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On April 05 2016 07:37 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:36 Jormundr wrote:On April 05 2016 07:24 oneofthem wrote:
there are actual electronic evidence involved. this is not even challenged by either the activist at issue or the sanders campaign. rather they have offered excuses and spin.
if you insist on her neutrality you are doing so in the face of clear evidence to contrary.
like whitedoge defending mao or you defending the neutrality of this lady, mh advice is pick easier fights. seriously stop being so partisan as to defend every sanders ally or every commie. Honey, you can believe that you're standing on evidence all you want. If you can't make it appear you're going to fall flat on your face just like your argument. You don't have to defend every moronic pro-Hillary move either. Her camp says the sky is purple. All the evidence we've had so far says the sky ain't purple. For calibration, do you believe Sanders is going to be the nominee?
I started out guessing he had at best a 10% chance. Was up to about 33% by december. I've been viewing him as a 50% chance of winning ever since the first primary. If Hillary hadn't done such a good job keeping a lid on Bernie (mainly keeping him off the TV) she wouldn't have had a chance in this race. Bernie's slowly gotten a trickle down of media exposure and it's showing in his results. If this were an equal race, Bernie would have already won, which surprises me because I was far more cynical about the average democrat around this time last year.
I honestly hope that Bernie keeps it up until the end, as Hillary gets more vicious and two faced with her attacks. If Hillary is the face of the DNC, I want it torn apart and I'm willing to vote Trump to get that done. Nobody is happy with either party right now, and both parties are quite obviously interested in giving more power to businesses than to the people who work for them. This is the exact opposite of what a government should do. In capitalism, government is a way for people to organize against the power of monopoly.
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Holy shit dude, you should bet all you got on Birdie then!
He's 7:1 dog with bookies right now!
And that sounds about right to me, Hillary's too far ahead and she has Supers and media on her side.
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On April 05 2016 07:40 ticklishmusic wrote:
Regardless of motive, leaking the contact information for Clinton delegates is a problem. There is pretty clear evidence she would have a motive for doing so, though it's possible (though I would say improbable) she did it on accident/ was incompetent. I want to see how things shake out between this and information that was supposedly sent out saying delegates need not attend. I have heard, despite shenanigans, the change in delegates might actually be 1 or even 0.
The Clinton campaign has been fighting voter suppression since June of last year BTW. They've filed suits in Ohio, Wisconsin and a few other states.
Also, the sky is indeed occasionally purple. If you have not seen a purple sky, you are missing out. Should have picked a better color. Or maybe another analogy, now that I think of it I've seen the sky in a lot of different colors.
Do you really want to argue about the security implications of possibly poor email practices?
So your argument is that the sky is purple once in a blue moon? (I'm guessing you're lumping pink into purple as well, because purple is probably less than 1%).
On April 05 2016 07:53 LemOn wrote:
Holy shit dude, you should bet all you got on Birdie then!
He's 7:1 dog with bookies right now!
And that sounds about right to me, Hillary's too far ahead and she has Supers and media on her side.
Eh you posted earlier about how Kasich beat Rubio with bookies. Rubio had a shot. It was slim, but he had one. Maybe bettors aren't the smartest people (especially when it comes to money).
You're also assuming she's willing to leverage her power with the DNC to take the nomination even if she loses the popular vote. This could burn the entire party, and if the DNC is faced with that choice they might not favor her. She's come off as two-faced enough this election that she might just get Trump protest-voted into the white house.
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On April 05 2016 07:47 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:34 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:32 Acrofales wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:
Imperialism is nothing new. The weak get overtaken. The only difference is that now we see failed states as something worth saving. Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Except that the world doesn't work like that. Or nations such as Paraguay (or for that matter, most nations) would not exist. You are saying no one would defend Paraguay if Russia declared war? The world definitely works like that. You're not just considering the wide ranging diplomacy across the world. My point is that if one will defend you, you don't exist. Paraguay would absolutely be defended. Edit: WRT your edit: they bit off chunks, but they were not capable of eating the whole pie. The newly established borders became borders because they are what Paraguay could effectively defend. On April 05 2016 07:31 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:
Imperialism is nothing new. The weak get overtaken. The only difference is that now we see failed states as something worth saving. Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Because the question is not about the responsibility of states to defend themselves, the question is about moral responsibility. How many people do you knowingly let die before you are complicit in the killings. You are not proposing an alternative method to achieve border equilibrium. My point is that these conflicts will naturally develop for as long as a nation can not be defended. When there is an unstable country (Syria for example) suffering from being unable to do something base definitions of a country depend on (being able to define and hold its borders) there are only two responses to it, intrusion or observation. Both have their pros and their cons. If we stay back then people will die, horribly, and will continue to die by the millions for decades to come. If we intrude, then less people will die, but of those smaller numbers very many will be your own people dying.
Alternatively,
Option 3: You go in, completely bungle the defense, and cause even more people to die (your own AND theirs) and bring instability. Good example is Libya.
