> Democrat Party is an epithet for the Democratic Party of the United States, used in a disparaging fashion by the party's opponents. While the term has been used in a non-hostile way, it has grown in its negative use since the 1940s
The important editorializing the poster did was to leave "Trump" out of the title. The implication that the negotiations were done with the knowledge of the president is meaningful.
Accurate in that the original title feels authentically like it came as a quote from Trump, who consistently says “Democrat Party”, etc. Removing Trump and correcting the word to “Democratic” depersonalizes it a bit, and feels like editorializing.
After reading this: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n05/andrew-o-hagan/ghost... (obviously Assange defenders will call this a biased hit piece), Assange lost my admiration, he seems to be yet another self-obsessed prick. But the way he's been treated and is being treated by the UK courts is also fucking undemocratic and inhumane.
But in my view, Assange is unprincipled enough that he'll say whatever Trump/the thugs running the West wants, so he can be freed. Or to paint it in a different light, they're torturing him so he'll say whatever they want him to say.
>Assange is unprincipled enough that he'll say whatever Trump/the thugs running the West wants, so he can be freed.
The fact that he didn't go with the pardon offer this very page is discussing suggests that this is wrong. You don't think Assange had options to be freed in the past however many years?
I'm curious about the same thing, unless maybe he's gambling that it won't be completely tied to Russia. I suppose it could be that if it is something damaging, he can release the information and use it politically, and if not he'll try and keep it secret. This is a total guess though.
> I suppose it could be that if it is something damaging, he can release the information and use it politically, and if not he'll try and keep it secret.
This is in a British court, and the President is not empowered to gag the courts anyway (except sort of I guess, at the highly-constitutionally-questionable national security trials)
> I'm curious about the same thing, unless maybe he's gambling that it won't be completely tied to Russia.
Pardon offers are in no way binding or enforceable, so no actual gambling is involved. You just don't follow through unless you get the answer you want, as well as making very clear (such as by spending multiple years building a particular public narrative which the defendant actively participated in around your preferred answer) what the expected answer is so that, regardless of what the true answer is, the defendant knows what answer gets them free of the charges.
If it's not "Russia" it's going to be a big embarrassment to many of his opponents. And worst case, even if it was Russia, it would still make him look good to be the one who got this confession from Assange.
> If it's not "Russia" it's going to be a big embarrassment to many of his opponents.
No, Assange being paid off by Trump for saying that it's someone other than Russia (which Assange has said, in less specific terms, before, repeatedly, as part of denying that he himself was acting as a witting or unwitting Russian agent and not an independent actor won't embarrass anyone) won't embarrass anyone.
OTOH, the offer (if there's was concrete evidence of it) itself would bolster Assange's claim that this is a political prosecution by the US Administration.
It actually seems like the most politically-neutral offer he can reasonably make. Many principled people want to see Assange released from his political prosecution, but the Russia narrative, though basically dead at this point, can still be an effective bludgeon or pretense for action: if the pardon is executed haphazardly, and without deference to the aggrieved party (the Democrats), it could be undermined and become worse than nothing.
A lot of people are still salty that Assange did journalism that exposed Hillary Clinton's wrongdoing, even people who idolized him until 2016 for his excellent work on America's foreign conflicts, so it's really hard to navigate this labyrinth and get away with doing the right thing.
It could be to show information security in government is worth more than either party.
Also, being able to pardon Assange would also be his version of the Obama->Manning moment: viciously prosecutor a whistle blower and then symbolically free said whistle blower to make yourself look like the hero.
Even though the Russia narrative has pretty much been shown to be a pile of rubbish, a lot of Americans still don't believe it. Having Assange say it would reinforce that reality.
The "Russia narrative" was always extremely vague, so I doubt it can be disproven as such. There were a lot of insinuations that there was something big going on, but the facts that were substantiated were pretty minor. I haven't heard anyone alleging the emails that were leaked were anything but true, either - it is pretty grim when the most devastating tactic a foreign adversary can deploy is the truth.
A valid point. There's a huge disconnect in the American public's understanding of how politics works and how politics actually works. That can be exploited by revealing how the sausage is made on only one side of the aisle to paint the other side in proportionately better light (because people like to assume that the sausage machines work differently on the two sides, without asking why that assumption should be true or why that assumption should imply that the sausage-maker on the other side is better, not worse).
There was a 1,000 page bipartisan Senate report about Russian meddling in the 2016 election just released a few weeks ago [1]. The Senate intelligence committee is controlled by the GOP, so it's unlikely that this is some sort of partisan effort, and it's pretty damning.
Here's a summary of some of the key findings [2]. Among other things, the head of the Trump campaign was sharing confidential campaign information with an individual that the new GOP report identifies as a "Russian intelligence officer". It's all around pretty shocking stuff, if we lived in a world where people could be shocked anymore.
> Kilimnik was also the “primary liaison” between Manafort and one of his clients, sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, according to the Senate report, which also alleges that Manafort “worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.”
> The GOP-led committee said it “obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU's hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election,” a reference to the Russian cyberattacks that targeted the DNC in the run-up to the election.
> Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, hinted that senators have additional information, including “evidence connecting Kilimnik to the GRU's hack-and-leak operations,” but those elements are redacted.
There is only a single source that can determine if it was the Russians that hackced the DNC: CrowdStrike. The servers were never made available to any government body or intelligence agency. The entirety of this narrative falls under the opinion of potentially a single unnamed, unaccountable person at some security consultancy. A single person who is working for a consultancy getting paid millions of dollars to serve a customer, and to make that customer happy, and to potentially deliver results that the customer wants.
Additionally, CrowdStrike admitted in sworn testimony that it didn't have any concrete proof. That their findings were based on appearances and estimations and assumptions.
>The servers were never made available to any government body or intelligence agency
Yes, because the only source of intelligence on an operation is the crime scene itself. Clearly this is bogus and so is the insinuation that there is no other sources of intelligence on Russian operations than evidence from the hacked server.
Trump is a chaos monkey; it doesn't have to. This is why I found it hilarious when people believed in 2016 that a vote for Trump was a vote to free Julian Assange; the man doesn't adhere to traditional political strategy.
He would be able to say that his opponents spent 2 years on a wild goose chase and were harassing someone (himself) who was telling the truth the whole time.
If you believe that Trump works under mafia rules of intimidation and plausible deniability, then you can read this as Assange can support Trump's theory that the emails came from the Ukraine, or he can face prosecution.
It's unlikely that someone with such an understanding (whether or not it's a correct assumption) would believe that Assange coming forward and saying he was given the emails by Russian assets coordinating with Roger Stone under the direction of Trump would then result in the promised pardon.
Note that, since then, Assange has not come forward with exculpatory evidence for Trump and the administration has begun prosecuting Assange.
It's a no lose situation. There are two possible outcomes: Russia did it, or someone else did it. The FBI, CIA, and NSA published a report saying that the hack was carried out by Russia to support the Trump campaign, that is the accepted truth on the matter. Worst case scenario for Trump is that this holds up, in which case nothing changes.
In the event that Assange could prove some other actor sourced the emails, that would mean that the FBI, NSA, and CIA were wrong, and the single biggest argument in support of the 'Russia Collision' narrative would go away. Trump would fold this into his narrative that the investigation into Russian collusion was a witch hunt.
> In the event that Assange could prove some other actor sourced the emails, that would mean that the FBI, NSA, and CIA were wrong, ...
Which is just about impossible for him to prove. Does Assange have access to the kind of IT forensics experts, access to the hacked systems and other resources to prove someone else did it? No, he does not. He didn't do the hacking himself. Whoever he did get the leaked info from could of course claim not to be working for the Russians as an intermediary. But that is just a claim, and not proof.
