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PoliGAF 2013 |OT2| Worth 77% of OT1

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W

Wilsongt

Member
I am SHOCKED! SHOCKED!

Anti-Gay Researcher Confirms Religious Bias At NOM Conference

The National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute held its “It Takes a Village” conference this weekend, coaching college students on how and why they should oppose marriage equality. In past years, this conference has been rife with anti-gay myths, including repeated promotion of ex-gay therapy. One of this year’s notable speakers was Mark Regnerus, whose fraudulent study on parenting has been manipulated by conservatives to claim that children do worse with same-sex parents. Documents that have been uncovered about how the study was conducted show that Regnerus was actually coached about how to talk about his results so that his research would help oppose same-sex marriage, so his cooperation with NOM is telling.

According to a report on the conference from The College Fix, a conservative outlet, Regnerus confirmed his religious biases in his remarks:

Underscoring that, sex has become “the opium of the masses,” that “we are lacking transcendence and sex is a transcendent act,” he said. Ultimately, casual sex is a disappointment, he added.

“Sex doesn’t explain the world, religion does,” he said. “Sex will come up short.”

The comment is revealing, given sex was exactly the tool Regnerus used to arrive at the fraudulent results in his study. He drew conclusions about any parent who ever had a “romantic” same-sex relationship to draw conclusions about all same-sex couples’ parenting, even though only two of the individuals in his study actually were raised by same-sex couples for their entire upbringing. Darren Sherkat, a researcher charged with auditing Regnerus’s study, recently explained that “it failed to take into account normal family effects on well-being, to control for known sources of positive or negative outcomes.”

Conservatives continue to cite the Regnerus study in arguments against marriage equality, but he continues to demonstrate that his research is just as politically motivated as the evidence suggests.
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SHOCKED!!!
 
W

Wilsongt

Member
B-Dubs said:
What? NO! No, I don't believe it. Religious bias? No way. How SHOCKING!



:lol
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SHOCKED!!!!

*whispers* IRS

From Faux.

Fear Begets Anger on IRS Scandal

“…I still hear people saying we were low level employees, so we were lower than dirt, according to people in D.C. So, take it for what it is. They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.”

-- Unnamed IRS employee in the agency’s Cincinnati office talking to House investigators about claims that the targeting of conservative groups was the result of rogue agents in the office.

When a senior adviser to the president is attacking a House member over being arrested 40 years ago, you know things are starting to get interesting in Washington.

David Plouffe, Democratic sage and architect of President Obama’s successful 2012 community organizing approach to re-election, flipped out on Twitter Sunday after House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa called White House Press Secretary Jay Carney a “paid liar” in reference to the shifting stories from the administration about the targeting of conservatives by the IRS.

Plouffe called Issa “Mr. Grand Theft Auto,” a reference to Issa’s 1972 arrest for car theft. The charges were later dropped and Issa famously went on to make millions with a car alarm business.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/03/fear-begets-anger-on-irs-scandal/#ixzz2VB5eURHP
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O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
This may not be the best place to ask (or it might be the best place to ask) but would you guys suggest watching 24?
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Oh btw, this is what that Peter Ferrara douchebag said in response to my post:

Anon, Obama spent his entire first term calling for sharply increased tax rates on capital investment. In 2010, such sharply increased tax rates were enacted in the Obamacare legislation. What effect do you think that had on capital investment, job creation, and the wages and incomes of working people? That would be precisely the declining real wages and incomes that resulted in Obama’s first term for working people, the middle class, and, indeed, the bottom 80% of income earners (which is why poverty soared, and inequality increased during Obama’s first term, good progressive results, the Bible says “By their fruits ye shall know them”). When Reagan left office, the top tax rate was 28%. On January 1 of this year, Obama finally got his explosive tax rate increases for virtually every major federal tax, the one exception being the corporate tax rate, already the highest in the world under Obama except for the socialist one party state of Cameroon (also following Obamanomics). Under those policies, Obama’s top rate when he leaves office will be 60% higher than Reagan’s top rate when he left office. The stimulus so-called tax cuts were all tax welfare refundable tax credits rather than pro-growth rate cuts as under Reagan. The payroll tax cuts are gone already, as are the supposed stimulus tax cuts. Obama has had the worst recovery since the Great Depression because all of his policies have been anti-growth, not just higher tax rates. That includes explosive regulatory burdens and barriers, and government spending, which is a drag on the economy rather than a boost, destabilizing monetary policy, undermining the rule of law, and reduced national defense effectiveness (which protects capital investment) see, e.g. Obama’s ongoing nuclear disarmament. But the article was only for people dealing in the realm of Aristotelian logic. So sorry to disturb you.
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R

rocketknight

Member
Wilsongt said:
I am SHOCKED! SHOCKED!

