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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Just 38 days before the inauguration, Donald Trump has given the intelligence community what amounts to a slap in the face, according to current and former intelligence officials.
From refusing briefings to publicly questioning CIA assessments of Russian election hacking, the president-elect has entered a spat with the intelligence agencies he will rely upon for critical information related to national security.
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Over the weekend, Trump confirmed earlier press reports that he had been skipping regular intelligence briefings, which have been a fixture in the presidential schedules for decades.
“You know, I'm, like, a smart person. I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years,” he said in an interview that aired on Fox News on Sunday.
A senior career U.S. official told ABC News, "He's not just taking a shot at an old CIA assessment from 14 years ago, he's disparaging and insulting every analyst currently in the intelligence community working hard to protect the United States.”
ABC News
He doesn't even have the attention span for briefings. He's probably going to need more plausible excuses for his lack of attention span. Just say "I'm leaving this part of the job up to others".
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On December 14 2016 01:09 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2016 01:02 zlefin wrote:On December 14 2016 00:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2016 00:52 zlefin wrote:On December 14 2016 00:49 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2016 00:47 zlefin wrote:On December 14 2016 00:37 Danglars wrote:On December 14 2016 00:15 Gorsameth wrote:On December 14 2016 00:03 Danglars wrote:On December 13 2016 22:11 Acrofales wrote: [quote] This is a bit of a weird perspective. For starters, the NYT didn't hack anything or anybody. So even if you take the stance that the NYT was trying to influence the elections and that that is the problem (hint: it isn´t), they did so through legal means.
Moreover, Russia is not a newspaper, it is a foreign nation. You seem to be playing down the problems of a foreign nation explicitly trying to influence the elections through illicit means. Why? Just because your guy won? Would it have been okay if Russia had hacked the RNC (they might have) and dumped all Priebus' emails on Wikileaks (they didn't) with the explicit goal of discrediting the RNC and Trump, in order to influence people to vote for Hillary? I'm making a comparison along intentions/goals, not trying to call the NYT Russia or justify hacking. Calm down. But comparing intentions and goals without discussing method is apples and oranges. Person A wants a nice shirt and buys it from a store Person B wants a nice shirt and shoplifts it. Person A cannot be critical of Person B because both wanted a nice shirt. Horseshit. The NYT trying to change someone's opinion with articles and Russia hacking US officials and selectively releasing dirt on the candidate they want to lose are not the same thing and your comparison is strait garbage and just illustrates how weak your argument against Russia's involvement is. Then we're lost in your sea of equivocation. And if you think I'm making an argument against Russia's involvement, you're an inventor extraordinaire. "Cannot be critical" is not what has been done, and is not what is being done. If this is all true about Russia, they're lightweights compared to the real harm the NYT article and others in that vein by acting like the election was stolen (and broadly among other outlets, the electors should factor that in, or we should've had recounts. Like original article & response it's Hillary and the Dems reneging on promises of accepting the results of the election). will you accept the claim that Trump has done great and real harm to our country, and will continue to do so? If so, I'll accept your claim that the NYT stuff and similar is doing real harm. And how do you define "doing harm to our country" in this context? I think harm is a clear enough term to not need explanation; especially as danglars can use his own definition since I responded to his use of the term. Fantastic. So you use an ambiguous definition of "doing harm" and you fail to define what you mean. And so it could arbitrarily be true or false because there is no standard by which that can be evaluated. Give a definition of what you mean by "doing harm" because there is no clear context by which that is true. Otherwise the response is simply that no, he isn't doing harm, he is merely making America great again. And the definition of that is clear enough to need no explanation. what I'm hearing is: you uselessly interject into someone else's conversation to quibble about their word choice, in a way that's not helpful to the question they asked or the larger discussion. You also ignore my clear point about definitions which leaves danglars with something he can use very easily; namely my already explicitly stated point that Danglars can use his OWN definition when answering the question. I'm just as lost. I gotta know if this is different from just the usual partisan throwaways. If it's disagreements about what policies would make America Great Again, then we might as well wait for another current event to bring up the great policy debate once more. Harm makes no legitimate amorphous corollary. I think he might harm America through populist policies I disagree with ... for thinking they will harm not help America. But you say has done and lasting effects, which is a lot for someone that has never held elected office. I can say if he paid or struck a deal for the help of Russian hackers, he's done lasting harm, but we don't know that yet. that answers my question pretty well. let me remove some of my modifiers to the "harm" to ask something a bit clearer, you state: "the real harm the NYT article and others in that vein by acting like the election was stolen" is the amount of harm trump has done so far (however much or little that might be, in your opinion) greater than, equal to, or less than the harm you refer to in the quote?
