EPThttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/fbi-searched-trump-mar-a-lago-home-over-efforts-to-hide-classified-files-justice-department-says
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3769
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StasisField
United States1086 Posts
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/fbi-searched-trump-mar-a-lago-home-over-efforts-to-hide-classified-files-justice-department-says | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43796 Posts
On August 31 2022 18:03 StasisField wrote: The first photo of some of the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI has been released in a new 36-page court filing issued by the DOJ that opposes the appointment of a special master to review the documents. The DOJ stated, among many things, that it is believed that efforts were taken to obstruct the investigation of these documents at Trump's property. In the photo, you can clearly see documents marked Secret and Top Secret. It is also being reported by some that one of the documents has a human intelligence marking on it, but I have yet to see said marking. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/fbi-searched-trump-mar-a-lago-home-over-efforts-to-hide-classified-files-justice-department-says Trump obstructing things? Reminds me of when the Mueller report listed Trump obstructing justice 10 different ways. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
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oBlade
United States5294 Posts
On August 29 2022 10:30 Sermokala wrote: The level of fraud from PPP loans and from things like the bailout of the airlines only for a lot of these operations to just fire people and pocket the cash will go way ahead of any fallout from the student loans. The idea that so many people who wrote the law decided to take advantage of the law without a shred of a conflict of interests is hilariously hypocritical. If the program for these PPP loans went to the employees that were fired instead of the companies that did the firing away it would be somewhere near what student loan forgiveness was. Instead, the PPP loans did a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the wealthy. This comes not that long after an equal transfer of wealth to the rich in the form of trumps tax cuts. I agree with most except any loans taken by lawmakers would pale in comparison to loans taken by companies that didn't need it that are in industries that lobby the lawmakers who made the law. Also, the average US household had a tax break under Trump, but remember as long as there are budget deficits, that means increasing debt, that means any tax break is temporary until it comes time to pay up. The US's only consolation is China's debt is much higher relative to their GDP than the US's is... so far. On August 29 2022 10:30 Sermokala wrote: The idea that its somehow blatant vote buying to now spend maybe a quarter of the money that the previous guy spent that it wasn't vote buying before is dishonest at best. The PPP was a program included in the CARES Act which was a law passed by Congress, which had a 96-0 vote in the Senate meaning it would have been a law regardless of the president. And it was extended with the Congress under the current GUY. Student loans are possibly the least urgent loan to offer relief for. The payments have been on hold for years now, always extended again, kicking the can down the road, and the loans aren't collecting interest in this special period either. Tell me if the government offered relief for people's mortgages or their car loans or their medical bills? Because my memory is they closed businesses while telling people they were shit out of luck for their rent and mortgage. Seems every business was closed except landlording. I heard that the money spent on reducing student debt a little bit before it rises to the exact same level again in 3-4 years could eradicate medical debt several times over? All the solutions are screaming in people's faces, fire administrative bloat, hire more professors from overflowing phd surplus from pyramid scheme universities to decrease class size and actually deliver value for that, build medical schools and train doctors so the US can have healthcare again, make loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, payment caps as percent of income, make every program assessable to prospective students by the results it gets in terms of employment and income later on, not rewarding lenders and universities for raising prices. The only reason to choose student debt is because it's a demographic they think clearly leans their way. College educated people (Republicans or Democrats) without a job or sufficient income relative to the financial decision of taking out a loan (Democrats). We can only hope it pisses off a) responsible people b) people who are so in the hole beyond $10k that they loathe the superficial move as to backfire, or simply gets pointed out as illegal in a lawsuit at the beautiful Supreme Court of the United States. A similar attempt at vote buying was Trump's 2020 campaign proposal for half a trillion dollars in black business investment. That at least would have ended up being a LAW, giving it some semblance of legality. I really don't think you want a president who can spend hundreds of billions on whims, for temporary handouts, that incentivize the very situation they were designed to alleviate to get worse. On August 29 2022 10:30 Sermokala wrote: But yeah the president doesn't have jedi powers to declassify