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Now that we have a new thread, 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 complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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On July 09 2020 04:55 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2020 04:20 Velr wrote:On July 09 2020 04:01 Simberto wrote:On July 09 2020 03:55 Dan HH wrote:On July 09 2020 01:51 Danglars wrote:On July 09 2020 01:34 Simberto wrote:On July 09 2020 01:20 Danglars wrote:The Becket legal fund, with its mission to defend religious liberty, is now 2-0 at the Supreme Court for the day. First, hopefully the end of nearly a decade of litigation as Little Sisters of the Poor win their right to serve the elderly poor while living according to their religious conscience. They are exempted from the Obamacare contraception mandate. Trump's HHS(&HRSA), like Obama's HHS, has the discretion to carve exemptions and define standards, since that's in the law. Thomas wrote the opinion for the 7-2 victory. The second case involves whether employees of religious schools can sue their employer under employment discrimination law, or whether those lawsuits are barred by First Amendment protections. The court held that it is a matter of religious institution independence that courts should "stay out of employment disputes" and that the employees concerned were charged with "vital religious duties, such as educating their students in the Catholic faith and guiding their students to live their lives in accordance with that faith." I'll just link the opinion for this case. These are two good victories after quite a few disappointments in prior days. I wish cases like a group of nuns or a Catholic religious school had their first amendment rights verified quickly, instead of being forced to fight for them through multiple levels of the court system. It's a good reminder that these rights aren't extended to all by default, no matter how many people here and elsewhere want to tell people that they support civil rights, but that they must be watched and defended. It is amazing how you can call "not providing effective healthcare to your employees" "religious freedom" instead. Being religious should not be a shortcut to avoid workplace regulations. Can i just start a religion which doesn't believe in paying taxes and then claim religious freedom to not pay taxes? It is absurd that religious laws apparently go above democratically legitimate laws. I don't really consider those laws as democratically legitimate, since first amendment religious liberty rights confer protections against whatever democratic majority thinks is a good idea at the time. It was illegitimate, and luckily 7 justices found it to be so. The citizens of the country need protections against government intrusion on their lives. Luckily, the US still has that in some respects. Looking a little deeper, Kagan and Breyer joined Alito for the school decision, and both concurred in judgement in the Little Sisters of the Poor decision. As far as the court's more liberal and more conservative justices go, this was a bipartisan win and really ought to be celebrated for convincing half the liberal justices in the justice of the petitioners' cause. Hopefully we get more 7-2 and not 5-4 decisions on this topic in the future. What's confusing about this to my non-American brain is how employees choosing to use their healthcare plan to obtain contraceptives is morally any different to them using their wage to obtain contraceptives from the point of view of the employer? In what way does the former make the employer more "complicit" than the latter? My guess is that they don't view healthcare as a right, but basically as something an employer gifts to his employees out of the goodness of his heart, or possibly to entice better employees to be hired. So it is something that needs to be completely within the choice of the employer, and thus the employer is being forced to do something against his conscious by having to gift the bad reproductive healthcare to his employers. As soon as you view healthcare as a right the workers have, the whole argument evaporates. Also, know what an even better solution to this would be: Universal Healthcare. Suddenly the employer isn't even involved in the decision and isn't forced to do any things they object to. And the employees get good healthcare no matter where they are employed. Win-Win. To be fair, doesn't germany also have some pretty outrageous laws for "religious" employers that can undercut worker protections/rights no other company can? Iirc it's just for certain, christian, church founded enterprises (hospitals?). Iirc they are allowed to discriminate against non-religious or other-religious employees? Good to know. Unsuccessful in their fight at home, they double their ire for fights abroad? Not that German legal protections are very relevant to the American thread, but the stigma laid thick around here is how “advanced” Europe is socially, without many caveats given.
Why in the world are you making this into some silly "which country is better" argument? We're talking about the ethics of employer's determining healthcare of employees and you basically just stick your tongue out.
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Also, just to make sure, church employers have absolutely no input into what health insurance their workers get here in Germany.
