Like most things that offend, its not what was said but how it was said, and the underlying worldview that was exposed. I hope enough AF clothes get donated to clothe every homeless person from coast to coast LOL.

All he had to say was that their marketing vision has always been consistent with what's in the stores now. There are a hundred ways to spin it to not openly offend plus-size shoppers, and he chose none of them.

I may have to modify my statement if a "Mediator" is different or has different powers than a "Moderator". If a mediator's jobs and powers are less than those of a moderator.

It's more or less the same thing. I think we've spent enough time on this flap by now, don't you?

And one more thing...I've got this moist, smelly pile of liquid crap on block and this isn't his thread so how does that work that he continues to see anything I do? I thought blocking scum like him made my posts invisible to him? Oh well, doesn't matter.


For what it's worth, the block option doesn't really work that way. They can't contact you, but they're still visible in the forum.

It's time to put the mudslinging to rest, and stay on topic. That goes for everyone, regardless of whether a member volunteers their time to the site or not. Keeping score on Internet slap fights is a waste of everyone's time. Besides, your positions are well thought-out from what I've seen. I'd much rather see you share those opinions than never-ending expletive-laden retorts. Let's put that in the past and all move on.

I applaud her decision, I know it couldn't be easy to do something like that, but it makes a lot of sense. I have to say though, while it's the right decision for her, we shouldn't draw the conclusion that it's right for everyone. I mean, she's really wealthy, and therefore is thoroughly unconcerned with insurance coverage or the cost of treatment. But what about those of us who are? Besides the fact that I'm sure such a preventative procedure wouldn't be covered by most insurance policies, I wonder if getting tested for that gene might cause an insurance company to jack up the premium (or deny coverage altogether) if and when they find out you're positive for it.

From the Inspector General's Report on the IRS, issued May 14, 2013:

The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions . p.2

--

I happen to agree with you, Monocle. I don't think there's any way that this leads all the way to Obama (though his spokesman said he found out about it a few weeks ago, yet he himself said he found out Friday, just like us), but if there's compelling evidence that it does, then there's no question he'd need to appear before Congress.

A lot of Americans who voted for Obama, and then voted for him again, believed in hope and change, and wanted the hope and change he said he would bring. When Americans don't get what they voted for they can get pretty dang pissed off, right. Why didn't his vision of hope and change ever materialize? Well remember, the economy was crashing on a scale of a locomotive plowing into the center of town! ALL of the focus had to go into stopping the depression the WORLD was heading for. And unfortunately, a train doesn't stop on a dime. It slows down...slowly. To get a train going again occurs...slowly. As in...chug, chug, chug...I think I can...I think I can. Obama also has had the party of "No" to deal with, filibustering more times than all the filibusters in history COMBINED. So...buh bye hope and change while this guy tries to get something done. I think that whole scenario is not only sad. It is treasonous. The American people voted for this President and those congressmen to get something done. Sadly, not much has been accomplished

In regarding to the IRS debacle, anytime a govt agency is profiling any group...it's wrong on the highest level wrong. However, and sadly, it happens. Investigate...investigate the investigation, as they will...trying to find a way to pin the blame directly to Obama's lapel like a carnation. And somehow find a way to extend the blame to the next democrat running for President, as well.

In our partisan world, there's no question that on the right wing there is the hope that at least one of these scandals will lead all the way to the President, however unlikely that might be. I, on the other hand, am really hoping that none do. But as long as the truth comes out one way or the other, that's what's most important.

I don't blame Obama for the immediate and unrelenting truculence he got from the Republicans, and obviously he shoulders no blame for the economic collapse that preceded his presidency. Congress' intransigence has been unforgivable too, I agree.

No, my issues with the President are aside from all of those onerous circumstances. Without enumerating them all here, I'll just say that I wish that the campaign and vision that he ran with actually resembled the way in which he's chosen to govern. And that has very little to do with the challenges put before him. Hell, lots of us could do a pretty good "hope and change/transformative figure" routine if the congress and economy conspired to give us a clear path to do everything we wanted. But our leaders reveal themselves in the toughest of times, not the easiest. I've been disappointed with a lot of what's been revealed.