Assange doesn't have to prove anything. He just has to say what Trump wants to get the pardon, and Trump will blast that all over Twitter and on every news outlet in the country.
If that sounds like an official act in return for a personal political favor to the president to help his reelection chances and therefore is illegal, you would be correct!
You always have to take bias in context. If the source is claiming that someone said something to them in an interview and the person agrees, then bias is irrelevant.
Fox News actually reports news from the news wires and the local Fox new station affiliates. I think that gives Fox News a bit more credibility than HuffPo, which sometimes reads like Gawker.
and Fox News wouldn't run the interview if they didn't like the results, so in that sense they are biased, just like NPR,PBS,CNN,MSNBC and everybody else.
People keep saying I live "in a bubble" yet I find myself having debates and arguments with people at all levels of my social circle that span vastly different ideas. The only time I encounter homogeneous ideology is when I'm in a conversation with an old friend from south Carolina or texas that identifies as conservative. It seems that people that used to have a cornucopia of various ideas have kinda melded into a singular ideology.
15 years ago I might have agreed with you... Not so much anymore.
Everyone in a bubble thinks that they're being exposed to new contrarian ideas. You absolutely are, but not contrarian ideas being seriously discussed outside your bubble. The valley is the obvious example, contrarian ideas are tossed around like hotcakes, and yet it's so contrarian to support trump nobody does it.
How many open Trump supporters do you interact with a week? Or would you feel comfortable telling your coworkers you plan to vote for Trump? He very well may win this election.
> How many open Trump supporters do you interact with a week?
As I said, about 5-8 depending on how active my group chats are.
Why would I tell my coworkers I'm voting for Trump? I'm not going to. So yes I would feel uncomfortable lying.
I don't think this is the same as bush era politics. How can I exist with coworkers while we do anti racist book clubs, and then announce support for the man who calls black protesters thugs? We don't have room for racism at my company. That's only a political issue because the republican party nominated a racist - I don't see how that's our problem.
It's interesting how you think you've solely 'escaped' the bubble, and yet I bet I can guess your beliefs on almost every major point after this comment, as well as your race, age, and income.
Want some help?
How can I exist with co-workers who think every point of inequality is systemic racism and white supremacy, Trump supporter's are all trailer park hicks, 97% of the protests are peaceful, believe that just because of your skin color you shouldn't be called a thug for looting, believe Trump colluded with the Russians despite 0 evidence, think Flynn deserves to be in prison, think Trump isn't helping the black community...
Systemic racism is real but I don't even know what "every point of inequality" means.
Uhhh isn't palmer luckey a Trump supporter? And Kanye west? Plus a bunch of rich old folks back home. Lol obviously not all Trump supporters are trailer park (do you mean poor?), My experience at protests in LA alone would make it absurd to believe that.
Thug is a racist dog whistle. Is property damage an improper response to murder? Yet conservatives defend a kid that committed murder after traveling to protests to "protect property," so I guess murder is an appropriate response to property damage.
Are you not reading reports from yesterday wherein intelligence community members are warning congress about russian influence in the upcoming election? You make me suspect the only "evidence" you'll accept is Putin being caught with his fingers literally in the guts of a voting machine.
Trump passed a couple democrat written prison reform bills that vaguely helped the black community, but his DOJ is specifically targeting those early release people for reconviction, so it's moot.
I don't really care about Flynn.
I guess I don't fit into the clean little Other that Rupert murdoch defined for you?
>Is property damage an improper response to murder?
Maybe property damage might be a proper response to murder, _if it was the property of the murderer_ (the police), as opposed to random small business nearby, many owned by minorities.
I know. It's a shame the police keep responding to peaceful protests with extraordinary state-sponsored violence, forcing people to go to the extremes to make their voice heard.
>How can I exist with coworkers while we do anti racist book clubs, and then announce support for the man who calls black protesters thugs?
Have you not seen the videos of "peaceful protestors" literally smashing and burning down buildings? Committing indiscriminate property destruction and arson makes people thugs, regardless of the colour of their skin.
Thug is historically a racist dog whistle. Ignorance of this, pretended or otherwise, isn't a valid defense.
I saw a couple videos of burning buildings, sure. I had trouble caring though, because the only places that happened in are the ones where soldier cops got insanely abusive with peaceful protesters. The onus is on the state to back down, not the people.
Did you see video of out of state proud boys driving in armed caravans to protest areas, paintballing and pepper spraying indiscriminately?
Really? I'm a native English speaker, albeit not American, and I've never heard thug implied to have racist connotations. The original word comes from a Hindi word for criminal, which was also used for a violent cult: "Devotees of the goddess Kali, the Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travellers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s."
>I had trouble caring though, because the only places that happened in are the ones where soldier cops got insanely abusive with peaceful protesters.
How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?
> How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?
It doesn't absolve any responsibility, but if you take a step back - the police behavior was the indirect and sometimes direct cause of the other symptom.
Dog whistle is a useful term, because it gives someone the power to redefine what has been said to mean anything that you would like.
E.g. on NPR you hear talking heads speak about “staunch conservatives” like Bill Barr. This term is now a dog whistle on the left that means ‘white nationalist’
> because it gives someone the power to redefine what has been said to mean anything that you would like.
Like you did in this comment, to the word "dog whistle?" Let me guess, SJWs are the enemy of the people?
What shall we call it when a white supremacist waggles his eyebrows and says "those people" then? Willful ignorance is painful to witness.
Maybe if staunch conservatives stop being white nationalists, or stopped catering to white nationalists so overtly, or actually spoke out against their white nationalist base (instead of "both sides"ing them), people wouldn't associate staunch conservatism with white nationalism? Just a thought.
That's why, then. America has a long and really terrible history of anti-black racism.
> The original word comes from a Hindi word for criminal
Neato, "negro" means "the color black" in Spanish. Now go on the English language news in the USA and use it to describe a black person, see how well that goes for you lmao.
> How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?
How does protesting the murder of citizens at the hands of police make it ok for police to show up with "less lethal" weaponry and brutalize protesters?
Hard to care about cops being aggressive when "protesters" burn down buildings. If US cops actually got proper riot training like French police then citizens wouldn't need to take self-defense into their own hands(e.g. Kyle Rittenhouse).
Honestly, everyone is in a bubble of some sort. I have literally no clue about the fine details of what it is like to live in most of the thousands of world cultures out there. Even countries that I have visited briefly, there's no way I could claim to be an expert, let alone places and people I have never been to or seen. Your viewpoint is largely limited to your direct experience. Some nuggets of wisdom of course may come from the experiences of others being communicated to you, but nothing beats direct experience.
What's the point of claiming that a tech bubble is a "cancer" and a "drain on the progression of ideas"? There's definitely a "valley paradigm" of sorts, but there are multiple technology centers around the world. I do think it is important to be aware of paradigms and try to reach out from them, mind you, but this seems more like a generalized accusation.
And I'm not sure where Trump comes into this. I do have Trump supporters within my extended family; I have plenty of non-Trump supporters in my circle too. While the information is still incomplete, it is still more information than I have about, say, (random example) National vs. Labour voters of New Zealand (or one of the many other smaller political parties in that country), since I have no one who I directly talk to from there.
The one nugget that I know from the limited experience I have is that generalizations of cultural blocs must be taken as the simplification that it is. It is an unfortunate necessity to generalize complexity, of course, so while they tend to be "incorrect" in the details, I tend to have no problems with non-malicious generalizations, as long as the generalization tries to be as accurate as one can and tries to be thoughtful instead of relying on tired tropes. However, I do tend to look heavily down on any malicious, inflammatory generalization of a culture -- I mean, even the ordinary generalizations often are wrong at some level, right? People who use wrong information to inflame and anger receive poor marks from me, and if they are doing this in spite of knowing better, even more so.
