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PoliGAF 2013 |OT3| 1,000 Years of Darkness and Nuclear Fallout

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C

Chichikov

Member
Nice, very nice.

Occupy Wall Street activists buy $15m of Americans' personal debt
A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans' personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit.

Rolling Jubilee, set up by Occupy's Strike Debt group following the street protests that swept the world in 2011, launched on 15 November 2012. The group purchases personal debt cheaply from banks before "abolishing" it, freeing individuals from their bills.

By purchasing the debt at knockdown prices the group has managed to free $14,734,569.87 of personal debt, mainly medical debt, spending only $400,000.

"We thought that the ratio would be about 20 to 1," said Andrew Ross, a member of Strike Debt and professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University. He said the team initially envisaged raising $50,000, which would have enabled it to buy $1m in debt.

"In fact we've been able to buy debt a lot more cheaply than that."

The group is able to buy debt so cheaply due to the nature of the "secondary debt market". If individuals consistently fail to pay bills from credit cards, loans, or medical insurance the bank or lender that issued the funds will eventually cut its losses by selling that debt to a third party. These sales occur for a fraction of the debt’s true values – typically for five cents on the dollar – and debt-buying companies then attempt to recoup the debt from the individual debtor and thus make a profit.

The Rolling Jubilee project was mostly conceived as a "public education project", Ross said.

"We're under no illusions that $15m is just a tiny drop in the secondary debt market. It doesn't make a dent in the amount of debt.

"Our purpose in doing this, aside from helping some people along the way – there's certainly many, many people who are very thankful that their debts are abolished – our primary purpose was to spread information about the workings of this secondary debt market."

The group has focussed on buying medical debt, and has acquired the $14.7m in three separate purchases, most recently spending $13.5m on medical debt owed by 2,693 people across 45 states and Puerto Rico, Rolling Jubilee said in a press release.

“No one should have to go into debt or bankruptcy because they get sick,” said Laura Hanna, an organiser with the group. Hanna said 62% of all personal bankruptcies have medical debt as a contributing factor.

Due to the nature of the debt market, the group is unable to specify whose debt it purchases, taking on the amounts before it discovers individuals’ identities. When Rolling Jubilee has bought the debt they send notes to their debtors “telling them they’re off the hook”, Ross said.

Ross, whose book, Creditocracy and the case for debt refusal, outlines the problems of the debt industry and calls for a “debtors’ movement” to resist credit, said the group had received letters from people whose debt they had lifted thanking them for the service. But the real victory was in spreading knowledge of the nature of the debt industry, he said.

"Very few people know how cheaply their debts have been bought by collectors. It changes the psychology of the debtor, knowing this.

“So when you get called up by the debt collector, and you're being asked to pay the full amount of your debt, you now know that the debt collector has bought your debt very, very cheaply. As cheaply as we bought it. And that gives you moral ammunition to have a different conversation with the debt collector."
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P

PhoenixDark

Banned
IGSaint said:
You're saying everything negative while ignoring any positives. The website will be working before the election, premiums are not skyrocketing for everyone. The sequester can be blamed on republican obstruction to reversing it. Democrats will do much better than 2010 come the midterms imo.
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I don't see democrats working to get rid of it with sensible alternatives that can pass the senate or house. John McCain and Lindsy Graham want to get this done, they'd probably jump in front of a train to save a military contractor. I'd like to see someone working with them to come up with a fix.

It won't be a budget fix considering both sides will probably never pass a budget in this political environment. It has to be separate legislation. If democrats can't find 50-100b in spending cuts they can deal with cutting, this can be resolved. The sequestration is bleeding the economy slowly...
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
Dax01 said:
Better?

I was wondering where you were. Thanks!