I said in an earlier post, Various government agencies have been profiling groups for a long time. But it never bothers the average man until the profiling starts hitting home. Here is an example of what I meant. http://www.foreffectivegov.org/node/2281. The NAACP was profiled because of statements it's chairman, Julian Bond, made. Chairman Julian Bond criticized the Bush administration's policies in his speech to the group's July convention. The NAACP is a 501(c)(3) organization, and as such is barred from intervening in elections, but is allowed to comment on policies and government actions. The NAACP questioned the timing of the IRS action, calling it a politically motivated attempt to silence the organization and discourage blacks from voting. The IRS denied political motivation and referred the matter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The report from TIGTA reviews the structure and implementation of IRS enforcement in the 2004 election, finding no political motivation, but not identifying whether the NAACP was in the sample of cases it reviewed. This investigation went on for TWO YEARS! Where was the outrage? Where was the headlines? What was the difference? IMHO, most conservatives are white. Most groups associated with "patriot" are white while most associated with the NAACP are black. The IRS investigation into the NAACP ended on Aug.31, 2006, two years after it began and the only outrage demonstrated by anyone was the outrage of the lawyers for the NAACP who won, in the end.

So, again I say, Various government agencies have been profiling groups for a long time. But it never bothers the average man until the profiling starts hitting home. And that is outrageous and wrong. But in America...it happens.
Where is the outrage?

You've got outrage now LOL. As for the NAACP, agreed. Equally (if not worse) reprehensible, and you may very well be right about the reasons behind less media coverage in that scandal. Though I think you'd agree that it makes a similar scandal on a different group no less unsavory, no matter how close to home it might or might not be to the beholder. It does happen, as you said, but any outrage necessary to prevent it from happening again is essential.

IRS Provided Confidential Info on 31 Conservative Groups to Well-funded Liberal Non-Profit Journalist Organization.

ProPublica on Monday reported that the same IRS division that targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle provided the investigative-reporting organization with confidential applications for tax-exempt status.

That revelation contradicts previous statements from the agency and may represent a violation of federal guidelines. Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS sector that reviews tax-exemption applications, told a congressional oversight committee in April 2012 that IRS code prohibited the agency from providing information about groups that had not yet been approved.


I predict substantial house-cleaning at the IRS, in short order.

Indeed, the trend here (myself included) has been to clobber the conservatives for perceived ill will/malfeasance/duplicity/venality/barbarism/bigotry/sexism, etc., and to reserve criticism of Obama and his administration to a relatively small subset of mutually agreed-to items of record. I know I've done it. Why? Because I'm partisan. I trust conservatives less than I trust liberals, in general. I feel threatened and my intelligence feels insulted by many conservative talking points, and less so by liberal talking points. I want Obama and the left-leaning makers of law to do what's best for the country, and to be right about it. I don't want tin-foil hatters to be right about anything that they throw against the wall in hopes that something will stick. I don't want to feel like a sucker and a mark for supporting him*.

The speculation I have no issue with. Without that, there wouldn't be much to talk about really, but it's getting less credible to volley every suggestion of wrongdoing by Obama et.al. back with some variation of "well, maybe...but...but, when Bush and the Republicans...."

We get it. Those were some bad dudes running the country from 2000-2008. I don't have any question about how bad they were, but that was then. And this- with a guy who made such a huge deal about transparency, and actually campaigned (with a straight face, no less) on 'Hope and Change', and post-partisan government action- is now. A handful of scandals, some of which inevitably is all smoke no fire (or at least we hope so), but is there nothing there, at all? Or are we liberals and left-leaners just going to crouch down and demand not only the smoking gun but the spent bullets before we discuss the possibility that there's a power overreach? The fact that I'm not a libertarian activist gives me no comfort, and hanging hopes on "well, maybe they targeted some liberal groups too" is just looking the other way. But hey, the IRS supervisor said it wasn't politically motivated, so maybe we should just take her at her word.