state secrets at will using his brain whenever he feels like it. There is an extensive process to declassify materials so that people are informed about what is and what isn't declassified now. Even if he could declassify documents the secrets inside those documents, including nuclear secrets, are not declassified. It's pretty close to that, the classification system that the federal government uses is established by executive order. It's similar to if you work at a company, the boss decides the filing system. Except this filing system affects several million people. The ultimate consequence of breaking that system is basically censure, termination, loss of future employment opportunities and advancement in that organization, which happens to be the government. Remember the whole military is under the executive branch because we have civilian control of the military. Something can be classified and not lead to criminal charges by its release (whistleblowing, publication, overclassified, etc.), and something can be not classified but still be potentially illegal* to release to the extent it would harm national security, or is treasonous, or nuclear secrets as you said which there's no way for you to assume Trump was storing H-bomb designs in a closet the federal government knew about to sell them to someone. *Any case needs to pass a jury, but you could at least be charged, so in other words considered illegal by the people who wrote and classified it basically, which is not convincing enough yet. The laws that are used to charge people with espionage and so on are related in the sense of information is classified for the same reasons that it's illegal to share, and that legal precedent informs the standards by which you're charged or not or convicted or not, and there really aren't a lot of convictions and none of former presidents. President is quite special. If he has the power to declassify something, then it's a very Occam's Razor case of what do you want to believe, his intention was to steal them to commit a crime, or he or someone took them in the course of being president and forgot to do the paperwork. Things are ultimately classified because of the president's power. Why not unclassified. On August 29 2022 10:30 Sermokala wrote: The idea that the FBI-CIA-NSA is somehow pro left now is hilarious, we don't need GH in here to say that anyone whos read any history can say that the FBI and the CIA have done incredibly right wing activities including a lot of assassinations of left wing activists in just this country. I meant the converse, that the left is pro-alphabets (this is a general observation) and the right is skeptical and that's a recent development. We happen to disagree but I'd just point out your reason isn't solidly convincing - it's akin to saying California is right-leaning because they elected Reagan and even Schwarzenegger. It's not a modern statement but an observation of some past events, and also it sounds like you might consider that all oppressive actions would be right-wing inherently. More federal employees are Democrat than Republican, except possibly the military but that is shifting as well so it's unclear, hell, more citizens are Democrat than Republican, look at agents Strzok and Thibault, these are not people who are assassinating leftist activists. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
Basically, short of huffing and puffing on a podium like Trump, anything you do in the avenue of policy is "buying votes" of the people it helps. Should we address the trillions that got flung around on stupid bullshit like the border wall that never happened, propping up a failing stock market for an afternoon, and tax cuts for the rich? We suddenly care about government spending at the direction of the president now, so let's go back and correct some records. If we're against it when it directly helps working-class people, we should be even more angry when it helps the people already fucking us over. On September 01 2022 03:52 oBlade wrote: Things are ultimately classified because of the president's power. Why not unclassified. That is 100% not how it works, at all. Things are classified because they contain sensitive information, not because a president came along and deemed it so. Bureaucratic structure and the concept of classification basically exist to prevent any one person from disseminating sensitive information where it absolutely does not belong. And top-secret government documents 100000% do not belong in the hands of someone who no longer has any official position in the United States government. At all. Period. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
Fuck me. | ||
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farvacola
United States18818 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23840 Posts
On September 01 2022 09:01 NewSunshine wrote: Could you imagine the fucking firestorm of righteous fury and posture that would ensue if it was discovered that Biden left office and took a vault's worth of secret documents with him on the way out? Do you know that you would be absolutely justified? Fuck me. Are we not ignoring the giant elephant in the room that is Hunter Biden’s LaptopTM though? Facetiousness aside I’m just dismissing this nonsense out of hand increasingly. If folks want their positions to be held seriously, not changing them every 10 seconds would help a lot. Or have a position that is fathomable by any other metric than ‘is in thrall to the cult of Trump’. | ||
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PhoenixVoid
