? Turnover in existing roles isn't creating new jobs just changing faces in pre existing jobs. Who knows, Trump's administration seems to prefer to just make things up as they go along.
Hiring freezes mean no new staff, even ones to replace staff who are lost. When you put a ban on new positions it's generally called a cap.
That said, hiring freezes always have exceptions, typically for essential services like the military, and also for politically sensitive areas. The AG office, given how close it is to the president, and given the nature of the clean out that happens each time, it's likely they'll be exempted from the hiring freeze.
I'm not sure what the best solution would be. Removing FAFSA loans entirely would be a big shock to the system and would likely reduce the number of students going to college in the near term but it would also put a lot of downward pressure on colleges to reduce costs in order to maintain attendance and stay in business. Having the Federal govt be lenders of last resort to help students go to colleges they can't otherwise afford isn't inherently bad for anyone but the current system is being abused by colleges charging high tuition that leaves graduates struggling to repay the loans. I think the schools bear the majority of the responsibility for fixing the imbalance because they are the ones that create the disparity between what they charge for obtaining a degree and the amount of economic hardship imposed on the graduate from getting a loan to pay for it.
The problem we had/have is that the cost of going to a university is growing to the extent that it makes attending college unaffordable for a majority of the students who want to attend. Earning a college degree is a good and worthwhile thing but it loses a lot of value if it saddles graduates with crippling debt. Yes, society is better off with an educated populace but society is also harmed by pushing students into a loop of needing more education that requires more loans that creates larger amounts of debt for graduates. Having the Federal govt step in to fund loans that enable students to attend college glosses over the problem of rising costs that is the real crux of the issue. I think having a Federal program to help low income families be able to send children to college is a good idea but it should be more targeted and be grants not loans, an improved version of Pell Grants. Using Federal money to help people break out of a cycle of poverty through higher education is money well spent.
Unfortunately like most govt programs, student loans aren't targeted and they're not addressing the core issue of WHY tertiary education has to cost so much and are contributing to the problem by making sure schools can get the tuition that they're charging. Tertiary education should be affordable for middle class families just as it was for previous generations. Continuing on the current path isn't sustainable because we're damaging the young educated professionals that should be driving our economy by burdening them with debt.
It’s 2017 and Americans are more burdened by student loan debt than ever.
You’ve probably heard the statistics: Americans owe over $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among about 44 million borrowers. In fact, the average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt, up six percent from last year.
First, let’s start with a general picture of the student loan debt landscape. The most recent reports indicate there is:
•$1.31 trillion in total U.S. student loan debt
•44.2 million Americans with student loan debt
•Student loan delinquency rate of 11.2%
•Average monthly student loan payment (for borrower aged 20 to 30 years): $351
•Median monthly student loan payment (for borrower aged 20 to 30 years): $203
In 2012, 71 percent of students graduating from four-year colleges had student loan debt:
•Represents 1.3 million students graduating with debt, increase from 1.1 million in 2008
•66 percent of graduates from public colleges had loans (average debt of $25,550)
•75 percent of graduates from private nonprofit colleges had loans (average debt of $32,300)
•88 percent of graduates from for-profit colleges had loans (average debt of $39,950)
Twenty percent of 2012 graduate loans were private
Graduates who received Pell Grants were likely to borrow, and borrow more:
•88 percent of graduates who received Pell Grants had student loans in 2012, with an average balance of $31,200
•53 percent of those who didn’t receive a Pell Grant had student loan debt and borrowed $4,750 less ($26,450)
So 11 year old tax returns showing that dumpster fire paid taxes once at 24% and people are comparing that to the bracket they are in(different animals) today.
If I had time I would look more into this, but I'm guessing he still be paying a lower tax rate than a middle class person.
(To start off with, a middle class person would be paying an extra 6.8% for Social Security tax that dumpster fire wouldn't be paying).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/15 15:35:17
skyth wrote: So 11 year old tax returns showing that dumpster fire paid taxes once at 24% and people are comparing that to the bracket they are in(different animals) today.
If I had time I would look more into this, but I'm guessing he still be paying a lower tax rate than a middle class person.
(To start off with, a middle class person would be paying an extra 6.8% for Social Security tax that dumpster fire wouldn't be paying).
He's tax rate, with deductions and all that jazz was 4% in that year. So, he got whammied by the AMT tax at 20.7%.
What this does, is blows up the narrative that he doesn't pay any taxes.