And it's true that we don't know whether it goes all the way up to Obama or not. But just as it doesn't pass a common-sense test to say that targeting conservative groups wasn't politically motivated, it also fails miserably to buy the same excuse we've gotten on: AP wiretaps, Benghazi, fast and furious, and IRS: "We had no knowledge of this. We heard about it on the news, just like you did." Not saying they're "guilty" of anything in any of those cases, but you truly didn't know about any of the goings-on in any of those situations, Barack? Really?




*and save the speech about how you can't trust any politician to be beholden to the electorate or to govern honestly and earnestly, and are inherently a sucker and a mark for taking politics seriously in the first place. I know those talking points well; I even agree with most of them. But I'm just not cut out for political nihilism. At some point, laws get passed that affect us, and some are better for us than others, despite the fact that everything is set up to placate the handful of corporations and consortiums that hold sway over the 'free' world. Therefore, I'll support the least harmful candidate and hope I haven't made the wrong choice.

The question was "Has anybody read Lerner's statement?" It wasn't asking if you specifically read it. I wasn't making any kind of personal statement toward you. The Blaze is the article quoted in the initial question on the thread.

Yes. As well as her QandA transcript.

All I'm saying is that the right wing has a record of blowing things out of proportion to make Democratic administrations look bad, and liberal groups look bad. They allow a lot of leeway to right wing spinners. This is from AP: "Lerner said the number of groups filing for this tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in an office in Cincinnati.

Lerner said this was done to develop expertise among staffers and consistency in their reviews. As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity."

One of the things that the people in Cincinnati did was to make a list of things to look for in applications, one of the things they came up with was Tea Party. How is that inappropriate, seeing as the Tea Party is a political movement? Another word, "Patriot," isn't necessarily a conservative word. Are liberals not allowed to be patriots? How is linking the word "Patriot," to a flag for violation of tax exempt status targeting right wing groups?

The right wing would like us to believe that everyone with the word Patriot in their name is a conservative, but that isn't really the case. Lerner and the IRS have consistently denied that this was done for political purposes. How is that an admission that it was?

1) it wasn't just the Cincinnati office, as it turns out.
2) yes, technically, those phrasings aren't proprietary to conservative and libertarian politics, but to claim plausible deniability that they were coded as conservatives takes a high degree of self-delusion. There's no way you'd believe some homeland security hack, circa 2003, if he claimed he wasn't profiling liberals just because the targeted groups contained the words "progressive" or "change" in their titles. To wit:
3)can you name a liberal or neutral group containing the word patriot? If you can name one, can you name two or three? Because ms. Lerner could not. And given that this issue dates back at least a few weeks internally, you would think she'd be at least minimally prepared to head off what appears at face value to be politically motivated profiling.
4)they've already changed their story. First it was just a few rogue low-level employees. Then it was just one office. Now it's multiple offices, including 2 in California. And if it's all a matter of vetting course,
5) why apologize and change the story to begin with?

You're right though, that often crises aren't as bad as they might seem. I hope that's the case here, despite how it all looks and sounds.

Something powerful stirred inside me when I heard the groan of carnal satisfaction over the gentle waves. That something had been trying to return for a while, nudged toward life with every sultry glance and beautiful body that I encountered or imagined. But when I turned the corner that night and saw her on his lap, rolling her hips, unmistakeably fucking, that was when...

Added 09 May 2011 | Category Group Sex | Votes 88 | Avg Score 4.93 | Views 22,198 | 32 Comments

The lingering scents of warm shower water and body lotion lingered in the air when I slowly awoke, still nestled comfortably in the cottony cocoon of our sheets and comforters. As my senses powered up, one by one, the events of the day before dawned on me anew, ending the peaceful morning amnesia even before my eyes opened. I’d spent the afternoon and evening in a mental battle with...