Option 4: You help reduce the casualties then you hand the fighting off to a genuinely reliable ally (rather than, for example, future Al Qaeda operatives masquerading as "moderate rebels")
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On April 05 2016 07:48 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:37 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:36 Jormundr wrote:On April 05 2016 07:24 oneofthem wrote:
there are actual electronic evidence involved. this is not even challenged by either the activist at issue or the sanders campaign. rather they have offered excuses and spin.
if you insist on her neutrality you are doing so in the face of clear evidence to contrary.
like whitedoge defending mao or you defending the neutrality of this lady, mh advice is pick easier fights. seriously stop being so partisan as to defend every sanders ally or every commie. Honey, you can believe that you're standing on evidence all you want. If you can't make it appear you're going to fall flat on your face just like your argument. You don't have to defend every moronic pro-Hillary move either. Her camp says the sky is purple. All the evidence we've had so far says the sky ain't purple. For calibration, do you believe Sanders is going to be the nominee? I started out guessing he had at best a 10% chance. Was up to about 33% by december. I've been viewing him as a 50% chance of winning ever since the first primary. If Hillary hadn't done such a good job keeping a lid on Bernie (mainly keeping him off the TV) she wouldn't have had a chance in this race. Bernie's slowly gotten a trickle down of media exposure and it's showing in his results. If this were an equal race, Bernie would have already won, which surprises me because I was far more cynical about the average democrat around this time last year. I honestly hope that Bernie keeps it up until the end, as Hillary gets more vicious and two faced with her attacks. If Hillary is the face of the DNC, I want it torn apart and I'm willing to vote Trump to get that done. Nobody is happy with either party right now, and both parties are quite obviously interested in giving more power to businesses than to the people who work for them. This is the exact opposite of what a government should do. In capitalism, government is a way for people to organize against the power of monopoly.
While I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment--capitalism is not about government being a way for the people to organize against monopolies. In capitalism the free market is self correcting towards an equilibrium. This equilibrium might or might not be good for the "people" depending on how you define good and how you define people.
Governments *are* there to protect what a people consider "basic rights" which is in and of itself a relative term. A christian monarchy would have a very different set of basic rights than an atheist commune, for example. These basic rights might or might not include things related to the economy (directly or indirectly), but even so it would still just be an incidental protection and not the government as a tool to fight against Oligarchy. Its when the line between those two definitions gets blurred that we have the beginnings of all demographic cleansings.
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On April 05 2016 07:54 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:40 ticklishmusic wrote:
Regardless of motive, leaking the contact information for Clinton delegates is a problem. There is pretty clear evidence she would have a motive for doing so, though it's possible (though I would say improbable) she did it on accident/ was incompetent. I want to see how things shake out between this and information that was supposedly sent out saying delegates need not attend. I have heard, despite shenanigans, the change in delegates might actually be 1 or even 0.
The Clinton campaign has been fighting voter suppression since June of last year BTW. They've filed suits in Ohio, Wisconsin and a few other states.
Also, the sky is indeed occasionally purple. If you have not seen a purple sky, you are missing out. Should have picked a better color. Or maybe another analogy, now that I think of it I've seen the sky in a lot of different colors. Do you really want to argue about the security implications of possibly poor email practices? So your argument is that the sky is purple once in a blue moon? (I'm guessing you're lumping pink into purple as well, because purple is probably less than 1%).
Previous Secs used personal emails as well. Colin Powell and close aides to Condy Rice, iirc.
This whole affair really just raises the need for a reform in how we classify information, because overclassification is a rampant problem in the government (which I've mentioned previously).
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On April 05 2016 07:58 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:47 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:34 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:32 Acrofales wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:
Imperialism is nothing new. The weak get overtaken. The only difference is that now we see failed states as something worth saving. Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Except that the world doesn't work like that. Or nations such as Paraguay (or for that matter, most nations) would not exist. You are saying no one would defend Paraguay if Russia declared war? The world definitely works like that. You're not just considering the wide ranging diplomacy across the world. My point is that if one will defend you, you don't exist. Paraguay would absolutely be defended. Edit: WRT your edit: they bit off chunks, but they were not capable of eating the whole pie. The newly established borders became borders because they are what Paraguay could effectively defend. On April 05 2016 07:31 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:
Imperialism is nothing new. The weak get overtaken. The only difference is that now we see failed states as something worth saving. Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Because the question is not about the responsibility of states to defend themselves, the question is about moral responsibility. How many people do you knowingly let die before you are complicit in the killings. You are not proposing an alternative method to achieve border equilibrium. My point is that these conflicts will naturally develop for as long as a nation can not be defended. When there is an unstable country (Syria for example) suffering from being unable to do something base definitions of a country depend on (being able to define and hold its borders) there are only two responses to it, intrusion or observation. Both have their pros and their cons. If we stay back then people will die, horribly, and will continue to die by the millions for decades to come. If we intrude, then less people will die, but of those smaller numbers very many will be your own people dying. Alternatively, Option 3: You go in, completely bungle the defense, and cause even more people to die (your own AND theirs) and bring instability. Good example is Libya. Option 4: You help reduce the casualties then you hand the fighting off to a genuinely reliable ally (rather than, for example, future Al Qaeda operatives masquerading as "moderate rebels")
Both of those are examples of execution of choices and not the choice themselves. You don't know ahead of time if the action will be successful/unsuccessful for much the same reason you don't know if you're handing it off to people you can trust/not trust.
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On April 05 2016 07:36 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:24 oneofthem wrote:
there are actual electronic evidence involved. this is not even challenged by either the activist at issue or the sanders campaign. rather they have offered excuses and spin.
if you insist on her neutrality you are doing so in the face of clear evidence to contrary.
like whitedoge defending mao or you defending the neutrality of this lady, mh advice is pick easier fights. seriously stop being so partisan as to defend every sanders ally or every commie. Honey, you can believe that you're standing on evidence all you want. If you can't make it appear you're going to fall flat on your face just like your argument. You don't have to defend every moronic pro-Hillary move either. Her camp says the sky is purple. All the evidence we've had so far says the sky ain't purple.
