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On December 11 2016 22:31 Nebuchad wrote:
Have to agree with farvacola there. While private prisons have their own issues, having a public system that pushes a war on drug based on political objectives from 50 years ago certainly is a bigger part of this problem.
Well they go hand in hand don't they?
Though true I wasn't aware of the scope of private prisons being an issue. I just know that prosecutors prosecute very easily. I'm interested in hearing more about state correction departments.
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Norway28727 Posts
yeah, while for profit prisons are absolutely abhorrent, and while I'm sure there's been some instances of this industry lobbying for stricter punishments, they really aren't the driving force behind all that is wrong with the american penal system. The biggest problem is that americans have a mentality where people should be punished for being bad people rather than rehabilitated and helped become less bad people. (yes of course I realize that not every single person is possible to rehabilitate).
As a sidenote, the Norwegian correctional system is, in Norwegian, called 'kriminalomsorgen', which literally translates to 'criminal care'. This difference in language is quite significant.
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On December 11 2016 16:50 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
That is interesting that Obama says North Korea is the biggest foreign policy issue when he claims Russia is putting out "fake news" and hacking the elections.Plus the Ukraine situation, the Syria situation? Maybe he knows something we don't.
For all intents and purposes all of the Russia issues seem to be winding down. Ukraine and Syria are unlikely to be as chaotic as they were 2-3 years ago. NK on the other hand is probably an issue that is going to escalate and it's just about time to solve it. Though unfortunately it's hard to make a deal since the only two countries with relatively strong ties to NK are not altogether happy with how the US chooses to treat them.
On December 11 2016 16:50 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Anyone catch this? Jimmy Carter to Obama: Before you leave office, recognize Palestinian state
November 29, 2016 Former President Jimmy Carter is calling on the Obama administration to recognize Palestinian statehood before leaving office January 20. Show nested quote +
Carter, who is strong proponent for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, praised the Obama administration in a New York Times op-ed out Monday for its support for a "negotiated end to the conflict based on two states," but warned this work could be undone with an incoming Republican administration.
"I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short, " Carter wrote. "The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine."
The former President also called for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution "laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict."
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/jimmy-carter-palestine-op-ed/
No, Jimmy. No.
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On December 11 2016 23:32 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2016 16:50 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
That is interesting that Obama says North Korea is the biggest foreign policy issue when he claims Russia is putting out "fake news" and hacking the elections.Plus the Ukraine situation, the Syria situation? Maybe he knows something we don't. For all intents and purposes all of the Russia issues seem to be winding down. Ukraine and Syria are unlikely to be as chaotic as they were 2-3 years ago. NK on the other hand is probably an issue that is going to escalate and it's just about time to solve it. Though unfortunately it's hard to make a deal since the only two countries with relatively strong ties to NK are not altogether happy with how the US chooses to treat them. Show nested quote +On December 11 2016 16:50 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Anyone catch this? Jimmy Carter to Obama: Before you leave office, recognize Palestinian state
November 29, 2016 Former President Jimmy Carter is calling on the Obama administration to recognize Palestinian statehood before leaving office January 20.
Carter, who is strong proponent for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, praised the Obama administration in a New York Times op-ed out Monday for its support for a "negotiated end to the conflict based on two states," but warned this work could be undone with an incoming Republican administration.
"I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short, " Carter wrote. "The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine."
The former President also called for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution "laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict."
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/jimmy-carter-palestine-op-ed/ No, Jimmy. No.
Your right, lets completely forget that a foreign government and one of the biggest rivals of the US hacked US officials and released information in an attempt to influence the Presidential elections to create a government that would allow Putin to rebuild the USSR in peace
No big deal
/sarcasm
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I thought I'd post again an in-depth article about Russia's hacking and propaganda efforts I referenced here in early November: click here.
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I still think there's a really good chance Trump would have won without the whole hacking from Russia and so I don't put too much thought into it. Plus there is no changing the results now. The fact that this a public issue now means there will probably be more defensive measures taken next time which is good.
My biggest concern coming out of this is a trend we're seeing where people like Trump and Flynn ignore intelligence and data that does not fit with their worldview. I imagine we can expect a lot Trump ignoring intelligence because he does not like what it says. Flynn is literally known in the intelligence community for ignoeimg facts he does not agree with. The only question left is what will be the repercussions of people like this being in power.
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Norway28727 Posts
seriously. They can just acknowledge that 'okay, so the russians preferred us winning. That's reasonable, unlike the democrats we chose to avoid demonizing them in our campaign. It still doesn't mean anything in terms of whether the election was legitimate. Let us please focus on other issues now, because this is no longer relevant', and then I think the controversy would largely die. As long as Russia acted independently, Trump can't really be faulted for it. But now it's still scary because this shows that even after winning Trump just keeps peddling his bullshit reality, and as long as that happens, there won't be any healing or moving forward, and it makes it so much more unlikely that he'll be an anywhere near decent president.
