US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3951

On June 05 2016 23:30 kwizach wrote:
In other news, Hillary has won the Virgin Islands caucus (about 87% to Sanders' 12%) and netted at least five additional pledged delegates from the contest (6-1). Source.

On June 05 2016 23:53 Mohdoo wrote:


It's refreshing to see something relevant to American politics in this thread.

On June 06 2016 00:05 Surth wrote:

You're right, 5 delegates for a primary that is more or less over anyway are way more important than systemic racism. LOL. And systemic racism is at least something you can have a debate about (you know, that thing forums are for), unlike "here are the latest results / polls." Politics are not a fucking horserace, leave that shit to Nate Silver and his ilk. Every time an actual debate in this thread ensues (no matter how retarded, as this particular one which included netties coming and so helpfully noticing that Chicago and Detroit are probably violent spaces because of democrats), there is someone like you who wants to get back to "real politics", by which that person means "what are the latest polls?" It's ridiculous.

I can scarcely imagine a topic that is more specifically "American politics" than the continued problem of racism against african-americans. That is basically the foundation of America, after all. But you want to hear more about the Virgin Islands' democratic caucus. Okay.

On June 06 2016 00:44 Sermokala wrote:

This is a problem I have with people always trying to talk about racism against black people on either side. It's not the be all end all issue and doesn't solve or advance anything. Black people account for 13 percent of the country. It's not that big of a part of our country to have such high billing in politics.

On June 06 2016 00:44 Sermokala wrote:

This is a problem I have with people always trying to talk about racism against black people on either side. It's not the be all end all issue and doesn't solve or advance anything. Black people account for 13 percent of the country. It's not that big of a part of our country to have such high billing in politics.

On June 06 2016 01:09 farvacola wrote:
"Culture" is not a uniform, singular object that be can be critiqued without enormous clarification (where does it begin? end? what are the boundaries of a particular culture?), so going down the "black culture is the problem" road requires a lot of analysis that most are simply unwilling to do. Inevitably, discussions of "black culture" that ignore the influences of other cultures and the degree to which factors outside the pale of "culture" take part end up as placeholders for de-facto racial assumptions that look an awful lot like racism. That's why "liberals" tend to be get upset when faced with such conclusions.

On June 06 2016 00:45 Gorsameth wrote:

"we should stop worrying about racism because only 13% of the country suffers from it"

Wow...

On June 06 2016 00:50 biology]major wrote:
systemic racism? what's holding black people back is their very own culture. No one seems to talk about it though. A culture that values being "hard" and banging as many "bitches" as possible over getting an education and being a productive member of society. I think this is one area where Obama could have made a shift in culture of minorities by emphasizing the value of education, hard work and to escape difficult environments. Now am I saying all black believe these things? No. However it's pretty hard to escape that culture when most role models they have esp from music industry are shoving these values down their throat. Its a detrimental culture, and they will never advance to the level of the rest of the population without abandoning parts of it.

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said “it’s possible” that Muslim judges, in addition to Hispanic jurists, would be biased against him and thus ineligible to oversee any case involving him.

Democrats and Republicans alike have rebuked Trump for his insistence that a federal judge, an American citizen since his birth to Mexican immigrants in Indiana, is biased because of the businessman’s plan to build a wall on the southern border.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel is sitting in one of three cases brought against Trump University, a for-profit institution that has been accused of defrauding students of tens of thousands of dollars and called “a total lie” and “fraudulent scheme” by former employees. Last week, Curiel ordered the release of testimony and documents related to the suit, prompting Trump’s accusation of bias.

Trump expanded this argument in an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation that was broadcast on Sunday. Because of his proposal to “temporarily” ban Muslims from entering the US, he said, it “would be possible, absolutely” that he would consider a Muslim judge inappropriate in court.

“He’s a member of a club or society very strongly from Mexico, which is fine,” Trump said of Curiel. “But I say he’s got bias. I’m going to build a wall. I’m going to build a wall.”

But although the Republican candidate has complained “this judge is treating me very unfairly” and claims to have heard from “numerous lawyers” about his argument, his lawyers have not asked the Curiel to recuse himself.