Anti-Gay Researcher Confirms Religious Bias At NOM Conference



SHOCKED!!!
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Always good to see Regnerus's crap sinking deeper into the mud.

Ignatz Mouse said:
What increased tax rates in 2010?
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Taxes on tanning beds and some medical equipment and stuff from the PPACA. Just piddly nonsense. (Edit: Or maybe the cadillac health plan stuff like Oblivion said.)

Oblivion said:
This may not be the best place to ask (or it might be the best place to ask) but would you guys suggest watching 24?
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I don't know what the liberal hivemind consensus will be but it wasn't my kind of show.
 
P

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
PhoenixPause said:
Actually the GOP did impressive outreach work throughout W Bush's first term. Bush spoke with black church leaders, and the RNC also went to urban areas to sell conservatism. It payed dividends in 2004: Kerry won a huge amount of the black vote, but Bush won just enough to win Ohio and thus the presidency. Kerry would have won if he had performed closer to Obama's 2012 black vote performance in that state.

Obama has secured the black vote to the democrat party though, so it's too late. A large part of that is due to how ugly the GOP has been towards him, and the constant dog whistles they utilize. IMO things will get super ugly towards Hispanics as the immigration bill moves closer to reality (in the senate; it's probably DOA in the house).
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Don't forget, Bush was also making major inroads within Hispanic communities. It's a little bizarre to see the direction the GOP has gone.
 
P

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
Avon Barksdale said:
That's because he was one of the few Republicans that supported immigration reform and spoke fluent Spanish. Both are pretty much persona non grata in the GOP.
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It's so stupid though. They should have built on that, instead they went in a completely different, unsustainable direction. I guess they are hoping most of the population has really short term memories. They may be right though. :/
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Avon Barksdale said:
That's because he was one of the few Republicans that supported immigration reform and spoke fluent Spanish. Both are pretty much persona non grata in the GOP.
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Could someone like Bush even get nominated in a national contest by the GOP now?

Just like how the internet has worked in the favor of progressive candidates, it's also worked against the GOP establishment. You know how pictures of Obama bowing to foreign leaders and shit like that are immediately spread and become a "scandal" among teabaggers? It's sort of like that.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
I don't know if this is the right place to go, but where can I look up the parts of US Social Security that actually say that younger people are basically paying into Old Age Insurance? I'm trying to understand the mechanisms by which the trust fund is being exhausted and how today's workers won't be able to afford the retirement of baby boomers.
 
R

rocketknight

Member
RedSwirl said:
I don't know if this is the right place to go, but where can I look up the parts of US Social Security that actually say that younger people are basically paying into Old Age Insurance? I'm trying to understand the mechanisms by which the trust fund is being exhausted and how today's workers won't be able to afford the retirement of baby boomers.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2013/01/07/social-security-rerun/

That's a pretty good rundown of SS from a mainstream point of view.
 
Link

Link

The Autumn Wind
Oblivion said:
This may not be the best place to ask (or it might be the best place to ask) but would you guys suggest watching 24?
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Absolutely. It's fantastic through Season 5. After that, the quality dips a bit, but it's still a very good show. Give it a shot.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
lol Avik doubled down on his stupidity: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...doubles-individual-health-insurance-premiums/

Dax posted the reply to him in both articles.

Hilarious how he keeps saying the price of premiums go up without mentioning the subsidies lower it effectively. His response to the fact that employers cover most HI is that it's decreasing. Okay, that still doesn't address anything.

I'd love for him to answer how many 25 year old affluent healthy people pay for their own insurance, how many among them get cheap insurance, and why that group shouldn't be forced to pay more for real HI coverage.
 
