US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5721

On October 21 2016 08:21 Danglars wrote:

He's also released uncut videos in the past to clear up people that assume deceptive editing if it reflects badly on Democratic party officials and various nonprofits & NGOs. But we're way beyond a blind approach to even-handed treatment of illegality, so I'll move on. If the Hillary campaign communicated in ways suggested by these videos and its not some elaborate dub of things they never said, would it concern you in the least? Do you have problems with Hillary superPAC workers training to behave in ways likely to incite violence at Trump rallies? Frankly, with what the Trump campaign Trump has done to Democrats in this election, I'm wondering if anyone would actually have a problem with it if true.

Still hoping ZeromuS can clarify what it means to be against the abortion of a child of whom he's the father. I've only heard the typical pro-choice "woman's body, zero parental rights" arguments thus far.

On October 21 2016 08:24 plasmidghost wrote:
This is fucking hilarious and incredibly concerning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQJzt48wXbA

On October 21 2016 08:25 Nevuk wrote:

So you support wiretapping of elected US officials by private citizens? That's good to know.

On October 21 2016 08:32 plasmidghost wrote:

He's got no problem taking power, but refuses to give it. Terrifying is an understatement

Lusby, Maryland (CNN) -- A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.
James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.
The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen.
"I never intended to become part of the story," Boudreau said. "But things suddenly took a very strange turn."
Andrew Breitbart: O'Keefe owes CNN, supporters an explanation
O'Keefe is best known for making a series of undercover videos inside ACORN offices around the country in 2009. The 40-year-old liberal group was crippled by scandal after O'Keefe and fellow activist Hannah Giles allegedly solicited advice from ACORN workers on setting up a brothel and evading taxes.
The videos led to some of the employees being fired and contributed to the disbanding of ACORN, which advocated for low- and middle-income and worked to register voters.
But prosecutors in New York and California eventually found no evidence of wrongdoing by the group, and the California probe found the videos had been heavily and selectively edited.
O'Keefe's next big splash ended with his arrest after he taped associates entering Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans posing as telephone repairmen. He ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses and is now on probation.
But he continues to do undercover projects through his organization, which is called Project Veritas.
The incident occurred in August, when Boudreau agreed to meet O'Keefe to discuss CNN's request to be present on set for a music video shoot in which O'Keefe stars.
Boudreau in her own words
For months, CNN had been following a group of young conservative activists, including Christian Hartsock, the director of the music video. The activists will be featured in a documentary, "Right on the Edge," that will air October 2 and 3.
Hartsock said O'Keefe did not want CNN to shoot on the set of the music video, but said he would encourage O'Keefe to call CNN to discuss the request.
O'Keefe called Boudreau on August 10. During the conversation, he said he preferred that Boudreau meet him in person in Maryland and asked that she come alone.
"I just want to talk," O'Keefe told Boudreau on the phone. "I just want to have a, you know, meeting with you, and talk to you face to face about this. Because, I don't, I feel sort of, let's just say reserved about, about letting people into my sort of inner sanctum, about letting, letting people sort of take a glimpse into, into, behind the scenes, so that's why you know, I just feel more comfortable if it was just me and you and we just had a face-to-face meeting before I agree to, to let you guys come out and shoot the video shoot out there."
The phone call was recorded without Boudreau's knowledge, but CNN obtained a copy of the recording after O'Keefe e-mailed it to friends and colleagues. Boudreau agreed to the meeting, which she understood would be in his office.
"The purpose of the meeting was to explain [the CNN story] in person to James," Boudreau said.
CNN was forwarded an e-mail, sent from O'Keefe's e-mail address, to the executive director of Project Veritas, Izzy Santa; and two conservative activists, Ben Wetmore of New Orleans and Jonathon Burns of St. Louis, Missouri, dated after the call with Boudreau.
"Getting Closer," the e-mail states. "Audio attached conversation with Abbie. What do you think of her reaction guys. She said she could do it Monday, Tuesday. Ben, you think I could get her on the boat?"
Boudreau flew to Baltimore, Maryland, on August 17, rented a car, and drove to suburban Lusby, where O'Keefe wanted to meet. O'Keefe sent a text message to Boudreau that morning, saying that Santa would meet her when she got there.
When Boudreau arrived at the address, a house located on a tributary of the Patuxent River, Santa approached her with a tape recorder in her hand and said she wanted to talk in the car, Boudreau said.
"I noticed she had a little bit of dirt on her face, her lip was shaking, she seemed really uncomfortable and I asked her if she was OK," Boudreau said. "The first thing she basically said to me was, 'I'm not recording you, I'm not recording you. Are you recording me?' I said, 'No, I'm not recording you,' and she showed me her digital recorder and it was not recording."
Santa told Boudreau that O'Keefe planned to "punk" her by getting on a boat where hidden cameras were set up. Boudreau said she would not get on the boat and asked Santa why O'Keefe wanted her there.
"Izzy told me that James was going to be dressed up and have strawberries and champagne on the boat, and he was going to hit on me the whole time," Boudreau said.
