US Politics Mega-thread - Page 12

On March 22 2018 01:07 GreenHorizons wrote:


The US site has a corporate portal, I'm curious who in the US was using their services. I find it interesting, but I hope something like this also draws more attention to more expansive and imo scary versions like Palantir

On March 21 2018 23:31 On_Slaught wrote:
Trump was always the best candidate to use their methods since he lacks his own values and can be assigned anyone elses.

Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party.

Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country.

On March 22 2018 01:37 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

This is probably why Steve Bannon viewed Trump as a political genius, he and CA had this entire platform worked out and Trump just readily adopted it without scruples to maximize electoral impact.

Seeing that drain-the-swamp and build-the-wall were designed years earlier by data analysts also makes Trumps comments on Bannon after his firing even sillier.


What troubles me is that this company finds focus groups responding well to thinly veiled forms of racism toward African Americans called “race realism,” and a lot of Americans who really like this idea of a really strong authoritarian leader decides this is a good thing to use, sell and make actions on. That rates pretty high on the evil scale.

On March 21 2018 22:45 Biff The Understudy wrote:

My personal experience talking with Russian people is that many of them would chose cheap national pride over reality every day of the week and twice on sunday. Having done my studies in an environment that counts lots of russian folks, I have learnt to simply try to avoid talking politics or even worse, history, with them as it never leads anywhere (btw, have observed that tendency with Polish people too).

I had a surrealist conversation with a russian block the other day who thought that the press was free, the elections fair and transparent and the justice system independant in Russia. Putin was a humble man and Forbes ranking him one of the wealthiest man in the works is obeying shadowy interests, just like every single western media, that all have a secret anti russian agenda. Oh and if you criticize Stalin, why not Napoleon, who killed so many russian people.

I’m not making any of that up, he was that dumb when it came to his country. LegalLord doesn’t even come close.

I think that’s why there is no hope for Russia, ever. Some shitty cold war complex means they will take everything rather than admit their country is utterly fucked.

On March 22 2018 01:59 Plansix wrote:
I hope Carson bought his wife an oil pan and coveralls before he threw her under the bus like that.

Seriously though, that expense needed to be approved by someone because it exceeded the maximum amount allowed for new furnishings. From reports, his office fired the person that rejected the expense the first time around. Not sure if he signed off on the firing

On March 22 2018 02:03 iamthedave wrote:


Choosing national pride over reality? Doesn't sound AT ALL like any western nation I'm aware of...*COUGH*brexit*COUGH*

That's a through thread I saw as well. One of them said 'he lets us be proud to be Russian' or something to that effect. I think it might actually have been along the lines of 'under Putin, we can hold our heads high again' actually. He was one of the middling fellows, he didn't like the stronger armed bits of the Putin era, but he felt the overall impact on 'Russian'ness was such a net positive that it didn't matter.

A powerful motivator, national pride, and a powerful tool if you can make yourself its symbol.

On March 22 2018 02:07 On_Slaught wrote:


From the reports I've heard, his wife is doing as much or more work in HUD than he is. She probably did make the final call.

Watching that video it looks so much like he is lying. Obviously can't prove it, but his voice and face and eye contact all look like somebody lying their way through a hearing.

On March 22 2018 02:07 On_Slaught wrote:


From the reports I've heard, his wife is doing as much or more work in HUD than he is. She probably did make the final call.

Watching that video it looks so much like he is lying. Obviously can't prove it, but his voice and face and eye contact all look like somebody lying their way through a hearing.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will likely announce tariffs on Chinese imports by Friday, a source in the administration said, as the top U.S. trade diplomat told lawmakers he had the tools to strike back over Chinese theft of U.S. tech know-how.

Reuters reported last week that the president could target up to $60 billion in imports from China. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that if the measures went ahead a mix of tariffs and restrictions on investment could be used.

“We are losing that to China in ways that are not reflective of the underlying economics,” Lighthizer told the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, a top economic policy committee, on Wednesday.

“The remedies, in my judgment at least, would be one, doing something on the tariff front, and two, doing something on the investment front, and then perhaps other things,” Lighthizer, a lawyer and veteran trade negotiator said.

The United States charges that the Chinese government and companies have stolen the intellectual property rights of U.S. companies and that damages run into hundreds of billions of dollars. China has said it will strike back if the U.S. presses ahead, although it has stressed targeted measures.