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On July 09 2020 04:52 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2020 03:55 Dan HH wrote:On July 09 2020 01:51 Danglars wrote:On July 09 2020 01:34 Simberto wrote:On July 09 2020 01:20 Danglars wrote:The Becket legal fund, with its mission to defend religious liberty, is now 2-0 at the Supreme Court for the day. First, hopefully the end of nearly a decade of litigation as Little Sisters of the Poor win their right to serve the elderly poor while living according to their religious conscience. They are exempted from the Obamacare contraception mandate. Trump's HHS(&HRSA), like Obama's HHS, has the discretion to carve exemptions and define standards, since that's in the law. Thomas wrote the opinion for the 7-2 victory. https://twitter.com/BECKETlaw/status/1280867792682733569The second case involves whether employees of religious schools can sue their employer under employment discrimination law, or whether those lawsuits are barred by First Amendment protections. The court held that it is a matter of religious institution independence that courts should "stay out of employment disputes" and that the employees concerned were charged with "vital religious duties, such as educating their students in the Catholic faith and guiding their students to live their lives in accordance with that faith." I'll just link the opinion for this case. These are two good victories after quite a few disappointments in prior days. I wish cases like a group of nuns or a Catholic religious school had their first amendment rights verified quickly, instead of being forced to fight for them through multiple levels of the court system. It's a good reminder that these rights aren't extended to all by default, no matter how many people here and elsewhere want to tell people that they support civil rights, but that they must be watched and defended. It is amazing how you can call "not providing effective healthcare to your employees" "religious freedom" instead. Being religious should not be a shortcut to avoid workplace regulations. Can i just start a religion which doesn't believe in paying taxes and then claim religious freedom to not pay taxes? It is absurd that religious laws apparently go above democratically legitimate laws. I don't really consider those laws as democratically legitimate, since first amendment religious liberty rights confer protections against whatever democratic majority thinks is a good idea at the time. It was illegitimate, and luckily 7 justices found it to be so. The citizens of the country need protections against government intrusion on their lives. Luckily, the US still has that in some respects. Looking a little deeper, Kagan and Breyer joined Alito for the school decision, and both concurred in judgement in the Little Sisters of the Poor decision. As far as the court's more liberal and more conservative justices go, this was a bipartisan win and really ought to be celebrated for convincing half the liberal justices in the justice of the petitioners' cause. Hopefully we get more 7-2 and not 5-4 decisions on this topic in the future. What's confusing about this to my non-American brain is how employees choosing to use their healthcare plan to obtain contraceptives is morally any different to them using their wage to obtain contraceptives from the point of view of the employer? In what way does the former make the employer more "complicit" than the latter? I think the argument goes as follows- If I pay you to do work, we have an exchange of your time for my money. Once the exchange is made, it is now your money and you could spend it on a great many things, some of which I might consider to be immoral. However, that's all your choice and nothing to do with me. However, health insurance is paid for in part or in whole by my business- an ongoing service provided by the company, and one of those services provided is something the business owner considers to be heinous (and if we narrow it- aside from conservative Catholics and Quiver Full groups, the moral issue is usually over abortifacients, not contraceptives as a whole.) Consider flipping the issue around if your business insurance compelled you to have check boxes that could direct money to fund pro-life groups that protest around abortion clinics. Assuming you think protesting abortion clinics is wrong- would you also be resentful if the health insurance provided by your business was being directed there? Isn't it different from your employee takes their wages and donates it to said group? I think there is a distinction.
Why are you comparing employer benefits in the form of a wage diversion-funded health insurance that the employee uses for themselves and their family's family planning needs with employer benefits in the form of a wage diversion to a public cause? Those two things are wildly different, particularly as they relate to the employee's status as an individual person who must transact for healthcare in some way eventually. In other words, the employee's interests in being guaranteed access to non-wage benefits earmarked for specific kinds of healthcare is not qualitatively the same as the employee's interests in having some portion of their compensation funneled away to some third-party. That difference lies at the heart of the pluralistic justification for some minimum guaranteed floor of healthcare benefits that are not subject to the moral judgments of employers.
Properly framed, the dispute is over weighing individual employees' rights to healthcare autonomy against an employer's rights to dictate to their employees what is and is not an acceptable form of healthcare benefits. The power differential and lack of real bargaining power in choosing health insurance in the first place are key to that dispute.