I hear the possibility of it being cancelled is already scaring off some business.
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Sleepy Hollow? It was already renewed and is going to be around for a while. Even if it's canceled, who cares? The whole point of the tax credits is to be able to foster a production culture that would allow for multiple projects to film there to support those jobs in the long term while cultivated talented below-the-line jobs.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
ivysaur12 said:
Sleepy Hollow? It was already renewed and is going to be around for a while. Even if it's canceled, who cares? The whole point of the tax credits is to be able to foster a production culture that would allow for multiple projects to film there to support those jobs in the long term while cultivated talented below-the-line jobs.
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Sorry, I meant the possibility of the tax credit being cancelled is already scaring off business. :p But that's just what I've heard; haven't confirmed it or anything.
theprodigy said:
Google Chrome here
Click to expand...

Had a feeling. Isn't Chrome bad with .gifs? Maybe it's no longer cooperating with NeoGAF.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
Dax01 said:
Sorry, I meant the possibility of the tax credit being cancelled is already scaring off business. :p But that's just what I've heard; haven't confirmed it or anything.


Had a feeling. Isn't Chrome bad with .gifs? Maybe it's no longer cooperating with NeoGAF.
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Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's no reason to take a show to movie to NC right now. Might as well go to Georgia, Vancouver, or even back to LA if Garcetti can get his shit together.

I would bet Sleepy Hollow moves production after 2014 if the tax credits go away.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
Tamanon said:
Unable to see it on Chrome.

Able to see everybody's avatar but Dax's.
Click to expand...

*shrugs* I've tried changing the file format and re-uploading it. That's basically all I can do.

Cyan? Y2Kev? Gotchaye?
ivysaur12 said:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's no reason to take a show to movie to NC right now. Might as well go to Georgia, Vancouver, or even back to LA if Garcetti can get his shit together.

I would bet Sleepy Hollow moves production after 2014 if the tax credits go away.
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Just another reason for me to leave NC, haha.
 
S

Sibylus

Banned
White House considers appointing civilian NSA chief amid calls for reform - Administration also pondering plan to disaggregate embattled agency from new military command created around it (Spencer Ackerman, Guardian)
In the first likely structural reform of the National Security Agency since the Guardian began publishing Edward Snowden’s revelations, the Obama administration is giving strong consideration to appointing a civilian to run the surveillance apparatus and splitting it from the military command that has been its institutional twin since 2010.

But skeptics say those plans appear more cosmetic than substantive, leaving alone the central questions of bulk surveillance and potentially leaving the military with diminished capacity to safeguard its data from foreign attacks.
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Giving additional leeway to the White House to appoint a civilian to the position, the Senate intelligence committee approved a bill last week that would, among other provisions, require the Senate to approve the NSA director for the first time. It contains no requirement that the director be a serving officer.
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US Cyber Command is the military’s newest command, established in 2009 and operational in 2010. Its mission and its legal authorities remain in flux. Cybercom, as it is known, is not supposed to play a role in safeguarding the civilian internet, but the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security signed a memorandum in October 2010 opening the door for military backup should a cyberattack overwhelm civilian agencies’ capacity to mitigate it. Although Cybercom insisted for the first few years of its existence that its role was defensive in nature, Alexander told a Senate panel in March that he was creating “27 teams that would support combatant commands and their planning process for offensive cyber capabilities.”

Alexander is the only leader that Cybercom has ever had. From the beginning of the command’s tenure, there has been concern about Alexander’s dual role as its commander and the director of NSA, which is not supposed to perform cyberattacks. Based on a classified intelligence budget leaked by Edward Snowden, the Washington Post reported that US intelligence agencies have performed at least 231 offensive operations online in 2011 alone.
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A

Arrowgigantic

Member
Dax01 said:
*shrugs* I've tried changing the file format and re-uploading it. That's basically all I can do.
Click to expand...
Chrome here too. When I try to open the image in a new tab, it says, "Duplicate headers received."

Do you have any non-alphanumeric characters in the filename of the image you're uploading? Googling suggests that a comma in the filename can trigger this problem.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
Senate Republicans blocked another of President Barack Obama's picks for one of the nation's top courts on Tuesday, the latest skirmish in a nominations battle that has intensified partisan tensions in the chamber.