Race, ethnicity and religion are not legal grounds for a recusal, courts have ruled for decades, and the complaint runs afoul of basic US civil and religious rights.

On June 06 2016 01:35 Sermokala wrote:

I'm not saying stop talking about racism but just not have it be the most important thing all the time. Heck racism against native americans and hispanics don't get a fraction of the attention that african american racism gets.

On June 06 2016 00:50 biology]major wrote:
systemic racism? what's holding black people back is their very own culture. No one seems to talk about it though. A culture that values being "hard" and banging as many "bitches" as possible over getting an education and being a productive member of society. I think this is one area where Obama could have made a shift in culture of minorities by emphasizing the value of education, hard work and to escape difficult environments. Now am I saying all black believe these things? No. However it's pretty hard to escape that culture when most role models they have esp from music industry are shoving these values down their throat. Its a detrimental culture, and they will never advance to the level of the rest of the population without abandoning parts of it.

On June 06 2016 02:37 CorsairHero wrote:

Whats the biggest example of racism against blacks in the last year or two? Racist cops?

On June 06 2016 02:40 PassiveAce wrote:
Emanuel Church

On the morning of May 29, 2014, an overcast Thursday in Washington, DC, the general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Robert Litt, wrote an email to high-level officials at the National Security Agency and the White House.

The topic: what to do about Edward Snowden.

Snowden's leaks had first come to light the previous June, when the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald and the Washington Post's Barton Gellman published stories based on highly classified documents provided to them by the former NSA contractor. Now Snowden, who had been demonized by the NSA and the Obama administration for the past year, was publicly claiming something that set off alarm bells at the agency: Before he leaked the documents, Snowden said, he had repeatedly attempted to raise his concerns inside the NSA about its surveillance of US citizens — and the agency had done nothing.

Some on the email thread, such as Rajesh De, the NSA's general counsel, advocated for the public release of a Snowden email from April 2013 in which the former NSA contractor asked questions about the "interpretation of legal authorities" related to the agency's surveillance programs. It was the only evidence the agency found that even came close to verifying Snowden's assertions, and De believed it was weak enough to call Snowden's credibility into question and put the NSA in the clear.

Litt disagreed. "I'm not sure that releasing the email will necessarily prove him a liar," Litt wrote to Caitlin Hayden, then the White House National Security Council spokesperson, along with De and other officials. "It is, I could argue, technically true that [Snowden's] email... 'rais[ed] concerns about the NSA's interpretation of its legal authorities.' As I recall, the email essentially questions a document that Snowden interpreted as claiming that Executive Orders were on a par with statutes. While that is surely not raising the kind of questions that Snowden is trying to suggest he raised, neither does it seem to me that that email is a home run refutation."

Within two hours, however, Litt reversed his position, and later that day, the email was released, accompanied by comment from NSA spokesperson Marci Green Miller: "The email did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse."

Five days later, another email was sent — this one addressed to NSA director Mike Rogers and copied to 31 other people and one listserv. In it, a senior NSA official apologized to Rogers for not providing him and others with all the details about Snowden's communications with NSA officials regarding his concerns over surveillance.

The NSA, it seemed, had not told the public the whole story about Snowden's contacts with oversight authorities before he became the most celebrated and vilified whistleblower in US history.

Hundreds of internal NSA documents, declassified and released to VICE News in response to our long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, reveal now for the first time that not only was the truth about the "single email" more complex and nuanced than the NSA disclosed to the public, but that Snowden had a face-to-face interaction with one of the people involved in responding to that email. The documents, made up of emails, talking points, and various records — many of them heavily redacted — contain insight into the NSA's interaction with the media, new details about Snowden's work, and an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the efforts by the NSA, the White House, and US Senator Dianne Feinstein to discredit Snowden.

The trove of more than 800 pages [pdf at the end of this story], along with several interviews conducted by VICE News, offer unprecedented insight into the NSA during this time of crisis within the agency. And they call into question aspects of the US government's long-running narrative about Snowden's time at the NSA.