> How many open Trump supporters do you interact with a week?
If the bubble is just Democrats and Republicans and other Americans, then it's still a fairly small bubble with a narrow view on the world.
It's a huge world, and there's a lot more perspectives on it than is likely to be _easily_ encountered during water cooler conversations at the office.
Exactly. Show me a democrat and republican and I'll line up twenty leftists I know that will begrudgingly be voting for the conservative "democrat" this year because there's simply no other choice here.
It does when the interviewer is more interested in putting on a show than hearing from a source. Read the transcript (or see my post above). Constant interruptions, reinterpretations, jumping around in timelines, etc. It's a horrible interview meant to extract one or two talking points.
That's the primary source, whether or not you like the interviewer, company he works for, what his ulterior motives are, etc. This is the interview where the question was asked and answered.
You can disbelieve what Assange says if you don't believe him. Discounting what Assange says, explicitly, clearly and deliberately because Hannity is interviewing him is foolish. It was a friendly interview. So what.
> That's the primary source, whether or not you like the interviewer, company he works for, what his ulterior motives are, etc.
Weird how I didn't mention any of these in my comment. The problem is that the interview is not designed to elicit credible testimony. It's designed to put on a show. Thus, I discount it heavily.
The transcript is a textbook example of begging the question. And the first paragraph fully spells out why Hannity was there, which was to try and dispel the idea that Russia helped Trump. Hannity doesn't even pretend.
Not to mention the way the questions were worded allowed Assange to answer without answering. Did the Russian government directly give Assange that data? No, and that would be hilariously inept for Russia. The way Hannity phrases all his questions allows Assange to easily answer "no." Just a terrible interview.
This "interview" is why Hannity is not, and should not be considered, a journalist.
Two things: First, he can't say it wasn't Russia. What he can say is who it was. The difference is who that person was influence by. For example, I can say it wasn't Russia, but the person could actually be an agent of Russia without me knowing. I wouldn't be lying, but my statement wouldn't be true. So, that's why people don't consider the denial to be concrete.
Secondly, about your second point, many people will downvote you simply for complaining about downvotes. Next time, just wait. Votes eventually land where they should be, and complaining about votes adds nothing to the conversation.
>HANNITY: Can you say to the American people unequivocally that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta's emails -- can you tell the American people 1,000 percent you did not get it from Russia...
>ASSANGE: Yes.
>HANNITY: ... or anybody associated with Russia?
>ASSANGE: We -- we can say and we have said repeatedly...
>HANNITY: Right.
>ASSANGE: ... over the last two months, that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.
He's basically saying that Vlad didn't call him up one day and say "Russia wants to give you some files." No shit.
-----
> Researchers from the Atlanta-based cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks reported that the emails had been obtained through a data theft carried out by the hacker group Fancy Bear, a group of Russian intelligence-linked hackers that were also responsible for cyberattacks that targeted the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), resulting in WikiLeaks publishing emails from those hacks.
> On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that the Russian government was behind the hack and gave to WikiLeaks a collection of hacked emails from John Podesta
> Following a comprehensive investigation that CrowdStrike detailed publicly, the company concluded in May 2016 that two separate Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries breached the DNC network.
> We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.
He won't elaborate on the DNC hack because he says he has no original reporting. Does that mean no one on the forums or in the subculture talks about it?
He said:
"Based on what I’ve learned over the past decade studying Russian language, culture and hacking communities, my sense is that if the Russians were responsible and wanted to hide that fact — they’d have left a trail leading back to some other country’s door."
And note, the founders of phishing in the early 90s were mostly teenage kids, maybe 14-16. It doesn't take a state actor to 'spear phish'.
This seems reasonable to me. The hack could have been done by “Russians” but not state sponsored. Or at least the Russian state wasn’t involved from the start.
Oh, the CIA, you say? Yeah, let's believe what the CIA says. They can definitely be trusted at their word and they never have done anything questionable. /s
The CIA cannot lie to US legislators without committing a federal crime. They can choose not to disclose information to the public and “neither confirm nor deny” but they can’t knowingly tell a lie.
>> The CIA cannot lie to US legislators without committing a federal crime. They can choose not to disclose information to the public and “neither confirm nor deny” but they can’t knowingly tell a lie.
> They can and they have. Let's not pretend we live in fantasy land.
He didn't say they're incapable of lying to Congress, just that it's illegal for them to lie Congress. By the GP's statement, if they lied then they also broke the law.
So we just need to find one case they did to falsify this claim. And to do so we need whistle blowers. There are serious problems with intelligence agencies in democracies.
So we are not supposed to trust our our national intelligence agencies, or the FBI, or the House, or the Senate after the latter three have published extensive and thorough reports laying out the evidence. Whose word exactly are we supposed to take on this? Donald Trump's? Because he seems to be the only other party in the government on the other side of this issue. Where's his report?
Have you read any of these "reports"? They contain no "evidence" that could be presented in a court. Did you see Mueller's disastrous Congressional testimony in support of his report? It was clear that he hadn't read it either.
Trump lies like he breathes, but that doesn't mean we have to believe obvious fantasy that obviously supports the continued stupid wars of the military-industrial complex. In general, the most likely possibility is that both the president and the TLAs are lying.
Yes I have. Have you? You can't really say the reports contain no evidence that could be presented in a court when they are redacted and the raw evidence has been sealed. Mueller's testimony was that the report speaks for itself and it does. How is that "disastrous"?
You seem to contradict yourself ITT. Above, you said ...extensive and thorough reports laying out the evidence. Now you say the evidence is redacted and sealed.
No, your qualification was no evidence that could be presented in a court (which I'm not even sure I disagree with since I'm not an expert on what can and cannot be presented in court). There's plenty of underacted evidence in the document.
As I understand it the DoD is just the department these agencies fall under (unless it's the DHS). The actual agencies you've just about covered, surely? CIA, NSA, ICE being the most problematic, then FBI and, what else?
I mean yea they suck but I don't think it's necessarily a hydra.
The CIA is entrusted with protecting US interests, much like every other intelligence service in the world. They do a range of things, much of them boring. It's government.
They have outlets to disseminate disinformation just like Russia does. We're just arguing about where and how it's happening.
> They (CIA, NSA, US deep state in general) are in the business of lying. The WMDs that Saddam had?
Yeah, I remember that: even with the bold and explicit lies put forward by the White House and political leadership at DoD, particularly, and some other agencies, the actual releases from the intelligence agencies were quite guarded and reserved.
The intelligence community is in the business of lying to it's targets, sure, but also of protecting it's credibility to decision makers, both within the executive branch and outside of it, including even the American public. The political leadership, OTOH, is often more shortsighted.
There's nothing in the Pentagon Papers to suggest that the CIA lied to the government (or to the American people). The liars were various presidents, their various cabinets filled with brain-trusters, and other politicians who either ignored factual information from the CIA or twisted it to fit their ideas of "containment" and "domino theory" and all that nonsense.
The CIA would be no good to anyone if they were in the business of lying.
> The SIGINT also shows, according to Hanyok, that a second attack, on August 4, 1964, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on U.S. ships, did not occur despite claims to the contrary by the Johnson administration. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara treated Agency SIGINT reports as vital evidence of a second attack and used this claim to support retaliatory air strikes and to buttress the administration's request for a Congressional resolution that would give the White House freedom of action in Vietnam.
This is exactly what I said.