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On December 13 2016 12:19 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2016 12:09 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2016 12:02 xDaunt wrote:On December 13 2016 11:48 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2016 10:57 xDaunt wrote:On December 13 2016 10:46 LegalLord wrote:"CIA veterans" urge caution on revelations and say that something seems politicized. Updated | CIA veterans—none of them fans of Donald Trump–are urging caution about leaked allegations that Russia waged a secret campaign to put the New York Republican into the White House.
“I am not saying that I don't think Russia did this,” Nada Bakos, a top former CIA counterterrorism officer tells Newsweek, in a typical comment. “My main concern is that we will rush to judgment. The analysis needs to be cohesive and done the right way.”
Reports on the alleged Russian effort have been anything but cohesive, or complete. During a closed-door briefing to the House Intelligence Committee last week, a senior FBI counterintelligence official reportedly scoffed at the CIA’s conclusion that Russia had plotted to put Trump in office, calling the evidence “fuzzy” and “ambiguous.” Details of the meeting were leaked to The Washington Post. Source Of course all of this nonsense is highly politicized. There has been no evidence in support of the allegations made other than anonymous CIA sources saying things that could be utter bullshit, and which we know that the FBI is not supporting. That it is isn't what I would contest. What I am curious about, though, is to what end are they doing this? Are they hoping for a widespread Russophobic reaction? A new Oversightghazi game? The possibilities are endless but few are desirable. Just think about how many people in Washington have something to lose from a Trump presidency. Bureaucrats, media people, lobbyists, the democrat party --- there is a very long list of people who are rightfully scared of what Trump campaigned on. There are a lot of people who have a vested interest in preventing or crippling a Trump presidency. Fortunately, Trump isn't a pussy like other GOP predecessors, so I expect him to eventually put these people in their place. It doesn't seem like they have an organized strategy for dealing with him though. They're kind of flailing around and hoping something sticks. Correct, which is why they'll fail in the end. They haven't figured out that their old playbook won't work against Trump. I would have thought by now they'd call a huddle and discuss the real way to proceed. Screaming in reaction to every tweet and appointment won't fly. Save your ammo for foreign policy tweets when he's president, which would matter.
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On December 14 2016 01:00 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2016 23:50 sharkie wrote:On December 13 2016 23:39 MyTHicaL wrote: Except for the gender pay gap statistics.
I don't understand Trump's appointments or how they can be accepted. A secretary of energy who claims that the scientific community is divided on the issue of global warming, a labour secretary who doesn't believe in workers rights and now a man with no experience outside the business world with clear ties to Russia being appointed to secretary of state? I get that the electoral college voted Trump in, he lost the popular vote but won the overall one. However it isn't like he had a shadow office set up to show people who else they would be electing with him.. Is there no way to fight any of these appointments? -Honest question Most gender pay gap statistic don't compare the same work with same qualifications, same responsibilities, same hours. At least that's the case here in Austria. Our media compares 20h female hairdress with a 38h male software engineer (stark example but it is practically true) and then cry gender inequality. I have yet to find a working place where I earned more than a woman (when we held the same position). There's been a study about the gender pay gap which concludes that the actualy pay gap adjusted for education etc. is only 4.8 - 7.1% and that gap can still be explained by other things than discrimination against women. If the pay gap due to discrimination against women exists at all it is small. In The Netherlands young women (under 30) actually make more than men. That's entirely due to education though so no problem with that. So yeah women getting paid less for the same work is a myth. https://web.archive.org/web/20131008051216/http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender Wage Gap Final Report.pdf The wage gap is not a myth. First of all, studies have shown that overall there remains a pay gap between men and women for the same jobs, even taking into account various factors like the number of hours worked, the qualifications, etc. (see for example the Invest in women, invest in America - A Comprehensive Review of Women In the U.S. Economy report by the U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee). A difference remains, some of which is attributable to gender discrimination. And with regards to STEM jobs specifically, here's another study which shows gender pay disparity in STEM jobs even after controlling for hours, age, experience, education, etc. Second, the existence of statistical differences in occupations between men and women is not at all an argument against the idea that there are differences in earnings between the two that need to be addressed. The point is precisely that social norms and representations about both genders still permeate our societies and contribute to the choices made by individuals with regards to their studies and careers. Career paths have also sometimes seen their average salaries diminish as women began to outnumber men in the career workforce. The pay gap is therefore very real, and it needs to be addressed by targeting both gender discrimination at (and to access) work and the cultural factors that play a role in the professional trajectories of men and women.
