US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Kara]

Thanks to that story I found out Earl Browder was an accountant / bookkeeper before becoming a cheerleader for ol' Joe Stalin. Guess I'm not such a strange snowflake, huh Esch.

RE: Self-employment - it's OK for the people who want to do it and take advantage of its opportunities (I count myself in this group BTW), but I'm comfortable saying the vast majority of people paid as contractors these days don't want to be contractors and functionally speaking aren't contractors, the most obvious example here being the behavioral control rule. (And departments of labor lack the manpower to properly audit employers and apply the rules for employee vs. contractor, even in Commiefornia.)

[benjipwns]

Browder also had some ill-conceived facial hair choices in the late 1930's:



In prison in 1917:

 

[Kara]

I know Comintern parties staned for Adolf after Molotov-Ribbentrop, but this is ridiculous.

BTW I read that loyalty oath article you posted (why I keep reading your articles I don't know), nothing is going to stop international tax avoidance except international cooperation. (I think of the EU's floor on VAT rates when I say this.)

[benjipwns]

why I keep reading your articles I don't know

[Eric P]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/magazine/has-the-libertarian-moment-finally-arrived.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1

“Let’s say Ron Paul is Nirvana,” said Kennedy, the television personality and former MTV host, by way of explaining the sort of politician who excites libertarians like herself. “Like, the coolest, most amazing thing to come along in years, and the songs are nebulous but somehow meaningful, and the lead singer kills himself to preserve the band’s legacy.

“Then Rand Paul — he’s Pearl Jam. Comes from the same place, the songs are really catchy, can really pack the stadiums, though it’s not quite Nirvana.

“Ted Cruz? He’s Stone Temple Pilots. Tries really hard to sound like Pearl Jam, never gonna sound like Nirvana. Really good voice, great staying power — but the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.”

[Joe Molotov]

I had Rand Paul pegged as more of a Soundgarden.

[Dickie Dee]

[Joe Molotov]

How convenient for them.

[Phoenix Dark]

The bigger SMH has to go to Coulter for making fun of a guy who got ebola while helping Africans (and ministering to them).

[Great Rumbler]

If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia.

[Joe Molotov]

Ann is just straight trolling, though. She'll say anything to rile people up, like how World Cup soccer is turning America gay because it's too poofy and Euro or whatever. I think Erikson probably still believes his BS.

[Phoenix Dark]

Earlier in the year D'Souza was indicted on federal charges on breaking campaign finance laws. In May he pleaded guilty to campaign finance violation and could face over a year in prison. D'Souza is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 23. The speaking event was planned for four days before that.

In response, The West Virginia Democratic Party charged that the West Virginia Republican Party was supporting actions of "an admitted felon who famously violated campaign finance laws," according to National Review. The West Virginia Democrats called that an "insult" to voters in the state.

The Charleston Daily Mail also reported that Capito had decided not to attend the event. A spokeswoman for Capito said she did not support the invite of D'Souza.

"Neither the campaign or Shelley had any knowledge of the decision to invite D'Souza to speak nor do we agree with the invitation," Capito spokeswoman Amy Graham said according to the West Virginia newspaper. "Shelley will not be attending the event and she will not allow her name to be associated with the event in any way."

The event where D'Souza was expected to speak is expected to still happen, just at another date either in September or October. The West Virginia GOP said it did not know about D'Souza's sentencing date when he was scheduled to speak.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/west-virginia-gop-cancels-d-souza-speech

4 more days

[Mandark]

If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia.

Let my people go.

[Great Rumbler]

Pro-life, pro family GOP:

Rep. Scott DesJarlais, who pressured a woman—one of two patients he admitted having affairs with—to get an abortion in the 1990s, appears to have narrowly avoided becoming the fourth Republican incumbent to lose a primary this year.

But after his reelection, the dominoes continued to fall. Divorce transcripts released two weeks after the race revealed that he and his first wife had decided to abort two pregnancies.