> Hanyok further argues that Agency officials had "mishandled" SIGINT concerning the events of August 4 and provided top level officials with "skewed" intelligence supporting claims of an August 4 attack. "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred." Key pieces of evidence are missing from the Agency's archives, such as the original decrypted Vietnamese text of a document that played an important role in the White House's case. Hanyok has not found a "smoking gun" to demonstrate a cover-up but believes that the evidence suggests "an active effort to make SIGINT fit the claim of what happened during the evening of 4 August in the Gulf of Tonkin." Senior officials at the Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House were none the wiser about the gaps in the intelligence. Hanyok's conclusions have sparked controversy among old Agency hands but his research confirms the insight of journalist I.F. Stone, who questioned the second attack only weeks after the events. Hanyok's article is part of a larger study on the National Security Agency and the Vietnam War, "Spartans in Darkness," which is the subject of a pending FOIA request by the National Security Archive.
To figure out who the liars are we need to know who engaged in a cover-up. Who manipulated, withheld information, or lied. You already know my opinion: I don't think it was the NSA.
For example "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred" suggests that the NSA's information was, in fact, good. It just was ignored, manipulated, omitted, etc.
I don't find that you mention NSA ITT before my comment. Parent comment did mention them, and your response was the off-topic (for Tonkin, anyway) "CIA doesn't lie!"
Neither supposed "attack" occurred! NSA reports were used to claim that they did occur! You don't think NSA has and is currently withholding information? Why don't you read what you pasted above? "Key pieces of evidence are missing"? If only the TLAs had the technology to preserve the information they gather... this is not credible.
Even if NSA reports had said "there was definitely no Vietnamese attack", those reports were used by the executive branch to ramp up the war. The authors of those reports, and every superior of those authors up the chain to the president, would have had a duty to contradict the false claims. Of course this is fantasy. NSA doesn't oppose war, and its reports reflect this.
I don't think the intelligence agencies willfully produce false intelligence. They might be wrong but, as a matter of policy, they don't lie.
I think the lying occurs higher up in the command structure where some intelligence is omitted from consideration because it doesn't fit the narrative the higher-ups are pursuing. I suppose there's a question here about who, exactly, is involved in this process of filtering out inconvenient information. Are those people part of the intelligence agency or not? This is a tricky question but, even if they are part of the intelligence agency, the pressure to omit comes from the executive branch. The NSA/CIA/etc aren't pursuing a pro-War policy...the executive branch is.
For example, imagine someone in the CIA is asked to provide a report about the likelihood of Iraq having radioactive material that could be weaponized. This person performs diligent research and produces, to the best of their abilities, a factual report. The executive branch presents this report as a "slam dunk" which shows that Iraq has radioactive material. Who lied?
Toward the end of your post, you blur the distinction between "lying" and "having a duty to contradict false claims". I'm only talking about lying although I agree that people do have an imperfect duty to contradict false claims.
At least the DNI, and usually the D/CIA as well (these positions used to be the same one, and were only separated after we invaded), attends all presidential meetings that touch national security. I'll admit, any meeting with Cheney could spontaneously whip up a war from the ether, but even in his odious presence I think we have to hold these officials responsible for using their words.
In every press conference announcing some fresh horrific stupid war, there are spooks present and they do receive direct questions. It would be better for humanity if they didn't lie when answering.
Claims that CIA aren't pro-war and must be corrupted by evil presidents are pure fantasy. CIA have fought wars, by themselves, without telling the president. [0]
[EDIT:] If you've reached the point that you're imagining that honest secret reports are overruled by the public statements and actions of dishonest elected officials, could you accept that the whole idea of government secrecy is mistaken? Why not have these conversations in the open? Surely we'd make better decisions?
Please, we need to stop these endless wars. Why is it people are voting for TRUMP of all people because they want our troops pulled out of Iraq (17 years), Afghanistan (19 years), and Syria (6 years). How is antiwar/anti-occupation a TRUMP thing and not a liberal/progressive tentpole issue?
Why does the military industrial complex together with intelligence agencies fabricate lies to keep us embroiled forever in these evil endless wars? Every time we try and pull out there's a new BS story from these groups that everyone laps up: "Bounties on US soldiers! War is good! War is peace! War forever!"
Americans are really bad at remembering what just happened. Every war we've fought in the last 150 years, except perhaps WWII (i.e., there were lies but we probably did have to fight), we entered based on complete lies. Yet, we keep starting wars. I think our forgetfulness is not some contingent detail, but a core driver of the American war machine, which grinds up brown people to create money for armaments manufacturers and their puppets in government and news media. We forget because we must. If we remembered, the machine would grind to a halt.
Still, the story was pitched perfectly to the essential self-centeredness of Americans. You mean, in the nation we invaded decades ago and have bombed mercilessly ever since, murdering and orphaning hundreds of thousands of innocents, there are some people who oppose us to the extent that they'll shoot back, without being paid to do so? They must hate us for our freedom!
I hope that if nothing else happens after Trump is out of office, that we all at least collectively regain our distrust of US intelligence agencies again.
Your optimism is misplaced. They may not be smart, but they have a low cunning. They have learned from this episode, and they will make sure there is always a Trump figure in place (not necessarily at the presidential level, but that might work best) to distract the more credulous 80% of the public. Obama at least pretended that there could be public oversight of the unsupervised services. They haven't suffered that insult since Trump took office.
As opposed to orchestrating open slaughter and genocide of other nations repeatedly? As opposed to destabilizing and overthrowing countries into chaos and creating new breeds of terrorism? As opposed to experimenting on its own citizens, conspiring and prevailing multiple times to commit terrorism on its own population for social manipulation? As opposed to being largely run and headed by fucking Nazis? Yeah man, the CIA totally cares about its citizens and country servicemen. It totally never used them as pawns, as cannon fodder to be slaughtered for their own corrupt gains, for wargames, to further entrench its power.
As always with cases like this we need to review the actual situation, not just distil it down to a hyper-simplistic minimal summary and then base a conclusion on that.
It's not just a case of believing what the CIA say, they and other independent cyber security teams who have also investigated this, have also presented evidence to back up their investigations to show why they think this. There are also other cases of known proven Russian hacking. Assange has provided nothing. So let's not pretend this is a symmetric case of word versus word.
It's not just a matter of hacking though, I'm sure states do this sort of thing, it's the fact that this hacked information was used in a very targeted way to influence the US electoral system with specific political aims.
Is CIA in the business of lying and propaganda? Yes. But things need to be taken in context. The CIA is under the executive branch, and therefore at the mercy of the political whims of the president.
Saddam's non-existent WMDs? Reported by the CIA under an presidential administration that was clutching for any reason to go to war with Iraq.
Gulf of Tonkin? Again, the CIA reporting on something that buttressed the case for war. Again, aligned with the then-presdential administration's desire to escalate things in Vietnam.
The DNC hack is reported by the CIA to be Russia. The current presidential administration has full-throated in their bias toward Russia and against any supposed pro-Trump Russian interference in the 2016 election. And the CIA still says a highly-damaging (to the Democrats' electoral chances) email dump was orchestrated by Russia.
However CIA also pushes their own agenda like Timber Sycamore, a secret operation lobbied by CIA director David Petraeus, to overthrow President Assad of Syria, that led to a war that created a humanitarian disaster.
President Obama signed off the operation, however it was a CIA creation & execution, with the help of Arab intelligence.
CIA does way more than lying and propaganda. They create wars too.
> "CIA does way more than lying and propaganda. They create wars too."
No one is saying they don't create wars. Look into the School of Americas for all the death and destruction the CIA caused in Latin and South America. The CIA was also first on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq post-9/11. But that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about a CIA report on a subject of importance to the president. The CIA isn't going to release that report without sign-off from the top brass, all of whom serve at the pleasure of the president.
What I like from that exchange is that the question is framed "can you say" and answered, "we can say." Technically it's affirming the capacity to perform an action (of "saying") rather than affirming a statement of truth.
