scandal be to the democrats' advantage? I mean a special prosecutor would have to go into great detail about what really constitutes a 501 (c) (4) charity and give examples of how tea party groups have applied to the IRS for such status. At the very least recommendations to clarify the law would come down. Which I doubt the GOP wants. This may just be a scandal that benefits Democrats in certain ways.

Party' organizations to see if they are following proper tax laws. Fact is there is lots and lots of money being filtered to right wing groups. Just like Occupy organizations do more civil disobedience so they attract police interest when they organize. Same difference.

that the GOP took advantage of, giving them meaning in their lives with god/gay/guns. Like fucked up young adults everywhere they were vulnerable to psychopaths who would make them march along with the manipulative narrative. Who told the fucked up that they were on the right path, while the others, outside the cult, were lost. How special that made them feel. How they fit in. They were something weren't they? Their hopes/fantacies/dreams matched their lives for once. They were so self actualized. So true. So American. So right. And then one day 20 kids got blown away by an AR 15. And they finally realized their leaders were kinda the ones who were fucked up. And on the wrong path. So they wanted background checks. And the NRA squealed quite a bit. And won the first vote. But that feeling of the 20 dead kids didn't go away. And it seemed better, on this issues at least, to follow the people who wanted to try and stop events such as Newtown. And they connected to an all-round healthier narrative of what it means to be an American: the right to be reasonably safe from harmful people.

One-Third of U.S. Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter, Threatening Food Supply

By Brandon Keim at Wired


http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/winter-honeybee-losses/

"SNIP........................

Nearly one in three commercial honeybee colonies in the United States died or disappeared last winter, an unsustainable decline that threatens the nation’s food supply.

Multiple factors — pesticides, fungicides, parasites, viruses and malnutrition — are believed to cause the losses, which were officially announced today by a consortium of academic researchers, beekeepers and Department of Agriculture scientists.

“We’re getting closer and closer to the point where we don’t have enough bees in this country to meet pollination demands,” said entomologist Dennis vanEngelstorp of the University of Maryland, who led the survey documenting the declines.

Beekeepers lost 31 percent of their colonies in late 2012 and early 2013, roughly double what’s considered acceptable attrition through natural causes. The losses are in keeping with rates documented since 2006, when beekeeper concerns prompted the first nationwide survey of honeybee health. Hopes raised by drop in rates of loss to 22 percent in 2011-2012 were wiped out by the new numbers.

.......................SNIP"



I wonder if the neocons see this, the ecology failure and a chance for private business to step in, as a win. After all ecology does stuff for free and what is the point of that!

assholes who are rich will become the most powerful because the decent rich will give a certain percentage to charity. In essence being a good person and feeling connected to the greater world around one and giving away your fortune will put the assholes at an advantage. They will end up with vastly more money. They will be all powerfull. They will make the laws in their asshole image. WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT WE ARE ALREADY THERE!

The only way for the good to compete with that power is to either stop giving money away, which would mean an even worse dystopia, or to tax both the good rich and the asshole rich alike. Otherwise, in a few generations we will be ruled by nasty royalty instead of by the majority made up of the middle class (a large and robust middle class at that) & the poor aswell as the rich.

construction safe, often implemented after horrid disasters. Seems the rest of the world is going through these awful events again. Why couldn't they just learn what we did without going through the collapses and fires? Then you have to ask why is the GOP trying to undo safety regulations in the the USA and Canada? It is like every generation has to learn that government should play a role in safety regulations. And that is wrong, wrong wrong. Look at West, Texas. We should have some way of transferring such collective knowledge through the generations and around the world without going through the disasters. That garmet factory in Bangladesh was built on a swamp. 4 stories. Then they added another 4 stories and didn't put in support walls, only pillars inside. They were building a ninth story when it collapsed. I don't want to know how people die in a fire at a psychiatric hospital. There should be fire escapes and doors that become automatically unlocked in case of fire. It just makes me so angry.

we can get some men going in the right direction. Think of Ben Bradly the managing editor of the Washington Post for years. I read his biography and it turn out that his incredible affability is sublimated aggression. He went far and changed the world. If the rich have ways with coping with aggression don't you think the middle class and poor should know about it? For sure we are only talking about a small percentage of young men who need help and options. But it is a discussion we should have. We, society at large, are at a point in psychology and biology where we are trying to solve a whole host of problems. Why not this. Why allow lives to be wasted?

times. Thay has really made us stronger. Clinton did the same thing during his presidency. But of course you don't cut debt in a recession. We all knew this after the great depression. But the GOP myth machine went into overdrive after Bush crashed the economy and loaded the country up with debt during the 'good times'(when he should have been paying for his two wars). So not only are the GOP wrong about how to get out of a recession, they are wrong about what you do during the good times. They are the complete mirror image of what sound economic policy should look like. They truly are KAOS. They want to 'crack the back' of government. They want no entity to be as powerful as their corporations. They truly want to muck things up for the middle class and the poor.

crisis? That's interesting. Do Liberals feel happy when people were hurt in texas fertilizer plant explosion? I doubt it. And if this man was so comfortable saying this out loud, what are republicans whispering amongst themselves? Sure looks like they have a negative fire and brimstone 'narrative' for the portion of the public that don't vote like they do. And they enjoy it.

McCarthy once they got wise? They shut him down. But that generation had already dealt with Hitler and knew the stakes. Remember Lee Atwater or Karl Rove and how they were so admired for their tricky moves by the right. Seems every generation has to learn the hard way about sociopaths. Every generation needs to learn to get wise and, as a whole, rejected the outright exploitation of of their society. Occupy was a start - the 99% - would have been a great movement. But it got shut down by the powers that be and pushed back into being a left wing movement. Obama is trying to build such a consensus now. I wish him well with getting moderates to 'get wise'.