Such as:
Trump has contributed $0 for our military, $0 for Pell Grants to help people afford college, $0 for our highways. https://t.co/dRqI1W6IXI
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 28, 2016
skyth wrote: So 11 year old tax returns showing that dumpster fire paid taxes once at 24% and people are comparing that to the bracket they are in(different animals) today.
If I had time I would look more into this, but I'm guessing he still be paying a lower tax rate than a middle class person.
(To start off with, a middle class person would be paying an extra 6.8% for Social Security tax that dumpster fire wouldn't be paying).
I could have told you that.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
whembly wrote: Now raise your hand if you think it's the Trump peeps who leaked a favorable-at-first-glance Trump's tax return?
*raises hand*
Is that too-Tin-foily??
No. I'm sure it's true as well, especially since the important part - the sources of income - were not present. Maddow really did get played.
To be honest though while she probably did, everyone is still talking about how terrible Trumpcare is and she did bring up good points about his investments and people buying his properties. All of which are extremely suspect, especially the man who funds the Republican Guard which trump hates so much
I'm not sure what the best solution would be. Removing FAFSA loans entirely would be a big shock to the system and would likely reduce the number of students going to college in the near term but it would also put a lot of downward pressure on colleges to reduce costs in order to maintain attendance and stay in business. Having the Federal govt be lenders of last resort to help students go to colleges they can't otherwise afford isn't inherently bad for anyone but the current system is being abused by colleges charging high tuition that leaves graduates struggling to repay the loans. I think the schools bear the majority of the responsibility for fixing the imbalance because they are the ones that create the disparity between what they charge for obtaining a degree and the amount of economic hardship imposed on the graduate from getting a loan to pay for it.
The problem we had/have is that the cost of going to a university is growing to the extent that it makes attending college unaffordable for a majority of the students who want to attend. Earning a college degree is a good and worthwhile thing but it loses a lot of value if it saddles graduates with crippling debt. Yes, society is better off with an educated populace but society is also harmed by pushing students into a loop of needing more education that requires more loans that creates larger amounts of debt for graduates. Having the Federal govt step in to fund loans that enable students to attend college glosses over the problem of rising costs that is the real crux of the issue. I think having a Federal program to help low income families be able to send children to college is a good idea but it should be more targeted and be grants not loans, an improved version of Pell Grants. Using Federal money to help people break out of a cycle of poverty through higher education is money well spent.
Unfortunately like most govt programs, student loans aren't targeted and they're not addressing the core issue of WHY tertiary education has to cost so much and are contributing to the problem by making sure schools can get the tuition that they're charging. Tertiary education should be affordable for middle class families just as it was for previous generations. Continuing on the current path isn't sustainable because we're damaging the young educated professionals that should be driving our economy by burdening them with debt.
Part of the problem lies with the states themselves. As I mentioned earlier, UC Berkeley, as recently as the late 1960s was essentially "free," with the costs that did exist being much more manageable to students at the time (as I said, the one article I read quoted a $1000 per year room/board cost, plus books). Once someone came up with the FAFSA plan, which was designed to help lower income families get ahead by getting into college, many states stopped funding their schools nearly as much. Now, obviously we all can probably agree that even in the 1950s and 60s, state funded colleges were saying that they were underfunded and not receiving enough money for X thing they needed/wanted to do. With FAFSA, that's basically a guaranteed income, most states dropped their funding to ludicrous levels, essentially "forcing" state schools (and then, by comparison, private ones) to increase their rates to the insane levels we have today.
I think one aspect to the solution MUST be that schools must be funded more by the state. You know that UT, UW and any other school that does serious research in ANY field, that wants to maintain a name as a "premier research institution" isn't going to just sit back and let the funds dry up, they are going to argue with the state to get that funding. I think it's terrible that they are in a position where, like UofO (Oregon) basically relies on a combination of FAFSA and Phil Knight , you are increasingly trying to fleece alumni after they have been saddled with huge debt.
State safety inspectors wouldn’t inspect West Virginia’s coal mines anymore. They would conduct “compliance visits and education.”
Violations of health and safety standards wouldn’t produce state citations and fines, either. Mine operators would receive “compliance assistance visit notices.”
And West Virginia regulators wouldn’t have authority to write safety and health regulations. Instead, they could only “adopt policies ... [for] improving compliance assistance” in the state’s mines.
Those and other significant changes in a new industry-backed bill would produce a wholesale elimination of most enforcement of longstanding laws and rules put in place over many years — as a result of hundreds of deaths — to protect the health and safety of West Virginia’s coal miners.