The vote derailed Obama's selection of Georgetown University law professor Cornelia Pillard to fill one of three vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The roll call was 56-41 in favor of ending GOP procedural delays that have blocked Pillard from winning confirmation — four short of the 60 votes Democrats needed.

..

Tuesday's vote prompted Democrats to threaten anew to unilaterally rewrite Senate rules to make it harder for the chamber's minority party to block nominations. Democrats could do that by curbing a minority's ability to require 60 votes to end procedural delays called filibusters.
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Link

FUCKING DO IT ALREADY ASSHATS STOP TALKING ABOUT IT YOU FUCKING MORONS


God the Democrats are so pathetic sometimes
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Aaron Strife said:
hahahahahahaha holy fucking shit are you serious

Bad news guys, we lost Rob Schneider:


Democrats are why Rob Schneider hasn't made a movie in 7 years? That seems more like an endorsement than anything.
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LOL. What a loser.

But since we're on the subject, does anyone have any empirical proof that businesses are moving out of California to Texas, New Mexico, Somalia, or the Soviet Union? I read a study a couple of years ago by the Public Policy Institute that said that California's over-taxation and over-regulation has had a negligible effect on businesses in the state.

If anyone has any updated studies, feel free to share.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
Matthew Gallant said:
Chrome here too. When I try to open the image in a new tab, it says, "Duplicate headers received."

Do you have any non-alphanumeric characters in the filename of the image you're uploading? Googling suggests that a comma in the filename can trigger this problem.
Click to expand...

I did have a comma in the filename. How about now? Why would that be a problem for Chrome and not Firefox?
 
S

speculawyer

Member
789shadow said:
You just fucking know that if they go through with this they'll lose the Senate.
Click to expand...

So what if they did? They never effectively use the filibuster anyway. How much of Bush's stupidity did they filibuster? Maybe a couple crazy judges? .. . who got replaced by other crazy judges.



Edit: Yes, you fixed it, Dax.
 
D

daycru

Member
Finally signed up for Obamacare, they want $135 a month for the cheapest nonsense offered. I make next to $0. That isn't changing soon. Guess I'll be paying the fee, as Obama is asking for me to produce a mathematical impossibility.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
WayneMorse said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/18/scott-brown-jeanne-shaheen-poll_n_3949964.html

Shaheen beats Brown by only 4 points in a hypothetical match up, the race will be competitive and the issues with the ACA will only make it worse for Shaheen.
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Uh-huh. And how will it look for Scott Brown switching states just two years after losing a re-election he was supposed to be heavily favored for?

I think this needs to be stressed as possible because no one in the media seems to understand - Scott Brown is not an exceptionally talented politician. He lucked his way into a Massachusetts Senate seat for a couple years then got pushed aside by Elizabeth Warren in an election result everyone but PD should have seen coming. If he actually thinks he can win this thing, he will be humiliated. It'll be like Harold Ford trying to run for New York Senate in 2010.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
daycru said:
Finally signed up for Obamacare, they want $135 a month for the cheapest nonsense offered. I make next to $0. That isn't changing soon. Guess I'll be paying the fee, as Obama is asking for me to produce a mathematical impossibility.
Click to expand...

Wait, what? Why don't you sign up for the medicaid expansion?
 
X

xnipx

Member
daycru said:
Finally signed up for Obamacare, they want $135 a month for the cheapest nonsense offered. I make next to $0. That isn't changing soon. Guess I'll be paying the fee, as Obama is asking for me to produce a mathematical impossibility.
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Where do you live? That's the price after subsidy?
 
D

daycru

Member
Oblivion said:
Wait, what? Why don't you sign up for the medicaid expansion?
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It said I wasn't eligible, but could send along my information anyway to be looked at. I don't think that loaded though?

xnipx said:
Where do you live? That's the price after subsidy?
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Ohio. It's what's displayed on my account after giving them all of my information (finances, address, are you retarded?, do you have children?, etc.)
 