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On July 09 2020 05:02 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2020 04:55 Danglars wrote:On July 09 2020 04:20 Velr wrote:On July 09 2020 04:01 Simberto wrote:On July 09 2020 03:55 Dan HH wrote:On July 09 2020 01:51 Danglars wrote:On July 09 2020 01:34 Simberto wrote:On July 09 2020 01:20 Danglars wrote:The Becket legal fund, with its mission to defend religious liberty, is now 2-0 at the Supreme Court for the day. First, hopefully the end of nearly a decade of litigation as Little Sisters of the Poor win their right to serve the elderly poor while living according to their religious conscience. They are exempted from the Obamacare contraception mandate. Trump's HHS(&HRSA), like Obama's HHS, has the discretion to carve exemptions and define standards, since that's in the law. Thomas wrote the opinion for the 7-2 victory. https://twitter.com/BECKETlaw/status/1280867792682733569The second case involves whether employees of religious schools can sue their employer under employment discrimination law, or whether those lawsuits are barred by First Amendment protections. The court held that it is a matter of religious institution independence that courts should "stay out of employment disputes" and that the employees concerned were charged with "vital religious duties, such as educating their students in the Catholic faith and guiding their students to live their lives in accordance with that faith." I'll just link the opinion for this case. These are two good victories after quite a few disappointments in prior days. I wish cases like a group of nuns or a Catholic religious school had their first amendment rights verified quickly, instead of being forced to fight for them through multiple levels of the court system. It's a good reminder that these rights aren't extended to all by default, no matter how many people here and elsewhere want to tell people that they support civil rights, but that they must be watched and defended. It is amazing how you can call "not providing effective healthcare to your employees" "religious freedom" instead. Being religious should not be a shortcut to avoid workplace regulations. Can i just start a religion which doesn't believe in paying taxes and then claim religious freedom to not pay taxes? It is absurd that religious laws apparently go above democratically legitimate laws. I don't really consider those laws as democratically legitimate, since first amendment religious liberty rights confer protections against whatever democratic majority thinks is a good idea at the time. It was illegitimate, and luckily 7 justices found it to be so. The citizens of the country need protections against government intrusion on their lives. Luckily, the US still has that in some respects. Looking a little deeper, Kagan and Breyer joined Alito for the school decision, and both concurred in judgement in the Little Sisters of the Poor decision. As far as the court's more liberal and more conservative justices go, this was a bipartisan win and really ought to be celebrated for convincing half the liberal justices in the justice of the petitioners' cause. Hopefully we get more 7-2 and not 5-4 decisions on this topic in the future. What's confusing about this to my non-American brain is how employees choosing to use their healthcare plan to obtain contraceptives is morally any different to them using their wage to obtain contraceptives from the point of view of the employer? In what way does the former make the employer more "complicit" than the latter? My guess is that they don't view healthcare as a right, but basically as something an employer gifts to his employees out of the goodness of his heart, or possibly to entice better employees to be hired. So it is something that needs to be completely within the choice of the employer, and thus the employer is being forced to do something against his conscious by having to gift the bad reproductive healthcare to his employers. As soon as you view healthcare as a right the workers have, the whole argument evaporates. Also, know what an even better solution to this would be: Universal Healthcare. Suddenly the employer isn't even involved in the decision and isn't forced to do any things they object to. And the employees get good healthcare no matter where they are employed. Win-Win. To be fair, doesn't germany also have some pretty outrageous laws for "religious" employers that can undercut worker protections/rights no other company can? Iirc it's just for certain, christian, church founded enterprises (hospitals?). Iirc they are allowed to discriminate against non-religious or other-religious employees? Good to know. Unsuccessful in their fight at home, they double their ire for fights abroad? Not that German legal protections are very relevant to the American thread, but the stigma laid thick around here is how “advanced” Europe is socially, without many caveats given. Why in the world are you making this into some silly "which country is better" argument? We're talking about the ethics of employer's determining healthcare of employees and you basically just stick your tongue out.