Canada32737 Posts
Impressive flip for a safe Republican seat that was red for almost 50 years and is set to be a toss-up in November. The Alaska special election has the caveats of being a ranked choice election with an unlikeable Palin on the ballot. But it is a pertinent example of how much candidate quality matters, which McConnell admitted is an issue for Senate races. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10181 Posts
On September 01 2022 08:51 NewSunshine wrote: Are we now trying to argue with a straight face that Biden's student loan forgiveness is somehow "buying votes"? What's the mechanism? What separates this from Trump giving people straight-up cash? What separates this from any other time a politician campaigned on doing something to help people, and then using government money to do it because how the hell else are you going to accomplish anything? Basically, short of huffing and puffing on a podium like Trump, anything you do in the avenue of policy is "buying votes" of the people it helps. Should we address the trillions that got flung around on stupid bullshit like the border wall that never happened, propping up a failing stock market for an afternoon, and tax cuts for the rich? We suddenly care about government spending at the direction of the president now, so let's go back and correct some records. If we're against it when it directly helps working-class people, we should be even more angry when it helps the people already fucking us over. That is 100% not how it works, at all. Things are classified because they contain sensitive information, not because a president came along and deemed it so. Bureaucratic structure and the concept of classification basically exist to prevent any one person from disseminating sensitive information where it absolutely does not belong. And top-secret government documents 100000% do not belong in the hands of someone who no longer has any official position in the United States government. At all. Period. I think he was super clear in his post why considers it different. Trump mailing people checks was done with overwhelming congressional approval and Biden forgiving student loans was done without congressional approval at all. Maybe you disagree, but honestly I have no idea how you missed his point entirely. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13746 Posts
On September 01 2022 03:52 oBlade wrote: I agree with most except any loans taken by lawmakers would pale in comparison to loans taken by companies that didn't need it that are in industries that lobby the lawmakers who made the law. Also, the average US household had a tax break under Trump, but remember as long as there are budget deficits, that means increasing debt, that means any tax break is temporary until it comes time to pay up. The US's only consolation is China's debt is much higher relative to their GDP than the US's is... so far. The PPP was a program included in the CARES Act which was a law passed by Congress, which had a 96-0 vote in the Senate meaning it would have been a law regardless of the president. And it was extended with the Congress under the current GUY. Student loans are possibly the least urgent loan to offer relief for. The payments have been on hold for years now, always extended again, kicking the can down the road, and the loans aren't collecting interest in this special period either. Tell me if the government offered relief for people's mortgages or their car loans or their medical bills? Because my memory is they closed businesses while telling people they were shit out of luck for their rent and mortgage. Seems every business was closed except landlording. I heard that the money spent on reducing student debt a little bit before it rises to the exact same level again in 3-4 years could eradicate medical debt several times over? All the solutions are screaming in people's faces, fire administrative bloat, hire more professors from overflowing phd surplus from pyramid scheme universities to decrease class size and actually deliver value for that, build medical schools and train doctors so the US can have healthcare again, make loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, payment caps as percent of income, make every program assessable to prospective students by the results it gets in terms of employment and income later on, not rewarding lenders and universities for raising prices. The only reason to choose student debt is because it's a demographic they think clearly leans their way. College educated people (Republicans or Democrats) without a job or sufficient income relative to the financial decision of taking out a loan (Democrats). We can only hope it pisses off a) responsible people b) people who are so in the hole beyond $10k that they loathe the superficial move as to backfire, or simply gets pointed out as illegal in a lawsuit at the beautiful Supreme Court of the United States. A similar attempt at vote buying was Trump's 2020 campaign proposal for half a trillion dollars in black business investment. That at least would have ended up being a LAW, giving it some semblance of legality. I really don't think you want a president who can spend hundreds of billions on whims, for temporary handouts, that incentivize the very situation they were designed to alleviate to get worse. It's pretty close to that, the classification system that the federal government uses is established by executive order. It's similar to if you work at a company, the boss decides the filing system. Except this filing system