A short time later, O'Keefe emerged from a boat docked behind the house. In that brief conversation, Boudreau told O'Keefe that he did not have permission to record her, and reminded him that the meeting was solely to discuss the upcoming music video shoot, and he had never mentioned that he wanted to tape their meeting.
Boudreau ended the meeting and left. After the incident, Santa gave CNN a series of e-mails she says shows O'Keefe intended to try to embarrass both the network and Boudreau through an elaborate plan.
The day of the meeting, she wrote to someone she described as a financial donor to Project Veritas. She would not identify the individual.
"I have a problem on my hands that I think has the potential for unnecessary backlash," Santa wrote. "Today, James is meeting with a CNN correspondent today on his boat. She is doing a piece on the movement of young conservative filmmakers.
"She doesn't know she is getting on a boat but rather James' office. James has staged the boat to be a palace of pleasure with all sorts of props, wants to have a bizarre sexual conversation with her. He wants to gag CNN."
She wrote that "the idea is incredibly bad" and "the more I think about it we should not be doing this."
O'Keefe had also instructed Santa to print a "pleasure palace graphic" on a large poster, according to an e-mail.
CNN later obtained a copy of a 13-page document titled "CNN Caper," which appears to describe O'Keefe's detailed plans for that day.
Read excerpts from the document
"The plans appeared so outlandish and so juvenile in tone, I questioned whether it was part of a second attempted punk," Boudreau said.
But in a phone conversation, Santa confirmed the document was authentic. Listed under "equipment needed," is "hidden cams on the boat," and a "tripod and overt recorder near the bed, an obvious sex tape machine."
Among the props listed were a "condom jar, dildos, posters and paintings of naked women, fuzzy handcuffs" and a blindfold.
According to the document, O'Keefe was to record a video of the following script before Boudreau arrived: "My name is James. I work in video activism and journalism. I've been approached by CNN for an interview where I know what their angle is: they want to portray me and my friends as crazies, as non-journalists, as unprofessional and likely as homophobes, racists or bigots of some sort....
"Instead, I've decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I'm going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I'm going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she'll get seduced on camera and you'll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath.
"Please sit back and enjoy the show."
Boudreau, who has won multiple awards for her investigative reporting, called the comments "ridiculous."
The document states it was written by "Ben." According to the e-mail chain obtained by CNN, Ben Wetmore sent the document to O'Keefe and Santa. In a statement e-mailed to CNN, O'Keefe wrote: "That is not my work product. When it was sent to me, I immediately found certain elements highly objectionable and inappropriate, and did not consider them for one minute following it."
He did not respond to follow-up questions. Wetmore did not respond to our questions about the document. Instead, he posted a YouTube video criticizing CNN's coverage of the ACORN story.
Burns did not respond to CNN. The "CNN Caper" document warned O'Keefe about how to handle potential problems.
"If CNN gets advance warning and you find this out, you should simply cancel the operation, period," the document states. "You're in a position of strength. Make her [Boudreau] come to you. To leave the boat kills the operation."
The document discusses the potential fallout from the operation.
"If they pursue this as you are a creep, you should play it up with them initially only to reveal that the tape was made beforehand confirming this was a gag," the document states. "If they [CNN] admit it was a gag, you should release the footage and focus on the fact they got punked, and make sure to emphasize Abbie's name and overall status to help burden her career with this video, incident and her bad judgment in pursuing you so aggressively."
Finally, "if they go on the attack, you should point out the hypocrisy in CNN using the inherent sexuality of these women to sell viewers and for ratings, passing up more esteemed and respectable journalists who aren't bubble-headed bleach blondes and keep the focus on CNN."
CNN traveled to Pasadena, California, for the music video shoot involving O'Keefe, but was not permitted on set. Since the Maryland incident, O'Keefe has transferred all of Santa's duties to one of the Project Veritas directors.
Santa's attorney, Christopher Markham, told CNN that Santa "didn't want what could have happened to occur. She thought it may have been a threat to the organization, and didn't want it to happen to [Boudreau]."
Markham said even though Santa's duties were taken away from her, she is still on the Project Veritas payroll.
Ryan Sorba, one of the conservative activists featured in the CNN documentary, said that O'Keefe told him about the planned prank about two weeks ago when they met for dinner in New York City.
"He basically said he was going to pull a prank on Abbie and it didn't work out," Sorba said. "He said, 'I can't talk about it right now, I can't go into any more detail.'"
Sorba said since he was going to be part of the documentary, O'Keefe wanted him to know about what had happened.
Christian Hartsock, another activist who is part of the documentary, told CNN that he knew nothing about O'Keefe's prank.
"If there is truth to this, it sounds like an attempt at satire, a very poor attempt at satire," Hartsock said. "And I wish I would have been made aware of it in advance, and I would have put a stop to it. I think it was a bad tactic if there was truth to it."
Hartsock said O'Keefe was one of his closest friends.
"Does it change how I feel about James O'Keefe? Absolutely not," Hartsock said. "I've had plenty of friends who've made mistakes."

Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake has maintained for months that Republicans should take up Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination if it looks like the presidential contest is a lost cause for the GOP.

It's looking about that time, Flake said in an interview on Thursday.

"I said if we were in a position like we were in in '96 and we pretty much knew the outcome that we ought to move forward. But I think we passed that awhile ago," Flake said. "If Hillary Clinton is president-elect then we should move forward with hearings in the lame duck. That's what I'm encouraging my colleagues to do."

The political calculus is straightforward: Better to deal with Garland now and avoid swallowing a more liberal nominee from Hillary Clinton.

Flake, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, would not explicitly say that he expects Clinton will win. But he all but admitted that Donald Trump — whom Flake opposes — is toast.

"I'm saying that I'm not one to deny polls, particularly when they are overwhelming," Flake said. And in the current crop of polls show a highly likely Clinton win, Flake said, "there is some accuracy there."

Flake's comments come as the Senate GOP weighs how to deal with a Clinton nomination to the Supreme Court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has ruled out taking up Garland in the lame duck. But that raises the prospect that Clinton could pick someone other than Garland, whom Republicans once praised as a consensus nominee before rolling out a blockade intended to allow voters to weigh in before the vacancy is filled.

On October 21 2016 08:31 Danglars wrote:

Let me put on my best spirit-of-the-thread face. When did you start supporting superpac illegal activities by superPACs if done in coordination with the Hillary Campaign? Why, in your views, should laws not be applied equally to all involved?

Cross-topic to the courts and prisons topic, does having repaid your debt to society mean something if you disagree with someone's politics?

On October 21 2016 08:39 oBlade wrote:
Here's an AP clip that doesn't cut off the rest of the comments about contesting the results:

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 21 2016 08:48 zlefin wrote:

are you sure the activities are illegal in light of the extremely silly extent to which things are allowed? (e.g. colbert report stuff on the topic)

The number of people infected with three major sexually transmitted diseases is at an all-time high, according to a CDC report released Wednesday. And the increase in reported cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis is hitting teenagers and young adults hardest.

Over half of gonorrhea and chlamydia cases are in people under the age of 25, says Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention for the CDC.

These STDs can have serious long term health consequences, including chronic pain and fertility problems. Pregnant women can pass syphilis on to their children, leading to stillbirth or birth defects.

State and local budget cuts to STD care and prevention programs are major drivers in the surge in STDs, Mermin says. "Our ability to prevent STDs is only as strong as the public health infrastructure to support it," he says. "More than half of state and local STD programs have experienced budget cuts. In 2012, 20 health departments reported having to close their STD clinics."