Added 04 Apr 2011 | Category Interracial | Votes 39 | Avg Score 4.97 | Views 11,792 | 19 Comments

“I miss having sex with a man sometimes.” We were sitting in Gato del Sol, our neighborhood Mexican restaurant, having what passes for Sunday brunch, just like we did nearly every Sunday. I was skimming through the ads in the weekly alternative paper when she looked up from her iPhone and said that, breaking a good five minutes of comfortable silence. “I mean, I can’t handle a...

Added 24 Mar 2011 | Category Interracial | Votes 38 | Avg Score 5 | Views 9,187 | 19 Comments

"Seriously? Forty-five minutes from the house, you decide not to start? Just like that? Come on!" I pleaded at the dashboard, which stared blankly back at me, both of us cooking under the harsh July afternoon sun. For what must have been fifteen minutes I turned the key in the ignition, over and over, and each time my 20-year-old BMW compact car was obviously no closer to starting. For now, I...

Added 29 Jul 2010 | Category Straight Sex | Votes 49 | Avg Score 4.91 | Views 32,627 | 24 Comments

I woke up on my back, with no idea where I was. I felt the heat of the sun on my face before I even opened my eyes, and when I finally did, I wished I hadn't. My head pounded, my nose was both stuffy and runny. My body felt battered without even moving a muscle, and I felt what must be depression for the first time in my life. I was naked and cold, even in the warmth of focused sunlight....

Added 27 Jun 2010 | Category Reluctance | Votes 59 | Avg Score 4.87 | Views 38,058 | 24 Comments

I had to lose almost everything before I came to my senses, sitting there at the dining table with my boyfriend Todd - watching him gamble away everything he owned and, as it turned out, a few major things that I owned too. I never considered myself to be stupid, but much as a frog stays in water that slowly warms up to a boil without noticing what is going on, it somehow didn't concern...

Added 22 Apr 2010 | Category Taboo | Votes 110 | Avg Score 4.91 | Views 54,675 | 50 Comments

"I'm gonna cum, honey! I'm cumming- ahhh!" Loi tensed his whole body, holding himself stiffly before rolling off and collapsing on the mattress beside me. I carefully pulled the condom off of his penis and got up to throw it away. I didn't cum before he did, which means I wouldn't cum at all; when he cums, he's finished with sex. It's okay, sex isn't everything, he loves me very much, but...

Added 02 Apr 2010 | Category Hardcore | Votes 48 | Avg Score 4.98 | Views 24,435 | 22 Comments

“When's she gonna show up? I'm ready to go!” Ramon, my boyfriend, was yelling at me from the living room. He was ready to leave two beers ago, but it was okay with me that Ashley was late; I was still trying to decide what to wear, and the fact that it was Ashley that we were going out with made me more self-conscious than usual. I'm a dancer, which is short for 'exotic dancer', which is...

Added 21 Feb 2010 | Category Hardcore | Votes 24 | Avg Score 4.95 | Views 9,309 | 16 Comments

My night was going way too slow until you came in. Just a handful of regulars that say the same creepy shit to me every dance, and a few scrubs that pay ten dollars at the door just to watch us undress on stage or get a sneak peak at some other guy's lapdance. You came up to give me a few dollars during my dance, even asked me how I was doing when I leaned into give you the close up. I...

Added 12 Feb 2010 | Category Straight Sex | Votes 37 | Avg Score 4.91 | Views 12,647 | 19 Comments

I'm the bad girl who loves the ballers. I love sports, I love hip-hop, and I love the boys that do both. When I got to college last year, the first thing I did was find out how to get student tickets to the football and basketball games. I had to support my team, and if I could meet the boys, even better. Ours is a big school and I never did meet any that first year, but just as final exams...

Added 10 Feb 2010 | Category Hardcore | Votes 76 | Avg Score 4.86 | Views 61,927 | 42 Comments