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On December 12 2016 03:20 Liquid`Drone wrote:
seriously. They can just acknowledge that 'okay, so the russians preferred us winning. That's reasonable, unlike the democrats we chose to avoid demonizing them in our campaign. It still doesn't mean anything in terms of whether the election was legitimate. Let us please focus on other issues now, because this is no longer relevant', and then I think the controversy would largely die. As long as Russia acted independently, Trump can't really be faulted for it. But now it's still scary because this shows that even after winning Trump just keeps peddling his bullshit reality, and as long as that happens, there won't be any healing or moving forward, and it makes it so much more unlikely that he'll be an anywhere near decent president.
The other "side" of the issue doesn't really have any direction for what they want to happen with the CIA statement either. Some just want to pout about Russia because they like to do that whenever possible, some want to pout about Clinton losing (there are a lot of those), plenty want to see a more intelligence community minded president elect, but no one really seems to have a plan of action. It's just CIA says X, Trump says nah, the crowd says "OMG DUDE X!!!!", Trump says nah, and then, nothing really.
Incidentally, do you think that if the Russian collusion were reversed (say it was Trump running as a Democrat, since people say he is one in disguise, against Jeb Bush who defeated a more popular version of Rand Paul through sneaky means and there was a huge RNC leak by the evil Russians), that the Democrats would stand up against the leaks? Or do you think that the reactions were basically the result of the situation that arose here?
In other words, do you believe the Clinton-base/establishment outrage is more anti-meddling, or more a reaction to them being the victim of the hack? Because for example I remember a whole different tune being sung when it was Wikileaks being anti-right or helping Snowden for example.
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Yeah LL, still confused how the Russia stuff is "winding down." Seems as though Russia had an outcome in mind for this election, and through a combination of propaganda (e.g. RT, Sputnik), bots/troll factories on social media, and illegal hacks they pushed as hard as they could for that outcome. Whether it would have happened without them is impossible to know, but surely from their perspective it'll look like it worked.
I don't think anyone will disagree that Russia has clear foreign policy objectives they're hoping to extract from Trump, like lifting sanctions, officially recognizing thrir annexation of Crimea, and maybe even abolishing NATO. Can't hurt that they also hacked the RNC but didn't release the info, which means that bullet is still in the chamber for anybody opposing their agenda. And they just demonstrated in maybe the most high-profile way possible that they can dump hacked info and the fact that it's a clear Russian attack job won't stop people from reacting against the info as though it were from any other source.
So Russia has policy objectives at odds with our own, they know they can influence our elections, and they probably have dirt on a lot of our current elected leaders. Which part of this doesn't seem concerning?
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Norway28727 Posts
I think it's understandable that the side that was targeted negatively is the one that draws attention to it, and I think it's understandable that the side that was favored tries to diminish the importance. I just wish the Trump defense could be one where he acknowledged that the Russians preferred him, but he had no control over their actions. He could further argue that while the motivations behind the leaks was an open question to which he did not have the answer, there's nothing indicating that the leaked material is not genuine. It's like, I get rewriting reality where that's the only way to plausibly argue your case, but here he doesn't have to - unless there's actually a two way connection. 
I don't really think Trump running (or winning) as a democrat was ever a remote possibility and I've never believed in him being a democrat in disguise, can't really answer your hypothetical. ;p However if random democratic nominee was subject to positive leaks and the republican was exposed, we'd prolly see democrats trying to deflect by attacking CIA credibility, however I could never see this from say, Hillary herself. Maybe Sanders though- like, if this was Sanders vs Jeb Bush I could see Russia clearly favor Sanders, and then I really don't think Sanders has too high of an opinion of the CIA in the first place.
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I can't think of any Democrats off the top of my head who are as widely disliked as Trump for being of the buffoonish quality (most of the hated ones are hated for their policy and/or corruption), so that's why I say Trump as a Democrat. If you want, imagine the same with DWS (EDIT: Anthony Weiner?) or something.
One argument I've mentioned more than once is that it's telling of a damaged political climate that this becomes an issue that is brought up by one party yet diminished by the other. The US isn't the only place where that happens but it certainly is one of them and whoever predicted that it would work out so perfectly was right on the money.
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I agree that the biggest problem is Trumps response. If I were one of his PR people I'd make him tweet something like:
The US electoral process is sacred to our democracy and foreign intervention will not be tolerated. The meddling will be addressed diplomatically by a Trump administration. Further the Obama administrations failure the modernize when cyber vulnerabilities reveal themselves is a threat to our democracy. I will work to keep America safe from the
Cyber threats both foreign and domestic whether it's the Russia, the China or a 400 lb. fat guy.
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By the way: from what I've seen, I am not yet convinced of the accuracy of the CIA's claim either. Perhaps they have more info to work with (they certainly will always say they do), but frankly this entire matter may have played out differently if Clinton won. Podesta, for example, started slow (Pussygate took precedence then), but it clearly gained some traction as more and more stuff came out. There may have been more if Trump hadn't won. All in all I simply find it hard to believe that such a hack would be done with a 30 percent success rate of the objective in mind. And "consensus view" doesn't tell us if there is or isn't a sizable dissent on that consensus.
