That there's no need to use the law to force people to do what they're already doing, unless what you're really trying to do is score political points with someone.
Sounds like the definition of a good law. A bad law is one that forever makes people go against their nature, so that people are constantly breaking it. Like speeding.
Oh boy, more research concluding the same findings of 10,000 other studies. Who pays for this never-ending research on topics already researched to death?
I disagree with that description of this work, but even if it were true, it'd still be good. Always question, always collect data, on a 'never-ending' quest to expand humans awareness of our universe.
Funny how this argument is the flip-side of the opposing, equally trollish argument of "we don't really know with enough certainty, we need to keep studying for decades before changing our behavior." If a study concludes an 80% chance of death if you try to cross a street, and a 1% cross walk down the road, you should take the crosswalk, but not stop studying the reasons for both.
some humans use "Said by Fox network" to mean false, while others use "Said by CNN" to mean false.
True, but it should be noted the first group is much more informed than the 2nd.
https://www.businessinsider.co...
They found that someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer 1.04 domestic questions correctly compared to 1.22 for those who watched no news at all.
"Back To"? It had never stopped. The Russian Spy system may had slowed down after the fall of Communism, but that was mostly because everything else in Russia was failing.
It isn't because we are the good guys, it is because we are the toughest guys. The actions of a nation are the equivalent of 8 year old in a school yard. All the kids wants to play a different game, however the biggest kid makes the final choice what to play. Many will join the game. Some will go with the next biggest kid and play their game. Then you get few kids on the swing set pretending not to feel lonely. Now the two big kids, if they disagree or want to use their stuff, will find ways to get it. Be sneaky pretending to play the other game, then run off with the ball to play their game, then they would have a counter measure, or they will just outwardly fight each other.
It isn't about right or wrong, it is just about asserting power over the others. And being part of the more powerful group.
AKA "might is right". The opposing viewpoint is that it doesn't have to be. Humans have become more civilized over the millennia, and we could and probably will progress further. Some monkeys have done away with murder, it's not impossible. The key seems to be the entire group has to attack the aggressor.
Texas is primarily powered by natural gas and coal, with a bit of highly subsidized wind.
I applaud the good link, that's an interesting map. Tiny opposition to your point is it does mention TX is #1 in wind.
However, while gas+wind may reduce emissions some, it is incapable of scaling to replace fossil, and will forever be dependent on it.
True. This is probably just a difference on emphasis - I'd emphasize that it can be minimized. I'm also a proponent of nuclear power, but that's a different convo.
The cost of wind today is deceptively low because it pushes the subsidies and required backup generation into another column. No one is suggesting coal as the alternative; just be realistic about expectations. Nor does most of the world have such conveniently co-located wind+gas resources.
I do agree, we should be realistic. I bring up Germany, and the real results of them leading the solar industry in the 90's, and it rocking their stock market. Solar was profitable for them, not because it saved costs of electricity generation, but because they developed technology and sold it. A lot of your solar power converters are still German. I say real estate boom because all of a sudden, the roof Germans already owned made their house more valuable, almost instantly. There are so many secondary effects of green policy that actually make it profitable in the long run. Sustainable practices cost less than non-sustainable ones, is that not a realistic statement? How much money would we save if there was less air pollution and asthma occurrence dropped? Lung cancer. I often wonder what pollution has to do with my stupid allergies. It's hard to imagine the costs of the worst possible effects of this ocean current stuff.
Greens making money isn't the goal; decarbonization is. Germany provides a fine example of how expending enormous resources building renewables is not making effective progress toward this goal.
Again, that link is an impressive map. I have to admit it's taking me a while to absorb all the info in it. But why can't there be 2 goals? Make money and save the planet? If the goal is decarbonization, it's much easier to accomplish the goal if we make it profitable. Germany proved it can be done. They did it with solar, and this is a country that gets as little sun as Portland. Yes they invested some money and worked hard, but they ended up with a smarter grid than us, and some days they have to pay everyone on the gird to use electricity. The horror.