affects several million people. The ultimate consequence of breaking that system is basically censure, termination, loss of future employment opportunities and advancement in that organization, which happens to be the government. Remember the whole military is under the executive branch because we have civilian control of the military. Something can be classified and not lead to criminal charges by its release (whistleblowing, publication, overclassified, etc.), and something can be not classified but still be potentially illegal* to release to the extent it would harm national security, or is treasonous, or nuclear secrets as you said which there's no way for you to assume Trump was storing H-bomb designs in a closet the federal government knew about to sell them to someone. *Any case needs to pass a jury, but you could at least be charged, so in other words considered illegal by the people who wrote and classified it basically, which is not convincing enough yet. The laws that are used to charge people with espionage and so on are related in the sense of information is classified for the same reasons that it's illegal to share, and that legal precedent informs the standards by which you're charged or not or convicted or not, and there really aren't a lot of convictions and none of former presidents. President is quite special. If he has the power to declassify something, then it's a very Occam's Razor case of what do you want to believe, his intention was to steal them to commit a crime, or he or someone took them in the course of being president and forgot to do the paperwork. Things are ultimately classified because of the president's power. Why not unclassified. I meant the converse, that the left is pro-alphabets (this is a general observation) and the right is skeptical and that's a recent development. We happen to disagree but I'd just point out your reason isn't solidly convincing - it's akin to saying California is right-leaning because they elected Reagan and even Schwarzenegger. It's not a modern statement but an observation of some past events, and also it sounds like you might consider that all oppressive actions would be right-wing inherently. More federal employees are Democrat than Republican, except possibly the military but that is shifting as well so it's unclear, hell, more citizens are Democrat than Republican, look at agents Strzok and Thibault, these are not people who are assassinating leftist activists. The average household did get a tax break under trump. Its too bad those were specifically temporary while the breaks for the rich were made to stay and were again more than $2 trillion. Sovereign debt is only an issue if you can't pay for it. If people think you will always pay it off it will always be cheaper than not running a deficit due to growth and inflation. America having the petrodollar and control over the oceans of the world means that if the US can't pay its debt there are much larger issues than the US's inability to pay its debt. China does not have a global sovereign currency or control over the sea nearest it. This being math would need to be taught in schools for people to understand but with the right so against education, I'm not surprised its not as well known. The CARES act was much larger than just the PPP loans. The structure of the PPP loans was decided mostly by the party in power, which was the party of Trump. Just because the whole act is extended doesn't mean that Biden made the act bad in the first place. Student loans needed to be resolved in order for them to be paid back again. Suspending them forever is the same as forgiving them all. Trump's handling of covid and forcing businesses to be closed so long was bad I agree. Landlording was also suspended because they couldn't evict people. I don't know what hockey numbers you were told nor if they took into account things like the other parts of Bidens executive order but Medical debt can be eliminated through bankruptcy unlike student loans. If they couldn't I would imagine that they would be a bit bigger. But again I have no idea what part of "I heard" is referring to so I have no idea what you're trying to ask there. The solutions you propose are inane at best. "fire administrative bloat" is a meaningless buzzword fed to you by people that don't respect you enough to explain any real issue to you. PHD's represent bleeding edge research in academia that is good, I really don't understand how you were told research was bad and somehow also are "pyramid scheme universities" in a way that made you agree with it. The Wild issues with healthcare in this country won't be solved with "more doctors fix things" Doctors are fine atm nurses are the much bigger issue but thats clearly an issue around hospitals being more concerned with being profit centers than actually providing health care. Making loans dischargeable is hilariously a much larger amount of debt forgiveness than what biden gave us, thats just silly why would that make any sense to you. The executive order by biden does cap payments at 5% of income. but it already was a percent of income at 10% before this. The perverting of universities to only care about profitability and employment is just disgusting and you should feel bad about advocating for it. I mean there are a lot of reasons to chose student debt but helping the people that vote for them and contribute to their campaign is just basic electoral politics? Republicans love giving tons of money to rich people but giving a small fraction to normal people being this much worse is just