That's a serious non-denial denial. "Not a state party" covers a multitude of sins, especially when you're talking about a country where, _in practice but not officially_ the state exerts vast control over all manner of enterprises.
I wouldn't describe the landscape of extractive-government in Russia as "state control" over enterprise: it's not that
the public offices themselves are overstepping their bounds, it's that the holders of those public offices are corrupt and/or compromised.
Yes, this is splitting-hairs, but the Russian Federation isn't anything like North Korea - nor remotely Communist.
Given the state of surveillance technology today, it's pretty hard for me to believe that any large hacking organization manages to fly under the radar of their governments for very long. You need infrastructure, equipment, and financial capabilities to pull off what these groups manage.
These groups are either working explicitly with governments, or their leadership has been approached by domestic police forces and are strong-armed into focusing their attention on specific organizations.
I’ve scoured the internet for the crowdstrike documents that offer any kind of proof to their claim. Can you point me to it? The HN crowd I’m sure is capable and qualified of looking at the technical merits of it.
Crowdstrike admitted there was no actual evidence. Unfortunatley, if all you watch is mainstream corporate-backed news, you're getting a lot of propaganda without realizing it.
It's like religion, you think your news source is right while all the other ones are wrong (Fox news watchers don't think theirs is propaganda, while MSNBC/CNN viewers clearly see Fox News as propaganda. But MSNBC/CNN does as much propaganda as Fox News).
Anyways, if you're interested in non-corporate news, where if you watch it over many months, thing start to become obvious to the point where you can't unsee it anymore, I recommend Jimmy Dore. He's a comedien. Kind of like a modern day court jester who can tell the truth. Of course, make your own decisions, he may be totally wrong as well, but I've found it to be an insightful source.
So your strategy is to dismiss "mainstream corporate-backed news" and instead watch comedians on Youtube? Hard to take that seriously.
My comment links to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, NBC News, the WSJ quoting Republican leadership, and CrowdStrike's own account. They're all collaborating on some elaborate lie and Jimmy Dore has dug up the truth? Give me a break.
I don't know if you're mostly joking; if so, I'll admit it's over my head.
I'm not joking at all. I realize it sounds crazy and conspiratorial, but like I said, if you watch sources like Jimmy Dore over a period of months, it starts to become obvious.
Jimmy Dore isn't the only one, there are lots of other great commentators such as Kyle Kulinski, Rising With The Hill's Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti (this one may be more your style, Krystal is left-leaning and comes from MSNBC and Saagar is right-leaning. They don't agree with everything but they cut through the BS pretty well).
I would just say be open-minded and simply start watching one of these sources, it's good to be skeptical. You probably won't agree with them much in the beginning, but when you start seeing how things play out over months, it starts to make a lot more sense, then eventually it becomes obvious.
Note: I am not a conspiracy person AT ALL! Having been captivated by Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World over 20 years ago, I'm actually a big skeptic. Huge James Randi fan, etc. So, don't think that I'm some conspiracy hack, quite the opposite.
I've watched the Krystal and Saagar show a few times. It's pretty good, if a little too predictable.
I don't own a TV or watch cable news; I get most of my news from feeds like AP or Reuters, then try to decide for myself what I think before reading some commentary/analysis.
It's a little worrying to hear things like "[...], if you watch sources like Jimmy Dore over a period of months, it starts to become obvious." This is exactly how conspiracy theories and other quackery work. People get fed up with the mainstream and seek out alternative narratives about how the world _really_ works, then over time cede so much factual ground that their frame of reference becomes broken. This is exactly how people get into flat earth, 9/11 was an inside job, etc.
A slightly better "alternative" might be a news org like The Intercept or a writer like Matt Taibbi. Both are highly ideological but fairly constrained by the facts.
> So your strategy is to dismiss "mainstream corporate-backed news" and instead watch comedians on Youtube? Hard to take that seriously.
Another symptom of the illness that ails us. It's the job of comedians to make us laugh, not to tell the truth. If a lie is funny enough, some comedians will tell it for that reason alone.
>> Kind of like a modern day court jester who can tell the truth
Responding to the GP: I think that's a misunderstanding of the myth of court jesters. It wasn't that they were the only ones that could tell the truth, it was that they were the only ones that could hint at uncomfortable truths to the king if they wrapped it up in enough humor. Other people could tell the truth amongst themselves, but they had to flatter the king because of his power.
His argument here seems to be that "if Russia hacked the DNC the NSA would have captured and stored all the packets and that would be evidence"? With all respect to the guy, he seems out of his technical depth here.
You're saying that William Binney is out of his technical depth here? The former NSA intelligence official who is the expert in intelligence analysis, and traffic analysis? Did you even watch the video?
>Anyways, if you're interested in non-corporate news, where if you watch it over many months, thing start to become obvious to the point where you can't unsee it anymore, I recommend Jimmy Dore.
Why take it from a comedian? There is a much more reliable source that knows all[0], sees all and reads a lot.
QAnon and these right-wing conspiracy stuff is the opposite of what I'm recommending. Any reasonable and logical person can quickly determine the fallacy of QAnon if you start looking into it.
All I'm saying is, start watching the commentators I'm suggesting over a period of time, and you will see they are not conspiracy theorists.
FWIW, sometimes my posts get significantly downvoted at first, and within a few hours end up with a lot more upvotes. I try to not care in the first place, but sometimes this makes me feel better.
I have the opinion that undeserved initial downvotes usually end up with more upvotes than the post would originally get. If I see a grey comment that I think shouldn't be grey, I'll upvote. But HN isn't fully dynamic, so that upvote won't be visible to people who already have the page open, so they'll see it as grey too and may also be likely to upvote.
I've noticed this very consistently. It seems the users who jump on posts early are an entirely different sort from the users who wait for posts to gain some popularity. I could imagine various reasons why that may be the case, but they are just speculation.
Ah yes of course, it would be really inconvenient if Assange was publishing information given to him by Russian intelligence to interfere in the 2016 US elections. Wow what a bummer that would be.
> For those making quips about Russia: Assange has already claimed the source was _not_ Russia.
Assuming Assange is telling the truth, how would he even know who the ultimate source was?
I mean, Russia might be sophisticated enough to not pass on information like this using someone with an obvious connection to them. It's not like their agents are required to have an accent out of a Bond movie and wear a KGB/FSB uniform all the time.
Unless they wanted it known, that is most likely the case. The non/-statements by Assange around Seth Rich are worth considering too, the Mueller report apparently establishes a chronology whereby he would've known these documents weren't coming from a single person.
> Assuming Assange is telling the truth, how would he even know who the ultimate source was?
If he received the emails from someone with direct access to them - e.g. someone who worked for the DNC - Occam's Razor would suggest a lack of Russian involvement.
(Not saying this is the case, just pointing out one possibility.)
Well, you have to realize when you link Fox News, most people wouldn't call that a "point of information".. If one links any obviously biased news site, then it is perceived more of an endorsement than just putting a 'fact' out there.
> It's a point of information, not an endorsement.
Please follow the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), specifically: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. "
I sometimes wonder whether a better solution would be to require a comment with a downvote i.e. there was a heated thread about Assange yesterday, in which my karma was oscillating from -25 to +5 around the amount prior to making the comments, but only one proper counterargument.
Both Muller report as well as the House and Senate investigations all concluded that Russia was the source. Assange's denials are about as credible as Roger Stone's denials.
This is what blows my mind. For a group of people who supposedly rely on institutional knowledge about topics like science and tech, suddenly on this topic its one guys claim against literally dozens of institutions counter claims.
> For anything non-tech related, tech people are just like everyone else. Our supposed higher IQ's don't mean much when forming opinions.
Honestly, I think "our supposed higher IQ's" (or more precisely: a self-image as being much smarter than average) can actually be a handicap when dealing with areas outside of one's specialty. It can very easily lead to overconfidence.