[Kara]

Pro-life, pro family GOP:

I hesitate to post this because it walks along the line of "ha ha look at how they internalized misogyny," but: http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

[Great Rumbler]

On Monday, Helmetta, N.J. resident Steve Wronko and his wife were questioned by officer Richard Recine after they were seen taking photos and videos at the borough’s Municipal Building. In a video Wronko recorded of the encounter, Wronko argued it was his Constitutional right to take photos and videos in a public building. That’s when Recine went off.

“We don’t even care about that because Obama just decimated the freakin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn,” Recine said in the video. “If he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.”

Wronko responded saying the officer had to follow the Constitution because it’s “the law of the land.”

“Then you tell him that,” Recine said, referring to the President.

[Great Rumbler]

From the Texas gubernatorial race:

[helios]

I'm ready to give all of my votes to Wendy Davis

[benjipwns]

On Monday, Helmetta, N.J. resident Steve Wronko and his wife were questioned by officer Richard Recine after they were seen taking photos and videos at the borough’s Municipal Building. In a video Wronko recorded of the encounter, Wronko argued it was his Constitutional right to take photos and videos in a public building. That’s when Recine went off.

“We don’t even care about that because Obama just decimated the freakin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn,” Recine said in the video. “If he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.”

Wronko responded saying the officer had to follow the Constitution because it’s “the law of the land.”

“Then you tell him that,” Recine said, referring to the President.

Aww I posted video of this on the last page but it got taken down.

"I tried to explain to [Wronko] that since 9/11 you just can't walk into a place and take videos," Recine told told MyCentralJersey.com. "All he kept on doing was saying he had civil rights, and the Constitution, and he didn't have to give me information. And I kind of like lost my temper … It was just a stupid statement on my part.”

[Human Snorenado]

Your weekly Sunday morning McCain war-boner status check: FULLY ENGORGED PER THE USUAL

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mccain-obama-stay-iraq

[benjipwns]

[Kara]

[benjipwns]

So you're saying it's in my best interests to get pregnant and abort as many times as possible in a year?

[Kara]

Since you aren't employed I assume your AGI is pretty low, so you might easily exceed the 10% threshold if you were a frequent flyer at Cash 4 Reproductive Freedom in your tax year.

Not sure you have enough other itemizable deductions to use a Schedule A doe.

[benjipwns]

I'm employed, just not in a capacity that produces anything of value for society. Can I somehow deduct that from my taxes? Or Amazon Prime? I've been watching a lot of Star Trek while at work through that. Is there some kind of Shatner Consumption Deduction? And if not, why not?

What if my abortions are work related?

[Kara]

If I were preparing a sex worker's return I'd take abortion costs as self-employment expenses.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'd probably bury them in another category or give them a very opaque description, however.

[close]

As for your situation, if you could demonstrate that watching Star Trek was necessary to the conduct of your self-employment (e.g. you run a profitable Star Trek fansite) you could probably deduct the subscription. I work on a musician's LLC and they (legitimately) deduct shit like Netflix and console online subscription costs.

One of the sample questions I grinded through today was something like "Which one of these people has to report this money as income for tax purposes?" and the right answer was a politician accepting a bribe. Now that's a Schedule C I'd like to see.

[Great Rumbler]

Graham is such a toad. I think he genuinely wants that to happen, so that he and McCain can get America back to blowing up a bunch of brown people.

[Great Rumbler]

"We believe -- wait, I thought fast food joints -- don't you guys think that they're like of the devil or something?" Palin said. "Liberals, you want to send those evil employees who would dare work at a fast food joint that you just don't believe in -- I don't know, I thought you wanted to send them to purgatory or something. So they all go vegan. And wages and picket lines, I don't know, they're not often discussed in purgatory are they? I don't know, why are you even worried about fast food wages? Well, we believe -- an America where minimum wage jobs, they're not lifetime gigs, they're stepping stones to sustainable wages. It teaches work ethic."

Take that, liberals.

[benjipwns]

[Joe Molotov]

Use your words, Sarah.

[Great Rumbler]

Glad I picked up the yearly subscription for $100, that's just not worth $10 a month.

[Steve Contra]

That wasn't a live thing either, they obviously thought that was the best Palin could do.