Opponents are furious about the proposed changes but also fearful that backers of the bill could easily have the votes to push through any language they want. Longtime mine safety experts and advocates are shocked at the breadth of the attack on current authorities of the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training and the Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety.
“It’s breathtaking in its scope,” said mine safety expert Davitt McAteer, who ran the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration and led a team that called for strengthening — not weakening — the state’s mine safety efforts after the deaths of 29 miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine just seven years ago next month.
Senate Bill 582 is billed as legislation “relating generally to coal mining, coal mining safety and environmental protection.”
Various lobbyists and advocates, even many lawmakers, are still trying to sort out and understand its many provisions, which range from language rewriting the state’s program for holding mine operators responsible for cleaning up abandoned strip mines and properly classifying streams that are trout waters to consolidating existing state mine safety boards into one panel and creating a new mandate for state-funded mine rescue teams.
A legislative committee lawyer indicated that some provisions intended for the bill didn’t make it into the initial text, including a rewrite of language in water quality standards that has been the subject of much litigation aimed at reducing water pollution from large-scale surface mines. Those provisions would have to be amended into the bill or added through a committee substitute, the lawyer said.
The heart of the legislation is a section that simply eliminates the ability of state mine safety office inspectors to issue notices of violation or levy fines for mine operators or coal companies for any safety hazards unless they can prove there is an “imminent danger” of death or serious physical harm.
Language in the bill offers somewhat confusing answers about what inspectors would do if they found imminent danger. One part of the bill maintains the current law, which says that inspectors must issue an order to pull all miners out of the affected part of the mine until the hazard is corrected. Another section, though, refers to a new type of process involving a “notice of correction,” that appears to carry no monetary penalty.
One thing that is clear is that the bill would maintain and encourage the use of “individual personal assessments,” which target specific mine employees — rather than mine operators or coal companies — for violations, fines and, possibly, revocation of certifications or licenses needed to work in the industry. In addition, the requirement for four inspections every year for each underground coal mine would be reduced to one compliance assistance visit for each of those mines.
And, the bill would require that, by Aug. 31, the state rewrite all of its coal mine safety standards so that, instead of longstanding and separate state rules, mine operators would be responsible for following only U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration regulations. The list of areas covered by this provision includes electrical standards, mine ventilation, roof control, safety examinations, dust control and explosives.
“It completely guts the state law,” said Josh Roberts, international health and safety director for the United Mine Workers union. “You’re taking back decades of laws.”
Roberts and McAteer agreed that the notion of deferring almost all state mine safety standards to the federal government is especially concerning, given the promises made by President Donald Trump to remove regulations the coal industry says have been hampering production and employment. McAteer noted that West Virginia led the nation in coal-mining deaths last year and has had two deaths already in 2017.
“It is shocking that, after all these years and the numbers of West Virginians who have died in the mines, for the state to even consider this,” McAteer said Monday, after reviewing the legislation. “The state needs to be involved in making sure we are protecting our citizens. This should be one of the primary goals of the state government.”
Word that the coal industry was planning to have one of its supporters in the Legislature drop such a bill has been circulating since the start of the session in early February.
Chris Hamilton, senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said Tuesday that he isn’t sure that his organization fully supports the reduced enforcement authority spelled out in the legislation.
Asked if that meant the industry feels the bill goes too far, Hamilton said, “We’re okay with it the way the bill is, but we just think it can be tweaked and maybe improved on.”
Hamilton said federal inspectors spend plenty of time at West Virginia’s coal mines and that having state inspectors doing the same thing is duplicative.
The current version of the bill was introduced during a Senate session on Saturday. The lead sponsor is Sen. Randy Smith, R-Tucker. Smith chairs the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee and is employed as a safety manager for Mettiki Coal. Officials from Mettiki’s parent corporation, Alliance Resource Partners, were major contributors to Smith’s campaign. Alliance bills itself as the second-largest Eastern U.S. coal producer. It’s Mettiki arm operates a large underground mine in Tucker County.
On Tuesday, with a near-packed committee room full of industry officials and some rank-and-file coal miners, and with the legislation on the agenda, Smith announced that he was sending the bill to a three-person subcommittee that would be chaired by EIM Committee Vice Chairman Dave Sypolt, R-Preston. Other subcommittee members will be Sen. Chandler Swope, R-Mercer, and Sen. Glenn Jeffries, D-Putnam, Smith said.
