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On June 10 2021 09:52 LegalLord wrote:To my surprise, looks like the pipeline was only 8 percent completed at the time of cancellation. Though I'm hesitant to say it was a good decision to cancel it (pipelines are, ultimately, better than the other forms of O&G transport for reducing environmental impact), I do find it strange how little progress they'd made in the actual deployment of. They should've made every effort to ensure that it gets completed before the end of 2020 rather than gamble on four more years of favorable presidential climate for themselves.
The infrastructure in the US is terrible, so it doesn't really surprise me.
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US infrastructure is in embarrassingly bad disrepair but the "8%" is a bit misleading.
Basically the project was submitted in 2008, got grassroots resistance, they split the project up and built the entire southern ~half with Obama's vocal support.
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I feel like Omar does very little for Democrats. Who does Omar help Democrats reach that they would otherwise miss out on? How does Omar harm the party? She just feels so insanely pointless and a huge liability strategically.
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Justice Dept. watchdog to probe Trump-era leak investigations, including secret subpoenas for data from Congress, journalists@WaPo
The Justice Department’s internal watchdog announced Friday that he would review how officials sought the data of reporters, lawmakers and others as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks during the Trump administration — a day after it was revealed the department years ago had secretly obtained the data of two congressmen well known for their criticism of President Donald Trump.
The announcement from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz came amid growing furor in Congress, where leaders pressed the department to reveal more about its secret 2018 move to subpoena Apple for lawmakers’ data and demanded that attorneys general in the Trump administration come answer questions on Capitol Hill.
A spokesman for President Biden, meanwhile, blasted the Trump Justice Department’s move to seek lawmakers’ data, saying it “clearly fits within an appalling trend that represents the opposite of how authority should be used.”
“President Biden is absolutely committed to the independence of the Department of Justice, and — having served as a Senator for decades — to respecting the all-important rights of Congress as a co-equal branch of government,” the spokesman, Andrew Bates, said in a statement.
Horowitz announced that his review would “examine the Department’s compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations.”
...
The Justice Department has for weeks been facing criticism after it disclosed to three media organizations — The Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times — that officials had, largely during the Trump administration, secretly sought non-content phone and email records of reporters to advance leak investigations. Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland both vowed to discontinue the practice, though they have not answered repeated requests for information on what happened in the past administration and on their watch. Negotiations over Times reporters’ records went on in secret for months into the Biden administration.
The controversy reached a new pinnacle when it was reported Thursday night that the Justice Department in February 2018 secretly subpoenaed Apple for the data of two California Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell, as well as the data of their current and former staffers and family members.
An Intelligence Committee official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains politically sensitive, said Thursday night that Apple in May had notified at least 12 people connected to the panel of subpoenas for their data and that one minor was among them. Swalwell and Schiff were regular fixtures on cable news during the Trump administration’s early years, when Democrats were in the minority and Republicans were running the Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Apple spokesman Fred Sainz said in an emailed statement that the company received the subpoena on Feb. 6, 2018. The subpoena, which provided no context into the nature of the investigation, sought customer or subscriber account information for 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses, he said.
Apple regularly challenges warrants, subpoenas and nondisclosure orders, and has a policy of notifying customers about government data requests as soon as it can, Sainz said.
“In this case, the subpoena, which was issued by a federal grand jury and included a nondisclosure order signed by a federal magistrate judge, provided no information on the nature of the investigation and it would have been virtually impossible for Apple to understand the intent of the desired information without digging through users’ accounts,” Sainz said. “Consistent with the request, Apple limited the information it provided to account subscriber information and did not provide any content such as emails or pictures.”
yes it is getting warmer outside and by god do we need to get out after last year's lockdown madness... but to not find anything regarding this bombshell is rather peculiar.
(at least temporarily)secret subpoenas... against media organisations and SITTING congressman, no less one heading the intelligence commitee...
I keep balancing between baffled that such a thing is "a thing" and on the other hand being not surprised as it primarily regards Trump's presidency.
kinda also baffled as our MPs are granted by the constitution what is called "political immunity".
which means if they are suspected of having commited a crime, law enforcement agencies have to go through parliament first and the MPs collectively vote to keep or lift his/her immunity on a case by case basis. subsequently no immunity applies when the crime is clearly a private matter and not connected to their public duty.
are there no safeguards like this one in the US?
I mean the DOJ wanted to go after leaks, so far so good and even understandable.
but (apparently as inhouse searches bore not fruit) they then flagrantly went after media orgs or rather individual journalists of media orgs and the (meta) data their electronic devices show. meta data which is anything but meta as you can basically reconstruct a person's life and habits easily with a couple data points... when are they where with whom for how long... if you know all that you can rather easily infer purpose to the why of their meeting.
now where my question of political immunity returns, they also went after sitting congressman Adam Schiff's and Eric Swalwell's data. and apparently also some staff and family members who might have been staff.
the broader question I am asking, I guess - what the deuce America?
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Buzzfeed News has done some serious investigative journalism for a while now. I've read some good longform stories they've published on taxes, national security and the environment. It's unfortunate that they didn't change the name or spin it off a bit, because being labeled with Buzzfeed stains the image of a news outlet that can compete with ProPublica or even the NYT in their gravitas and quality of reporting.
Something I've noticed that slipped a lot of the big headlines this week was that the Senate passed the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act in quite a bipartisan fashion (68-32). It's a $250 billion bill that funds R&D in science like quantum computing and AI, and boosting manufacturing in semiconductors to compete against China. I'd think this gives Biden some room to cut down the price tag on the infrastructure bill he's keen to pass through the deficit hawk moderates, and proclaim it as bipartisanship in action. Also a sign of how it's possible to get things through as long as it's framed as an anti-China action, like what we're seeing in the G7 talks this week.