[Phoenix Dark]

Graham is like those libertards (no offense Benji) who predict hyper inflation every year. One day he might be right, but saying the same thing for a decade and being wrong doesn't make you a a fucking prophet. The careless fear mongering is pretty damn ugly, and it's a shame no one ever calls him out.

[benjipwns]

If you're good enough nobody ever remembers your wrong predictions. And never admit defeat. Paul Ehrlich hasn't so neither should you!

[Human Snorenado]

Graham is like those libertards (no offense Benji) who predict hyper inflation every year. One day he might be right, but saying the same thing for a decade and being wrong doesn't make you a a fucking prophet. The careless fear mongering is pretty damn ugly, and it's a shame no one ever calls him out.

...no one?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-scarborough-republicans-iraq-bitch-moan

[Oblivion]

http://wonkette.com/556987/fox-troll-why-isnt-obama-apologizing-to-cop-who-murdered-unarmed-michael-brown

[Great Rumbler]

Condolences for the cop? What would that entail?

[Oblivion]

"Sorry that colored fella got in the way of your bullets, officer."

[benjipwns]

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/fox-keith-ablow-michelle-obama-109985.html

Fox News psychiatrist Keith Ablow does not think that first lady Michelle Obama is a fit role model on fitness, calling the first lady “two-faced” on Wednesday.

“I do dislike hypocrisy and I really do believe that people speaking about diet should be role models themselves, and I’m not sure if the first lady is that role model,” Ablow said in an interview.

Ablow’s criticisms of Obama’s weight drew backlash Tuesday, after Ablow, who is a member of Fox News’ “Medical A-Team,” said on “Outnumbered” that the first lady needed to “drop a few” pounds. The first lady has been known for her initiative “Let’s Move!” that works toward ending childhood obesity.

“I’m not taking food advice from an American who dislikes America, who in many photographs during her tenure as first lady is obviously not fit, and who has a record of saying things that show that she’s two-faced,” Ablow said Wednesday. “This should be obvious; I don’t know why it isn’t.”

Ablow is standing by his comments and saying that people “should be less sensitive about talking about [weight].”

One reason for his criticism, he says, relates to consistency.

“It happens to be the case that the first lady during her tenure has not been consistently a picture of fitness,” he said. “That’s all, it is just a fact.”

Reasons such as consistency have led Ablow to label the first lady as a hypocrite. On Tuesday, Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean wrote on Twitter, “Dear @keithablow please keep your comments about women ‘dropping a few’ to yourself. Sincerely, all women.”

Ablow responded over Twitter on Wednesday, writing, “@JaniceDean, I simply dislike hypocrisy. Sincerely, all TRUTH-tellers.”

The first lady’s office declined to comment.

[Great Rumbler]

Ablow is one of the most genuinely hateful people on TV.

[benjipwns]

old but i haven't seen it so it's new to me

[seagrams hotsauce]

This is somewhat tangentially related to politics, so I figure this is a more appropriate place to put it than the random links thread.

https://sarahpalinchannel.com/updates/a-moving-conservative-movie/

I know she's an easy target, but I think this is perfect. Pretty much gold from start to finish. A hilarious shoehorning of Reagan into the review, a completely irrelevant hunger games reference, the last minute troll of Meryl Streep - it's perfect.

[benjipwns]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been indicted for abuse of power over a threat to veto prosecutors' funding, the Associated Press reported Friday.

Oops.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

thanks benji, I needed a laugh.

[Great Rumbler]

What a thug. White criminal culture rears its ugly head once again.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I like how he's started sporting black-rimmed glasses these days. Can't abandon the cowboy persona fast enough for the national level. Didn't one of the Pauls give him a hard time about it too?

[Joe Molotov]

Wendy Davis-mentum? 

[Kara]

Dumb tax thing: even though some service providers to a business are not common-law employees for tax purposes (i.e. they are independent contractors), they may be considered employees by statute for FICA and FUTA (nobody make that joke ) purposes.

OK that makes sense, in some industries there are pervasive compliance problems and the IRS loves it some payroll taxes.