I think his problem is more that if Hillary's camp were saying the sky wasn't purple there would be legions of people rushing to inform us of the purplehood of their local sky, and if they said it was those same people would be saying the sky is blue. The desire to be pro-Bernie (or pro-Clinton) for some has long since passed the reality bubble.
I can't imagine GH would be reacting the same way if the end result had been an advantage for Clinton.
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On April 05 2016 08:00 Lord Tolkien wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:54 Jormundr wrote:On April 05 2016 07:40 ticklishmusic wrote:
Regardless of motive, leaking the contact information for Clinton delegates is a problem. There is pretty clear evidence she would have a motive for doing so, though it's possible (though I would say improbable) she did it on accident/ was incompetent. I want to see how things shake out between this and information that was supposedly sent out saying delegates need not attend. I have heard, despite shenanigans, the change in delegates might actually be 1 or even 0.
The Clinton campaign has been fighting voter suppression since June of last year BTW. They've filed suits in Ohio, Wisconsin and a few other states.
Also, the sky is indeed occasionally purple. If you have not seen a purple sky, you are missing out. Should have picked a better color. Or maybe another analogy, now that I think of it I've seen the sky in a lot of different colors. Do you really want to argue about the security implications of possibly poor email practices? So your argument is that the sky is purple once in a blue moon? (I'm guessing you're lumping pink into purple as well, because purple is probably less than 1%). Previous Secs used personal emails as well. Colin Powell and close aides to Condy Rice, iirc. This whole affair really just raises the need for a reform in how we classify information, because overclassification is a rampant problem in the government (which I've mentioned previously).
Its really an issue of needing more ammunition against someone so you get mad at them for doing what everyone who had their jobs before them already did.
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On April 05 2016 08:01 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:58 LegalLord wrote:On April 05 2016 07:47 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:34 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:32 Acrofales wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:
Imperialism is nothing new. The weak get overtaken. The only difference is that now we see failed states as something worth saving. Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Except that the world doesn't work like that. Or nations such as Paraguay (or for that matter, most nations) would not exist. You are saying no one would defend Paraguay if Russia declared war? The world definitely works like that. You're not just considering the wide ranging diplomacy across the world. My point is that if one will defend you, you don't exist. Paraguay would absolutely be defended. Edit: WRT your edit: they bit off chunks, but they were not capable of eating the whole pie. The newly established borders became borders because they are what Paraguay could effectively defend. On April 05 2016 07:31 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:
Imperialism is nothing new. The weak get overtaken. The only difference is that now we see failed states as something worth saving. Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Because the question is not about the responsibility of states to defend themselves, the question is about moral responsibility. How many people do you knowingly let die before you are complicit in the killings. You are not proposing an alternative method to achieve border equilibrium. My point is that these conflicts will naturally develop for as long as a nation can not be defended. When there is an unstable country (Syria for example) suffering from being unable to do something base definitions of a country depend on (being able to define and hold its borders) there are only two responses to it, intrusion or observation. Both have their pros and their cons. If we stay back then people will die, horribly, and will continue to die by the millions for decades to come. If we intrude, then less people will die, but of those smaller numbers very many will be your own people dying. Alternatively, Option 3: You go in, completely bungle the defense, and cause even more people to die (your own AND theirs) and bring instability. Good example is Libya. Option 4: You help reduce the casualties then you hand the fighting off to a genuinely reliable ally (rather than, for example, future Al Qaeda operatives masquerading as "moderate rebels") Both of those are examples of execution of choices and not the choice themselves. You don't know ahead of time if the action will be successful/unsuccessful for much the same reason you don't know if you're handing it off to people you can trust/not trust.
well that is not always true, for instance in the iraq war:
everyone knew it would be unsuccessful, thats why every european ally of any size that could say no to your adventurism did so, and told you why it was a bad idea.... it was a ridiculous personal feud from rumsfeld cheney and rice with no connection to reality or accomplishable goals
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On April 05 2016 08:07 puerk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 08:01 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:58 LegalLord wrote:On April 05 2016 07:47 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:34 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:32 Acrofales wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Except that the world doesn't work like that. Or nations such as Paraguay (or for that matter, most nations) would not exist. You are saying no one would defend Paraguay if Russia declared war? The world definitely works like that. You're not just considering the wide ranging diplomacy across the world. My point is that if one will defend you, you don't exist. Paraguay would absolutely be defended. Edit: WRT your edit: they bit off chunks, but they were not capable of eating the whole pie. The newly established borders became borders because they are what Paraguay could effectively defend. On April 05 2016 07:31 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Because the question is not about the responsibility of states to defend themselves, the question is about moral responsibility. How many people do you knowingly let die before you are complicit in the killings. You are not proposing an alternative method to achieve border equilibrium. My point is that these conflicts will naturally develop for as long as a nation can not be defended. When there is an unstable country (Syria for example) suffering from being unable to do something base definitions of a country depend on (being able to define and hold its borders) there are only two responses to it, intrusion or observation. Both have their pros and their cons. If we stay back then people will die, horribly, and will continue to die by the millions for decades to come. If we intrude, then less people will die, but of those smaller numbers very many will be your own people dying. Alternatively, Option 3: You go in, completely bungle the defense, and cause even more people to die (your own AND theirs) and bring instability. Good example is Libya. Option 4: You help reduce the casualties then you hand the fighting off to a genuinely reliable ally (rather than, for example, future Al Qaeda operatives masquerading as "moderate rebels") Both of those are examples of execution of choices and not the choice themselves. You don't know ahead of time if the action will be successful/unsuccessful for much the same reason you don't know if you're handing it off to people you can trust/not trust. well that is not always true, for instance in the iraq war: everyone knew it would be unsuccessful, thats why every european ally of any size that could say no to your adventurism did so, and told you why it was a bad idea.... it was a ridiculous personal feud from rumsfeld cheney and rice with no connection to reality or accomplishable goals
Once again, using hindsight as the baseline of your logic is not the same as having to make that decision. People were given arguments (about WMD's and shit) and, at the time, there was enough support for it to get it through. And even then it technically was salvageable.
