US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8846

On September 27 2017 01:58 Liquid`Drone wrote:


How come you are seeing it this way? I'm as white as it gets, purebred norwegian all the way, supposedly traceable lineage to the first king of norway. I've never been even remotely close to thinking that anyone expects me to apologize for being born white. I see people arguing 'recognize that your whiteness is a privilege' and 'recognize that black people being disadvantaged in current day society is rooted in history, particularly slavery and colonialism, rather than the african american's inability to pull himself up by his own bootstraps'. But all the stuff you're arguing against, I've never encountered it. And I'm inclined to believe that I actually hang out in more progressive circles than you do, so I just don't get why you apparently see this all the time from the groups that I associate with, but that I, despite associating with them, never do. It doesn't make sense.

On September 27 2017 02:03 Plansix wrote:

You could just say you fucked up and understand why people see that post as racist. That would have solved this problem a long time ago.

On September 27 2017 02:09 xDaunt wrote:

I didn't fuck up at all. In fact, I think that the conversation says more about how crazy your side is than anything else. Y'all are so in the tank with this "institutional racism" stuff that you are willing to allow black people to riot, loot, and destroy other people's property just because they're black. And God help anyone who dares suggest that the law should be upheld. Or we can look at the reaction of your side to things like Trayvon Martin or the underlying police shooting that led to the Ferguson riots in the first place. Due process was anything but a consideration. Oh no, y'all needed justice, and y'all needed it immediately.

What you fail to recognize is that your side has degenerated into a lynch mob.

On September 27 2017 02:09 xDaunt wrote:

I didn't fuck up at all. In fact, I think that the conversation says more about how crazy your side is than anything else. Y'all are so in the tank with this "institutional racism" stuff that you are willing to allow black people to riot, loot, and destroy other people's property just because they're black. And God help anyone who dares suggest that the law should be upheld. Or we can look at the reaction of your side to things like Trayvon Martin or the underlying police shooting that led to the Ferguson riots in the first place. Due process was anything but a consideration. Oh no, y'all needed justice, and y'all needed it immediately.

What you fail to recognize is that your side has degenerated into a lynch mob.

On September 27 2017 01:58 Liquid`Drone wrote:


How come you are seeing it this way? I'm as white as it gets, purebred norwegian all the way, supposedly traceable lineage to the first king of norway. I've never been even remotely close to thinking that anyone expects me to apologize for being born white. I see people arguing 'recognize that your whiteness is a privilege' and 'recognize that black people being disadvantaged in current day society is rooted in history, particularly slavery and colonialism, rather than the african american's inability to pull himself up by his own bootstraps'. But all the stuff you're arguing against, I've never encountered it. And I'm inclined to believe that I actually hang out in more progressive circles than you do, so I just don't get why you apparently see this all the time from the groups that I associate with, but that I, despite associating with them, never do. It doesn't make sense.

Jared Kushner’s private attorney fell victim to a prankster posing as his client on Monday, exchanging several messages about Kushner’s use of a private email account to conduct government business and fielding questions about supposed “adult content” forwarded to that account.

In the email back-and-forth, which was first shared with Business Insider, attorney Abbe Lowell tells the individual he believed to be Kushner that he needed “to see all emails” sent and received from a personal email address that the top White House adviser and son-in-law of the President set up in December.

Kushner’s use of that account was first reported by Politico on Sunday. The New York Times and CBS have since reported that at least six senior White House officials, including former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former chief strategist Steve Bannon, used private email accounts to carry out official business.

The prankster, who goes by the handle @SINON_REBORN on Twitter and used the address kushner.jared@mail.com to contact Lowell, has since made their full Monday exchange public. He opened the conversation by asking Lowell what to do with “some exchanges with a website featuring adult content.”

Lowell asked if the messages were “forwarded or received from WH officials.”

After Kushner replied that one “unsolicited” message was forwarded to him by a White House official and that he’d also received “a handful more, but not from officials,” Lowell asked for evidence.

“I need to see I think all emails between you and WH (just for me and us),” he wrote. “We need to send any officials emails to your WH account. Not stuff like you asked about. None of those are going anywhere.”

“But we can bury it?” the prankster responded. “I’m so embarrassed. It’s fairly specialist stuff, half naked women on a trampoline, standing on legoscenes, the tag for the movie was #standingOnTheLittlePeople : (”

“Don’t delete. Don’t send to anyone. Let’s chat in a bit,” Lowell responded.

The high-powered D.C. attorney is representing Kushner in ongoing federal and congressional investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. He declined Business Insider’s response for comment, but previously released a statement saying that all of the “non-personal emails” sent or received on his private account were forwarded to his official address.