wild. Do you remember when Trump said he was going to build a wall? Do you remember him not getting the money for such an insane endeavor and instead using executive power to simply move billions of dollars around in order to attempt to start to build it only to really get less than 20 miles of wall built? The classification system that the federal government uses may have been established by executive order but its very much a series of crimes that people have been executed over. The boss may decide the filing system but he doesn't enforce the filing system. The classification system affects a lot more than several million people. The ultimate consequence of breaking the system is death. Do you think Chelsea manning stays away from the US beacuse she is afraid of not being promoted? The president does have the power to declassify something. But the idea that he has the Jedi power to just declare what is okay for him to store in his house and tell the government he doesn't have anymore is criminally silly. There is an entire process that has to be filed for every little thing in order to inform relevant parties that a thing isn't classified anymore. People could legitimately be executed because the president decided not to inform people something wasn't declassified anymore. Would that make Trump a murderer? If trump declassifies information in his mind, not telling people that its declassified, and as a result people lose their lives is Trump a murderer? There are very real and wide-reaching consequences to accepting magical jedi powers over state secrets. The Left is not Pro-alphabets, I'm sorry to break it to you but thats just not real. 2016 is like 6 years ago when the FBI directly influenced the election. The CIA has always been psychotically against any leftist movement in the world for the benefit of right wing governments at every opportunity. The NSA has been the authoritarian instrument that the right has loved under its "if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to worry about" pro-police state stance. Oppressive actions on behalf of a "law and order" approach to society is inherently right-wing. People who are concerned about bettering the country and the people who live in it would be democrats due to them caring about other people instead of just themselves. Its fitting you end your post with what should be an easy common sense observation after missing so many other basic ones. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13746 Posts
On September 01 2022 10:48 BlackJack wrote: I think he was super clear in his post why considers it different. Trump mailing people checks was done with overwhelming congressional approval and Biden forgiving student loans was done without congressional approval at all. Maybe you disagree, but honestly I have no idea how you missed his point entirely. The checks being sent out was met with congressional approval but it was Trump that decided he wanted to frame it as he himself sending the checks. Stimulus checks have been given out before without the president deciding to add a letter acting like he was cutting a check directly to people. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
I'm not touching the bad faith shit. Do better. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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oBlade
United States5294 Posts
On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: Sovereign debt is only an issue if you can't pay for it. If people think you will always pay it off it will always be cheaper than not running a deficit due to growth and inflation. America having the petrodollar and control over the oceans of the world means that if the US can't pay its debt there are much larger issues than the US's inability to pay its debt. China does not have a global sovereign currency or control over the sea nearest it. This being math would need to be taught in schools for people to understand but with the right so against education, I'm not surprised its not as well known. Maybe I'm overthinking but from a personal finance perspective, when your revenue decreases, and you spend more, it suggests you can't pay your debts. Perhaps this doesn't apply to cutting taxes while increasing spending for countries. On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: The CARES act was much larger than just the PPP loans. The structure of the PPP loans was decided mostly by the party in power, which was the party of Trump. Just because the whole act is extended doesn't mean that Biden made the act bad in the first place. The Democrats controlled the House as they still do. It would have cleared any presidential veto no matter who was in power. You seem more interested in political football than me, it was extremely bipartisan cronyism with everyone jumping in to get a piece of the pie. However, had the Democratic party been in total control of everything, let's just say I doubt there would have been less waste and fraud. You're quite correct though, thank you for reminding me so much of the CARES waste was itemized in the bill itself, handouts for everyone with connections, and the PPP loan applications for actual small business that needed relief were insufficient, confusing, and had quotas that got capped quickly because companies that didn't need help were organized enough to move fast and apply and get approved first, leaving Joe Blow with scraps. That was 2 years ago now but it's coming back to me. On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: Student loans needed to be resolved