@Falling that isn't a simple hypothesis, or at least not a hypothesis that can easily be operationalized to control for variables other than the existence of prevalent gender norms. I would have to look into existing research to discuss the current situation in Scandinavia, but it would not be particularly surprising for other factors to offset the positive influence of more egalitarian gender norms (although we're still far from being rid of gender stereotypes even there). For example, although I am extremely skeptical of his analysis, this is what Nima Sanandaji argues here (he believes the Scandinavian welfare state hinders the advancement of women in the workforce).
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On December 14 2016 01:22 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2016 12:19 xDaunt wrote:On December 13 2016 12:09 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2016 12:02 xDaunt wrote:On December 13 2016 11:48 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2016 10:57 xDaunt wrote:On December 13 2016 10:46 LegalLord wrote:"CIA veterans" urge caution on revelations and say that something seems politicized. Updated | CIA veterans—none of them fans of Donald Trump–are urging caution about leaked allegations that Russia waged a secret campaign to put the New York Republican into the White House.
“I am not saying that I don't think Russia did this,” Nada Bakos, a top former CIA counterterrorism officer tells Newsweek, in a typical comment. “My main concern is that we will rush to judgment. The analysis needs to be cohesive and done the right way.”
Reports on the alleged Russian effort have been anything but cohesive, or complete. During a closed-door briefing to the House Intelligence Committee last week, a senior FBI counterintelligence official reportedly scoffed at the CIA’s conclusion that Russia had plotted to put Trump in office, calling the evidence “fuzzy” and “ambiguous.” Details of the meeting were leaked to The Washington Post. Source Of course all of this nonsense is highly politicized. There has been no evidence in support of the allegations made other than anonymous CIA sources saying things that could be utter bullshit, and which we know that the FBI is not supporting. That it is isn't what I would contest. What I am curious about, though, is to what end are they doing this? Are they hoping for a widespread Russophobic reaction? A new Oversightghazi game? The possibilities are endless but few are desirable. Just think about how many people in Washington have something to lose from a Trump presidency. Bureaucrats, media people, lobbyists, the democrat party --- there is a very long list of people who are rightfully scared of what Trump campaigned on. There are a lot of people who have a vested interest in preventing or crippling a Trump presidency. Fortunately, Trump isn't a pussy like other GOP predecessors, so I expect him to eventually put these people in their place. It doesn't seem like they have an organized strategy for dealing with him though. They're kind of flailing around and hoping something sticks. Correct, which is why they'll fail in the end. They haven't figured out that their old playbook won't work against Trump. I would have thought by now they'd call a huddle and discuss the real way to proceed. Screaming in reaction to every tweet and appointment won't fly. Save your ammo for foreign policy tweets when he's president, which would matter.
They can save their ammo for the election in 2020 - Trump can do no wrong in the eyes of his supporters, especially when the MSM reports on it. In the meantime the MSM will continue raking in advertising dollars thanks to Trump.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On December 14 2016 00:50 Falling wrote: I suppose there is a simple hypothesis: as a society becomes more egalitarian are there greater or lesser differences in job choices between the genders? That is as the barriers of entry are brought down, is there a slow move to 50-50 across every job, or are there even more pronounced differences? Our Scandinavian posters will have to correct me, but if we assume they are among the most egalitarian societies, we find the opposite of our expectations: greater differences, not less. (Unless there are some hidden issues that we don't know about- hence our Scandinavian posters.) But supposing that find holds true, this isn't really a bad thing. If every person has the freedom to choose what they want, and it turns out that doesn't equal 50-50 in every single occupation, that's not bad, but good because they got to choose what they wanted.