Lowell also said in that statement that most of the messages regarded event planning or news articles.

The Trump administration has had a rough streak of being lured into embarrassing exchanges by pranksters. Earlier in September, White House special counsel Ty Cobb asked @SINON_REBORN, using the email address dan.scavinojr@emailprankster.co.uk to impersonate White House social media director Dan Scavino, if there “was any drone time left” while discussing the work of a Business Insider reporter.

Energy secretary Rick Perry and several other administration officials have also been fooled by various pranksters.

On September 27 2017 01:52 xDaunt wrote:

Here's the interesting quandary that we conservatives find ourselves in. Does the other side not grasp our point because they are incapable of seeing past the language to the real issues? Does the other side really intend to continue use the language to bludgeon us for purely political purposes despite claiming that this is not their intent? I think my answer is that the political leaders on the other largely fall under the latter category and the foot soldiers fall into the former.

On September 27 2017 02:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
shut the fuck up... Why is he still allowed in front of a camera. Really?

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/912709793873256448

On September 27 2017 02:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
shut the fuck up... Why is he still allowed in front of a camera. Really?

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/912709793873256448

On September 27 2017 02:21 Danglars wrote:

I think the foot soldiers are conditioned to feel their political opponents have internalized racism to the point where they're ignorant and blind. It's very satisfying to think that no intellectual thoughtful person can disagree with them on principle and have valid points. As Bret Stephens points out in the recent Dying Art of Disagreement, you must be taught to question and disagree, to treat no proposition as sacred and no objection as impious, to be willing to entertain unpopular ideas and cultivate the habits of an open mind. It's easy to say racism is the primary culprit in big issues in the black community, like crime, poverty, and single motherhood in inner cities. It takes a certain liberal education to entertain contrary ideas, along the lines of socioeconomic and cultural arguments, because they are definitely unpopular and some would think insulting. I'm still exploring that argument ... I think my only posting in this thread earlier was here about one of Kwark's statements.

The language is definitely a problem. In some ways liberals are bound by language and the inherent framing of the issue. They look to their leaders who use the language, and they exploit these issues by making them race issues and using it as a basis of political power. Well, naturally you can't think the leaders of your movement are exploiters, so you go along with believing that whites and moderates are the true source/primary source of the problems. I think that's an important contribution between the "black hats" and true believers.

I think you have accurately defined the actions of the political leaders.

But we can bury it?” the prankster responded. “I’m so embarrassed. It’s fairly specialist stuff, half naked women on a trampoline, standing on legoscenes, the tag for the movie was #standingOnTheLittlePeople : (

On September 27 2017 01:58 Liquid`Drone wrote:


How come you are seeing it this way? I'm as white as it gets, purebred norwegian all the way, supposedly traceable lineage to the first king of norway. I've never been even remotely close to thinking that anyone expects me to apologize for being born white. I see people arguing 'recognize that your whiteness is a privilege' and 'recognize that black people being disadvantaged in current day society is rooted in history, particularly slavery and colonialism, rather than the african american's inability to pull himself up by his own bootstraps'. But all the stuff you're arguing against, I've never encountered it. And I'm inclined to believe that I actually hang out in more progressive circles than you do, so I just don't get why you apparently see this all the time from the groups that I associate with, but that I, despite associating with them, never do. It doesn't make sense.

What Stunts Like Milo Yiannopoulos’s ‘Free Speech Week’ Cost


In a typical year, the University of California, Berkeley, allocates around $200,000 to pay for security at campus protests. But since this past February, the school has spent some $1.5 million. That enormous sum excludes the $1 million the administration expected to spend this week on Milo Yiannopoulos’s chaotic and disorganized “Free Speech Week.”


Free Speech Week was supposed to be a four-day rally that brought in big-name provocateurs like Ann Coulter and Steve Bannon. But although Mr. Yiannopoulos spent lots of energy publicizing the event, he appears to have spent very little planning it.

He and the Berkeley Patriot, the student group hosting his event, failed to confirm most of their speakers, including Ms. Coulter and Mr. Bannon, and they never filed the paperwork necessary to book campus venues. On Friday, the Berkeley Patriot pulled its support for the event entirely.

Predictably, Mr. Yiannopoulos declared at a press conference on Saturday that the Berkeley administration did “everything in its power to crush its own students’ aspirations” to host his event, and vowed nevertheless to speak on Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza “come hell or high water.” The school still expects to spend a handsome sum to secure the unsponsored event. If that seems unwarranted, consider that Berkeley has had to essentially soldier up for unexpectedly violent rallies in their public plaza many times this year.

