EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 6899
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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. | ||
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farvacola
United States18876 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:24 biology]major wrote: There is a fixation on the negative stories regardless of what outlet you follow. An outlet that does positive and negative coverage of Trump, I'll call that balanced and worth consuming. There is some good in there, but the hysteria is caused by an unending fixation on the negative. Never read a breitbart article in my life so I'm not sure what that's about. Honestly, the only inquisitive TV journalist I've seen who isn't terribly biased is Cooper on Fake News Network TM. Regarding the Russia thing, it's stupid because we are put in a position where we have leaks that have damning implications, but then have no access to any other follow up information. What are we supposed to do with this information lol? I'm just going to listen to what mattis says, he seems like a independent agent in Trump's admin and so far he has been calling out Russia. If you want to trust the administration, that is fine. I trust the reporters at NPR, WSJ and NYT. And I know even if I had all raw information in front of me, I wouldn’t know what to make of it. Trying to make me better informed is what the news is supposed to do. | ||
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Doodsmack
United States7224 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:24 biology]major wrote: There is a fixation on the negative stories regardless of what outlet you follow. An outlet that does positive and negative coverage of Trump, I'll call that balanced and worth consuming. There is some good in there, but the hysteria is caused by an unending fixation on the negative. Never read a breitbart article in my life so I'm not sure what that's about. Honestly, the only inquisitive TV journalist I've seen who isn't terribly biased is Cooper on Fake News Network TM. Regarding the Russia thing, it's stupid because we are put in a position where we have leaks that have damning implications, but then have no access to any other follow up information. What are we supposed to do with this information lol? I'm just going to listen to what mattis says, he seems like a independent agent in Trump's admin and so far he has been calling out Russia. A few pages ago you were agreeing that the stuff on Russia is damning, so if you're only changing your mind because Trump attacked the media today, that's a mistake. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:16 LegalLord wrote: Snowden seems like the type of person who didn't understand what intelligence was all about and fell into a deeper web than he had anticipated. A person of his temperament should never have gotten a clearance. He can look forward to FSB supervision until he turns out to be a good enough present to exchange. But hey, it helped Russia that he did it, so it's all good. the nsa people blame the cia for not forwarding problem reports, which would have killed his entry to the agency | ||
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biology]major
United States2253 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:30 Doodsmack wrote: A few pages ago you were agreeing that the stuff on Russia is damning, so if you're only changing your mind because Trump attacked the media today, that's a mistake. It has damning implications, but I don't know how to follow it up. I wish there was an investigation, but the republicans are too spineless. What are we to do? Draw conclusions of collusion? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:27 farvacola wrote: To be frank, I vacillate back and forth on the notion of treating political opponents as enemies, though given my chosen line of work, cooperation is going to win out by default I'm afraid. The solution is simple. They need to be like attorneys. Enemies on one case, co-defendants on another. Rather than friends or enemies, they just need to be peers again. That is what congress used to be. The senate still is a little bit. But there was a day when the house was all about getting bills passed that had whatever they ran on in them and it didn’t really matter who worked on them. | ||
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OuchyDathurts
United States4588 Posts
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:31 oneofthem wrote: the nsa people blame the cia for not forwarding problem reports, which would have killed his entry to the agency Security clearance process is an annoying mixture of overwhelming bureaucracy and certain glaring omissions. Sometimes too strict cuz Snowdens are dangerous, sometimes too loose because valuable people get rejected and the agencies get fucked. Also you can look forward to China hacking into your records and getting everything. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:26 LegalLord wrote: Leaks are a very blunt tool of achieving a purpose. You can control what comes out, but you can never know what will come of it. I suppose recent history suggests that they tend to have a pretty powerful spillover effect. A good tool if you want people to panic and create chaos. correct. should have anticipated the trump bully pulpit. now it is hard to back down and have an investigation, because the IC has to defend itself vs trump saying shit to his base. if there are more leaks, donald bought it upon himself | ||
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:14 oneofthem wrote: snowden leaked way too much, with stylized presentations designed to bolster foreign adversaries. his is a propaganda op. you can read this piece to see something close to my view on it. https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-president-obama-wont-and-shouldnt-pardon-snowden if he leaked the narrow bits about the 215 program, meh. would prob have been treated as an ellsberg type and gotten away with it The NSA and government basically forced his hand. The supposedly proper channels didn't do anything, making it clear there would not be any internal investigations or effort to clear out the rotten parts. At which point, only external pressure could force anything to happen, and external pressure only comes from that information being released. And Snowden on his own did not have the man power or time to filter out all the documents he grabbed and try to find bad stuff, hence why he handed it over to organizations who did have that capacity. | ||
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farvacola