The only real problem with Iraq was a lack of commitment. It takes 100-200 years to really change a nation you are ruling. Just enough to have 2-3 generations of people growing up with the americans as opposed to living with strangers. And really, to make any long lasting change you have to commit more than bases. You need to occupy and have iraqi and american culture fuze into a new culture. Then after 2-3 generations of that new culture live, grow, and analyze themselves--a new iraq will have been formed with aspects of the old iraq and the old america.
There is NO NATION willing to do this now. None. But that's beside the point--Iraq had false information, inappropriate plans, and no long term commitment to actually allow change to be grown.
But back to the concept of intervention versus observation.
If you see millions of people dying or suffering. You only ever get two choices. And if you fuck up the choice you make--that doesn't mean there were multiple choices it just means there were multiple conclusions. The choices remain the same.
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On April 05 2016 08:07 puerk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 08:01 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:58 LegalLord wrote:On April 05 2016 07:47 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:34 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:32 Acrofales wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Except that the world doesn't work like that. Or nations such as Paraguay (or for that matter, most nations) would not exist. You are saying no one would defend Paraguay if Russia declared war? The world definitely works like that. You're not just considering the wide ranging diplomacy across the world. My point is that if one will defend you, you don't exist. Paraguay would absolutely be defended. Edit: WRT your edit: they bit off chunks, but they were not capable of eating the whole pie. The newly established borders became borders because they are what Paraguay could effectively defend. On April 05 2016 07:31 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:05 Plansix wrote:On April 05 2016 06:58 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 06:51 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, natural selection has a lot to do with geo-political relations. These are super good points you are making here. Failed states are where terrorism finds a home, so if you want more of them, you want more terrorism. What are you saying here? Natural selection played no role in the establishment of modern day borders? When did natural selection stop being acceptable? When would a state not be worth saving? First of all, the modern borders were established in 1918. Many of the nations in the Middle East "fake nations" filled with people who don't identify as the country they are from. The nations and powers structures around them were not created by the people in those nations. This includes Syria, which was "created" by the French in 1924. And then the revolt took place soon after and was put down by the French. You can ask for the state to fail, but it won't go back to a group of tribes like it was before the western powers show up. A new nation will rise out of it. At this point, that new nation calls itself ISIS. Ok but here is my point. These borders were established by the people who had power over these areas. I suppose I have a really hard time with the idea that borders aren't legitimate if it was hostile in some way. No one was there to defend modern day Syria. By all accounts, France was the owner. If not France, then who? When a state can't defend itself and has no one else to defend it, does it actually...exist? And once this area that could not defend itself and had no powerful allies is "taken over", how does it make sense for France to then leave Syria by itself? If it can not defend itself, it will continue to not defend itself. At one point, every piece of land in our planet needs to be defendable. When something is not defendable, it somewhat ceases to exist because there then become power plays by larger nations that seek to use that state. In a way, I am arguing that as a matter of definition, a state ceases being a state when it loses its ability to determine its own path. Until Syria is essentially property of Russia/USA/China/Europe, it will continue to not actually exist as a state. So sure, lets say in some wild fantasy, we body slam ISIS and Assad and we let Syria "rule itself". For how long? How long until this weak country gets taken over again by a puppet or the CIA or whoever? Ultimately, Syria needs to be controlled by someone MUCH more powerful than the Syrian people. No one is just going to leave free shit sitting there. Because the question is not about the responsibility of states to defend themselves, the question is about moral responsibility. How many people do you knowingly let die before you are complicit in the killings. You are not proposing an alternative method to achieve border equilibrium. My point is that these conflicts will naturally develop for as long as a nation can not be defended. When there is an unstable country (Syria for example) suffering from being unable to do something base definitions of a country depend on (being able to define and hold its borders) there are only two responses to it, intrusion or observation. Both have their pros and their cons. If we stay back then people will die, horribly, and will continue to die by the millions for decades to come. If we intrude, then less people will die, but of those smaller numbers very many will be your own people dying. Alternatively, Option 3: You go in, completely bungle the defense, and cause even more people to die (your own AND theirs) and bring instability. Good example is Libya. Option 4: You help reduce the casualties then you hand the fighting off to a genuinely reliable ally (rather than, for example, future Al Qaeda operatives masquerading as "moderate rebels") Both of those are examples of execution of choices and not the choice themselves. You don't know ahead of time if the action will be successful/unsuccessful for much the same reason you don't know if you're handing it off to people you can trust/not trust. well that is not always true, for instance in the iraq war: everyone knew it would be unsuccessful, thats why every european ally of any size that could say no to your adventurism did so, and told you why it was a bad idea.... it was a ridiculous personal feud from rumsfeld cheney and rice with no connection to reality or accomplishable goals
No. That's what Schroeder sold to Germans so he could get a cushy Gazprom job.
The Iraq invasion was massively problematic, based on faulty intelligence (probably fabricated by a US agency due to pressure from Bush's admin.) and ultimately unsuccessful, but to talk of it in your terms distorts history. I remember the debate, Germany was in minority there among the big players in Europe. And Germany wasn't a big player then (in military matters, still isn't). You can claim France on your side (but they torpedo every NATO action anyway), but you forget that the UK, Spain, Italy Denmark, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Netherlands and Romania all joined (many smaller countries, and international countries as well, but I chose to bring out only European countries that have stronger forces). It's literally just Germany and France sitting on the sidelines.