One of these types of statutory employees is a driver who delivers beverages. idk anything about that industry, but it's food service and probably involves a lot of cash so I can see why they'd get singled out. (Your "eat local" eatery in yuppie lebensraum that sells fair trade food or w/e bullshit product differentiation people lap up these days to assuage their conscience is bent to hell when it comes to paying its payroll taxes, just an FYI.)

But, if the driver who delivers beverages only delivers milk, they aren't statutory employees; they're just independent contractors.

WHY DO MILK TRUCK DRIVERS GET TREATED DIFFERENTLY AND WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THIS.

[Rufus]

Lobby work, I guess.

We got dairy farmers in Europe demonstrating whenever the EU is too slow or too stingy with the subsidies.

[Yeti]

Does it matter what animal the milk is from? What if they haul soy milk or almond milk, does that count?

[Kara]

Does it matter what animal the milk is from? What if they haul soy milk or almond milk, does that count?

I'd have to review the exact text of the relevant legislation to know for certain, but I doubt it.

We may have just stumbled onto a good scheme Yeti.

[benjipwns]

Don't go digging into the U.S. Code about milk. Trust me.

[benjipwns]

FINE:

Obama food safety chief and former Monsanto lawyer Michael R. Taylor today defended the FDA’s sting operations and armed raids against raw milk producers, including Pennsylvania Amish farmer Dan Allgyer, who is facing an injunction for selling milk across state lines. None of Allgyer’s milk was contaminated. The agency’s actions are likely to put him out of business.

“We believe we’re doing our job,” Taylor said at a presentation at the Ogilvy Washington public affairs group. He promised to “keep doing our public health job,” and described his agency’s campaign against raw milk producers as based on a “public health duty” and “statutory directive.”

Taylor said he had a “quibble” with the notion that the agency is spending too much of its resources targeting boutique raw milk producers even as huge contamination outbreaks have occurred among large Iowa egg farms and elsewhere.

The FDA is in the midst of writing the critical regulations that will implement the Food Safety Modernization Act Congress passed last year with applause all around from the Obama administration, Democrats and Republicans despite ferocious opposition from small-farm advocates. The sweeping new law gives the agency extraordinary powers to detain foods on farms. It also denies farmers recourse to federal courts.

On July 3, the agency will issue its new rule to detain any food it believes is unsafe, or, more critically, “mislabeled.” In Allgyer’s case, the entire FDA case rests on a technical violation of a ban on interstate commerce in raw milk and alleged mislabeling.

Before the new law, the FDA could only impound food when it had credible evidence the food was contaminated or posed a public health hazard. The detention powers are part of what Taylor described as a new agency focus on preventing food poisoning outbreaks rather than responding to them after the fact. Taylor described the new law as giving the agency “farm to table” control over food safety.

Taylor outlined an aggressive approach, saying he would seek a “high rate of compliance” with new food safety rules, touted the agency’s “whole new inspection and compliance tool kit,” including access to farm records, mandatory recall authority, and enforcement actions that can be accomplished administratively, “without having to go to court.” He said the agency can now also revoke a farm’s mandatory registration (also a new requirement under the law), meaning the FDA can put any farm it finds in violation of any food safety rule out of business.

The owner of a Venice health food market and two other people were arrested on charges related to the allegedly unlawful production and sale of unpasteurized dairy products, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said.

The arrests of James Cecil Stewart, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch on Wednesday marked the latest effort in a government crackdown on the sale of so-called raw dairy products.


Prosecutors in Los Angeles alleged that Stewart, 64, operates a Venice market called Rawesome Foods through which he illegally sold dairy products that did not meet health standards because they were unpasteurized or were produced at unlicensed facilities.

Palmer, 51, has operated Healthy Family Farms in Santa Paula since 2007 without the required licensing for milk production, prosecutors allege. She and her company face nine charges related to the production of unpasteurized milk products.

Bloch, a Healthy Family Farms employee, is charged with three counts of conspiracy.

The arrests followed a one-year investigation during which undercover agents purchased unpasteurized dairy products from Healthy Family Farms stands in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, said Matthew Krasnowski, a district attorney spokesman. The products included unpasteurized goat milk, cheese and yogurt.

