US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8826

On September 26 2017 02:14 RealityIsKing wrote:


You can read my explanation on post #176463.

On September 26 2017 01:02 RealityIsKing wrote:


I like this response because there are at least some reasoning involved.

He is specifically saying that one shouldn't be disrespectful of the flag and respect the national anthem.

If you are smart and want to unite the nation while using NFL as a political platforms. You could totally simultaneously use the stadium's sound system to express your thoughts while saluting the flag/standing for the national anthem.

On September 26 2017 02:14 RealityIsKing wrote:


You can read my explanation on post #176463.

On September 26 2017 02:17 brian wrote:




so the kneeler has caused the divisiveness by choosing silent kneeling over somehow commandeering the stadiums sound system and telling everyone how he feels? and that instead, in your opinion, would ease the divisiveness?

On September 26 2017 02:21 RealityIsKing wrote:


Yes because that's not disrespectful to one of the few symbols that unite us together and would be straight forward instead of reactive.

On September 26 2017 02:23 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it'll be interesting to see if the anthem protests bleed into the Winter Olympics and if any USA coaches do anything about athletes who sit, kneel, hold up power fists, pick their nose.. whatever.

Despite once saying that it was "crazy" to believe Russians influenced the 2016 election, Facebook knew about a possible operation as early as June, 2016, the Washington Post reports. It only started taking it seriously after President Obama met privately with CEO Mark Zuckerberg ahead of Trump's inauguration. He warned that if the social network didn't take action to mitigate fake news and political agitprop, it would get worse during the next election. Obama's aids are said to regret not doing more to handle the problem.

At the time, Zuckerberg admitted the social network knew about problems, but told Obama that it wasn't widespread and that there wasn't a lot Facebook could do in any case. In June 2016, Facebook's security team found suspicious accounts set up by the Kremlin-backed APT28 hacking team, also known as Guccifer 2.0, the Post says.

However, it found no solid proof of Russian disinformation and turned over everything it found to the US government. Reportedly, neither US law enforcement nor national security personnel met with Facebook to share or discuss the information.

After Obama pulled Zuckerberg aside, Facebook starting taking the problem more seriously, but again failed to find clear links to Russian operatives, the WaPo says. On July 20th this year, Facebook actually told CNN that "we have seen no evidence that Russian actors bought ads on Facebook in connection with theh election."

It finally uncovered proof of suspicious activity after tracking a firm called the Internet Research Agency, a known Russian hacking operation. By working backwards, it discovered over 3,000 ads around social and political issues it had posted between 2015 and 2017.

Putin-backed Russian groups paid up to $100,000 to buy the ads, and boosted anti-immigrant rallies in Idaho, among other activities. Facebook recently turned over the ads to the US Intelligence Committee and congressional investigators, who say the findings are likely just "the tip of the iceberg." Facebook executives will also testify before a Senate Intelligence committee.

While it appears that Facebook turned over any evidence to US law enforcement as soon as it found it, ads and fake news are filtered mostly by algorithms. Facebook's human content gatekeepers, often contractors, are mostly on the watch for violent or sexually explicit materials, not foreign propaganda.

In response the latest report, a company spokesman says that "we believe in the power of democracy, which is why we're taking this work on elections integrity so seriously, and have come forward at every opportunity to share what we've found."

However, many observers think that Facebook can't be trusted on the problem. "It's rooted in their overconfidence that they know best, their naivete about how the world works, their extensive effort to avoid oversight and their business model of having very few employees so that no one is minding the store," Professor Zeynep Tufekci from UNC Chapel Hill told the Post.

Other critics believe that Facebook is going to need much more oversight. "Right now they are operating in an arena where they have some, but very few, legal responsibilities," Stanford Law School scholar Morgan Weiland told The Atlantic earlier this month. "We are going to keep seeing examples of this kind, and at some point the jig is going to be up and the regulators are going to act."

On September 26 2017 02:23 ticklishmusic wrote:
Maybe the reason they're protesting a symbol of unity is because that so-called unity really doesn't go all that deep, and they feel the real state of America is pretty divided and there's some pretty severe discrimination going on.