There is a phenomenon with Physicists in their emeritus years.
They go into other fields, declare that the field is just so easy, try to model things as 1m radius spheres of water, see that the four interstitial cell layers of the bovine second stomach are hyper-complex and noisy when saline levels change 2% (or things to that effect), declare that the field still needs to change, write a paper up that is simplistic and help no one in the field, get a bit of press coverage, assuage their damaged egos, and then try out landscape painting or Ethiopian cooking.
This phenomenon of overconfident and un-humble emeritus Physicists is not restricted to just them, I'm afraid, but all people.
> What makes you think HN users “rely on institutional knowledge” more than anyone else? My experience is exactly the opposite.
I'm guessing it's a generalization from a relatively common great respect for academic science as an institution. However, even that's far from universal, which the pandemic has shown.
I do agree with you. I think there's at least as much overconfident mistrust of institutions than respect for them there.
Those inside the intelligence community knew we had no evidence for WMD and that the evidence being put forward as "maybe" was based on bad information from bad sources. Remember when Scoot Libby went to jail for outing Valerie Plame because the administration didn't like the critical op-ed her husband wrote about the whole yellow-cake uranium thing? Or were you like 4 years old back then?
One could argue these institutions aren't "trustworthy".
Myself, I really don't know where the truth lies.
For example, WMDs in Iraq were also by institutions. They may have their own agenda (weather justified or not).
Bush was unwilling to trust the U.N. inspectors. The CIA had also thought that there were no weapons. Bush took this as evidence that Saddam was hiding weapons. Literally, on 9/12, Paul Wolfowitz asked for intelligence that Saddam had WMD and there wasn't any. With so much pressure from the top to find evidence for WMD, the CIA started to cave.
(Saddam had incentive to pretend he had WMD. He certainly didn't want Iran to know he didn't. He obviously didn't want inspectors inside his government buildings. But Bush and his team used Saddam's behavior as evidence he was hiding WMD, rather than the fact that he was hiding the lack of WMD.)
Once the CIA realized that war was inevitable, it went into cover-your-ass-mode and said Saddam might have chemical weapons so that US soldiers wouldn't go into Iraq with insufficient protection in-case there were chemical weapons after all.
Bush was unwilling to listen to counter-naratives. If Condi Rice or, more likely, Colin Powell had been willing to say "I don't think war is such a good idea" maybe it wouldn't have happened. But Bush surrounded himself with yes men. If Powell hadn't supported the war, likely he and his entire staff would have had to resign. If that had happened, Bush would have lost Tony Blair's support and with that, any international support. Bush probably would have at least thought twice about going to Iraq alone.
So in this case, it wasn't so much that the institutions weren't trustworthy, it's that they fell in line with pressure that started from Bush. It doesn't do any good to have experts at your disposal if you're not going to listen to any of them.
Source: Robert Draper's exhaustively researched book on how Iraq happened:
(Also, the U.S. media didn't do its job. The cynical side of me says there's money to be made in covering war. But probably, it was just incompetence. I still haven't forgiven the NYT though.)
> So in this case, it wasn't so much that the institutions weren't trustworthy, it's that they fell in line with pressure that started from Bush.
How does falling into line with pressure that started from Bush make them trustworthy? That is exactly the kind of failure which makes them untrustworthy.
It depends on which institutions and what you trust them to do. Talking about the intelligence institutions, the CIA and the UN weapons inspectors, those institutions provided correct information that Bush chose to ignore.
So were the intelligence institutions trustworthy to provide good information? Yes.
Bush did an end-run around them.
Were they able to stop the U.S. from going to war? No. But that was Congress’s (and maybe the US media’s) job and certainly _those_ institutions failed.
Assange's denials about Russia's involvement aren't credible on its face. The question is whether Russia hacked the DNC emails that Assange published. Assange fundamentally has no knowledge of the origin of the emails as the final stop in potentially multi-person hand off. The only way he could know Russia didn't hack the emails was if he was standing over the shoulder of the person who did. It is like a Tor exit node claiming to know the origin of a communication. It fundamentally is unable to determine that information without a side channel, which in this case would indicate collusion with the hackers.
You're missing the other obvious answer: he got the emails from someone directly at the DNC who wouldn't need a hacker. Assange has mentioned and discuss Seth Rich multiple times with the implication that he's somehow tied to work at Wikileaks. Even if it wasn't Seth, there are a lot of people who could have given him those emails other than hackers.
The thing is, we know the DNC was hacked. We know that Podesta was a victim of spear phishing. The timing of the attack also lines up with the release of emails. While the possibility is non-zero that an insider gave Assange the emails, it requires far too many unexplained coincidences to be believable.
Can we really imagine that only Russian spies could have sent this email? [0] There is nothing personal in it other than his name, "John". I'm not sure this even deserves the adjective "spear"... Podesta's emails are evidence of DNC rigging the primary against Bernie, but they are not evidence of Russian hacking.
You seem to be confused about what this thread was discussing. The question was whether Assange received the emails from an insider or a third party. Who actually did the phising is a separate concern.
That said, considering the context of the election, Trumps close ties with Russia and Russian agents, and the broad and multifaceted attempts at hacking the election attributed to Russia (disinformation farms, hacking state election networks), it is very likely that Russia was also behind the DNC hack. These weak attempts at casting doubt on Russia's involvement are transparent.
It turns out you need context to understand the meaning of words. If you keep reading, you will see the rest of that context. I wasn't saying "it is obviously false that Russia didn't hack the DNC", I was saying that "Assange cannot claim to know Russia didn't hack the DNC [unless he was involved directly]". See the difference?
19:23?!? Oh shit, dude, you caught me! I had so meant to change that sometime in the last three years! After all, HN people can't be expected to understand a joke in any context!
I remembered that from years ago, but couldn't remember where I saw it. Thanks.
Imaging burning a source so valuable for the sake of the U.S., only to have us elect Trump anyways and four years later pretend like its still an open question whether Russia was involved.
The data collected by AIVD began to pay off in November of 2014, when the agency alerted US intelligence officials that the Cozy Bear group had obtained login credentials and email from US State Department employees. enabling the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the State Department to shut down the attack within 24 hours.
Is there some connection between State Dept in 2014 and DNC in 2016?
Please re-read the historical record, key-words: "Stove pipe." The institutional read (NEI) was no WMD. International inspectors said no WMD. Cheney wanted another answer and got what he wanted by subverting the institutions.
It's real hard to argue that the bulk of US Intelligence services got this wrong especially as more time passes. For example, compare it to the Iraq WMD claims that were critical in swaying opinion (or validating a vote) but were shown to be misleading at best as reports surfaced. We have had a ton of whistleblowers and reports within the current administration that suggest that the intelligence services are solid, especially at the start of the current presidential term, wile it is the leadership itself with a long list of lies and false claims meant to sow discord and division. The FBI has been calling out white nationalism for decades but only recently are we seeing militias march into state capitols or take over government buildings by force, or police unions defend cops with words like "Get F*," on their rifle.
I'm sticking with the 007 analysis that UK intel is golden and the US contact is about as cowboy as a spy can get but won't stand injustice.
Doesn’t really matter which facts are stored in a cortex.
Same old biological biases embedded within.
For example, how this forum often lauds certain non-gods and ignores the math that luck of time and place, not inherent abilities, are what bring people wealth.
Ignoring all the alternatives and historical evidence of high taxation’s value to a society, this forum likes to cling to celebrity worship of economists and tech elites who can only be elite given a tilted economic reward system tilted by biological indoctrination that’s proven in experiment....
Or how in a democracy we seem to end up in a pretty tilted political power structure.
But here they are anyway ignoring science because of biological contentment.