...

In June 2010 investigators raided the Venice grocery store, seizing stacks of unmarked jugs of raw milk, cartons of raw goat and cow milk, and blocks of unpasteurized goat cheese, among other grocery items. Regulators alleged that Rawesome broke the law by failing to have the proper permits to sell food to the public.

Still, no arrests were made and Rawesome reopened the same week. Stewart said at the time that Rawesome didn't need such permits because it wasn't technically a retailer. He contended that the store was a private club whose members paid an annual fee and service charges to obtain products directly from farmers.

While the raid was taking place in Venice, another was occurring at Palmer's Healthy Family Farms in Ventura County. There, California agriculture officials said, the farm owner's milk processing plant had not met standards to obtain a license to sell raw milk or raw milk products. Shortly after the raid, Palmer was back in business.

With no warning one weekday morning, investigators entered an organic grocery with a search warrant and ordered the hemp-clad workers to put down their buckets of mashed coconut cream and to step away from the nuts.

Then, guns drawn, four officers fanned out across Rawesome Foods in Venice. Skirting past the arugula and peering under crates of zucchini, they found the raid’s target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk.

A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.

...

According to the complaint the FDA filed in court, the agency began to look into Mr. Allgyer’s farm in late 2009, when an investigator in their Baltimore office used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo user group for Rainbow Acres‘ customers, and began to place orders under the assumed names for unpasteurized milk.

The orders were delivered to private residences in Maryland, where the investigator, whose name was not disclosed in the documents, would pick them up. By crossing state lines the milk became part of interstate commerce, thus subject to the FDA’s ban on interstate sales of raw milk. The court papers note that the jugs of milk were not labeled - another violation of FDA regulations.

Armed with that information, investigators visited the farm in February 2010, but Mr. Allgyer turned them away. They returned two months later with a warrant, U.S. marshals and a state police trooper, arriving at 5 a.m. for what Mr. Allgyer’s backers called a “raid,” but the FDA said was a lawful inspection.

The investigators said they saw coolers labeled with Maryland town names, and the coolers appeared to contain dairy products. The inspection led to an April 20, 2010, letter from FDA telling Mr. Allgyer to stop selling across state lines.

He instead formed a club and had customers sign an agreement stating they supported his operation, weren’t trying to entrap the owners, and that they would be shareholders in the farm’s produce, paying only for the farmer’s labor.

[benjipwns]

But seriously there's all sorts of crazy milk-related laws on the books dating back to like the 1930's or earlier.

[ZephyrFate]

I wonder how they feel about the fact that calcium intake is mostly useless and doesn't do much for your body?

[Rufus]

Define "calcium intake".

[Kara]

Raw milk low key rustles the most libertarian jimmies. The thought of the state denying children some fat soluble vitamins is unforgivable.

You gotta admit doe, the idea that a yearlong undercover investigation of unpasteurized dairy products took place is conceptually hilarious.

[benjipwns]

You gotta admit doe, the idea that a yearlong undercover investigation of unpasteurized dairy products took place is conceptually hilarious.

Procedures were followed.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm imagining some guy who is like real pumped for an undercover mission and he gets this. And then he's going around the store picking up cheeses, constantly checking his six, avoiding eye contact, sweating and holding his breath. Trying to use hippie health food lingo he's memorized. Then trying to act all casual as he goes out to his car and once he gets in letting out this huge sigh of relief that he didn't get made.

[close]

[Kara]

It's probably because I've been watching too much espionage entertainment lately, but I was imagining how lying to people for a year whose crime was being loopy organic food proponents and peddlers  slowly hollowed out the undercover agent--destroying their personal relationships, maybe costing them a marriage or partner. Donnie Brasco shit over milk, basically.

[benjipwns]

He samples some and then gets addicted, starts hiding it, trying to replace it in evidence before he gets found out. Comes home to see his wife and daughter eating some and snaps, screaming at them and wrecking up the place before tearfully admitting his addiction. Another helpless victim of the game.