Wind/solar/battery technology will progress until it solves all our problems; all we need is faith, a bit of time, and mountains of money. Maybe. That physical reality and math impose limitations is not something that most people are equipped to understand.
Wind is so much cheaper than coal that a bunch of conservative republicans in texas have converted to wind. They're doing it because of the math. Solar progresses rapidly, and battery, with it's slow progress, is being proven already today, so it's not going anywhere.
Here's a thought: at least try to follow the math of people who have taken the time to lay it out simply. Sure it is easier to remain an ignorant tool, comfortably ensconced within the green herd, but if you aren't headed in the right direction, you will never reach your destination. Reality has the final say, and you will pay the price for your foolishness.
Doh, you're right. I hereby give up my good wind turbine job, and will immediately look for the first coal mine to dive into. Follow the money!
Ok, seriously, nobody is saying tech will solve all the problems. But greens are saying you can make money with green tech, and doing so helps with the problem. Why not do that a lot more? Sell our tech to the rest of the world. Germany did it in the 90's, and made tons of money, sparked a run on their stock market, boom in real estate, and generally worked great until China started undercutting them. What happened to the US? We invented solar. Why in the world didn't we make some money on it? I'm not talking about manufacturing, I'm talking about innovation. What's the next thing? Let's not give up the money after we invent it just because of coal and oil lobyists.
Samsung raided in political corruption probe http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/busi...
among others...
False equivalence. The S. Korea scandal is about extortion, perjury, and money laundering in the billions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The facebook contributions, while so much political contributions feel slimey, seems to have been done legally through reporting to the US federal election commission.
The Russia narrative fell apart.
Lol, over 100 charges so far. I don't think "falling apart" means what you think it means.
The full list of known indictments and plea deals in Mueller’s probe
1) George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to the FBI.
2) Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to making false statements to the FBI.
3) Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, was indicted in October in Washington, DC on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, false statements, and failure to disclose foreign assets — all related to his work for Ukrainian politicians before he joined the Trump campaign. He’s pleaded not guilty on all counts. Then, in February, Mueller filed a new case against him in Virginia, with tax, financial, and bank fraud charges.
4) Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s longtime junior business partner, was indicted on similar charges to Manafort. But he has now agreed to a plea deal with Mueller’s team, pleading guilty to just one false statements charge and one conspiracy charge.
5-20) 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies were indicted on conspiracy charges, with some also being accused of identity theft. The charges related to a Russian propaganda effort designed to interfere with the 2016 campaign. The companies involved are the Internet Research Agency, often described as a “Russian troll farm,” and two other companies that helped finance it. The Russian nationals indicted include 12 of the agency’s employees and its alleged financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
21) Richard Pinedo: This California man pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge in connection with the Russian indictments, and has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
22) Alex van der Zwaan: This London lawyer pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Rick Gates and another unnamed person based in Ukraine.
Two ex-Trump advisers lied to the FBI about their contacts with Russians
Michael Flynn Mario Tama/Getty
So far, no Trump associates have been specifically charged with any crimes relating to helping Russia interfere with the 2016 election.
The closest we’ve come to that is that both Papadopoulos and Flynn both now admit that they lied to the FBI about their contacts with people connected to the Russian government. (Papadopoulos’s contacts took place before the election, and Flynn’s after it.)
Papadopoulos: Back in April 2016, Papadopoulos got a tip from a foreign professor he understood to have Russian government connections that the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.” He then proceeded to have extensive contacts with the professor and a Russian woman, during which he tried to plan a Trump campaign trip to Russia.
But when the FBI interviewed Papadopoulos about all this in January 2017, he repeatedly lied about what happened, he now admits. So he was arrested in July, and later agreed to plead guilty to a false statements charge and start cooperating with Mueller’s probe.
Flynn: In December 2016, during the transition, Flynn spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions that President Barack Obama had just placed on Russia, and about a planned United Nations Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements.
But when FBI agents interviewed him about all this in January 2017, Flynn lied to them about what his talks with Kislyak entailed, he now admits. In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to a false statements charge and began cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.
Both Papadopoulos and Flynn may now be providing Mueller’s team with information that could incriminate others in Trump’s orbit. But we haven’t seen the fruits of their cooperation just yet.