Western culture is as irredeemable as any other. Logistical capabilities are what matters, not ideology. Humans can’t escape their own ego though.
I just skimmed a mueller report. All instances where mentions of the hacking group names/numbers were, contained just assertions of what the group did. There was no to very little mention of how this information was determined in the surrounding text.
Yes, I guess it's a report. But it contains just assertions, so it's only meaningful if you trust the institution making it. I've read reports that actually contained the process the core conclusion were arrived at, like various opensource investigations from Bellingcat, etc. And these were indeed more convincing.
Not sure why hacker should just go by blind trust to institutions, lol.
You may want to give the report a full, focused read. While the redactions are annoying, Mueller makes one heck of a case over the full 400+ pages. His writing style is highly measured but frankly, it sounds like it had to be or it never would have made it into the public view. It’s interesting reading how slowly Mueller builds his points!
Vague on purpose. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING claiming the DNC email (and more importantly the PODESTA emails) were "hacked" can be summed up in three words.
"According to Crowdstrike..."
That's it. No one else did any investigation, just Crowdstrike. The same underhanded, dishonest company that LulzSec and Anonymous felt the needs to expose time and time again for their fraudulent ways. People who have no problem lying or framing people.
I've noticed a rapidly amplifying trend for right-wing opinions and even conspiracies to get a load of comments on this site. It's weird because in the past political conversations have been either avoided or limited to very factual discussions. I can't imagine any troll farms consider HN to be a high-value target, so I can only assume they are sincere.
>I've noticed a rapidly amplifying trend for right-wing opinions
It's correlated with the recent rise in Trump's polling. Left wingers who oppose lockdowns, cancel culture and the riots are being pushed towards the right.
Case in point right here. Aside from your observation being objectively untrue, that kind of talk (from any political spectrum) used to be non-existent here.
HN should probably be considered mainstream at this point. It's better than Reddit of course by nature of the primary demographic it caters to, but it's definitely not underground anymore.
The more popular a site is, the more enticing it becomes to those who are interested in marketing/manipulation/etc. To give credit where it's due, I think HN is far more resilient to these kinds of attacks than most other sites. But it's still important to keep in mind that these malicious actors do exist, and are attempting to influence your opinions.
I think you're mistaken in implying that the primary demographic of this site and the "bad actors" are separate populations.
Tech culture is changing. The generation that was primarily brought up around CS and engineering in academia and influenced by the counterculture of the 70s, Free Software and anarchism is being replaced by a tech culture raised by Silicon Valley techo-libertarianism, Reddit and 4chan. The Unabomber manifesto is far more influential on the politics of modern tech culture than the Hacker Manifesto. We've gone from hackers building the web to liberate the world from the gatekeepers of information and communication to hackers wanting to burn the web down because it's too mainstream.
That's a cultural schism that Hacker News hasn't been able to deal with.
What really bothers me is they spent two years investigating it and never once went to Assange and asked him? Why not interview the source? He’s not been hard to find.
It’s like a detective saying “I think he’s guilty, so there’s no need to get a statement.”
The lack of thoroughness here has always bothered me.
I don't believe anything the state says and so far every leak Asange has provided has been proven to be true. At this time he has more credibility than the government.
The WMD story was clearly emanating from self-interested parties and was never supported by intelligence officials. The MSM uncovered plenty of evidence that their stories were untrue.
And the question here isn't if his leaks were true, it's if they were coordinated with Russia to disseminate information stolen in an attack targeted to influence one side of America's election. It has been proven in court that Assange was working the Trump campaign via Roger Stone. There is an abundance of evidence the hacker alias who procured the emails was a front for GRU. There is an abundance of evidence that GRU was actively working to support Donald Trump. Trump openly supported their help. The email leak came out immediately after the Access Hollywood tape revealed Trump's penchant for sexual assault.
There have been legal cases where convincing evidence has been presented, it’s well-documented. Your presumption that people aren’t looking at these things with suspicion is obnoxious and indicates that you are forming your opinion based on poor information and just not considering one side’s arguments at all because they’re “establishment or deep state.”
The "one side arguments" are a dime a dozen, and they have a historical track record of lying, and a mission statement that is all about lying, misinformation, covert operations, and so on in the first place.
The "convincing evidence" has been of the kind "let's prosecute this guy involved in big politics selectively for stuff that everybody else has been doing on the side for decades, and pretend like he is some rare exception, and hope that people wont see that it doesn't really prove anything about our greater point". Or the kind "yeah, our guys totally have seen these people attacking that system, and they can't be anything but X, would we ever lie? Here's a report".
You are just spewing talking points and narrative, meanwhile Stone is putting shit like “anything to save the plan - Richard Nixon” in writing in his emails to co conspirators. You are not being smart. Just look at the evidence, they coordinated with Wikileaks and Russians and got caught. Saying “well others do it” is not a defense, Trump has loyal prosecutors who can make the case if they can.
Yeah but we can look at the evidence and evaluate it for ourselves using our critical thinking. We can look at the evidence and evaluate for ourselves whether people are lying to us. I have done that, and you OBVIOUSLY have not. Do you get it? You are just expressing bias again and again.
Assange also made a big show of trying to claim it was Seth Rich without actually claiming it was Seth Rich. I'm not sure I trust Assange's claims on this one, chief.
One thing I've come to learn about humans, and while I'm tempted to say seems like an artifact of modern times, I know is something that's been with us for as long as we've been human beings:
Narratives matter to most people far, far, far more than facts.
That is very true, but consider that we are speaking via the medium of text and text alone. You should make it clear whether you are citing something to support your claim and merely say the claim exists, because there is no tone of voice to convey.
1. Assange really will choose to say who is or isn't a source (that carries its own risks in so many directions...).
2. Assange actually wants to tell the truth about the source...
3. Assange actually KNOWS the nature of the source? If Bob comes to him and says he's from Brazil (random country selected) and he got the info from Australia (another rando country) ... how sure can Assange be?
I'm not sure I find Assange to be a reliable narrator. The nature of wikileaks has for a while felt like it wants to craft its own narrative rather than just release information. Even as far back as when they were on Facebook (not sure if they still are) any question that seemed to even be distantly critical was deleted. They'd announce a big upcoming leak and nothing would happen ... if you asked anything about it your post was deleted.
I felt like they were playing their own game(s).
But even if that isn't the case, I don't trust that Assange can be as sure as he sounds about where information comes from. If he just up and trusts what his source tells him or just assumes he has the resources to be sure, that's kinda naive...
My impression is that Assange has become the bad guy because he potentially torpedoed the presidential aspirations of HRC. Prior to that publication, unless you were the target of a leak, what Wikileaks was doing was in the obvious benefit of the people. As the bad guy, it becomes much easier to infer malicious motives.
That said, Wikileaks was very proud of its "reporting" track record, methods, and sources. Their minimal exposition was journalistic cover for their original sources that was typically so thin that it would be difficult to contain errors.
Based on that track record and lengths Assange has gone through to maintain that integrity, I tend to believe who he says his source wasn't, that he would not intentionally reveal a source - living or dead, and that their are likely intermediaries or collaborators that would be compromised even if the original source would no longer be affected. That chain of trust is how they help ensure other leakers come to them first, and it seems their opsec is good enough to keep those sources secret even when the organization is significantly compromised.
I completely agree that they often oversold their releases. There were often claims of a deadman switch as well. If that hasn't triggered after all that's happened, was it a bluff? did it fail? was it compromised? did it contain information about the wrong target?
Their track record isn't about their expositions. It's about the integrity of the data they're leaking. They've never been fooled into leaking fake data, or data that had been tampered with.