P

platypotamus

Member
A general request to PoliGAF from a pretty busy guy who can't participate as much as he likes:

Please please please post some sort of useful information about the links you are posting. A quick quote of stuff, or just something. I feel like the amount of links that are just something like holy shit or Biden gonna biden has increased lately, and especially when I'm trying to catch up on the thread, it's not super helpful.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
platypotamus said:
A general request to PoliGAF from a pretty busy guy who can't participate as much as he likes:

Please please please post some sort of useful information about the links you are posting. A quick quote of stuff, or just something. I feel like the amount of links that are just something like holy shit or Biden gonna biden has increased lately, and especially when I'm trying to catch up on the thread, it's not super helpful.
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Noted. :)
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
California pioneering once again, telling Wal-Mart to STFU and pay.

Legislation is now making its way through the California legislature—with the support of consumer groups, unions and, interestingly, physicians—that would levy a fine of up to $6,000 on employers like Wal-Mart for every full-time employee that ends up on the state’s Medi-Cal program—the California incarnation of Medicaid.

The amount of the fine is no coincidence.

A report released last week by the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, estimates that the cost of Wal-Mart’s failure to adequately pay its employees could total about $5,815 per employee each and every year of employment.

“Accurate and timely data on Wal-Mart’s wage and employment practices is not always readily available. However, occasional releases of demographic data from public assistance programs can provide useful windows into the scope of taxpayer subsidization of Wal-Mart. After analyzing data released by Wisconsin’s Medicaid program, the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce estimates that a single 300- person Wal-Mart Supercenter store in Wisconsin likely costs taxpayers at least $904,542 per year and could cost taxpayers up to $1,744,590 per year – about $5,815 per employee.”

Says Sonya Schwartz, program director at the National Academy for State Academy for State Health Policy, “There are concerns that employers will be gaming this new system and taking less and less responsibility for their workers. This may make employers think twice.”

Of course, the California Retailers Association, where Wal-Mart Stores WMT +1.14%, Inc. is listed as a board member company, is not quite so pleased with the legislation. According to Bill Dombrowski, chief executive of the Association, ”It’s one of the worst job-killer bills I’ve seen in my 20 years in Sacramento, and that says a lot. The unions are fixated on Wal-Mart, but that’s not the issue here. It’s a monster project to implement the Affordable Care Act, and having this thrown on top is not helpful.”

...

The good news is that the proposed California legislation has a very good chance of becoming law. While the proposed legislation will require a 2/3 vote in both the Senate and Assembly, Democrats currently have supermajorities in both legislative bodies in the state.

Let’s hope that California gets this done and other states are quick to follow California’s lead. This is legislative action whose time is long overdue.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...o-more-taxpayer-subsidized-profits-for-you/2/
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
el retorno said:
Eh. I like that they're stopping them from freeloading but I'd rather not continue to push people to employer insurance as it traps them. I know medicare sucks and this will probably help people but we should be expanding public health care.
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you mean medicaid, not medicare, right?

Eh. I like that they're stopping them from freeloading but I'd rather not continue to push people to employer insurance as it traps them. I know medicare sucks and this will probably help people but we should be expanding public health care.
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Until next year, Cali's individual market fucking sucks.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Link said:
Absolutely. It's fantastic through Season 5. After that, the quality dips a bit, but it's still a very good show. Give it a shot.
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Done and done.


Black Mamba said:
California pioneering once again, telling Wal-Mart to STFU and pay.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...o-more-taxpayer-subsidized-profits-for-you/2/
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While I like this idea at first glance, I really do wonder if this may have adverse effects. The penalties, even if they're appropriate, seem a tad steep.



platypotamus said:
A general request to PoliGAF from a pretty busy guy who can't participate as much as he likes:

Please please please post some sort of useful information about the links you are posting. A quick quote of stuff, or just something. I feel like the amount of links that are just something like holy shit or Biden gonna biden has increased lately, and especially when I'm trying to catch up on the thread, it's not super helpful.
Click to expand...

Marsha Blackburn says women don't want equal pay laws.


There, how's that, yer majesty?
 
