In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
WASHINGTON -- National Intelligence Director James Clapper is apologizing for telling Congress earlier this year that the National Security Agency does not collect data on millions of Americans.
In a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, Clapper says his answer was "clearly erroneous."
Leaks by NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden have revealed the NSA's sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic every day, though U.S. intelligence officials have said the programs are aimed at targeting foreigners and terrorist suspects overseas.
Clapper was asked in March if the NSA gathered "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." He answered that it didn't happen wittingly.
As the U.S. Forest Service takes control of the deadly Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, it faces a challenging fire season ahead, due to a dry winter, hot spring and a budget hit by sequestration cuts.
The across-the-board cuts have reduced the Forest Service budget -- $1.7 billion of which is devoted to firefighting -- by $28 million, according to The New York Times. Both the Forest Service and Department of the Interior overspent their budgets last year, but the Forest Service was hit harder by sequestration.
The agency hired less equipment and 500 fewer firefighters this year, reducing its force to 10,000.
On Monday, these Forest Service firefighters took control of battling the Arizona Yarnell Hill Fire, which killed 19 firefighters Sunday in the worst loss of wildland firefighters since 1933.
Forest fires have only gotten worse in recent decades. Global warming, development and changing firefighting practices have all led to an increase in the size of wildfires since 2000, according to The Washington Post.
In a June 28 letter, four U.S. senators called on the Obama administration to produce a plan for fire prevention and budgeting for wildfires.
"When the budgeted amount is insufficient, the agency continues to suppress fires by reallocating funds from other non-fire programs," wrote Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho). "This approach to paying for firefighting is nonsensical and further increases wildland fire costs."
Employers who don't provide health insurance will be spared penalties of up to $3,000 per worker until 2015, a one-year delay of a major component of President Barack Obama's health care reform law, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.
Under Obamacare, companies with at least 50 full-time employees are required to provide qualifying health benefits to workers or face financial penalties called "shared responsibility payments." The provision of the law aims to shore up and strengthen the system that provides health benefits to most covered Americans.
Under a regulatory guidance to be published next week, the Obama administration will free companies from this mandate and from rules that they report information about their health benefits to the federal government next year.
"During this 2014 transition period, we strongly encourage employers to maintain or expand health coverage," Mark Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department, said in a statement.
On July 02 2013 16:13 farvacola wrote: The part about Sanksrit is hilarious to me. I can already picture the type of people who are immediately suspicious of something like a foreign alphabet, and then it hits me that the US is pretty full of 'em. Gotta say, considering the state of some schools in the US, there does seem a modicum of injustice in a public school district being able to afford a staff of yoga teachers. That's California for ya
pleas read....
the money comes form a 3rd party grant
That does not affect my incredulity. That a public school can find funding for yoga from a 3rd party while other public schools can barely get their music programs funded by a 1st party is still troubling.
Thats not how third party grants work.
Person giveing grant:Do you want money to do this specific thing with our money?
School: Sure?
You can't criticize people for taking money to do things when they don't have money to do things. Having a full time teacher being paid with outside money is directly filling up student class hours that don't cost the district money, freeing up the districts money to do other things like fund that music program.
My high school band program was almost all paid though boosters much like how high schools in the south pay for their football programs. they're all extremely raciest and homophobic people but there isn't any black people that went to my school and all the gay people were kept away from them as much as possible. What do you want these people to do?
On July 02 2013 16:13 farvacola wrote: The part about Sanksrit is hilarious to me. I can already picture the type of people who are immediately suspicious of something like a foreign alphabet, and then it hits me that the US is pretty full of 'em. Gotta say, considering the state of some schools in the US, there does seem a modicum of injustice in a public school district being able to afford a staff of yoga teachers. That's California for ya
pleas read....
the money comes form a 3rd party grant
That does not affect my incredulity. That a public school can find funding for yoga from a 3rd party while other public schools can barely get their music programs funded by a 1st party is still troubling.
Thats not how third party grants work.
Person giveing grant:Do you want money to do this specific thing with our money?
School: Sure?
You can't criticize people for taking money to do things when they don't have money to do things. Having a full time teacher being paid with outside money is directly filling up student class hours that don't cost the district money, freeing up the districts money to do other things like fund that music program.
My high school band program was almost all paid though boosters much like how high schools in the south pay for their football programs. they're all extremely raciest and homophobic people but there isn't any black people that went to my school and all the gay people were kept away from them as much as possible. What do you want these people to do?
I know that's not how third party grants work, and that's why I don't like funding attitudes towards education.
On July 03 2013 07:56 Sermokala wrote: My high school band program was almost all paid though boosters much like how high schools in the south pay for their football programs. they're all extremely raciest and homophobic people but there isn't any black people that went to my school and all the gay people were kept away from them as much as possible. What do you want these people to do?
Obama pledges $7 billion to upgrade power in Africa
(CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama pledged $7 billion Sunday to help combat frequent power blackouts in sub-Saharan Africa.