in order for them to be paid back again. Suspending them forever is the same as forgiving them all. Trump's handling of covid and forcing businesses to be closed so long was bad I agree. Landlording was also suspended because they couldn't evict people. I don't know what hockey numbers you were told nor if they took into account things like the other parts of Bidens executive order but Medical debt can be eliminated through bankruptcy unlike student loans. If they couldn't I would imagine that they would be a bit bigger. But again I have no idea what part of "I heard" is referring to so I have no idea what you're trying to ask there. There WAS a moratorium on evictions, not a suspension or forgiveness of rent or mortgages. You say medical debt can be discharged in bankruptcy so it's not an issue, then tell me we shouldn't apply that to student loans. Look. Student loan relief is going to people who may or may not be hurting, but aren't in bankruptcy. What's wrong with medical debt relief to the same thing, if we can literally wipe away ALL of it for cheaper? A) Give $10,000 in student debt relief to young people who potentially have bright futures, gainful employment, financial security, and also to people over $100k-200k in the hole who despite working are prioritizing their mortgage, maybe car, and children. B) Erase ALL debt of people suffering from diseases, people who having recovered, are nevertheless crippled by debt due to insurance nonsense, hospital greed. On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: The solutions you propose are inane at best. "fire administrative bloat" is a meaningless buzzword fed to you by people that don't respect you enough to explain any real issue to you. Yale has more administrators than students. On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: PHD's represent bleeding edge research in academia that is good, I really don't understand how you were told research was bad and somehow also are "pyramid scheme universities" in a way that made you agree with it. The Wild issues with healthcare in this country won't be solved with "more doctors fix things" Doctors are fine atm nurses are the much bigger issue but thats clearly an issue around hospitals being more concerned with being profit centers than actually providing health care. Look at the ratio of phd recipients to positions in academia. My point is very simple - delete administration and spend that money on actual competent people graduated from competent programs doing the job of education. Give the phds jobs instead. Doctors - Look - Basic economics - Supply up, demand down, price down. What was the last doctor's appointment you made? Or someone you know? What were the last 5 doctor's appointments of anyone in your circle, how long did you wait, how long did you get with the doctor, what did it cost, what value did you get? How are nurses the bottleneck here? On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: Making loans dischargeable is hilariously a much larger amount of debt forgiveness than what biden gave us, thats just silly why would that make any sense to you. The executive order by biden does cap payments at 5% of income. but it already was a percent of income at 10% before this. The perverting of universities to only care about profitability and employment is just disgusting and you should feel bad about advocating for it. Yeah, I know what the executive order does, you again have me confused with a political footballer, I said it because it's a good idea not because I was angry at "Brandon" for not doing it. Good idea or bad, it's Congress's job. When you declare bankruptcy, your assets are liquidated to pay what creditors you can, and the rest is discharged (meaning erased, no obligation exists). The advantage is you don't have to pay when you have claims greatly exceeding your assets. The disadvantage is nobody trusts your financial situation later because they put your name in a computer and it says you declared bankruptcy, meaning good luck getting credit or loans for anything in the future. Most people don't declare bankruptcy, it's to be avoided. Do you have any source or evidence? Like, do you think the current rate of people who declare bankruptcy hold more than $300-500billion in student loans? Or are you just supposing that everyone who goes to school would declare strategic bankruptcy after 4 years or something? Because they wouldn't, because it's not that simple. If the product, an education, can't lead to a paying job, what is its value that it costs over $100,000 and some people deserve it for free despite no prospects that would have allowed them to repay it? How about this, we already have 12 years of public education and we should educate children there, not wait until they're at the age of maturity for signing six figure loans to say it's time to get serious? The university should care very much not about their own profitability, but about the financial security of THEIR CLIENTS, THE STUDENTS. If people could discharge student loans in normal bankruptcy, lenders might be more cautious about giving loans to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, even raising interest rates, causing less people to be interested in the product that lenders are providing loans for. That would in turn cause universities to reconsider the value proposition of their product, and reduce cost, improve their product, or both. If you just forgive loans, it incentivizes nothing except more predatory or irresponsible lending, and the economy knows where that