In an interview, Smith said he doesn’t necessarily support all provisions of the bill he introduced. For example, he said he doesn’t really support taking away so much of the state mine safety office’s enforcement power.
“I’m the committee chairman, and we always introduce a bill and then we go through it and try to get something that everybody is good with,” Smith said. “If I could do it, I would conform with state laws and do away with federal laws, but that’s not going to happen. I would 10 times rather have the state agency telling us what to do instead of the federal.”
“This is a huge bill,” Smith said. “Some of it will be in there, and I”m sure some of it won’t.”
Last year, the UMW agreed to a bill that weakened several mine safety protections in an effort to avoid industry-pushed legislation that the union viewed as even worse. In 2015, then-Gov. Early Ray Tomblin signed legislation that weakened mine safety protections, despite a union call for a veto of that bill. Three years before that, in 2012, Tomblin’s legislative response to the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster — where drug use by miners was not an issue — was a bill that focused on drug testing the state’s coal miners.
Tomblin’s legislation also called for a report that examined ways to improve the state’s mine safety program. That report was published in 2013, but lawmakers have never fully implemented its recommendations.
and they won't even have health insurance if they are injured.
This is not accurate. Workers in the US, except in rare circumstances, are covered by workers compenstation (WC) laws in case of a workplace related injury which entitle the Injured Person (IP) to employer paid medical care (typically through WC coverage purchased by the employer) and as much as 70% of their regular wages for up to 6 months with typically some kind of disability payment (either one time or perpetual) based on the extent of the disability if the IP is not able to return to their previous posistion after 6 months. The employee's private insurance or lack thereof would not be a factor except if the employee lost their elgigibility under worker compenstation laws due to being criminally negligent or failing to report the work place related injury within 30 days, or was an independent contractor whose contract stipulated that they were responsible for their own worker's comp coverage. It is not to say that the process of the IP seeking coverage under workers compenstation cannot be contentious since just like with private insurance, the employer/WC insurance carrier are going to seek to keep costs to a minimum and sometimes the IP has to prusue litigation to prove a claim or get the money/coverage they think is needed.
Speaking as a Health & Safety professional in the O&G industry the proposals mentioned in the article are legimately troubling since such a massive overhaul is likely to result in gaps in addition to lessening accountability for owners and operators. However I would not be opposed to an adjustment of the number of inspections or the criteria under which fines could be levied. There should be more focus on compliance visits and education. These type of posistive and collaborative continous improvement efforts are far more effective at developing the Health and Safety culture that leads to true ownership and action instead of the punitive "its more about rules, than people" efforts that typically seem to be the focus of state and federal inspectors who seem to litteraly justify their existence based on the number of citations they write. Prusuing a punitive style of enforcement IMHO just serves to reinforce the mindset among some businesses that incidents and citations are just a cost of buisness.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/15 17:47:24
"Preach the gospel always, If necessary use words." ~ St. Francis of Assisi
I'm not sure what the best solution would be. Removing FAFSA loans entirely would be a big shock to the system and would likely reduce the number of students going to college in the near term but it would also put a lot of downward pressure on colleges to reduce costs in order to maintain attendance and stay in business. Having the Federal govt be lenders of last resort to help students go to colleges they can't otherwise afford isn't inherently bad for anyone but the current system is being abused by colleges charging high tuition that leaves graduates struggling to repay the loans. I think the schools bear the majority of the responsibility for fixing the imbalance because they are the ones that create the disparity between what they charge for obtaining a degree and the amount of economic hardship imposed on the graduate from getting a loan to pay for it.
The problem we had/have is that the cost of going to a university is growing to the extent that it makes attending college unaffordable for a majority of the students who want to attend. Earning a college degree is a good and worthwhile thing but it loses a lot of value if it saddles graduates with crippling debt. Yes, society is better off with an educated populace but society is also harmed by pushing students into a loop of needing more education that requires more loans that creates larger amounts of debt for graduates. Having the Federal govt step in to fund loans that enable students to attend college glosses over the problem of rising costs that is the real crux of the issue. I think having a Federal program to help low income families be able to send children to college is a good idea but it should be more targeted and be grants not loans, an improved version of Pell Grants. Using Federal money to help people break out of a cycle of poverty through higher education is money well spent.
Unfortunately like most govt programs, student loans aren't targeted and they're not addressing the core issue of WHY tertiary education has to cost so much and are contributing to the problem by making sure schools can get the tuition that they're charging. Tertiary education should be affordable for middle class families just as it was for previous generations. Continuing on the current path isn't sustainable because we're damaging the young educated professionals that should be driving our economy by burdening them with debt.
