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nice puzzle

wow a rare hard, start

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Irish corporate tax is 12.5%; Apple payed 0.005%. Ireland has signed the EU treaty, that forbids this kind of state support. That treaty is binding and gets precendence over national law. So the argument that irish tax laws would have allowed this practice is irrelevant: Ireland has violated another of its own laws. Maybe this is strange to the US eyes but this is how it works in Europe and there are literally hundreds of cases of unallowed state support in the past. So this case is only exceptional in the size.

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Angie, Cubs BoSox WS?????

Perception vs. Reality that is the problem in the U.S. The big lie works. Mr. O it is refreshing to hear tax giveaways to large corporations called State Support. You rarely hear it in those terms here. You occasionally hear the term Corporate Welfare. In the U.S. the term Welfare is usually used as a pejorative when referring to the lower economic classes. But seen as a positive when referring to Corporations or the Super Rich. Newspeak at its finest.

This is the same Big Lie tactic used by the Tobacco Industry, The Fossil Fuel/Extraction Industry, Big Pharma, Chemical Companies, and the Big Banks and the Military Industrial Complex. Give them free rein and they will do the right thing. Give health care, assistance, a living wage to the lower classes? My God man! They would squander the money anyway. They don't deserve it! We know what is best for the masses! And if you have proof that we are abusing the system and harming people and the planet well then you must be one of those uninformed, crazy tree hugging, commie, homosexual, immigrant, muslim loving, hate America wackos that keep us from making America great again.

My husband and I own a small business, with 2 full time and 3 part time employees (in addition to ourselves). We would not dream of paying minimum wage, although our business is the type that typically would. We support the $15/hr minimum wage, but at this point, we can't pay that, until the much larger players do so. I'm so saddened by the applications we get from mature individuals who are looking for $7.50/hr. We start no one at less than $9./hr, and the looks on the people's faces when we tell them that is one of shock and awe. This is more than our employees have ever made, despite a working for years.

Diane, you need to hire a lobbyist to get a government subsidy so you can grow at the expense of the taxpayer. :-) Or you could call up TLC or The History Channel and they could make a "reality" show about your business.

The owner of the shop where I apprentice clock making (and a defacto partner) is 180 degrees politically opposed to me. We get along great and have actually considered calling one of those stupid networks and seeing if they would want to film us. How pathetic is that?

I actually spent about 10 minutes the other night watching a "reality" competition show on I believe the History Channel about knife making. I'm sorry but the cooking competitions, tattoo competitions, dating, surviving, living in the same house for 100 days competitions are driving me insane. Yes I will still watch Survivor and Big Brother, the former because it is still a good show, the latter because my spouse loves it but why is garbage television like that on a network called The Learning Channel or The History Channel?

tuco: You have more fortitude than I. My television is likely in need of dusting ... if I were to bother to turn it on again.

:-) I almost cancelled my cable subscription when my wife and daughter started watching Toddlers and Tiaras. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was bad enough but Toddlers and Tiaras??

hahahaha No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. <- Mencken

But there is a lot of great content available. I guess it depends on what you consider great. My only real beef with the media is that Opinion is now considered News and treated as such, plus they allow Big Lies to go unchallenged if the Big Liar is a sponsor.

I know I am weird but I wonder what would happen to a certain 24 hour cable news networks ratings if they changed their female on air employees dress code and production values so that they showed no cleavage or short skirt shots.

tuco: The undisclosed relationships of some of the owners of television networks with the two major Presidential candidates (undisclosed as in not mentioned during interviews of those candidates) is part of why I unplugged. This isn't one-sided, unless you refer to the one side that is corporations that own the media. And I get it that Freedom of the Press means that they can publish or air what they want ... I would just like timely disclosures so that during a special guest segment the owner of the network contributed to the campaign or to one of the charities or has advisors inside the campaign. Sunshine is missing.

Penguin: Campaign Finance Reform. What you describe is bad enough yet how many people complained when Roger Ailes became the founding CEO of Fox News?

tuco: Sex sells. It is amusing that the network that most claims to be the more virtuous (my wording) is also the one with the most strict dress codes requiring that display of sexuality.

The Big Lie, Newspeak.

http://www.wolf-pac.com/ is one of a number of endeavors to return the government to the people.

The same reason they don't report on the drop of violent crime, that the deficit is the lowest it has been in years and that under Obama more illegal immigrants have been deported than under any other President.

Awesome no \n in that link!!!

I am not electioneering. There is only one candidate in this POTUS race that would even consider repealing CU. And only one candidate that would nominate to SCOTUS judges that would do it.

Actually I am very wrong about that. There are 4 candidates in this race and only 1 of them would NOT consider repealing Citizens United and nominating judges that would overturn it.

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tuco: Maybe it was the dress code that led to the disappearance of Al Jazeera from US cable.

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Difficulty score 34.

Tuco, you're still wrong, only 2 of the candidates are in the race.

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