Unless there is a legal mandate (like affirmative action) I would think that some imbalance still exists due to cultural pressures and choices made earlier in life. Those cultural pressures still exists and will not be eliminated without a fundamental change in society. Such a society may not even be stable as the destruction of gender roles may undermine the current sense of "a family" and reduce our ability to nurture children into highly functional adults.
As for Scandanavian situation, I've heard that there are legal mandates for women in positions of leadership in companies. My background in this was reading about a small "golden skirts" population of women that hold multiple positions of leadership in multiple companies due to the lack of qualified individuals. I don't know if this is still the case.
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On December 14 2016 00:58 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2016 00:50 Falling wrote: I suppose there is a simple hypothesis: as a society becomes more egalitarian are there greater or lesser differences in job choices between the genders? That is as the barriers of entry are brought down, is there a slow move to 50-50 across every job, or are there even more pronounced differences? Our Scandinavian posters will have to correct me, but if we assume they are among the most egalitarian societies, we find the opposite of our expectations: greater differences, not less. (Unless there are some hidden issues that we don't know about- hence our Scandinavian posters.) But supposing that find holds true, this isn't really a bad thing. If every person has the freedom to choose what they want, and it turns out that doesn't equal 50-50 in every single occupation, that's not bad, but good because they got to choose what they wanted. There are some people that will target 50 / 50 no matter what. They will argue bias in society in the way people were raised and their environment explains why the genders chose what they chose. This is the rabbit hole of social sciences and trying to hit a specific target. Some people dont even want to acknowledge gender/sex at all
The false assumption is that people have (a) equal opportunity and hence (b) only go for the roles they want.
The truth is that (a) people are not equal for many reasons which means that (b) people go for the roles they can get.
Assuming the latter, the spread of the population not being even reveals the biases that prevents people from pursuing what they want. This is true for women, people of color, people with disabilities, etc...
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 13 2016 21:29 Velr wrote: Whats the big deal about recounts anyway. If a result is close it is basically the "normal" thing you do? 1. The margin is bigger than any margin that has previously overturned an election. There is no real reason to suspect fraud. This makes it a vanity project, plain and simple. 2. It costs a lot of money. More than what they billed Stein for it because cost overruns are a thing.
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How big the margin was to previous election shouldn't matter. If it was too close to be sure, you recount. And i dunno, in switzerland, even accounted for size its not expensive.
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On December 14 2016 02:20 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2016 21:29 Velr wrote: Whats the big deal about recounts anyway. If a result is close it is basically the "normal" thing you do? 1. The margin is bigger than any margin that has previously overturned an election. There is no real reason to suspect fraud. This makes it a vanity project, plain and simple. 2. It costs a lot of money. More than what they billed Stein for it because cost overruns are a thing.
I wouldn't say #1 about the margin matters much, the total loss in the 3 key swing states was 80k and Florida magically found 50k in 2000. It's only the largest margin until the next largest heh. I think that there's no real reason to suspect fraud is basically enough except for the illegal mail-in ballot refusals in Florida which didn't seem to draw that much attention? I wish there would be a more thorough investigation of that, the Clinton team seems more disorganized by the result than I imagined given the amount of prep they do.
Actually no given the amount of hysteria and backlash to Steins recount request I can imagine them thinking it's safer to just lie low and investigate undercover to make sure there's something before raising a fuss about it, which seems more Clinton like and basically opposite of Trump.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 14 2016 02:28 Velr wrote: How big the margin was to previous election shouldn't matter. If it was too close to be sure, you recount. And i dunno, in switzerland, even accounted for size its not expensive. The billed cost in the three states was 7 million. Actual cost would probably be significantly larger.
Cheeseconsin recount yielded an absolutely trivial change. The courts told Stein to fuck off in the other two states. It was a pointless vanity project.
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And thats fine, i don't get why some people try to politicize this "issue".
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Mostly a lot of people complain that Stein is wasting money on a vanity project that does little more than to prey on the long shot hopes of desperate Clinton voters of undoing a Trump victory.
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On December 14 2016 02:20 LegalLord wrote: There is no real reason to suspect fraud. This makes it a vanity project, plain and simple.
But the president-elect said there was fraud. And the GOP thinks we need laws to prevent fraud.