Funds from the initiative, dubbed Power Africa, will be distributed over the next five years. Obama made the announcement during his trip to South Africa, the continent's biggest economy.
"Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age. It's the light that children study by, the energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real business. It's the lifeline for families to meet their most basic needs, and it's the connection that's needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy," he said.
Two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lacks access to electricity, including more than 85% of those living in rural areas, the White House said.
CNN Help out his buddy General Electric and score political points for his generosity with other people's money. I wonder how much of this promise will consist of the famous solar and wind development that's all the rage now.
Obama isn't dumb neither is the US Government. They don't want to lose Africa like they have in South America in terms of Economic growth. It's the 21st century version of the Scramble for Africa. Heck all the old players are taking part as well.
Employers who don't provide health insurance will be spared penalties of up to $3,000 per worker until 2015, a one-year delay of a major component of President Barack Obama's health care reform law, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.
Under Obamacare, companies with at least 50 full-time employees are required to provide qualifying health benefits to workers or face financial penalties called "shared responsibility payments." The provision of the law aims to shore up and strengthen the system that provides health benefits to most covered Americans.
Under a regulatory guidance to be published next week, the Obama administration will free companies from this mandate and from rules that they report information about their health benefits to the federal government next year.
"During this 2014 transition period, we strongly encourage employers to maintain or expand health coverage," Mark Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department, said in a statement.
So another key component of the ACA gets delayed... what a mess. Will there be a delay on the individual mandate too? Or is the delay just for businesses?
On July 03 2013 07:56 Sermokala wrote: My high school band program was almost all paid though boosters much like how high schools in the south pay for their football programs. they're all extremely raciest and homophobic people but there isn't any black people that went to my school and all the gay people were kept away from them as much as possible. What do you want these people to do?
What?
See when white flight happened from the cities to the suburbs they did it mostly because they were raciest but also because they were the ones that had the money and could leave the city. then black people started to get money and moved out to the suburbs. Now these white people who moved away because they're racists have moved again to third teir suburbs. the town I grew up in was one of those third teir suburbs.
On July 03 2013 08:52 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Obama isn't dumb neither is the US Government. They don't want to lose Africa like they have in South America in terms of Economic growth. It's the 21st century version of the Scramble for Africa. Heck all the old players are taking part as well.
So you're saying unless we invest amounts in the 7billion+ range into African power, we stand to lose Africa? I mean the way you put it is kinda obtuse. Do we own Africa, that losing it means losing all the profits from it? Would 7 billion put into South America ten or twenty years ago have gained us ... I mean won us South America in terms of economic growth?
I mean you're comparing it to the colonization of Africa, so I'm struggling to understand what gaining and losing, or winning and losing means as far as a one nation's federal spending to a different continent's nations and peoples.
On July 03 2013 08:52 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Obama isn't dumb neither is the US Government. They don't want to lose Africa like they have in South America in terms of Economic growth. It's the 21st century version of the Scramble for Africa. Heck all the old players are taking part as well.
So you're saying unless we invest amounts in the 7billion+ range into African power, we stand to lose Africa? I mean the way you put it is kinda obtuse. Do we own Africa, that losing it means losing all the profits from it? Would 7 billion put into South America ten or twenty years ago have gained us ... I mean won us South America in terms of economic growth?
I mean you're comparing it to the colonization of Africa, so I'm struggling to understand what gaining and losing, or winning and losing means as far as a one nation's federal spending to a different continent's nations and peoples.
On July 03 2013 08:52 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Obama isn't dumb neither is the US Government. They don't want to lose Africa like they have in South America in terms of Economic growth. It's the 21st century version of the Scramble for Africa. Heck all the old players are taking part as well.
So you're saying unless we invest amounts in the 7billion+ range into African power, we stand to lose Africa? I mean the way you put it is kinda obtuse. Do we own Africa, that losing it means losing all the profits from it? Would 7 billion put into South America ten or twenty years ago have gained us ... I mean won us South America in terms of economic growth?
I mean you're comparing it to the colonization of Africa, so I'm struggling to understand what gaining and losing, or winning and losing means as far as a one nation's federal spending to a different continent's nations and peoples.
You have a very poor understanding of how the world works. Most countries cannot process their natural resources economically, heck Canada can't even process it's own oil feasibly. Having good relationships with poor countries lead to resource processing contracts, engineering project contracts etc. which are big money. Plus access to rare earth metals that China has a near monopoly on.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will introduce a bill in the Senate banning abortions 20 weeks after conception, the Weekly Standard reported Tuesday.
According to the Weekly Standard report, Rubio will announce his sponsorship of the measure after Congress returns from the July 4 recess.
A similar measure was passed by the House last month in a 228 to 196 vote. However, the 20-week abortion ban is unlikely to gain traction in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The White House also threatened to veto the bill.
"Forty years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed a woman's constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose," the administration said in a statement. "This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women's health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients' health care decisions, and the Constitution."