This is a huge distraction for a university already struggling to reduce a crippling budget deficit of $150 million.

And it raises a thorny question for those who believe that free speech should trump all else: Should public institutions be spending taxpayer money allocated for higher education on speakers who aren’t there for teaching and learning?

I’m intimately familiar with the right-wing tactic of framing anything less than free speech absolutism as “against free speech,” in part because I practiced this tactic as a conservative college student. It’s easy to declare that if low-value speakers like Mr. Yiannopoulos want a campus platform, it’s censorship if a school doesn’t give them one. But as we are seeing with Berkeley, the reality is that “free speech on campus” is not resource-neutral.

Indeed, in an effort to make sure Free Speech Week could go on, Janet Napolitano, the president of University of California, even offered to chip in at least $300,000 to help with security. “It’s a cost that the university is bearing to protect the speakers but also to protect the value of free speech,” she said.

That’s a bold statement from Ms. Napolitano, as security concerns about Mr. Yiannopoulos’s event resulted in the postponement of a previously scheduled talk by Anna Tsing, a leading anthropologist.

I doubt Ms. Tsing’s anthropology lecture would have cost Berkeley and the University of California system anywhere near $1 million. And I suspect that if Ms. Tsing were sharing the campus with a conservative like Yuval Levin or Walter Williams on the same day, neither speech would have to be canceled. Which is why spending seven figures’ worth of student fees and taxpayer money to host Mr. Yiannopoulos is less about defending free speech than it is about supporting provocation for its own sake.

Undoubtedly, left-wing “antifa” groups have contributed to the security risks and costs at Berkeley, taking the bait that speakers like Mr. Yiannopoulos lay out and battling far-right militia groups who show up looking for a fight. But we should keep in mind, as the historian Mark Bray points out, that antifa groups form specifically to counter white supremacist and Nazi violence, having done so from the days of Hitler and Mussolini. Antifa groups are a symptom, not a cause, of the threat of white supremacist violence.

For the most part, both sides have little to do with college students who are, by and large, angry to see their campus overrun by outsiders.

Universities have a duty to keep campuses safe, not in the service of paternalism, but in the service of providing a suitable learning environment for students. It’s easy to claim that denying a speaker — even one like Mr. Yiannopoulos or Richard Spencer — is a kind of epistemological harm that makes students worse off. But so too are the acts of shutting down popular facilities for security purposes, and bringing in less-experienced security personnel who needlessly escalate violence with students, and transforming the campus into a microcosm of a police state.

The question of which campus speakers warrant security funding is real and challenging — especially considering that a speech by Ben Shapiro, a mainstream conservative who used to speak at Berkeley with barely a mention, recently cost the school $600,000 in security expenses.

But the escalation of security costs isn’t a response to conservative thought. It is the only way schools can respond to a deliberate right-wing strategy, driven by outside groups, to inflict disruptive and deliberately offensive speakers on campuses, and thus bait the left into outrage. The audience for right-wing speakers like Mr. Yiannopoulos is not college students themselves, but rather the culture warriors on either side of the aisle who respond to seeing campus communities in distress.

It’s true that we’re hearing fewer cries of campus censorship since at least five universities denied Mr. Spencer a speaking engagement after his “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August turned violent and deadly. But we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that the only problem with a speaker like Mr. Spencer is the offensiveness of his views. It may feel easier to draw the line at Nazis and overt white supremacists, but that doesn’t excuse us from thinking seriously — as we should have a long time ago — about educational standards for who deserves a college platform and financial resources.

Whereas conservatives politicians have traditionally warned against reckless public spending, in some cases by attempting to slash entire academic divisions and programs, they’re suddenly urging public institutions to hand over their wallets to bring a person to campus who’s known for putting students’ photos on screen to publicly mock them during his talks. Mr. Yiannopoulos has already targeted and doxxed two Berkeley students he disagrees with, posting their photos and identifying information on social media, which puts these students in direct danger of being harassed and threatened.

When speakers like these cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but add scant academic value, the issue is more complicated than the radical or offensive nature of their views. We do need more conservative voices on campus. But a free speech movement that has elevated expensive provocateurs over conservative intellectuals has only undermined the cause of campus intellectual diversity.

On September 27 2017 02:37 Nevuk wrote:
https://twitter.com/DrTedJ/status/912658627177193472
https://twitter.com/DrTedJ/status/912658914843529217

I had no idea about this part of the history Kaepernick's kneeling.
(article about him meeting with the veteran :
https://undertheradar.military.com/2016/09/kaepernick-meets-veteran-nate-boyer-kneels-anthem/

https://twitter.com/_/status/912675314584735745