US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7447

On May 04 2017 23:11 KwarK wrote:
Presumably Trump wouldn't dare bring the repeal to a vote if he didn't have the votes, he's not that incompetent, but we will see. For reference, losing a vote like this would immediately cause the fall of any government in a Parliamentary system. If you lose a vote on a manifesto pledge, and the Obamacare repeal is one of Trump's core manifesto pledges, then you have demonstrated that your government has no ability to actually govern and is completely discredited. Obviously the US doesn't have those conventions where the entire government resigns if it fails catastrophically but the implication of defeat here is the same.

We'll see though. I can almost believe that Trump would fall short of having the votes but tell people that he's holding it anyway and that he'll tweet mean things about anyone who votes against.

On May 04 2017 23:21 Zaros wrote:
This was quite an interesting read.

https://twitter.com/reactionlife/status/860104241511354369

On May 04 2017 23:11 KwarK wrote:
Presumably Trump wouldn't dare bring the repeal to a vote if he didn't have the votes, he's not that incompetent, but we will see. For reference, losing a vote like this would immediately cause the fall of any government in a Parliamentary system. If you lose a vote on a manifesto pledge, and the Obamacare repeal is one of Trump's core manifesto pledges, then you have demonstrated that your government has no ability to actually govern and is completely discredited. Obviously the US doesn't have those conventions where the entire government resigns if it fails catastrophically but the implication of defeat here is the same.

We'll see though. I can almost believe that Trump would fall short of having the votes but tell people that he's holding it anyway and that he'll tweet mean things about anyone who votes against.

On May 04 2017 23:46 LegalLord wrote:
The dude who wrote that story has a rather humorous history of posts: https://reaction.life/author/askold-krushelnycky/

Sounds like a particularly salty Ukrainian who seeks to blame anything and everything on Russia and Russian evil. Also trying to live vicariously through a perception of US perfection which is ever so slightly hilarious.

On May 04 2017 08:18 a_flayer wrote:

I'm not conflating things at all. I understand perfectly well the nuances surrounding this discussion.

I'll ask you the same that I asked Plansix: do you have a definition by the FBI regarding what constitutes Russian misinformation other than the one I've gleaned from the ODNI report? The one in the ODNI report may accurately represent positions that the Russians use with an intent to sow dissent, but many of the opinions and criticisms listed are perfectly valid. That's definitely not misinformation or fake news, and borderline propaganda at best (based on funding alone). So unless you have another more sensible definition that the FBI uses, then I cannot agree with the FBI assessment that Russia is responsible for widespread misinformation regarding issues surrounding the election.

In terms of influence, I'd say actual Russian misinformation and fake news (which does exist on RT America and other forms of Russian-funded media, just as American-based misinformation exists on CNN, or other sources - deliberate or not), would account for something like 0.001% of influence in terms of stopping people from voting or changing peoples mind. Something absurdly low. Probably lower than that. Admittedly, its a made up percentage.

The remaining 99.9~% of people who decide not to vote or are independent enough from both of the parties to actually change their minds between Trump or Hillary would be affected by the reality of the political situation itself which they'd glean from American media sources (in the broadest sense of the word). That includes influence from RT America to support American opinions such as the 3rd party voters which the FBI also suggested to be Russian propaganda in the ODNI report (which is just utter tripe), and influence from things like Breitbart and SuperPAC ads both courtesy of people like my good American friend Mr Mercer.


The actual Russian propaganda regarding those American dissenting opinions listed in the ODNI report only exists within the social media sphere as a result of Russian-funded bots/comments/retweets. It cannot come directly from RT America, because these are American reporters and Americans who share their honest perspectives, and people who watch them might share in those opinions. If you want to call that Russian propaganda, may I suggest you re-institute the HUAC?

The social media sphere does not not have this qualifier, and can thus easily be classified as genuine Russian propaganda. However, there is no way that only Russia thought to use methods like that. Or would only Russia be smart enough to employ data mining and targeted ads in a political campaign? I think not, and Mercer's activities are clear evidence of this (and that influence is equally unmeasurable). The Russian measure of influence in social media could be bigger in relative terms compared to their influence in the mainstream TV media (which was evidenced by the ODNI report), but they did not list websites like Infowars/Breitbart, their social media presence or other absurdly anti-Clinton media - they just compared RT America with CNN and the like.

But even if you say everything on RT is Russian propaganda because it funded by the Russian state, then the amount of influence they have is very likely to be negligible. How many people really watch that? How many people would be subjected to their Twitter bot spam? Besides, I've held many of the opinions I've seen on RT America way before I ever saw them on there, and so do most of the people I know who share in those opinions.

I guess it's possible that Breitbart also receives funding from the Russian state or Russian oligarchs acting on behalf of the state, which would complicate things. I don't know though, it seems like there's plenty of big-moneyed American names behind it. This whole culture war thing between more secular liberal ideas and religion-based conservative ideas is something that is happening across the whole planet, at any rate, so to lob it all in under the nomer "Russian propaganda" would be absurd.

On May 05 2017 02:07 Yurie wrote:
Is this new version of AHCA even worse than the last one or roughly the same?

Saw for example some claims that the current wording of it would make it uneconomical for a person to report rape due to the treatments associated with that would signify a heightened HIV risk and thus too high premiums.

On May 05 2017 02:11 Mercy13 wrote:


Probably worse. They are giving states the right to allow insurers to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, and to do away with essential benefits. That's how they got the Freedom Caucus on board.

On May 05 2017 02:12 Yurie wrote:


Well if they have enough votes here I hope it dies in the next house for your sake.

On May 05 2017 02:32 Tachion wrote:
It must be so weird for your constituents to vote you into office so that you can screw them over. How surreal.

On May 05 2017 02:32 Tachion wrote:
It must be so weird for your constituents to vote you into office so that you can screw them over. How surreal.