This thread can use gentle ribbing given all the EU-US hate, usually with the punch line that the US is backward among first world countries. So yeah, I’m not diminishing the ethical considerations just to poke fun. Go tell Simberto that went straight to religious individuals not paying taxes that this is a serious issue and throwaway arguments aren’t welcome.
It’s politics, and the US president is Donald J Trump, so unclench a little.
Very next post: “ Pity because so many people have to live without really basic stuff like healthcare or reasonable sex ed, or a right to not be gunned down by crazy people or the police.” Europeans can dish the shade, so they better be able to take it Mohdoo.
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I don't hate the US. US-conservatives love to claim that people hate the US. Few actually do.
I am mostly between pity and confusion regarding the US. Pity because so many people have to live without really basic stuff like healthcare or reasonable sex ed, or a right to not be gunned down by crazy people or the police. Confusion because people think that that is okay, and actually managed to vote Trump into office.
And i used a different situation to show how absurd it would be if people could selectively ignore laws based on what they claim to believe. That is something which is clearly very open to abuse if you don't only use it for christians and their specific stuff. Christians have a hard time seeing thing, but a lot of other religions exist, and to people who don't believe in the same imaginary friend that you believe in, your religion and its specific bigotry is no different than any random other selection of arbitrary rules. So a religion i just made up which is against paying taxes is equally valid as your religion being against providing contraceptives to people. Why does your religion get to skip laws it doesn't like, and mine doesn't?
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Lt. Colonel Vindman, one of the main witnesses against Trump in his impeachment trial has resigned. He claims it came after a months long harassment campaign by Trump allies. Especially awful given he reassured his father that he wouldn't be punished. Important because it shows further decline by US into authoritarian rule (punish those who are willing to publicly go against you. Of which Obama was also guilty, given his treatment of whistleblowers).
via CBS new reporter -
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On July 09 2020 04:52 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2020 03:55 Dan HH wrote:On July 09 2020 01:51 Danglars wrote:On July 09 2020 01:34 Simberto wrote:On July 09 2020 01:20 Danglars wrote:The Becket legal fund, with its mission to defend religious liberty, is now 2-0 at the Supreme Court for the day. First, hopefully the end of nearly a decade of litigation as Little Sisters of the Poor win their right to serve the elderly poor while living according to their religious conscience. They are exempted from the Obamacare contraception mandate. Trump's HHS(&HRSA), like Obama's HHS, has the discretion to carve exemptions and define standards, since that's in the law. Thomas wrote the opinion for the 7-2 victory. https://twitter.com/BECKETlaw/status/1280867792682733569The second case involves whether employees of religious schools can sue their employer under employment discrimination law, or whether those lawsuits are barred by First Amendment protections. The court held that it is a matter of religious institution independence that courts should "stay out of employment disputes" and that the employees concerned were charged with "vital religious duties, such as educating their students in the Catholic faith and guiding their students to live their lives in accordance with that faith." I'll just link the opinion for this case. These are two good victories after quite a few disappointments in prior days. I wish cases like a group of nuns or a Catholic religious school had their first amendment rights verified quickly, instead of being forced to fight for them through multiple levels of the court system. It's a good reminder that these rights aren't extended to all by default, no matter how many people here and elsewhere want to tell people that they support civil rights, but that they must be watched and defended. It is amazing how you can call "not providing effective healthcare to your employees" "religious freedom" instead. Being religious should not be a shortcut to avoid workplace regulations. Can i just start a religion which doesn't believe in paying taxes and then claim religious freedom to not pay taxes? It is absurd that religious laws apparently go above democratically legitimate laws. I don't really consider those laws as democratically legitimate, since first amendment religious liberty rights confer protections against whatever democratic majority thinks is a good idea at the time. It was illegitimate, and luckily 7 justices found it to be so. The citizens of the country need protections against government intrusion on their lives. Luckily, the US still has that in some respects. Looking a little deeper, Kagan and Breyer joined Alito for the school decision, and both concurred in judgement in the Little Sisters of the Poor decision. As far as the court's more liberal and more conservative justices go, this was a bipartisan win and really ought to be celebrated for convincing half the liberal justices in the justice of the petitioners' cause. Hopefully we get more 7-2 and not 5-4 decisions on this topic in the future. What's confusing about this to my non-American brain is how employees choosing to use their healthcare plan to obtain contraceptives is morally any different to them using their wage to obtain contraceptives from the point of view of the employer? In what way does the former make the employer more "complicit" than the latter? I think the argument goes as follows- If I pay you to do work, we have an exchange of your time for my money. Once the exchange is made, it is now your money and you could spend it on a great many things, some of which I might consider to be immoral. However, that's all your choice and nothing to do with me. However, health insurance is paid for in part or in whole by my business- an ongoing service provided by the company, and one of those services provided is something the business owner considers to be heinous (and if we narrow it- aside from conservative Catholics and Quiver Full groups, the moral issue is usually over abortifacients, not contraceptives as a whole.) Consider flipping the issue around if your business insurance compelled you to have check boxes that could direct money to fund pro-life groups that protest around abortion clinics. Assuming you think protesting abortion clinics is wrong- would you also be resentful if the health insurance provided by your business was being directed there? Isn't it different from your employee takes their wages and donates it to said group? I think there is a distinction.