leads. On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: The classification system that the federal government uses may have been established by executive order but its very much a series of crimes that people have been executed over. The boss may decide the filing system but he doesn't enforce the filing system. The classification system affects a lot more than several million people. The ultimate consequence of breaking the system is death. Do you think Chelsea manning stays away from the US beacuse she is afraid of not being promoted? ? Would you say you SUPPORT or OPPOSE Chelsea Manning's leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified documents? You can't execute people because of an executive order, I think you're having an episode of etymological confusion. The laws that prescribe the death penalty for treason are laws, passed by Congress (again), basically independent of the system of classification that has been established by executive order. Otherwise the president could just shoot people. Congress writes laws. On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: The president does have the power to declassify something. But the idea that he has the Jedi power to just declare what is okay for him to store in his house and tell the government he doesn't have anymore is criminally silly. There is an entire process that has to be filed for every little thing in order to inform relevant parties that a thing isn't classified anymore. People could legitimately be executed because the president decided not to inform people something wasn't declassified anymore. Would that make Trump a murderer? If trump declassifies information in his mind, not telling people that its declassified, and as a result people lose their lives is Trump a murderer? There are very real and wide-reaching consequences to accepting magical jedi powers over state secrets. Your credulity here is situational - You'd have to believe Trump has things that identify people based on classified documents and redacted subpoenas from trustworthy people who you just told me want to kill someone who revealed hundreds of thousands of classified logs documenting abuse. Like I realize there's no point to go back and forth on points we won't agree on but I'm interested now where you stand on Manning since you brought that up, and one of the exact criticisms of Wikileaks, or of any leaking and declassification, is that it harms national security, gets people hurt or killed. What's your thought process there? Was there harm or not, if so, was it justified, if not, was she certain of that before leaking, should she have been or not, etc...? On September 01 2022 10:53 Sermokala wrote: The Left is not Pro-alphabets, I'm sorry to break it to you but thats just not real. 2016 is like 6 years ago when the FBI directly influenced the election. The CIA has always been psychotically against any leftist movement in the world for the benefit of right wing governments at every opportunity. The NSA has been the authoritarian instrument that the right has loved under its "if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to worry about" pro-police state stance. Oppressive actions on behalf of a "law and order" approach to society is inherently right-wing. I see it often, fake patriotism from people going "Oh no he denigrated the brave men and women of blahblah..." every time he criticizes someone, someone who usually shat all over him first. Also you're facing cognitive dissonance here, or I want to know where you are, or if you have no answer to 2020. In 2016 they influenced the election by NOT recommending charging a candidate, but in 2020 when they warned social media that the laptop story was "Russian propaganda/disinformation," this isn't direct interference in democracy from inside? Why is Thibault, the guy who it turns out stonewalled investigation of the Biden laptop, out of the FBI suddenly? The government CANNOT use private companies as proxies to abridge the 1st amendment, that's established legal precedent. On September 01 2022 08:51 NewSunshine wrote: Are we now trying to argue with a straight face that Biden's student loan forgiveness is somehow "buying votes"? What's the mechanism? What separates this from Trump giving people straight-up cash? What separates this from any other time a politician campaigned on doing something to help people, and then using government money to do it because how the hell else are you going to accomplish anything? It gives help to a select group of people, who don't need it, at the expense of people who do need it, based on demographic voting tendencies. Let me give you some examples. 2020 Trump campaign program for half a trillion to black businesses -> Vote buying 2022 sudden appearance of presidential power to forgive $300-500b in a very specific kind of loan for $10,000 to 13% of population paid for by 87% of population -> Vote buying Universal stimulus check based on income -> Possibly fiscally irresponsible, not vote buying Targeted relief based on need/severity -> Not vote buying Erasure of all medical debt -> Not vote buying Erasure of women's medical debt -> Vote buying On September 01 2022 08:51 NewSunshine wrote: Basically, short of huffing and puffing on a podium like Trump, anything you do in the avenue of policy is "buying votes" of the people it helps. Should we address the trillions that got flung around on stupid bullshit like the border wall that never happened, propping up a failing stock market for an afternoon, and tax cuts for the rich? We suddenly care about