Edit: On reflection, you can claim Turkey on your side as well. But that's a whole different story, methinks.
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On April 05 2016 08:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:36 Jormundr wrote:On April 05 2016 07:24 oneofthem wrote:
there are actual electronic evidence involved. this is not even challenged by either the activist at issue or the sanders campaign. rather they have offered excuses and spin.
if you insist on her neutrality you are doing so in the face of clear evidence to contrary.
like whitedoge defending mao or you defending the neutrality of this lady, mh advice is pick easier fights. seriously stop being so partisan as to defend every sanders ally or every commie. Honey, you can believe that you're standing on evidence all you want. If you can't make it appear you're going to fall flat on your face just like your argument. You don't have to defend every moronic pro-Hillary move either. Her camp says the sky is purple. All the evidence we've had so far says the sky ain't purple. I think his problem is more that if Hillary's camp were saying the sky wasn't purple there would be legions of people rushing to inform us of the purplehood of their local sky, and if they said it was those same people would be saying the sky is blue. The desire to be pro-Bernie (or pro-Clinton) for some has long since passed the reality bubble. I can't imagine GH would be reacting the same way if the end result had been an advantage for Clinton.
You don't have to imagine, I've called out the process when it's crap regardless of who it advantages.
Had Clinton done this I doubt Clinton camp would be trying to give Bernie the delegates (even if they claim otherwise). See how ticklish keeps citing Republican states she's fighting voter suppression in, in response to me giving plenty of lead time for them to talk about the already obviously incoming suppression in NY and CA.
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On April 05 2016 05:54 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 05:30 ragz_gt wrote:On April 05 2016 04:25 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 02:56 Sermokala wrote:On April 05 2016 01:16 ticklishmusic wrote:On April 05 2016 00:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 04 2016 23:31 ticklishmusic wrote:On April 04 2016 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 04 2016 22:59 ticklishmusic wrote:On April 04 2016 15:12 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
You seem to again be engaging with an argument you don't understand/I'm not making.
What I was showing is that Hillary legally circumvents FEC contribution laws by exploiting this loophole (or whatever one wants to call it). On top of that she brags about it as "supporting Democrats down ticket" even while the WP rightly suggests she's the one benefiting from this (and DWS, as it's being used to pay off DNC debt).
Before the Hillary Victory Fund, the money she is receiving directly from the Hillary Victory Fund would of had to go to a superPAC or at least stay within the DNC, as it would be in excess of the $2,700 limit for candidates.
I was attempting to show you what that means. Let's try again this way.
By those donors giving a $300k check to her at an event, then her handing it to her campaign staff, then her campaign staff handing the check to her HVF staff (in at least one case, that's the same person), the HVF staff can then legally hand the check back to Hillary to spend however she pleases. Which is precisely what I just showed you, with pictures and everything.*
Are you refuting that it's happening or are you trying to say that because it's legal that I should use different words to describe it?
EDIT: *I hope you realize that's a simplification. Obviously they have to do the normal accounting for donations but I used the check to illustrate the absurdity of it.
No, she can't, and you're writing fiction about a non-existent loophole. As I said before, the source and amount of donations are tracked. Because of that, there is a money trail that is very easy to follow for the FEC, which has all these records. She can't pump money into her campaign by breaking the max, unless you're suggesting that she's taking big chunks of money and committing fraud by breaking it up into smaller fake donations. It would be stupid and blatantly obvious, and looking at it Hillary really doesn't need the money right now. There is no evidence and no real motive. There could be better separation of powers between HVF since it's embedded in the Clinton campaign. However, I'm sure that it has been properly firewalled off, and it definitely has financial controls like separate accounts at a minimum. The worst violation I see is the campaign overallocating expenses to the fund for stuff like salary, though then you get into shades of grey like "HVF duties make up 20% of this employee's responsibilities (however that is defined), but they are being paid 40% out of the fund which is improper etc. etc." How... Ill try to say this very simply. The HVA can give Hillary as much money as it wants, see that they have already given her $4 million+. She can raise money for the HVA. So instead of writing a $33k dollar check to Hillary's campaign, they write it to the HVA. The HVA takes it and divides it. The first chunk fills the FEC limit to Hillary. The next chunk gets dumped into the HVA. The HVA piles up those donations, then hands them back to Hillary to spend as if they were standard campaign donations. So they aren't added to the maxed out total of the person who gave the HVA and Hillary money, instead they are counted as coming from HVA even though HVA was just serving as a pass-through for the donation that the Hillary campaign can't legally accept directly from the original donor. Her campaign staff is the HVA staff, the treasurer is the COO of her campaign. So yes it's all legal with separate accounts and such, that was never my point although you seem insistent on arguing that instead of what I am telling you. As for the tracking, there's several