Funny you should say that because we sort of have this in my country. There is form you can fill to direct 2% of your income tax to any NGO you choose. Do note that income tax is deposited by the employer, employees only ever receive their net income and don't have to file taxes themselves, that 2% would never reach their pockets regardless.
I can of course see how LGBT business owners for example would resent this being used to make them indirectly fund a pro-nuclear family NGO, but it's not their choice to make any more so than what their employees spend their wage on. Keyword here being indireclty.
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United States24741 Posts
On July 09 2020 06:15 Nevuk wrote:Lt. Colonel Vindman, one of the main witnesses against Trump in his impeachment trial has resigned. He claims it came after a months long harassment campaign by Trump allies. Especially awful given he reassured his father that he wouldn't be punished. Important because it shows further decline by US into authoritarian rule (punish those who are willing to publicly go against you. Of which Obama was also guilty, given his treatment of whistleblowers). via CBS new reporter - https://twitter.com/saraecook/status/1280886316960530438
Not that this makes up for everything, but note that he's retiring with a full pension, not resigning. He can go get whatever new job he wants while he collects on his pension.... it's bad that he seems to be getting forced out, but economically he'll be fine.
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How familiar with the invention of whiteness are you?
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There are reports coming in that Trump asked the CIA to turn over intel to Russia, while simultaneously ignoring taking action about the Taliban bounties on US troops and Russia arming them. Appears to originate at Just Security, which I've never heard of before. Mediafactreport lists them as being left-center biased but "high" accuracy, a non profit of arm of the NYU law school.
Also being reported on a strange array of sources, all citing it - raw story, law&crime (msn uses them, so I thought this was msn at first). Law&crime is the least partisan source citing it so I'll include them as well.
lawandcrime.com
A good high level summary of the article is offered early on. Makes 3 main claims and elaborates on them further. The big bombshell would be if Trump was trying to give Kremlin CIA information. If the russian bounty story didn't do anything, I'm not sure this will, but it's probably the most active confirmation of a pro-Kremlin action taken by Trump (most of his other things have been inaction aiding them or passively indirectly aiding them).
(bold is in article)
First, President Trump decided not to confront Putin about supplying arms to the terrorist group. Second, during the very times in which U.S. military officials publicly raised concerns about the program’s threat to US forces, Trump undercut them. He embraced Putin, overtly and repeatedly, including at the historic summit in Helsinki. Third, behind the scenes, Trump directed the CIA to share intelligence information on counterterrorism with the Kremlin despite no discernible reward, former intelligence officials who served in the Trump administration told Just Security.
www.justsecurity.org
(It's section C of the article if someone doesn't want to read the whole thing. The details aren't quite as damning, but it has people on the record).
“There was a consistent push for CT cooperation with Moscow, coming from the White House, despite near universal belief within the IC that this effort would be one sided and end up being a waste of time and energy,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, who retired in mid-2019 from the Senior Intelligence Service at the CIA.