government spending at the direction of the president now, so let's go back and correct some records. If we're against it when it directly helps working-class people, we should be even more angry when it helps the people already fucking us over. We should definitely address trillions of waste, fraud, and corrupt redistribution of wealth. It's a constitutional republic, not the Oprah show, this "You get a trillion and you get a trillion and you get a trillion" can't continue. The border wall would have cost 10-50 times less than this student loan band-aid, 2-5 times less than aid sent to securing Ukraine's border. On September 01 2022 08:51 NewSunshine wrote: That is 100% not how it works, at all. Things are classified because they contain sensitive information, not because a president came along and deemed it so. Bureaucratic structure and the concept of classification basically exist to prevent any one person from disseminating sensitive information where it absolutely does not belong. And top-secret government documents 100000% do not belong in the hands of someone who no longer has any official position in the United States government. At all. Period. Things are classified thanks to a system created by executive order (and the tradition of bureaucratic machinery), the power of which ultimately comes from the executive, meaning president. An order that also specifically addresses cases where people with no official position can have access (Not to say that its content supports Trump in his current situation). Or maybe Obama should be arrested because he called citizen Bush to tell him about the raid on bin Laden. On September 01 2022 12:14 NewSunshine wrote: I also enjoy the wall of argument that the real kicker in what Biden is doing is whether or not he has congressional approval, right before saying Trump should be able to do whatever the fuck he wants with top-secret documents without the approval of anyone related to their security or release. I'm not touching the bad faith shit. Do better. Would you consider it good or bad faith to equate the (as far as I know unprecedented) spending of up to half a trillion dollars by one man's signature, to a bunch of boxes with maybe ~100 documents of different levels of classification by agencies that overclassify and have millions of such documents, locked in the house of a man upon whose authority they were classified to begin with? The only other comparable program that I know of would be the undeclared wars of Iraq and Afghanistan (come to think of it, every undeclared war), the difference being that again at least Congress approved budgets to cover defense activities in those. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23840 Posts
I mean to me those are the pertinent factors. Is it something that isn’t meant to exist/be happening but is? There’s rather a marked difference between exposing something like war crimes, versus just pumping out military info and troop movements. Whistleblowers tend to expose some kind of malfeasance, and also tend to face rather severe consequences for doing so. I struggle to hypothesise a societally beneficial expose that Trump was sitting on documents to enact, that he shouldn’t have had to begin with. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
And you still have to be the president. You know, part of the Executive Branch. That part's important if you're going to argue that classification is done by executive authority. Trump satisfied neither requirement. He handwaved it and just said they were declassified once he got caught by the FBI, and is hoping there are enough people like you who won't think twice about that. The documents are stolen, because they belong to the government, of which he is not a part. This isn't hard. Making excuses and caping for someone who is violating government confidentiality and potentially national security is bad faith, when you turn around and try to hold a Democrat to a standard you didn't have 2 seconds ago. I'm standing by that. | ||
KwarK
United States41988 Posts
It was quite possibly the most expensive human endeavor ever proposed including a bridge to Hawaii, a Mars colony, and high speed transatlantic rail. There’s a reason they only built a few miles of fence, the idea was absurd. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21364 Posts
On September 02 2022 02:10 NewSunshine wrote: Yes, its also very telling that Trump never mentioned the classified documents weren't actually classified anymore to the FBI all the way back to February when this ball started rolling.It doesn't matter if government documents are classified on the authority of the executive. You can't just ignore the technicalities. Once a document is classified, you have to go through a process to declassify it. And you still have to be the president. You know, part of the Executive Branch. That part's important if you're going to argue that classification is done by executive authority. Trump satisfied neither requirement. He handwaved it and just said they were declassified once he got caught by the FBI, and is hoping there are enough people like you who won't think twice about that. The documents are stolen, because they belong to the government, of which he is not a part. This isn't hard. Making excuses and caping for someone who is violating government confidentiality and potentially national security is bad faith, when you turn around and try to hold a Democrat to a standard you didn't have 2 seconds ago. I'm standing by that. | ||
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