reasons why you can't find anything showing you how much money the Hillary campaign, of the ~$23M they raised last month, or any other month for that matter, came from the HVA. But again that would just be for us, as I've already said several times, there's nothing the FEC could do anyway because using the HVF as a pass through for large donations (while pretty unethical and not great PR) is totally legal. Is that not clear enough? And how is the HVF piling money together and putting it into the Hillary campaign's general funds without it being illegal and obvious? Because it would be both illegal and obvious. Money is tracked and moving it through a couple different hands doesn't change the original source or magically exempt it from limits. If Soros gives 353K and it's moved through the HVF it doesn't magically become magical money that magically appeared in the HVF account-- money is fungible, but the amounts are accounted for. A money trail can be hidden in laundering cases because an auditor does not have all the financial docs, but the FEC does have all the financial docs. If campaigns were companies, they'd be the most financially transparent on Earth, they basically publish their general ledgers every month. No one cares about this because it's a non-issue built on a misunderstanding of accounting and campaign finance. Let's try it this way. Let's look at the Clooney dinner. The "fundraising expenses" can be paid by the HVF as it's actually their event (they being Hillary's Campaign staff) instead of the Clinton Campaign paying the expenses, which do you think her staff chooses? Tadaa, you've turned Soros $300k check into paying for a Clooney fundraiser for your campaign, and it's all legal. Sure, and the money from that fundraiser goes to HVF. The first $2700 goes to the Clinton campaign as allowed but the vast majority goes to state parties and the DNC. None of us know how expenses are allocated-- perhaps the Clinton campaign itself pays a proportion in line with the percentage of proceeds they get from their general accounts and the HVF accounts pay the rest, and/or Clinton makes an "in kind" contribution to account for her campaign's portion of expense instead of putting in cash. It's a two birds one stone/ everyone wins scenario where Clinton raises a bunch of money for herself and the party. God forbid, Clinton has raised money for those downballot candidates. Your argument has gone from Clinton is laundering 300K donations through HVF to the HVF uses HVF funds to pay for HVF events... and Clinton potentially, maybe generates some benefits from it. It was all perfectly legal, and at worst Hillary has avoided spending a little cash in this particular scenario. You're now making a mountain out of a molehill which we're not even sure is really there. this is about big money in politics. I assume by your posts that you don't care about the top 1 percent controlling out elections but GH does. Thats why its a big deal. yes its perfectly legal loopholes but you have to agree that there is some reason this money is being donated, even if its a "gee I like you so much I'll give you hundreds of thousands of dollars". Will money get into politics no matter what rules we give them otherwise? Yes. Would money in politics not matter if more people voted? Yes. Would money in politics not matter if it was encouraged and made fully visible? Yes. If you want to affect which politicians are in power--vote. The only thing big money does is advertise more. If people always voted their minds anyway then no amount of advertisement would change it. Sure if every eligible voter is perfectly engaged and perfectly knowledgeable, we don't need to about care how people campaign for office. GH's point is pretty strenuous at best, but your arguments has little value in the real word. You mean making voting a federal mandated holiday while also giving tax incentives to people who vote in order to force a bump in voter participation is less realistic than magically telling rich people that they can't spend their money and assuming rich people won't simply do it under the table? Please enlighten me.
Because voter participation rate itself is not as big a problem as voter engagement. If anything, it just encourage people who has even less investment or knowledge on issues to vote (Well, this Trump dude sounds pretty good since he is the only name I recognize).
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On April 05 2016 08:43 ragz_gt wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 05:54 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 05:30 ragz_gt wrote:On April 05 2016 04:25 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 02:56 Sermokala wrote:On April 05 2016 01:16 ticklishmusic wrote:On April 05 2016 00:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 04 2016 23:31 ticklishmusic wrote:On April 04 2016 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 04 2016 22:59 ticklishmusic wrote:
[quote]
No, she can't, and you're writing fiction about a non-existent loophole. As I said before, the source and amount of donations are tracked. Because of that, there is a money trail that is very easy to follow for the FEC, which has all these records. She can't pump money into her campaign by breaking the max, unless you're suggesting that she's taking big chunks of money and committing fraud by breaking it up into smaller fake donations. It would be stupid and blatantly obvious, and looking at it Hillary really doesn't need the money right now. There is no evidence and no real motive.
There could be better separation of powers between HVF since it's embedded in the Clinton campaign. However, I'm sure that it has been properly firewalled off, and it definitely has financial controls like separate accounts at a minimum. The worst violation I see is the campaign overallocating expenses to the fund for stuff like salary, though then you get into shades of grey like "HVF duties make up 20% of this employee's responsibilities (however that is defined), but they are being paid 40% out of the fund which is improper etc. etc."