D

daycru

Member
Am I looking at the wrong thing?

PmI2PPG.png
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D

daycru

Member
Diablos said:
Were you able to view your eligibility results? That is how you are supposed to be able to see the tax credits.

Call them tomorrow. I still can't see mine.
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I got a PDF, including a chart with this information:

Results
Eligible to purchase health coverage through the Marketplace, including catastrophic plans

Next Steps
Choose a health plan and make first month's payment
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Obama Job Approval Sinks To Bush Levels In New Poll

President Barack Obama faced perhaps the worst job approval numbers of his presidency in a new Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday afternoon.

American voters disapprove of the job he's doing by a margin of 54 to 39 percent -- up from a 49-45 percent disapproval on Oct. 1, according to the same poll. It's the first time his approval rating has dipped below 40 percent. His lowest score in the ongoing Quinnipiac survey was a 55-41 percent disapproval on Oct. 6, 2011.

"President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to the level of former President George W. Bush at the same period of his Presidency," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The president faces net disapproval among men (58-37 percent), independents (63-30 percent), white voters (62-32 percent), senior citizens (59-36 percent) and even women (51-40 percent) and Hispanic voters (47-41 percent). Democrats and black voters continue to strongly approve, 79-14 percent and 75-15 percent, respectively.

The botched rollout of Obamacare since Oct. 1 looms large in the poll drop, raising the stakes in the White House's pledge to fix the problems by the end of the month.

"American voters are divided 46 - 47 percent on whether Obama 'knowingly deceived' the public when he said people could keep their existing health insurance plans if they wished," the Quinnipiac poll found. "Voters also support 73 - 20 percent extending the March 31, 2014 deadline for signing up for coverage without facing a penalty."

In six weeks, the share of American voters who said Obama was "honest and trustworthy" dipped 10 points, from 54 to 44 percent. In the same time period, there was a five percent drop (from 53 to 48 percent) among voters who said the president has "strong leadership qualities." Voters disapprove of his handling of health care by a 60-36 percent margin.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obama-quinnipiac-poll
Yup.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
daycru said:
Finally signed up for Obamacare, they want $135 a month for the cheapest nonsense offered. I make next to $0. That isn't changing soon. Guess I'll be paying the fee, as Obama is asking for me to produce a mathematical impossibility.
Click to expand...

If you make so little that you don't need to file taxes, you are exempt from the fine.

If your state hasn't expanded medicaid, which is why you should be getting it if you make about $0, you should blame your state.

Ohio. It's what's displayed on my account after giving them all of my information (finances, address, are you retarded?, do you have children?, etc.)
Click to expand...

Ohio is in the process of expanding medicaid, so hold tight. If you make so little to qualify for medicaid, you won't get a subsidy, which makes sense why you're seeing $135.


PD- Obama's approval ratings are useless in late 2013. Completely useless.
 
D

daycru

Member
Black Mamba said:
If you make so little that you don't need to file taxes, you are exempt from the fine.

If your state hasn't expanded medicaid, which is why you should be getting it if you make about $0, you should blame your state.



Ohio is in the process of expanding medicaid, so hold tight. If you make so little to qualify for medicaid, you won't get a subsidy, which makes sense why you're seeing $135.


PD- Obama's approval ratings are useless in late 2013. Completely useless.
Click to expand...

Did some research, seems like Jan 1 is the target for the expansion. Will check back after the new year.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
in VA dems are saying Herring has one with all ballots counted. expect litigation and recounts though.

A sweep of the statewide offices #demsindisary
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Black Mamba said:
This coupled with people in Congress (both sides) proposing ridiculous things to "fix" the cancellations issue is making things less optimistic.

You cannot just extend the previous plans or force companies to offer them without ruining the market. These fucking idiots need to listen to the people who do these things. You aren't trained for this.
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They'll screw up the individual market and leave the shining beacon of Medicaid left standing
 
B

bonercop

Member
Chichikov said:
I've collectivized your link, it now belongs to the proletariat.
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m...muh freedom!

