We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
With the publishing of her new book, seems only fair (and balanced) to take a look at excerpts from the 2014 Tax Return for the Clinton Foundation. These are public documents.
2014 Total revenue (line 12) $177,804,612
Total grants to charity (line 13) $5,160,385 (that's less than 3%)
Total expenses of $91,281,145 Expenses include: Salaries (line 15) $34,838,106 Fund raising fees (line 16a) $850,803 Other expenses (line 17) $50,431,851 Travel $8,000,000 Meetings $12,000,000
They list 486 employees (line 5) plus 400 volunteers (line 6)
"Fair Analysis: It took 486 (886?) people who are paid $34.8 million and $91.3 million in fees and expenses to give away $5.1 MILLION. Geez, wonder what all those folks wuz really doin?
Line 22 shows ending year net assets/fund balances of $332,471,349 which is up $85,171,891 from last year's tax return! (No substantial asset increase in 2015 when she was running.....hmmm)
- All these contributions were pure charitable donations?...it's another fair question that should leap to anyone's mind.
In response to several warnings, I responded to my browser and mail provider. It's been a 12 hour on and off conversation with some guys in Delhi. They seem to know exactly what they are doing, and are polite with perfectly-grammatical if accented English. I am fairly sure one of the guys learned English from a Scottish teacher.
The point is that I had a few hundred attacks on my computer over 48 hours, some foiled and some not. Some of these evil programs penetrated my email and my laptop. Of course, nobody cares about my info, but I do not like roaming intruder programs, worms and all that, messing with my machine. Russians?
So the guys in Delhi sold me on a fancy new firewall and got rid of a lot of stuff that CCleaner could not. My old firewall was obsolete, about 4 years old. As readers know, it is a bit creepy the way the techies can take over your machine and do whatever they need to do. I guess you just have to trust them.
... rabbis, this year, please don’t pander to your congregants, spoon-feeding them bromides straight from cable news. Use your words to raise us up, together, and enlighten us with wisdom that transcends the contemporary scene.
... the electoral college seemed loaded for the Democrats from the get-go, as it has been for many recent years. It is they who begin each Presidential race with California (55 votes), New York (29), Illinois (20), Massachusetts (11), Washington (12), and New Jersey (14) locked up. Add after-thoughts like Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), and Vermont (3), and the Democrats begin the race with 172 electoral votes. The winning candidate needs 270 of the 538 total electors to win, so the race begins with the Democrat needing to secure only 98 of the remaining 366 to hit payday. Even if one concedes that Texas and smaller conservative states like Alabama, Mississippi, Idaho, and Montana are predetermined for the Republicans, the odds for a Democrat to win the electoral college from the remaining pot of states that legitimately remain “in play” remain overwhelming. Republicans mope with fellow conservatives over those odds every four years, viewing each approaching Presidential contest glumly. For those looking beyond the forthcoming bi-elections with 20/20 vision, it still seems unfair...
... my response to a statue you don't approve of is "So put up your own statue." Or even more to the point "Go do something that is worthy of commemoration in that way. No one is stopping you, with your own mixed bag of moral history, from going and doing something heroic or laudable."
However, Lifton's career has been about expanding his professional role from his office to the larger world. Big mistake. The truth is that we in the shrinkology fields have a terrible time just trying to understand one person in our office. When it comes to strangers, or the larger world, we are as much amateur opinion-vendors as anybody else.
Maybe it's Lifton's grandiosity (but I am doing the same thing to him now) but, more likely, it's pure political animosity from disappointed Hillary fans. About half the country voted for The Donald so maybe we (I include myself, voted for him with a mix of disgust and delight, choosing Buffoon over Wicked Witch, but few of my colleagues have admitted to doing so) are all nuts. After all, Trump is just a messenger.
Using diagnoses as projectiles is simply rotten behavior. If you hate somebody, just say so in plain English. Recent history shows that ploys like Lifton's have been most obviously directed towards Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan. Any pattern?
Today, Shapiro had his say. He is quite reasonable. When did common sense become inflammatory? Graduate from high school, don't have babies out of wedlock, stay married, and get a job.
OK, maybe he is a snotty know-it-all but he is a Harvard Law deplorable and they can be like that.
In a drastic move that would further exasperate the European Union’s east-west divide, the European Commission, the EU executive arm, has given a month’s notice to the Polish government to roll back its national judicial reform. Poland risks forfeiting its voting rights within the EU if it does not back down in the current dispute with Brussels.
The EU officials oppose the legal reform undertaken by Warsaw, arguing that it weakens the judiciary and gives more power to the country’s elected government. Polish government dismissed these allegations and insists that is acting within the purview of the national constitution.
The EU has already threatened Poland with legal action for opposing a pan-European migrant resettlement plan. Poland, along with Hungary and Slovakia, has refused to back the EU plan to relocate hundreds of thousands of migrants across Europe.
"Sister Margaret Ann holds a chainsaw near Miami, Florida, on September 12, 2017. Police said the nun was cutting trees to clear the roadways around Archbishop Coleman Carrol High School in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma."
Bless her, but those are not safe tree-cutting garments.
Most of America has had a rough time since the 2008 economic crisis. New York City isn’t most of America. The city is doing strikingly well, repeatedly breaking its own records for job creation, tourism, and tax revenues. But New York also keeps eclipsing another record: spending. When Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in January 2014, New York was halfway through a fiscal year in which it would spend $76.2 billion; during the current fiscal year, which started July 1, 2017, the city will spend about $87.3 billion—an $11.1 billion increase. Thus, Mayor de Blasio’s inaugural term has seen a 14.6 percent rise in annual spending. (All numbers are in today’s dollars.)
New York’s seemingly unshakable economy has given de Blasio the luxury of never having to make any real choices, across four annual budgets.
Why Onions 
Did Fashion Week Just 
Who Can Afford
Why are viruses 