United States18876 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:32 OuchyDathurts wrote: When you classify, redact, and hide everything you make leaks inevitable. The government has become more and more secretive, particularly after 9/11. If you choose to hide everything, no matter how trivial you're forcing people's hand. Yes governments need some secrets but they've chosen to abuse it more and more over time. They just hamstrung FOIA, this shit guarantees leaks and it will not get better unless the secrecy starts getting dismantled. They've made Snowden inevitable themselves, they're the only ones to blame. The politics of institutional information management are going through quite a period of upheaval, that much is for sure lol. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:36 WolfintheSheep wrote: The NSA and government basically forced his hand. The supposedly proper channels didn't do anything, making it clear there would not be any internal investigations or effort to clear out the rotten parts. At which point, only external pressure could force anything to happen, and external pressure only comes from that information being released. And Snowden on his own did not have the man power or time to filter out all the documents he grabbed and try to find bad stuff, hence why he handed it over to organizations who did have that capacity. Snowden didn't understand the game that intelligence folks play. It's simple as that. A person who finds some vast surveillance a la PRISM to be unthinkably bad is someone who doesn't belong in intelligence. He tried to "do the right thing" and just found out that he became an unwitting spy for foreign intelligence groups. | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:32 biology]major wrote: It has damning implications, but I don't know how to follow it up. I wish there was an investigation, but the republicans are too spineless. What are we to do? Draw conclusions of collusion? what to do is to contact your senators/representatives in congress, and demand investigations or you'll vote against them. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:36 WolfintheSheep wrote: this is ridiculous. had he just leaked the 215 metadata program, he would still get the political payoff. The NSA and government basically forced his hand. The supposedly proper channels didn't do anything, making it clear there would not be any internal investigations or effort to clear out the rotten parts. At which point, only external pressure could force anything to happen, and external pressure only comes from that information being released. And Snowden on his own did not have the man power or time to filter out all the documents he grabbed and try to find bad stuff, hence why he handed it over to organizations who did have that capacity. i mean, unless you think the existence of the nsa is itself evil etc. this happens to be the view snowden wanted to push. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:32 OuchyDathurts wrote: When you classify, redact, and hide everything you make leaks inevitable. The government has become more and more secretive, particularly after 9/11. If you choose to hide everything, no matter how trivial you're forcing people's hand. Yes governments need some secrets but they've chosen to abuse it more and more over time. They just hamstrung FOIA, this shit guarantees leaks and it will not get better unless the secrecy starts getting dismantled. They've made Snowden inevitable themselves, they're the only ones to blame. There was a report on Snowden a while back. They interviewed on of the Democratic senators that was on the intelligence committee back when the data mining operation was created. She pretty much said that the Bush administration straight up lied to congress about that program, claiming is complied with existing laws. And they trusted them, because it seemed crazy not to. But in reality it complied with a couple White House memos Bush’s team wrote, no laws passed by Congress. Congress didn’t know how wide a net it was casting and the thing was in place for years. And when the Obama administration found out about it, they tried to get a grip on it. Congress was pulled in and they started to try and take it apart. But the NSA was addicted to the idea that they needed it so badly to keep America safe. But quickly after that Snowden blew the lid off it. I wonder about a world where the Obama administration just put the Bush White House on blast and outed them for creating that system. Just come clean early before someone like Snowden ripped apart whatever trust people had left after the Iraq War. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:43 Plansix wrote: And when the Obama administration found out about it, they tried to get a grip on it. Congress was pulled in and they started to try and take it apart. But the NSA was addicted to the idea that they needed it so badly to keep America safe. But quickly after that Snowden blew the lid off it. I wonder about a world where the Obama administration just put the Bush White House on blast and outed them for creating that system. Just come clean early before someone like Snowden ripped apart whatever trust people had left after the Iraq War. if you look at the PPD 19 it is more about oversight and whistleblower protection rather than reigning in the program's scope. it's legal. anyway enough snowden talk back to trump | ||
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Azuzu
United States340 Posts
We talked about the political costs of implementing Obamacare. What about the political costs of using Trump to push a right wing agenda? I think the cost will be very high; it's not going to be pretty. Just because it's not "right now", if Trumps policies are torn down as soon as the left takes over, what did you really accomplish? All a destructive mindset does is make the pendulum swing faster and farther. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Talking about it didn’t change people’s views. So now we need to right try to do the things they want and see the response. And maybe like 10 years from now people will decide it isn’t worth it. I want the right to get everything they want. Get rid of Dodd Frank. Cut taxes for the rich. Build the wall. Deport 11 million people. Repeal the ACA. Privatize education through charter schools. Go forward with it all. | ||
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:39 oneofthem wrote: this is ridiculous. had he just leaked the 215 metadata program, he would still get the political payoff. i mean, unless you think the existence of the nsa is itself evil etc. this happens to be the view snowden wanted to push. And how are you supposed to know that the 215 metadata program was the only place where the NSA was crossing the line? Was Snowden supposed to physically read and analyse every document by himself? His choice was to only grab what he knew was bad, or to grab everything and let others sort through it. Neither are the "right" options. The correct choice is to have a system in place where these things can be reported, so that the NSA is audited from the inside. That choice was not provided to him. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On February 17 2017 06:55 Plansix wrote: You are right, but it is where we are. The right wants things the left will burn down the country over. The left was some stuff that the right will also burn down the country over. Talking about it didn’t change people’s views. So now we need to right try to do the things they want and see the response. And maybe like 10 years from now people will decide it isn’t worth it. I want the right to get everything they want. Get rid of Dodd Frank. Cut taxes for the rich. Build the wall. Deport 11 million people. Repeal the ACA. Privatize education through charter schools. Go forward with it all. that's an emotional take but it doesn't work. you'd think, this would make people angrier. but it could also reinforce existing trends of segregation and polarization and not have the kind of political payoff you want. for example with education, if your vouchers program goes ahead, especially with a con artist like devos in charge, i could easily see increased segregation in education (desirable for a lot of parents let's not kid ourselves), while poor kids get stuck in for profit bullshit schools that the kids' already not very responsive parents won't challenge. what happens 4 or 8 years down the line when you are trying to take away the TIGER MOM parents' special schools for nice kids? well, you've just got a permanent republican voting base. a lot of what republicans do is to make it unnecessary for people to live amongst others, to sever the ties of public duty from citizen to community. this sort of thing won't reverse itself, it rolls down hill | ||
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