How... Ill try to say this very simply. The HVA can give Hillary as much money as it wants, see that they have already given her $4 million+. She can raise money for the HVA. So instead of writing a $33k dollar check to Hillary's campaign, they write it to the HVA. The HVA takes it and divides it. The first chunk fills the FEC limit to Hillary. The next chunk gets dumped into the HVA. The HVA piles up those donations, then hands them back to Hillary to spend as if they were standard campaign donations. So they aren't added to the maxed out total of the person who gave the HVA and Hillary money, instead they are counted as coming from HVA even though HVA was just serving as a pass-through for the donation that the Hillary campaign can't legally accept directly from the original donor. Her campaign staff is the HVA staff, the treasurer is the COO of her campaign. So yes it's all legal with separate accounts and such, that was never my point although you seem insistent on arguing that instead of what I am telling you. As for the tracking, there's several reasons why you can't find anything showing you how much money the Hillary campaign, of the ~$23M they raised last month, or any other month for that matter, came from the HVA. But again that would just be for us, as I've already said several times, there's nothing the FEC could do anyway because using the HVF as a pass through for large donations (while pretty unethical and not great PR) is totally legal. Is that not clear enough? And how is the HVF piling money together and putting it into the Hillary campaign's general funds without it being illegal and obvious? Because it would be both illegal and obvious. Money is tracked and moving it through a couple different hands doesn't change the original source or magically exempt it from limits. If Soros gives 353K and it's moved through the HVF it doesn't magically become magical money that magically appeared in the HVF account-- money is fungible, but the amounts are accounted for. A money trail can be hidden in laundering cases because an auditor does not have all the financial docs, but the FEC does have all the financial docs. If campaigns were companies, they'd be the most financially transparent on Earth, they basically publish their general ledgers every month. No one cares about this because it's a non-issue built on a misunderstanding of accounting and campaign finance. Let's try it this way. Let's look at the Clooney dinner. The "fundraising expenses" can be paid by the HVF as it's actually their event (they being Hillary's Campaign staff) instead of the Clinton Campaign paying the expenses, which do you think her staff chooses? Tadaa, you've turned Soros $300k check into paying for a Clooney fundraiser for your campaign, and it's all legal. Sure, and the money from that fundraiser goes to HVF. The first $2700 goes to the Clinton campaign as allowed but the vast majority goes to state parties and the DNC. None of us know how expenses are allocated-- perhaps the Clinton campaign itself pays a proportion in line with the percentage of proceeds they get from their general accounts and the HVF accounts pay the rest, and/or Clinton makes an "in kind" contribution to account for her campaign's portion of expense instead of putting in cash. It's a two birds one stone/ everyone wins scenario where Clinton raises a bunch of money for herself and the party. God forbid, Clinton has raised money for those downballot candidates. Your argument has gone from Clinton is laundering 300K donations through HVF to the HVF uses HVF funds to pay for HVF events... and Clinton potentially, maybe generates some benefits from it. It was all perfectly legal, and at worst Hillary has avoided spending a little cash in this particular scenario. You're now making a mountain out of a molehill which we're not even sure is really there. this is about big money in politics. I assume by your posts that you don't care about the top 1 percent controlling out elections but GH does. Thats why its a big deal. yes its perfectly legal loopholes but you have to agree that there is some reason this money is being donated, even if its a "gee I like you so much I'll give you hundreds of thousands of dollars". Will money get into politics no matter what rules we give them otherwise? Yes. Would money in politics not matter if more people voted? Yes. Would money in politics not matter if it was encouraged and made fully visible? Yes. If you want to affect which politicians are in power--vote. The only thing big money does is advertise more. If people always voted their minds anyway then no amount of advertisement would change it. Sure if every eligible voter is perfectly engaged and perfectly knowledgeable, we don't need to about care how people campaign for office. GH's point is pretty strenuous at best, but your arguments has little value in the real word. You mean making voting a federal mandated holiday while also giving tax incentives to people who vote in order to force a bump in voter participation is less realistic than magically telling rich people that they can't spend their money and assuming rich people won't simply do it under the table? Please enlighten me. Because voter participation rate itself is not as big a problem as voter engagement. If anything, it just encourage people who has even less investment or knowledge on issues to vote (Well, this Trump dude sounds pretty good since he is the only name I recognize).
You don't get to decide that other people's votes are dumber just because they don't align with your own.
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Bernie was able to move his rally permit to the 13th.
MILWAUKEE – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday accepted an invitation from CNN to debate Hillary Clinton in Brooklyn on April 14 before the New York Democratic Party primary election.
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On April 05 2016 08:54 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 08:43 ragz_gt wrote:On April 05 2016 05:54 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 05:30 ragz_gt wrote:On April 05 2016 04:25 Naracs_Duc wrote:On April 05 2016 02:56 Sermokala wrote:On April 05 2016 01:16 ticklishmusic wrote:On April 05 2016 00:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 04 2016 23:31 ticklishmusic wrote:On April 04 2016 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:
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How...
Ill try to say this very simply. The HVA can give Hillary as much money as it wants, see that they have already given her $4 million+. She can raise money for the HVA. So instead of writing a $33k dollar check to Hillary's campaign, they write it to the HVA. The HVA takes it and divides it. The first chunk fills the FEC limit to Hillary. The next chunk gets dumped into the HVA. The HVA piles up those donations, then hands them back to Hillary to spend as if they were standard campaign donations.
So they aren't added to the maxed out total of the person who gave the HVA and Hillary money, instead they are counted as coming from HVA even though HVA was just serving as a pass-through for the donation that the Hillary campaign can't legally accept directly from the original donor.
Her campaign staff is the HVA staff, the treasurer is the COO of her campaign. So yes it's all legal with separate accounts and such, that was never my point although you seem insistent on arguing that instead of what I am telling you.
As for the tracking, there's several reasons why you can't find anything showing you how much money the Hillary campaign, of the ~$23M they raised last month, or any other month for that matter, came from the HVA. But again that would just be for us, as I've already said several times, there's nothing the FEC could do anyway because using the HVF as a pass through for large donations (while pretty unethical and not great PR) is totally legal.