“To be fair, every administration wants a reset with Moscow, and thus the IC dutifully attempted to engage with the Russian government on CT matters,” he added in discussing the Trump policy. “Bottom line, we tried, as this was the guidance from policy makers. There was no ‘deep state push back,’ there was no stalling, there was a concerted effort to work with the Russians.”
Douglas London, a CIA Senior Operations Officer who retired at the end of 2018, told me that “despite increasing reflections of Russian material support to the Taliban raised publicly by Defense Secretary James Mattis in 2017 and throughout 2018 by General John Nicholson, President Trump pressured CIA to invest time and resources increasing counterterrorist cooperation with Russia.”
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On July 09 2020 07:57 Nevuk wrote:There are reports coming in that Trump asked the CIA to turn over intel to Russia, while simultaneously ignoring taking action about the Taliban bounties on US troops and Russia arming them. Appears to originate at Just Security, which I've never heard of before. Mediafactreport lists them as being left-center biased but "high" accuracy, a non profit of arm of the NYU law school. Also being reported on a strange array of sources, all citing it - raw story, law&crime (msn uses them, so I thought this was msn at first). Law&crime is the least partisan source citing it so I'll include them as well. lawandcrime.comA good high level summary of the article is offered early on. Makes 3 main claims and elaborates on them further. The big bombshell would be if Trump was trying to give Kremlin CIA information. If the russian bounty story didn't do anything, I'm not sure this will, but it's probably the most active confirmation of a pro-Kremlin action taken by Trump (most of his other things have been inaction aiding them or passively indirectly aiding them). (bold is in article) Show nested quote +
First, President Trump decided not to confront Putin about supplying arms to the terrorist group. Second, during the very times in which U.S. military officials publicly raised concerns about the program’s threat to US forces, Trump undercut them. He embraced Putin, overtly and repeatedly, including at the historic summit in Helsinki. Third, behind the scenes, Trump directed the CIA to share intelligence information on counterterrorism with the Kremlin despite no discernible reward, former intelligence officials who served in the Trump administration told Just Security.
www.justsecurity.org
I'm very wary of citing multiple anonymous sources, given that in past instances, they've been traceable back to one guy telling multiple others, and them repeating the story third hand but being counted as corroborating informants. The most famous example was the FBI using a reporter that was supplied Fusion GPS info as a source that corroborated the info in question. I'm going to wait and see if any of these sources can verify that it was in specific briefing, or any allows their name to be attached to the report. Five outlets citing the same three anonymous sources that all heard it from the same guy is a story actually sourced to one guy. This is similar, but not exactly the same, to when multiple anonymous sources told reporters that Bernie had told Warren that a woman could not win the presidency.
Wait and see.
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On July 09 2020 08:06 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2020 07:57 Nevuk wrote:There are reports coming in that Trump asked the CIA to turn over intel to Russia, while simultaneously ignoring taking action about the Taliban bounties on US troops and Russia arming them. Appears to originate at Just Security, which I've never heard of before. Mediafactreport lists them as being left-center biased but "high" accuracy, a non profit of arm of the NYU law school. Also being reported on a strange array of sources, all citing it - raw story, law&crime (msn uses them, so I thought this was msn at first). Law&crime is the least partisan source citing it so I'll include them as well. lawandcrime.comA good high level summary of the article is offered early on. Makes 3 main claims and elaborates on them further. The big bombshell would be if Trump was trying to give Kremlin CIA information. If the russian bounty story didn't do anything, I'm not sure this will, but it's probably the most active confirmation of a pro-Kremlin action taken by Trump (most of his other things have been inaction aiding them or passively indirectly aiding them). (bold is in article)
First, President Trump decided not to confront Putin about supplying arms to the terrorist group. Second, during the very times in which U.S. military officials publicly raised concerns about the program’s threat to US forces, Trump undercut them. He embraced Putin, overtly and repeatedly, including at the historic summit in Helsinki. Third, behind the scenes, Trump directed the CIA to share intelligence information on counterterrorism with the Kremlin despite no discernible reward, former intelligence officials who served in the Trump administration told Just Security.
www.justsecurity.org I'm very wary of citing multiple anonymous sources, given that in past instances, they've been traceable back to one guy telling multiple others, and them repeating the story third hand but being counted as corroborating informants. The most famous example was the FBI using a reporter that was supplied Fusion GPS info as a source that corroborated the info in question. I'm going to wait and see if any of these sources can verify that it was in specific briefing, or any allows their name to be attached to the report. Five outlets citing the same three anonymous sources that all heard it from the same guy is a story actually sourced to one guy. This is similar, but not exactly the same, to when multiple anonymous sources told reporters that Bernie had told Warren that a woman could not win the presidency. Wait and see.