.
Part of the problem lies with the states themselves. As I mentioned earlier, UC Berkeley, as recently as the late 1960s was essentially "free," with the costs that did exist being much more manageable to students at the time (as I said, the one article I read quoted a $1000 per year room/board cost, plus books). Once someone came up with the FAFSA plan, which was designed to help lower income families get ahead by getting into college, many states stopped funding their schools nearly as much. Now, obviously we all can probably agree that even in the 1950s and 60s, state funded colleges were saying that they were underfunded and not receiving enough money for X thing they needed/wanted to do. With FAFSA, that's basically a guaranteed income, most states dropped their funding to ludicrous levels, essentially "forcing" state schools (and then, by comparison, private ones) to increase their rates to the insane levels we have today.
I think one aspect to the solution MUST be that schools must be funded more by the state. You know that UT, UW and any other school that does serious research in ANY field, that wants to maintain a name as a "premier research institution" isn't going to just sit back and let the funds dry up, they are going to argue with the state to get that funding. I think it's terrible that they are in a position where, like UofO (Oregon) basically relies on a combination of FAFSA and Phil Knight , you are increasingly trying to fleece alumni after they have been saddled with huge debt.
Ok, in that case I'm going to revise my opinion and put the most of the blame on the government. This is the typical way govt screws up, they create a solution that glosses over the primary probably and creates secondary ones, all in the name of political expediency. Firstly, state universities being too expensive isn't a Federal problem it's a state issue so applying Federalism backwards and passing the buck to the Feds is a terrible idea already. The state politicians are happy to let he Feds step in because FAFSA loans hide the problem of growing tuition costs and enable state legislatures to reduce funding to state universities and direct the money that should be funding the universities to other programs to help them buy votes. The primary way politicians earn approval/votes is by directing state money into programs and special interests so it's always politically expedient for politicians to spend money and there's never enough money to make everyone happy so they never turn down a chance to take from Peter to win Paul's vote. State politicians underfund schools knowing that the Federal FAFSA loans will allow the schools to recoup costs via higher tuition and when students raise the issue of their crippling debts instead of blaming the state legislature for underfunding state universities the ire gets directs at the Feds because they issue the loans. The Feds were happy to expand the FAFSA loan program to "fix" the problem and win approval and now the Parties get turn the loan/debt issue into a political football by incorporating it into social wedge issues and the constructed culture war/red v blue narrative. In the meantime millions of families are faced with the difficulty of paying for the growing cost of college and millions of students are graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and the govt continues to peddle terrible solutions to the problems created by govt in the first place
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/16 00:03:07
whembly wrote: Now raise your hand if you think it's the Trump peeps who leaked a favorable-at-first-glance Trump's tax return?
If that is true, (and I ain't not raising my hand here), the thing I find funny; is that they had to go back 12 years before they got one that was "favourable-at-first-glance", and not "oh this is terrible".
whembly wrote: Now raise your hand if you think it's the Trump peeps who leaked a favorable-at-first-glance Trump's tax return?
*raises hand*
Is that too-Tin-foily??
What's funny, is that in that year, his effective tax rate was 25%... whereas Bernie Sanders had a 13.5% tax rate. Hmmm... guess Trump paid his "fair share" afterall.
They wouldn't have to.
In 2004, Trump's show "The Apprentice" debuted on NBC. Much of the information to get Trump's tax data for 2005 was already at NBC corporate (Madcow's bosses).
This wasn't investigative journalism at it's finest. It was either leaked by Trump, or they got it from NBC's financial (or HR) department.
This was just another weak attempt among many in the "Great Anti-Trump Circle Jerk Of 2017". But that's American politics for you.
Lord of Deeds wrote:Speaking as a Health & Safety professional in the O&G industry
We have an Orcs and Goblins industry in the US? I did not know that but I suppose it does explain some things.
Yeah, we call it the NFL
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: Now raise your hand if you think it's the Trump peeps who leaked a favorable-at-first-glance Trump's tax return?
*raises hand*
Is that too-Tin-foily??
What's funny, is that in that year, his effective tax rate was 25%... whereas Bernie Sanders had a 13.5% tax rate. Hmmm... guess Trump paid his "fair share" afterall.
You know, I always have wondered why the wealthy people who support/endorse redistribution of wealth never seem to redistribute theirs, especially in taxes.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/15 23:57:37