Is that not clear enough? And how is the HVF piling money together and putting it into the Hillary campaign's general funds without it being illegal and obvious? Because it would be both illegal and obvious. Money is tracked and moving it through a couple different hands doesn't change the original source or magically exempt it from limits. If Soros gives 353K and it's moved through the HVF it doesn't magically become magical money that magically appeared in the HVF account-- money is fungible, but the amounts are accounted for. A money trail can be hidden in laundering cases because an auditor does not have all the financial docs, but the FEC does have all the financial docs. If campaigns were companies, they'd be the most financially transparent on Earth, they basically publish their general ledgers every month. No one cares about this because it's a non-issue built on a misunderstanding of accounting and campaign finance. Let's try it this way. Let's look at the Clooney dinner. The "fundraising expenses" can be paid by the HVF as it's actually their event (they being Hillary's Campaign staff) instead of the Clinton Campaign paying the expenses, which do you think her staff chooses? Tadaa, you've turned Soros $300k check into paying for a Clooney fundraiser for your campaign, and it's all legal. Sure, and the money from that fundraiser goes to HVF. The first $2700 goes to the Clinton campaign as allowed but the vast majority goes to state parties and the DNC. None of us know how expenses are allocated-- perhaps the Clinton campaign itself pays a proportion in line with the percentage of proceeds they get from their general accounts and the HVF accounts pay the rest, and/or Clinton makes an "in kind" contribution to account for her campaign's portion of expense instead of putting in cash. It's a two birds one stone/ everyone wins scenario where Clinton raises a bunch of money for herself and the party. God forbid, Clinton has raised money for those downballot candidates. Your argument has gone from Clinton is laundering 300K donations through HVF to the HVF uses HVF funds to pay for HVF events... and Clinton potentially, maybe generates some benefits from it. It was all perfectly legal, and at worst Hillary has avoided spending a little cash in this particular scenario. You're now making a mountain out of a molehill which we're not even sure is really there. this is about big money in politics. I assume by your posts that you don't care about the top 1 percent controlling out elections but GH does. Thats why its a big deal. yes its perfectly legal loopholes but you have to agree that there is some reason this money is being donated, even if its a "gee I like you so much I'll give you hundreds of thousands of dollars". Will money get into politics no matter what rules we give them otherwise? Yes. Would money in politics not matter if more people voted? Yes. Would money in politics not matter if it was encouraged and made fully visible? Yes. If you want to affect which politicians are in power--vote. The only thing big money does is advertise more. If people always voted their minds anyway then no amount of advertisement would change it. Sure if every eligible voter is perfectly engaged and perfectly knowledgeable, we don't need to about care how people campaign for office. GH's point is pretty strenuous at best, but your arguments has little value in the real word. You mean making voting a federal mandated holiday while also giving tax incentives to people who vote in order to force a bump in voter participation is less realistic than magically telling rich people that they can't spend their money and assuming rich people won't simply do it under the table? Please enlighten me. Because voter participation rate itself is not as big a problem as voter engagement. If anything, it just encourage people who has even less investment or knowledge on issues to vote (Well, this Trump dude sounds pretty good since he is the only name I recognize). You don't get to decide that other people's votes are dumber just because they don't align with your own.
I'm not saying that at all. There are people who vote for dumb reason on all sides and there are informed voters on all sides. We should aim for more of latter than former, regardless which side. There are many legitmate reasons to vote for trump, and I agree with some of them. I don't think the good outweigh the bad but that's just my opinion. What I am saying is that "I've seen him on a reality show once" is a shitty reason (same applies to Clinton, or anyone else for that matter), and economic incentive to push politically apathetic people to vote is not necessarily a good thing.
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I was joking about the sky thing but some of ya'll took the bait like none other
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The governors of California and New York acted on Monday to raise their states’ minimum wages to $15 an hour – the highest in the nation – as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders again seized on wage disparity and the plight of the working poor as a defining issue in the presidential race.
Clinton joined Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York as he signed the law that will gradually boost that state’s pay rate and she predicted the movement would “sweep our country”.
In a statement, Sanders said his campaign was about building on the steps in California and New York “so that everyone in this country can enjoy the dignity and basic economic security that comes from a living wage”.
In Los Angeles, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that will lift the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022.
The efforts in New York and California mark the most ambitious moves yet to close the national divide between rich and poor. Experts say other states may follow, given Congress’s reluctance to act despite entreaties from Barack Obama.
“This is about economic justice. It’s about people. It’s about creating a little, tiny amount of balance in a system that every day becomes more unbalanced,” Brown said before signing the bill at the Ronald Reagan state building.
Republicans and business groups warn that the move could cost thousands of jobs, while a legislative analysis puts the cost to California taxpayers at $3.6bn a year in higher pay for government employees.
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On April 05 2016 07:48 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2016 07:37 Mohdoo wrote:On April 05 2016 07:36 Jormundr wrote:On April 05 2016 07:24 oneofthem wrote:
there are actual electronic evidence involved. this is not even challenged by either the activist at issue or the sanders campaign. rather they have offered excuses and spin.
if you insist on her neutrality you are doing so in the face of clear evidence to contrary.
like whitedoge defending mao or you defending the neutrality of this lady, mh advice is pick easier fights. seriously stop being so partisan as to defend every sanders ally or every commie. Honey, you can believe that you're standing on evidence all you want. If you can't make it appear you're going to fall flat on your face just like your argument. You don't have to defend every moronic pro-Hillary move either. Her camp says the sky is purple. All the evidence we've had so far says the sky ain't purple. For calibration, do you believe Sanders is going to be the nominee? I started out guessing he had at best a 10% chance. Was up to about 33% by december. I've been viewing him as a 50% chance of winning ever since the first primary. If Hillary hadn't done such a good job keeping a lid on Bernie (mainly keeping him off the TV) she wouldn't have had a chance in this race. Bernie's slowly gotten a trickle down of media exposure and it's showing in his results. If this were an equal race, Bernie would have already won, which surprises me because I was far more cynical about the average democrat around this time last year. I honestly hope that Bernie keeps it up until the end, as Hillary gets more vicious and two faced with her attacks. If Hillary is the face of the DNC, I want it torn apart and I'm willing to vote Trump to get that done. Nobody is happy with either party right now, and both parties are quite obviously interested in giving more power to businesses than to the people who work for them. This is the exact opposite of what a government should do. In capitalism, government is a way for people to organize against the power of monopoly.
"Nobody is happy with either party right now"
Obama is at >50% approval rating. The majority of the country is pleased with our executive leadership.
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EPT