I've read the full article now. It cites three specific individuals, all of whom are now retired. Two CIA officers and a former ambassador. No anonymous sources in it. (I attached some of the most relevant parts in an edit to the post).
The details make it sound like it could have been incompetence instead - basically, every administration asks the CIA to cooperate with Russia on counter-terrorism to "restart relationships", and then stops shortly after the CIA tells them they're getting nothing at all from Russia. Trump's administration didn't, and kept pushing for them. It also makes it clear that what was being pushed was Counter-terrorism information exchange rather than full co-operation. There's mention that military cooperation was initially pushed for, but Mattis refused to sign off.
I suspect they're willing to speak on the record because of the Russian bounty story, because that made them have more doubts about the incompetence angle.
It's written by the former "Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense 2015-16", so I think that's why they went there. People on record -
Marc Polymeropoulos, who retired in mid-2019 from the Senior Intelligence Service at the CIA.
Douglas London, a CIA Senior Operations Officer who retired at the end of 2018,
Ambassador Todd Buchwald who retired from the State Department in July 2017 (who obviously has less inside info about the CIA).
So yes, just two inside-CIA sources. However, CIA analysts/agents going on the record less than 2 years after retiring sounds a little nuts so I'm giving it a little more credence than I would otherwise.
But yes, wait and see still sounds correct, as it's such a big claim.
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No idea what that link has to do with anything.
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On July 09 2020 12:23 GreenHorizons wrote:No idea what that link has to do with anything.
Somewhere the cross-section between anointed religious dogmatist in the New Speak and its adherents boisterously promulgating this trash (of the Seattle ilk that was linked) went over your head so you fall back to your verses. The article elucidates this slide, of which you often say, read, so I say read. I disagree with your verbiage and moral reasoning of what "whiteness" is and how it is used as a bludgeon indiscriminately.
Let's just say that there exists a gap, you believe in your thing, I believe in my thing (reason, rational discourse, not original sin, sins of a father tripe, etc.) and never the twain shall meet. If you want to get together to end the drug war, end QI, etc. then feel free too, but I'm not interested in a conversation where we fundamentally disagree on how the discourse and language is used.
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On July 09 2020 12:31 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2020 12:23 GreenHorizons wrote:No idea what that link has to do with anything. Somewhere the cross-section between anointed religious dogmatist in the New Speak and its adherents boisterously promulgating this trash (of the Seattle ilk that was linked) went over your head so you fall back to your verses. The article elucidates this slide, of which you often say, read, so I say read. I disagree with your verbiage and moral reasoning of what "whiteness" is and how it is used as a bludgeon indiscriminately. Let's just say that there exists a gap, you believe in your thing, I believe in my thing (reason, rational discourse, not original sin, sins of a father tripe, etc.) and never the twain shall meet. If you want to get together to end the drug war, end QI, etc. then feel free too, but I'm not interested in a conversation where we fundamentally disagree on how the discourse and language is used.
I believe the history of the invention of whiteness is pretty plain and don't even know where you begin to take issue with it. North America had European settlers for decades before a "white" identity was promulgated.
The idea that the old scientific, psychological, sociological debates were more based in reason and rational discourse is silly btw. Some of the most bullshit of all work was done to fit racist/sexist narratives completely divorced from reason and rational discourse then praised for their brilliance.
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This whole CHOP thing is hilarious to me. I think Bruno Macaes summed it up very well
It's like some strange postmodern phenomenon of not an actual rebellion, but people LARPing in what is basically the American TV version of a rebellion. It's like one of those shows were all the adults die and then the kids start to build a town.
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"American life continues more or less as before" is both the truest and most absurd part of all that.
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EPT