J

Jooney

Member
Dax01 said:
Where are you visiting?
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Flying out today to NYC to spend time with my brother. After that, the world's my oyster! Always looking for recommendations.

platypotamus said:
A general request to PoliGAF from a pretty busy guy who can't participate as much as he likes:

Please please please post some sort of useful information about the links you are posting. A quick quote of stuff, or just something. I feel like the amount of links that are just something like holy shit or Biden gonna biden has increased lately, and especially when I'm trying to catch up on the thread, it's not super helpful.
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You have my sword.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
“We ought to abolish the IRS and instead move to a simple flat tax, where the average American can fill out our taxes on a postcard.”

— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), in an interview with Fox News, offering his solution to the controversy of the IRS targeting conservatives groups.
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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_06/as_predicted_flat_tax_coming_b045073.php

Aside from the flat tax being a generally stupid idea, how on Earth would imposing such a thing prevent another "scandal" with the IRS?
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
Black Mamba said:
Why would anyone pay taxes if there is no IRS?
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It's not "no IRS"; the idea is that a simpler tax code leaves less room for the sorts of ambiguities that require discretion on the part of IRS employees. It's hard for the IRS to give undue scrutiny to particular groups if the only thing it's doing is comparing your W2 to the amount of money you sent in.

Basically, you resolve all the difficulties surrounding trying to tax people with weird sources of income and large entities like corporations by just not taxing them. Instead you collect all your taxes from income that can be much more straightforwardly checked on. Wages, mostly.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Gotchaye said:
It's not "no IRS"; the idea is that a simpler tax code leaves less room for the sorts of ambiguities that require discretion on the part of IRS employees. It's hard for the IRS to give undue scrutiny to particular groups if the only thing it's doing is comparing your W2 to the amount of money you sent in.

Basically, you resolve all the difficulties surrounding trying to tax people with weird sources of income and large entities like corporations by just not taxing them. Instead you collect all your taxes from income that can be much more straightforwardly checked on. Wages, mostly.
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I will say that about the current tax code, it's fucking ridiculous that I need to figure out on my own how much money I owe and I can go to jail if I get it wrong (okay, it's unlikely you go to jail over an honest mistake, this is for dramatic effect).

How about you tell me how much I owe, give me an way to dispute that, sure, but having to pay someone in order to figure out my legal obligation is a sign of a bad bad law.


Oblivion said:
Marsha Blackburn says women don't want equal pay laws.


There, how's that, yer majesty?
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She definitely not the first gender traitor, but for, in 2013?
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Chichikov said:
I will say that about the current tax code, it's fucking ridiculous that I need to figure out on my own how much money I owe and I can go to jail if I get it wrong (okay, it's unlikely you go to jail over an honest mistake, this is for dramatic effect).

How about you tell me how much I owe, give me an way to dispute that, sure, but having to pay someone in order to figure out my legal obligation is a sign of a bad bad law.
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How can the IRS tell you how much you owe? How will they know what money you made not from your employer without you telling them first?
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
In other countries that's exactly how it works.

You don't need to go out of your way like you do in America.

You even get Vacation money automatically deposited into your bank account!

In late May of last year an unexpected $4,265 arrived in my account: vakantiegeld. Vacation money. This money materializes in the bank accounts of virtually everyone in the country just before the summer holidays; you get from your employer an amount totaling 8 percent of your annual salary, which is meant to cover plane tickets, surfing lessons, tapas: vacations. And we aren’t talking about a mere “paid vacation” — this is on top of the salary you continue to receive during the weeks you’re off skydiving or snorkeling. And by law every employer is required to give a minimum of four weeks’ vacation. For that matter, even if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of vakantiegeld from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.
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P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Oblivion said:
Marsha Blackburn says women don't want equal pay laws.
There, how's that, yer majesty?
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Her argument is rooted in conservatism, government not interfering with businesses, etc. Overall I agree with her general point that businesses should create a level playing field, but therein lies the ideological question: if businesses do not pay women equally, what should be done? If she had to elaborate further I guarantee she would use the same general argument Ron Paul uses on civil rights: the consumer will withhold support from companies that discriminate, and eventually companies will have to stop discriminating in order to compete in the open market. That's simply not how corporate America works with respect to women, who are often seen as a ticking time bomb due to the possibility of pregnancy, family time off, etc. The idea: best way to lower the impact of potential explosion is to pay them less, and it "evens out" in the end. That's ultimately not fair.
 
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