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yeah the kinda sad reality is that the click bait pays for the good journalism. either that or a billionaire willing to lose money.
but Buzzfeed does have some good people working for them no doubt.
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On June 12 2021 13:57 Mohdoo wrote:
I feel like Omar does very little for Democrats. Who does Omar help Democrats reach that they would otherwise miss out on? How does Omar harm the party? She just feels so insanely pointless and a huge liability strategically.
I'm inclined to agree. She's bundled into the "leftist group" with Sanders and AOC but her key differentiator is that she says things that right-leaning people justifiably find alarming. I have my issues with the rest of the "left Democrats" but Omar definitely seems like the one that just doesn't belong.
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On June 12 2021 13:57 Mohdoo wrote:
I feel like Omar does very little for Democrats. Who does Omar help Democrats reach that they would otherwise miss out on? How does Omar harm the party? She just feels so insanely pointless and a huge liability strategically.
She does a lot I have no idea how you miss it. Do you remember Ron Paul? Shes there to go really left for the party with what she says in order for the rest of the party to seem more moderate in comparison. Meanwhile you can still keep the GH's voting for blue even when the party doesn't represent them remotely because they can always point to Her as "see we have progressive voices we represent you" when they don't listen to those voices and just use them for fundraising and turnout.
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I mean, no, you can’t keep GH voting blue either way. If I had to guess, Ilhan Omar is probably a net negative for Dems electorally. She’s a boogeyman Republicans can scare voters in moderate districts with, and that tends to work pretty well for them.
But I’m not aware of anything she’s done that’s especially out of line compared to other progressives? She just makes a good boogeyman for obvious reasons, but I don’t think it’s either fair or even very effective to try to deny Republicans a condensation point for their scare tactics. It doesn’t matter if you nominate a war hero and they nominate a draft dodger, they’ll still brand your war hero as unpatriotic and anti-American and that will still work pretty well for them.
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"Voting blue" is asinine to me but I'd be a lot less ashamed of voting for Ilhan Omar than most other Democrats. The squad is the lipstick on the pig that is the Democrats party from my perspective though.
Democrats can't even get their own Senators to vote to protect the voting rights of the people they need to vote for them, so I'd hope Democrats at least recognize they have bigger fish to fry when it comes to electoral/political strategizing.
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On June 13 2021 11:46 GreenHorizons wrote:
"Voting blue" is asinine to me but I'd be a lot less ashamed of voting for Ilhan Omar than most other Democrats. The squad is the lipstick on the pig that is the Democrats party from my perspective though.
Democrats can't even get their own Senators to vote to protect the voting rights of the people they need to vote for them, so I'd hope Democrats at least recognize they have bigger fish to fry when it comes to electoral/political strategizing.
I think its important to point out what % of democrat senators would vote to protect voting rights. You make it sound like the entire party either swings 1 direction or another.
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Ilhan Omar is clearly a fool unfit for service -- she can't even see our empire's beautiful new clothes!
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just to vex the heck out of Republicans she is worth having in the party. I mean she might be way more critical of Israeli politics (her political adversaries would definitely call it anti semitic...) than the mainstream of the US, but so what?
Marjorie.Taylor.Greene. that is stupidity and malice easily surpassing the mainstream in the US.
or the insurrection caucus lol.
I mainly see the good old "Dems suck at messaging" case. they need to tear in to Republicans like pitbulls and never let go. and annoy the shit ouf ot people with effective campaigning and remind them of what the heck happened that day 24/7.
so they will vote Dems just to get rid of the nonstop messaging.
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On June 13 2021 16:03 Severedevil wrote:
Ilhan Omar is clearly a fool unfit for service -- she can't even see our empire's beautiful new clothes!
Emperor's? 
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If anyone that the right could portray as a "boogeyman" is unelectable, you're not going to have that many democrats left. I'm particularly interested to see how the squad holds out against time tbh.
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Trying to purge or freeze out democratically elected members of your caucus without a major scandal (and, these days, even with) is a really expensive political maneuver, and being too extreme or too moderate hasn't been worth that cost since the mid-2010s.
Even if the votes aren't super important (like in the House), both the party establishments are so deeply reviled by their "bases" and so absurdly disorganized that I am not sure either can afford to expend that kind of capital for a while-I mean, the GOP can't even dump Gaetz for Christ's sake, and the man Venmo'd his sex trafficker friend 900 dollars to reimburse three women for "tuition."
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It's certainly a weakness of being an umbrella party attempting to move away from the hard lines of the Republicans. On the other side of the aisle is a group with a few very strong stances and no willingness to budge or change, and just about everyone else in the country, no matter how they envision the correct way to make progress, have to band together in opposition. Of course this will cause in-fighting because how the hell are you going to have everyone agree on one agenda to move forward with? There are so many important issues that will inevitably be disagreed upon within the ranks. It's rather unfortunate that we don't have stronger 3rd+ parties, and I wish it were otherwise. Personally I don't identify with either of these two parties, which is one of the reasons I don't get heavily invested in politics; I just read what people think about the state of affairs and then move on.
Also, the Republicans have a pretty good reputation for sticking with the narrative of the day for the good of the party. If all of your opponents are willing to jump on whatever crazy train is cruising along, there needs to be a high amount of cohesiveness on your own side if you're going to come out on top.
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EPT