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it'd be very hard for him to not make it to the inauguration. It'd take extremely convincing, releaseable evidence to cut him off before then, or anytime quite soon.
There's not likely to be the kind of connection so clear and convincing that can be found and proven. The connection would also have to be quite strong rather than tenuous.
real investigations tend to be slow and time consuming.
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FBI investigated him on the hacking and found no link.
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On December 12 2016 04:05 ChristianS wrote:
Yeah LL, still confused how the Russia stuff is "winding down." Seems as though Russia had an outcome in mind for this election, and through a combination of propaganda (e.g. RT, Sputnik), bots/troll factories on social media, and illegal hacks they pushed as hard as they could for that outcome. Whether it would have happened without them is impossible to know, but surely from their perspective it'll look like it worked.
I don't think anyone will disagree that Russia has clear foreign policy objectives they're hoping to extract from Trump, like lifting sanctions, officially recognizing thrir annexation of Crimea, and maybe even abolishing NATO. Can't hurt that they also hacked the RNC but didn't release the info, which means that bullet is still in the chamber for anybody opposing their agenda. And they just demonstrated in maybe the most high-profile way possible that they can dump hacked info and the fact that it's a clear Russian attack job won't stop people from reacting against the info as though it were from any other source.
So Russia has policy objectives at odds with our own, they know they can influence our elections, and they probably have dirt on a lot of our current elected leaders. Which part of this doesn't seem concerning?
This reeks of the Paul vs Ghouliani exchange from 2008. Are you going to accuse the libertarian movement (we want to trade with everyone e.g. no sanctions with anyone and get rid of NATO for the most part) of being in cohoots with the Ruskies? There is no legitimate threat to our "Democracy (even if we ain't one)" from Russia because of information being presented in the public sphere. If they had CIA like ops to destabilize by funding, arming, and agitating domestic insurgencies then we could talk. My point is, just because some policy goals overlap (for sake of argument) does not make one in bed with the people they overlap with (hence my Paul analogy vis a vis leaving the Middle East because the Terrorists want you to non-sense lmao).
Do you see your tortured logic here?
PS: I mean if you want to go further back in time that's fine too. Calling the non-interventionists of the 30's Nazi's because they didn't favor US involvement in Europe or WWII is equally dumb (policy overlap does not = cohoots).
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Certainly feels like people are more worried about the results of the election than they are about governments meddling in other countries elections.
Or maybe they've been raging against the US doing it dozens of times and this was the retribution they've been warning of? Of course I've heard none of the people freaking out about the meddling say they are outraged and seriously concerned when the US does it.
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On December 12 2016 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:
Certainly feels like people are more worried about the results of the election than they are about governments meddling in other countries elections.
Or maybe they've been raging against the US doing it dozens of times and this was the retribution they've been warning of? Of course I've heard none of the people freaking out about the meddling say they are outraged and seriously concerned when the US does it.
Well, I'm sure that they hold those views, but they never take them to their conclusion. The CIA should have never existed in the first place and the OSS should have been the end of it when the war was finished. The NSA and CIA have done far more harm to our country than any good and all this latest hubbaloo is like the new McCarthyism where if you have any views that happen to coincide with the Ruskies then you're suspect. Honestly, I'm pretty surprised how in the last couple years the Democrats have become this rabid anti-Ruskie party. It probably has more to do though as you said, clinging to anything to hit Trump over the head with than any real fundamental belief. It's been almost 30 years and people still can't get past the Cold War animosity. Lifting sanctions against Russia (just like Cuba, Iran, and everyone else) is the only sensible option available. (and NATO serves almost no defensive purpose (for the US) mind you....)
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On December 12 2016 07:49 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:
Certainly feels like people are more worried about the results of the election than they are about governments meddling in other countries elections.
Or maybe they've been raging against the US doing it dozens of times and this was the retribution they've been warning of? Of course I've heard none of the people freaking out about the meddling say they are outraged and seriously concerned when the US does it. Well, I'm sure that they hold those views, but they never take them to their conclusion. The CIA should have never existed in the first place and the OSS should have been the end of it when the war was finished. The NSA and CIA have done far more harm to our country than any good and all this latest hubbaloo is like the new McCarthyism where if you have any views that happen to coincide with the Ruskies then you're suspect. Honestly, I'm pretty surprised how in the last couple years the Democrats have become this rabid anti-Ruskie party. It probably has more to do though as you said, clinging to anything to hit Trump over the head with than any real fundamental belief. It's been almost 30 years and people still can't get past the Cold War animosity. Lifting sanctions against Russia (just like Cuba, Iran, and everyone else) is the only sensible option available.
republicans are still more anti-russian than dems on average.
it's only when it become more of an election related issue that you saw more talk otherwise; and only because there was a potential vulnerability to exploit.
For the reasonable concerned people; the problem is not happening to have a couple views coinciding with the russian; but a pattern that's indicative of something (what that something is is unclear).
it doesn't really seem anything like the mccarthyism to me. Seems far tamer than that.
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EPT