Syphilis infections have been increasing at a particularly troubling rate, according to the report. In 2015, 23,872 cases were reported, a 19 percent increase since 2014. Syphilis cases have been going up over the past decade, while the spike in cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea is more recent. There were 395,216 cases of gonorrhea and 1.5 million cases of chlamydia reported in the same year, showing a rise of 6 and 13 percent over the past year. All three infections can be treated with antibiotics, though gonorrhea is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

"This basically tells us we have to do a better job of reach out to some of these communities that are disproportionately affected by these infections," says Dr. Jose Bazan, a medical director for an STD clinic at Columbus Public Health and an assistant professor of internal medicine at Ohio State University who was not involved with the report.

Men who have sex with men face a greater risk of being infected with syphilis. Over 80 percent of male syphilis cases were reported among gay and bisexual males, and over 90 percent of all syphilis cases were in men. People in racial and sexual minority groups can have more than the usual trouble finding care for preventing and treating STDs.

According to a congressional briefing last April by Dr. Gail Bolan, the director for the CDC Division of STD Prevention, over 40 percent of health departments reduced clinic hours, screening, or tracing people who may have been infected. "If that infrastructure gets eroded, people are more likely to have their STDs for a longer period of time, and that can lead to increased transmission," Mermin says.

The federal government also helps fund state and local STD programs through the CDC, but federal funds have not helped make up for some of the budget cuts on the local level, according to David Harvey, the executive director for the National Coalition of STD Directors. "We believe there's a direct relationship between budget cuts and increases in STDs in the United States. There has been no federal increases for STD programs in this country since 2003," he says.

A bitter Donald Trump must not poison US democracy

After two previous bizarre performances in which he displayed an exceedingly thin skin, an addiction to braggadocio and a painfully weak grasp of policy, it was hard to imagine that Donald Trump had any surprises left for the third and final presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.

To be sure, his trademark misogyny was on display on Wednesday, initially more muted than previously but then warming up to describe Mrs Clinton as “such a nasty woman” and falsely claiming that allegations of sexual harassment against him had been debunked. His most notable intervention, though, was a clear threat that he might refuse to accept the result of the election. As Mr Trump’s campaign has become mired in difficulty and the polls have moved against him, he has expressed increasing paranoia that the media is biased and that, without the slightest evidence, the election could be “rigged”.

If these absurd suggestions remain confined to Mr Trump, the harm will be contained. Assuming the Republican candidate loses the election, they will fuel a sense of grievance that will allow him to prolong his period in the public eye by presenting himself as a wronged martyr.

But if significant numbers of Republicans follow him down the route of baselessly alleging shenanigans, American democracy will be the loser. It is one thing to pursue ideas, even extreme ones, within an electoral system ruled by due process; it is quite another to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire proceedings.

Republican politicians have faced a choice ever since Mr Trump secured the nomination, and especially since his rhetoric on immigrants, Muslims and women became more extreme. They can dissociate themselves from their presidential candidate and risk alienating grassroots activists and voters, or they can remain loyal and be forever tainted by association with Mr Trump’s outbursts.

This dilemma is only sharpened by the fact that Mr Trump’s attitudes find echoes in what some Republicans have been saying for decades on issues such as race and immigration. In the case of vote-rigging, Republicans have been promoting voter ID laws requiring electors to carry some form of photo identification, despite a lack of evidence that impersonating another voter is a significant problem in US elections.

Indeed, courts have held that it is instead very likely aimed at suppressing turnout among ethnic minority voters inclined to support the Democrats. In that sense, Mr Trump is only extending and amplifying themes that have become a routine part of electoral discourse for some Republicans.

Just as many prominent Republicans withdrew their endorsements for Mr Trump after his boasting about sexual assault came to light, so they must also make clear that the candidate must concede if he loses. Before Wednesday’s debates, Mike Pence, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, said that he and Mr Trump would “certainly” accept the outcome of the election. After Mr Trump’s latest remarks, Mr Pence retreated on that promise, feebly saying he would only defer to the result if the election was “fair”.

In practice, Mr Trump’s refusal to accept the result would almost certainly make no difference to whether Mrs Clinton became president. But a party casting doubt on the entire democratic process and carrying a grievance could do serious damage to trust in the electoral system. If Mr Trump can only stomach electoral rejection by alleging cheating, the rest of the Republican party must make clear that they do not share his reaction.

On October 21 2016 09:03 Danglars wrote:

Much tiptoeing to the line of legality is allowed, and the Podesta emails show the extent to which he's the king of it. But this is along the lines of a previous complaint filed you can read all about in LawNewz.