APKmetsfan said:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...f9670a-4bca-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html

This isn't good
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I expected this too happen. Brook's law, mang.

I only felt my stomach sink more and more since he made that promise as reports kept piling in describing how poor the communication between the WH and the contractors was. I had hoped the administration knew something we didn't, and they had identified the problem and had a roadmap ready towards solving it.

If their plan was "throw techy people at it until it works" though.....fuuuuuuuck.

EDIT: I posted the wrong link. Fixed it.
 
L

Lucky Forward

Member
speculawyer said:
WTF? Didn't some editor read this?

ThatsRacist.gif
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B-Dubs said:
In what way is that not racist?
Click to expand...


Richard Cohen Defends Column: 'The Word Racist Is Truly Hurtful'

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen defended his column centered on the Tea Party on Tuesday, in which he claimed that those with "conventional views must repress a gag reflex" when they encounter biracial couples such as newly-elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife Chirlane McCray.

"I didn't write one line, I wrote a column," he told the Huffington Post in an interview. "The column is about Tea Party extremism and I was not expressing my views, I was expressing the views of what I think some people in the Tea Party held."

"The word racist is truly hurtful," he added. "It's not who I am. It's not who I ever was. It's just not fair. It's just not right."
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O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Lucky Forward said:
Richard Cohen Defends Column: 'The Word Racist Is Truly Hurtful'
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I know his column was posted earlier today, but I just sorta glossed over it. So I went ahead and re-read it just now and Ta-Nehisi Coates summarized it best:

Right. I'm not racist. I just don't recognize my country. Also, the sight of you, and your used-to-be-lesbian black wife, and your brown children make me sick to my stomach. It's not like I want to lynch you or anything.
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N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Lucky Forward said:
"The word racist is truly hurtful," he added. "It's not who I am. It's not who I ever was. It's just not fair. It's just not right."
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About that

Richard Cohen said:
In order to be admitted to certain Washington jewelry stores, customers have to ring a bell. The ring-back that opens the door is almost perfunctory. According to the owner of one store, only one type of person does not get admitted: Young black males. The owner says they are the ones who stick him up.

Nearby is a men's clothing shop -- upscale, but not really expensive. When young black males enter this store, the sales help are instructed to leave their customers and, in the manner of defensive backs in football, "collapse" on the blacks. Politely, but firmly, they are sort of shooed out of the store. The owner's explanation for this? Young blacks are his shoplifters.

Are these examples of racism? The shopkeepers either think so or think they can be accused of it. They are loath to talk about their policies and quick to assert their liberalism, but business, as they say, is business. Most of their customers apparently concur. Usually they say nothing when they see blacks turned away, and one white congressman, witnessing some blacks being rebuffed, said that if he owned the store, he would do the same even though he considers himself a liberal. He obviously thought there was a contradiction between his ideology and his self-interest.

...

For too long now, liberals have reacted to race as predictably as the racists they so abhor. Like racists, they too sometimes see nothing but race, ignoring all other factors. As long as race is involved, it dominates. For instance, it was not just race that bothered some school-busing opponents; it was social class as well. As for our Washington storekeepers, race is only one factor in their admissions policy. Age and sex count, too. And while race is clearly the most compelling factor, ask yourself what their policies would be if young white males were responsible for most urban crime.

Of course, all policies based on generalities have their injustices. A storekeeper might not know that the youths he has refused to admit are theology students -- rich ones at that. But then insurance companies had no way of knowing I was not a typical teen- age driver. I paid through the nose anyway.

A nation with our history is entitled to be sensitive to race and racism -- and we are all wary of behavior that would bring a charge of racism. But the mere recognition of race as a factor -- especially if those of the same race recognize the same factor -- is not in itself racism. This may apply as much to some opponents of busing or public housing in their own neighborhood as it does to who gets admitted to jewelry stores. Let he who would open the door throw the first stone.
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