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All you need to know about what the GOP actually thinks about voter fraud is that the governor of NC (after the state tried to implement a variety of aggressive voting fraud laws that mostly got shut down) conceded when down by 10,000 votes rather than trying to raise funds to have a recount or double-check votes. They don't truly think fraud steals elections in a meaningful way, it's a boogeyman.
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On December 14 2016 03:35 TheTenthDoc wrote: All you need to know about what the GOP actually thinks about voter fraud is that the governor of NC (after the state tried to implement a variety of aggressive voting fraud laws that mostly got shut down) conceded when down by 10,000 votes rather than trying to raise funds to have a recount or double-check votes. They don't truly think fraud steals elections in a meaningful way, it's a boogeyman. Yes generalize and demonize entire group of people based on your speculation on a single example. What a great argument and good reasoning. I'm sure the same thing you would support in other cases as well?
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So, what great argument supports the gop's fear of voter fraud? And why are they suddenly silent?
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On December 14 2016 03:44 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2016 03:35 TheTenthDoc wrote: All you need to know about what the GOP actually thinks about voter fraud is that the governor of NC (after the state tried to implement a variety of aggressive voting fraud laws that mostly got shut down) conceded when down by 10,000 votes rather than trying to raise funds to have a recount or double-check votes. They don't truly think fraud steals elections in a meaningful way, it's a boogeyman. Yes generalize and demonize entire group of people based on your speculation on a single example. What a great argument and good reasoning. I'm sure the same thing you would support in other cases as well?
I really hope the irony here is intentional.
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On December 14 2016 04:01 Velr wrote: So, what great argument supports the gop's fear of voter fraud? And why are they suddenly silent?
The election went in the GOP's favor asking for investigation into voter fruad would make it look like they felt that they were harmed by it. You can't look good when you're running up the score.
If the right to vote is so important then why don't we hear any calls for any regulation or laws to protect one vote for one person? Mexico has voter ID mandatory and the rest of the world has the world has anything at all to stop voter fraud. Hell Iraq has a better system to stop voter fraud then we do and it was painting peoples fingers blue. You can't seriously ask to regulate one basic right in the nation and say that the right to vote is so sacrosant that we can't even protect it in any way.
On December 14 2016 04:13 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2016 03:44 Sermokala wrote:On December 14 2016 03:35 TheTenthDoc wrote: All you need to know about what the GOP actually thinks about voter fraud is that the governor of NC (after the state tried to implement a variety of aggressive voting fraud laws that mostly got shut down) conceded when down by 10,000 votes rather than trying to raise funds to have a recount or double-check votes. They don't truly think fraud steals elections in a meaningful way, it's a boogeyman. Yes generalize and demonize entire group of people based on your speculation on a single example. What a great argument and good reasoning. I'm sure the same thing you would support in other cases as well? I really hope the irony here is intentional. I tried my best to make it as obvious as possible.
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On December 14 2016 03:44 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2016 03:35 TheTenthDoc wrote: All you need to know about what the GOP actually thinks about voter fraud is that the governor of NC (after the state tried to implement a variety of aggressive voting fraud laws that mostly got shut down) conceded when down by 10,000 votes rather than trying to raise funds to have a recount or double-check votes. They don't truly think fraud steals elections in a meaningful way, it's a boogeyman. Yes generalize and demonize entire group of people based on your speculation on a single example. What a great argument and good reasoning. I'm sure the same thing you would support in other cases as well?
Umm, I think it's pretty legitimate to generalize the establishment GOP's views on voter fraud from this case because it is a stark illustration where if they truly believed thousands of votes were illegitimate (the stated goal of their passed legislation in the state) a recount would be pretty mandatory and would likely give McCrory the win rather than Cooper. If there are any cases where the GOP actually pushed for a recount due to voter fraud I would be happy to hear them.
But, even before the threshold was passed for which the state would pay for the recount they continued to target specific counties with generalizations rather than even talk about a state-wide recount or checking for fraud.
Unless you thought I meant "Republicans" when I said "GOP" but I hope people don't think those mean the same thing. I'm sure Donald Trump legitimately believes there were millions of votes by illegal immigrants and other fradulent voters, resulting in his popular vote loss, but the party itself doesn't really.
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