Lighthizer said that Chinese high technology products would be targeted in any tariffs, although a wide range of industry groups including apparel makers fear they could be hit and have launched lobbying campaigns to head off the move.

Chinese companies are already subject to tighter investment rules in the United States and there are proposals in Congress to more tightly control inward and outward investment with China.

Washington has called for Beijing to act to cut its exports to the United States by $100 billion, a figure that is equivalent to around four percent of Chinese exports. That and other trade actions from the Trump administration, have triggered talk of a global trade war.

Targeting $60 billion in Chinese exports as part of a remedy for breaches of U.S. intellectual property rights is seen as unlikely to trigger a massive response from Beijing, which has already said it could target U.S. agricultural exports.

Trump’s one substantial move on tariffs aimed at striking at Chinese overproduction of steel and aluminum that has depressed global prices has had a mixed impact.

Exemptions for Canada and Mexico, America’s partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement, have triggered a rush by other allies to avoid the tariffs. Lighthizer said that talks were under way with the European Union, Argentina and Australia.

Talks could commence soon with Brazil, he added, noting that Washington hoped to resolve the issue of exemptions by the end of April.

On March 22 2018 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:


Do you think the US elections in 2016 were free and fair?

On March 22 2018 02:34 Doodsmack wrote:


I think they were heavily influenced by an enemy power with the hacking. And I think it’s very odd that Trump wants to bitch out when it comes to fighting back. He loves fighting back.

Labor Department leadership convinced OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to overrule the White House regulatory affairs chief and release a controversial tip-sharing rule without data showing it could allow businesses to skim $640 million in gratuities.

Mulvaney sided with Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta over the government’s rulemaking clearinghouse—a little-known but critical wing of the White House called the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs—three current and former executive branch officials told Bloomberg Law. That allowed the department to delete from the proposal internal estimates showing businesses could take hundreds of millions in gratuities from their workers.

The proposed rule, which reverses a 2011 regulation, generally makes it easier for restaurants to implement tip-sharing arrangements among workers who directly earn gratuities and those who don’t.

Acosta and his team elevated the dispute to Mulvaney, who as Office of Management and Budget director oversees OIRA, after Trump-appointed OIRA Administrator Neomi Rao and her staff attempted to block the Labor Department from issuing the tip pool regulation. Rao wanted the department to reinsert estimates quantifying how much workers could lose out on tips to their bosses, who would be allowed to participate in the tip pool.

“So you have a guy who committed a crime. Will putting him on a (sex offender) list make it better? wouldn’t this only make people shun him, keep him from getting a job, and making friends? Just for a crime that he may have committed over 15 years ago as a adolescent? On a side note, one fifth of all rapes are committed by a juvenile,” Conditt wrote.

On abortion, he wrote: “First, if a women does not want a baby, or is incapable of taking care of one, she should not participate in activities that were made for that reason. Second, if we are going to give women free abortions, why not give men free condoms, or the like? Is it not up to the couple to take these preventive measures?”

Arguing against gay marriage, he wrote that homosexuality is “not natural.”

“Just look at the male and female bodies. They are obviously designed to couple. The natural design is apparent. It is not natural to couple male with male and female with female. It would be like trying to fit two screws together and to nuts together and then say, “See, it’s natural for them to go together.”

On March 22 2018 02:34 Doodsmack wrote:


I think they were heavily influenced by an enemy power with the hacking. And I think it’s very odd that Trump wants to bitch out when it comes to fighting back. He loves fighting back.

Mr Nix told our reporter: “…we’re used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows, and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive relationship with you.”

Along with Mr Nix, the meetings also included Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA Political Global, and the company’s chief data officer, Dr Alex Tayler.

Mr Turnbull described how, having obtained damaging material on opponents, Cambridge Analytica can discreetly push it onto social media and the internet.

He said: “… we just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’.”

Mr Nix also said: “…Many of our clients don’t want to be seen to be working with a foreign company… so often we set up, if we are working then we can set up fake IDs and websites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university, we can be tourists, there’s so many options we can look at. I have lots of experience in this.”

On March 22 2018 02:44 a_flayer wrote:

So... with statements like this from the higher ups at Cambridge Analytica...


You still think the Russians were responsible for giving Wikileaks the data?

I think you need to get your head sorted out.

On March 22 2018 02:44 a_flayer wrote:

So... with statements like this from the higher ups at Cambridge Analytica...


You still think the Russians were responsible for giving Wikileaks the data?

I think you need to get your head sorted out.