On September 26 2017 02:23 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it'll be interesting to see if the anthem protests bleed into the Winter Olympics and if any USA coaches do anything about athletes who sit, kneel, hold up power fists, pick their nose.. whatever.

On September 26 2017 02:26 LegalLord wrote:
Hopefully they won't politick up figure skating.

On September 26 2017 02:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

I am truly baffled by the reasoning behind this. I am having trouble forming the words to discuss this with you, because none on if it based on this reality. You commandeer the sound system (hijack) to broadcast your message and you think that player is going to have a job still? You're creating a larger martyr by doing that. You're also rendering his entire message moot because no one will take him serious. How does that get his message across?

How do you function day to day? There is so much wrong with this that I can't begin to follow your train of thought on the matter.

On September 26 2017 02:21 RealityIsKing wrote:


Yes because that's not disrespectful to one of the few symbols that unite us together and would be straight forward instead of reactive.

On September 26 2017 02:31 RealityIsKing wrote:


Sometime it takes a bit of bravery to stand for w/e you believe in.

On September 26 2017 01:12 LegalLord wrote:
I personally partially agree with him - I just don't want to wade into this BS. That is neither entertaining nor does it end well.

A month after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, there is still a simple way to tell if a particular street flooded in Houston. Just look at the front lawns.

Debris rose as the water receded and residents returned to gut their ruined homes, disgorging the contents curbside. There is so much to remove, and trips to landfills are taking so long, that the region is months away from clearing it all.

Those unwilling or unable to pay private companies hundreds of dollars to shift the detritus are waiting for the city to remove it. But Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, warned at a council meeting earlier this month that it could take until Christmas to deal with.

In a Friday update after clashes between council members over the handling of the problem, Turner said landfills would operate 24 hours a day as more than 300 trucks collect more than 8 million cubic yards of debris at a cost of more than $250m.

Some of the worst-affected neighborhoods are located around Eldridge Parkway, a busy road in west Houston’s energy corridor where many oil and gas corporate offices are located and a few routes remain closed because of high water. Here, piles of rancid rubbish curl like a wall around a complex of dozens of townhomes opposite a library.

Late last week, a trio of contractors sweated as they plunked large kitchen appliances on to a flat-bed truck. “The whole job’s gonna take probably a good two months,” said one, Anthony Brown.

Built in the 1970s, the houses are framed on three sides by a creek that branches off from the Buffalo Bayou, a major flooding source during Harvey that extends more than 50 miles from Houston’s western suburbs through downtown and out into Galveston Bay. The massive Addicks and Barker flood-control reservoirs and dams, which feed into the Bayou, are less than two miles away.

What four weeks ago were cherished possessions now languished as flotsam, junk chucked indiscriminately a few yards outside front doors. Flies zig-zagged over rotten food next to mattresses, door frames, wall panels, furniture, board games; more or less anything that was on the ground floor in late August. Spanish-language pop music blared from the bowels of one house being cleared out by contractors. Next door, a warning was posted out front: “You loot, we shoot.” But all that remains seems worthless.

A traffic cone protruded horizontally from the second-storey wall of one house, by a window. Olga Weber pointed at it. “That’s where they rescued me, right there,” she said. Weber is a maintenance worker at the complex and was the last to leave – by rescue boat, after she attached the cone to attract attention and wrote a cry for help on a bedsheet draped outside the window.

Bob Williams, tasked with restoring air-conditioning to some of the homes – a vital way to help them dry out and limit mold – gestured at the desperate scene, redolent of an explosion or a tornado’s devastation. “This, it would make you drink but I don’t drink,” he said. “It’s what made me smoke again. I hadn’t smoked for six years.”

Laura Goncalves has lived here for a decade. Her ground floor is an empty shell. Wearing a face mask to protect against the noxious smell, her daughter helped with the clean-up. “I’m 61 years old,” Goncalves said. “I was $22,000 away from paying off my house so I could retire in four years. And now I have to work until I die.”

Her voice wavered. “I’ve worked hard, two jobs, to pay for this house, to update it. And it just in two days was all gone. You call companies to come and clean and spray and they’re charging you $5,000. I don’t have the $5,000, I haven’t gotten any money from the insurance yet.”