Several Russians were indicted in connection with a propaganda effort
More recently, Mueller’s team has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies in connection with alleged interference with the 2016 campaign.
The indictments’ main emphasis is on the propaganda efforts of one Russian group in particular: the Internet Research Agency. That group’s operations — which included social media posts, online ads, and organization of rallies in the US — were, the indictment alleges, often (but not exclusively) aimed at denigrating Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy and supporting Donald Trump’s.
Specifically indicted were:
The Internet Research Agency itself
Two shell companies involved in financing the agency (Concord Management and Concord Catering)
The alleged financier of the agency, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Twelve people who allegedly worked for the agency (Mikhail Bystrov, Mikhail Burchik, Aleksandra Krylova, Anna Bogacheva, Sergey Polozov, Maria Bovda, Robert Bovda, Dzheykhun Ogly, Vadim Podkopaev, Gleb Vasilchenko, Irina Kaverzina, and Vladimir Venkov)
The specific charges in the case include one broad “conspiracy to defraud the United States” count, but the rest are far narrower — one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and six counts of identity theft. It is highly unlikely that the indicted Russians will ever come to the US to face trial.
No Americans have been charged with being witting participants in this Russian election interference effort. However, one American, Richard Pinedo of California, pleaded guilty to an identity fraud charge, seemingly because he sold bank account numbers created with stolen identities to the Russians. Pinedo agreed to cooperate with the probe as part of his plea deal.
Two other ex-Trump advisers are facing charges related to their past work for Ukraine
Paul Manafort outside a Washington, Dc courthouse in January 2018. Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Then there are former Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. The pair were indicted by Mueller’s team indicted last October in Washington, and Mueller piled on yet more charges against them in Virginia.
The charges against the pair related to nearly a decade of foreign work they did for the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian politicians before they joined Trump’s campaign.
Manafort and Gates allegedly “acted as unregistered agents” for the Ukrainians, generating “tens of millions of dollars in income,” which they then “laundered” through “scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts,” per their indictment. They were also accused of failing to appropriately disclose their foreign work and foreign assets, and of committing tax, financial, and bank fraud crimes, some of which took place as recently as last year.
The specific charges Manafort is currently facing are:
5 counts in Washington, DC: One count each of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal, making false and misleading Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) statements, and a false statements charge in connection with FARA.
18 counts in Virginia: 5 counts of filing false income tax returns, 4 counts of failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts, and 9 counts of bank fraud or bank conspiracy
Manafort did his foreign work for Ukraine’s pro-Russia political faction, but so far, it is not clear if these charges have any connection to the topic of Russian interference with the 2016 campaign. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
Gates, meanwhile, has since agreed to a plea deal in which he’ll cooperate with Mueller’s team. Accordingly, all the charges against him were dropped except two he pleaded guilty to — one conspiracy to defraud the United States charge, and a false statements charge. (With the latter, Gates admitted lying to Mueller’s team in a meeting earlier this month.)
An associate of Gates’s also pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI
mueller indictments, alex van der zwaan, robert mueller, paul manafort
Screenshot of van der Zwaan’s page on Skadden Arps circa mid-2017 Skadden Arps/Wayback Machine
Finally, the probe into Manafort and Gates’s Ukrainian work has ensnared one other person so far: Alex van der Zwaan.
Van der Zwaan was a lawyer for the London office of the New York law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, he worked with Manafort and Gates on behalf of Ukraine’s government in 2012, to write a report defending the government’s prosecution of a former prime minister.
In November 2017, Mueller’s investigators interviewed van der Zwaan about his Ukrainian work. But according to the charging document, van der Zwaan:
Lied about when his last communications with Gates and another unnamed person took place
Lied about deleting and not providing relevant emails to the special counsel’s team
We don’t yet know what, exactly, van der Zwaan was trying to cover up here. But on February 20, 2018, he pleaded guilty to a false statements charge.
tl;dr: the republicans did to her image what Trump did to Trump's image.
ftfy
Type louder, please.