Another 20-week abortion bill is currently under consideration in Texas, where a filibuster by Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis thrust the issue into the limelight last week.
Rubio, a freshman Senator who is considered a likely contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has previously been vocal about his pro-life stance.
"The people who are actually closed-minded in American politics are the people who love to preach about the certainty of science with regards to our climate but ignore the absolute fact that science has proven that life begins at conception," Rubio said during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, professing his belief in protecting life "at every stage of its development."
On July 03 2013 08:52 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Obama isn't dumb neither is the US Government. They don't want to lose Africa like they have in South America in terms of Economic growth. It's the 21st century version of the Scramble for Africa. Heck all the old players are taking part as well.
So you're saying unless we invest amounts in the 7billion+ range into African power, we stand to lose Africa? I mean the way you put it is kinda obtuse. Do we own Africa, that losing it means losing all the profits from it? Would 7 billion put into South America ten or twenty years ago have gained us ... I mean won us South America in terms of economic growth?
I mean you're comparing it to the colonization of Africa, so I'm struggling to understand what gaining and losing, or winning and losing means as far as a one nation's federal spending to a different continent's nations and peoples.
You have a very poor understanding of how the world works. Most countries cannot process their natural resources economically, heck Canada can't even process it's own oil feasibly. Having good relationships with poor countries lead to resource processing contracts, engineering project contracts etc. which are big money. Plus access to rare earth metals that China has a near monopoly on.
Oh let's be honest. We only care because China and Al Qaeda are building influence in Africa.
Your "understanding" of how the world works acts like we haven't known about Africa and its resources for the last 200 years.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will introduce a bill in the Senate banning abortions 20 weeks after conception, the Weekly Standard reported Tuesday.
According to the Weekly Standard report, Rubio will announce his sponsorship of the measure after Congress returns from the July 4 recess.
A similar measure was passed by the House last month in a 228 to 196 vote. However, the 20-week abortion ban is unlikely to gain traction in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The White House also threatened to veto the bill.
"Forty years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed a woman's constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose," the administration said in a statement. "This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women's health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients' health care decisions, and the Constitution."
Another 20-week abortion bill is currently under consideration in Texas, where a filibuster by Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis thrust the issue into the limelight last week.
Rubio, a freshman Senator who is considered a likely contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has previously been vocal about his pro-life stance.
"The people who are actually closed-minded in American politics are the people who love to preach about the certainty of science with regards to our climate but ignore the absolute fact that science has proven that life begins at conception," Rubio said during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, professing his belief in protecting life "at every stage of its development."
Looking at the "mind is all chemicals and physics" thread, it would seem that life begins at conception. There's no clearer line in the sand than that scientifically. But if you're going to go down that road, there's not a scientifically compelling reason why an individual life is sacred.
But my real response is what do Republicans get out of this? Is this another horse to trade? Do they score points with social conservatives and galvanize the base against liberals? Is this just a kick to remind themselves they're not dead after the gay marriage rulings last week?
It's not going to pass, that's for sure. Even if by some miracle it got through Congress, President Obama would probably relish this particular veto.
(CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama pledged $7 billion Sunday to help combat frequent power blackouts in sub-Saharan Africa.
Funds from the initiative, dubbed Power Africa, will be distributed over the next five years. Obama made the announcement during his trip to South Africa, the continent's biggest economy.
"Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age. It's the light that children study by, the energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real business. It's the lifeline for families to meet their most basic needs, and it's the connection that's needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy," he said.
Two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lacks access to electricity, including more than 85% of those living in rural areas, the White House said.
CNN Help out his buddy General Electric and score political points for his generosity with other people's money. I wonder how much of this promise will consist of the famous solar and wind development that's all the rage now.
Taking the Chinese money and loaning it to Africa so they buy made in America stuff, what is the problem there?
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a constitutional challenge to a surveillance program under which the National Security Agency vacuums up information about every phone call placed within, from, or to the United States. The lawsuit argues that the program violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. The complaint also charges that the dragnet program exceeds the authority that Congress provided through the Patriot Act.
"This dragnet program is surely one of the largest surveillance efforts ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. "It is the equivalent of requiring every American to file a daily report with the government of every location they visited, every person they talked to on the phone, the time of each call, and the length of every conversation. The program goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act and represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy."
The ACLU is a customer of Verizon Business Network Services, which was the recipient of a secret FISA Court order published by The Guardian last week. The order required the company to "turn over on 'an ongoing daily basis' phone call details" such as who calls are placed to and from, and when those calls are made. The lawsuit argues that the government's blanket seizure of and ability to search the ACLU's phone records compromises sensitive information about its work, undermining the organization's ability to engage in legitimate communications with clients, journalists, advocacy partners, and others.
"The crux of the government's justification for the program is the chilling logic that it can collect everyone's data now and ask questions later," said Alex Abdo, a staff attorney for the ACLU's National Security Project. "The Constitution does not permit the suspicionless surveillance of every person in the country."
EPT