If Assange was a Russian asset who helped Trump win the election, then when Trump offered him a pardon to announce someone non-Russian as the source, he would accept the offer immediately. Assange's options in that case would be: rot miserably in jail, risk dying, hurt mother Russia and Trump - or - say a couple of words, save himself, Russia and increase Trumps re-election chances, and go back out into the world doing more amazing conspiracy-spy-stuff for Russia with a big fat paycheck.
So the offer was made in 2017, meaning after the election, I guess under the probe in to Russian meddling.
It's really confusing then: If he know that he did not use Russia, acquiring that knowledge wouldn't help much since the next election is in 3 years, so it can't be used as a leverage, unless he wanted the information as an insurance to the probe being biased by DNC influence. If he did, why would he want to know the source? The only thing he would want to know if Assange have been contacted by democrat, or if that information were available to begin with.
Sure is a news that asks more question than it answers, and why was it even mentioned in a court in London?
Assange is currently under extradition trial in London, so this is probably being mentioned to make the case that the extradition request is political in nature as opposed to actual legal interest (no personal take on validity/chances of success, that just seems like the play).
I'm not sure about the reasoning for why one would do this, but it's the same person that took a gamble to get dirt on Biden and got impeached over it, so probably shouldn't approach it from a place of pure rationality. It's terrifying that Rohrabacher was a part of this though, and really skews my personal take that nothing about this was above board.
I think it’s the opposite: what they wanted was for Assange to claim that Seth Rich had stolen the data, not so much to confirm DNC influence on the probe but because it’d fuel a whole nightmare scenario of conspiracy theorizing.
If I’m reading this correctly, they were literally trying to create a disinformation campaign to demonize their opponents, which is very much in line with all these Republican operatives flying to Ukraine trying to get some dirt on Biden.
> “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” [House Majority Leader Kevin] McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.
If it wasnt the Russians, it's almost certainly Seth Rich. CrowdStrike has already said the hack seems it came internally, and there's no evidence it came from Russia, but somehow the FBI came to a different conclusion. One is either completely incompetent or lying.
Edit: It appears CrowdStrike has officially changed their conclusion in their investigation after the FBI concluded theirs. I hope you people know this is all complete nonsense. The CEO himself said they ONLY had 'circumstantial evidence', and nothing at all concrete. Not a single thing.
That piece is the equivalent of finding video surveillance of the accused inside a place that was physically burgled, showing them bagging up the actual items that were stolen and heading toward a room with an exit, not being able to recover video from the camera that's supposed to cover the exit, and saying “well, there's no video of them carrying the goods out, so there's no evidence that they actually stole them.”
Or that’s a Complete fabrication at the request of a political party that has the ear of most major news outlets?
During the 2016 election these news outlets breathlessly repeated the misleading statement that 17 intelligence agencies agreed Russia was responsible for the stolen emails based on a statement from USIC, which represented 16, and Crowdstrike, which was the 17th. The USIC statement says nothing about how many subsidiary agencies were actually suggesting this (later we learned it was 3 or 4).[1] A year later when Trump’s USIC issued a statement, NPR was quick to point out that the USIC comprises 17 organizations, but only a few of them reached conclusions in the report.[0] We’ve also since learned that Crowdstrike, while publicly saying Russia was responsible for exfiltrating data from the DNC, was telling Congress under oath that it had no evidence to such claims. no other agency had access to the servers in question, including US federal intelligence agencies, which could have performed forensics while a sympathetic party was still in control of the executive branch.
Excellent comment. This level of deception is disgusting. I can't believe I have to scroll to the bottom of a HN political post to find out what's really going on.
Meta: These are the karma burning comments that take some effort to cite (usually typed from my phone) and are generally left without response, non-sequitur, or circular citation.
My personal opinion is that all major news outlets (Fox included) can not be taken at face value, requiring an unreasonable amount of research to determine what’s actually happening in current events. It’s not even just major events, it’s even happening at the local level. Our local newspaper monopoly reported that our neighborhood school district was opening last week with no evidence and after the board had just decided to delay opening. It’s unclear there was an agenda or just sloppy reporting, but this was then used by parents to as evidence to pressure their own districts to open. None issue public retractions or corrections anymore, just stealth edits.
Then I come to a place like HN where I find critical thinkers in nearly every aspect except current events which have become so polluted by political bias. We get it,
conservatives need to shut up and tow the line. I’m getting too old for that. Facts can stand on their own outside opinion. /getoffmylawn
Is there any serious reason to tie Seth Rich into this mess besides "he died roughly within that time frame and he worked for the DNC"? It really seems like one of these fringe conspiracy theories that doesn't really make sense as soon as you start digging a bit.
What's more likely, that Seth Rich really was murdered for leaking some (overall fairly tame) emails or that his death is completely unrelated and it was just opportunistically reused by far-right groups to make up one of the conspiracy theories they like so much?
It's more likely he was murdered for doing something he shouldn't have been doing rather than anything else. The area where he lived had no shooting in the past 16 years or so, and this young guy gets clearly murdered for no reason and not even robbed?
Rich was pissed at what the DNC did to Bernie (look at his past), and I think it's a fair guess to say he wanted to screw them over. He was in the perfect position to do so. If that's the truth, why Assange won't leak that, I'm not sure.
On top of all this, CrowdStrike themselves said under oath that it's likely it was hacked internally, although they have now conveniently changed their stance. See my original comment.
Assange's entire being has been dedicated to protecting the identity of whistleblowers since before he started WikiLeaks. He's not going to name a source. Look at what he's been through. He's not going to crack now.
> and this young guy gets murdered for no reason and not even robbed?
im sure you're an expert on crime but it is not in fact ridiculous that when a robbery is botched and someone gets shot they won't steal anything because you want to run immediately. you're sheltered.
It will soon be 4 years that a petty and vengeful executive is in power that would do anything to spite his opponents, real or imagined. Would he not use every possible avenue to investigate this, and, had they found something, use all his considerable media influence to trumpet it everywhere he can?
Hey, I wanted to tell you I worked deep in the Democratic Party's technology operations for several years. I didn't know Seth but I know plenty of people who did. What you are saying is nonsense.
I can't prove a negative, but I am not sure where you got the idea that Seth was in a "perfect position to screw" the DNC over, nor the idea he was motivated to do so. His family has begged for years for conspiracy theorists like you to let this rest.
I disagree. I'm looking at the most likely scenario here, the same reason I (and most people) believe Jeffery Epstein was murdered.
-Crowdstrike said it's likely someone internally hacked the server
-Seth Rich was in the position and time to do so and had a direct grudge against the DNC
-He was murdered almost around the exact same time the server was hacked in a wealthy area with no history of something like that ever happening.
You can come to other conclusions. I've come to mine. It's not certain of course, but it's the most likely with the information I have now. If you think it's more likely he was randomly murdered, that's possible but it's not the most likely.
==You can come to other conclusions. I've come to mine.==
You can come to any conclusion you'd like. Just like I can point out your obvious hypocrisy. You demand far more evidence from others than you present for your own stance. The Mueller Report and Senate Intelligence Report each investigated this allegation and found it to be non-credible [1].
Mueller Report:
"Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had made statements “designed to obscure” the source of the DNC leaks and of having “implied falsely” that Rich was his source."
Senate Intelligence Report:
"One narrative from Assange involved a conspiracy theory that Seth Rich, a DNC staffer killed in a botched robbery, was the source of the DNC email leak and had been murdered in response. On August 9, Assange gave an interview on Dutch television implying that Rich was the source of the DNC emails, and that day WikiLeaks announced that it would be issuing a reward for information about Rich’s murder. In a subsequent interview, Assange commented about the WikiLeaks interest in the Rich case as concerning “someone who’s potentially connected to our publication.”
The bipartisan Senate report was unequivocal about the factual basis for this theory: “The Committee found that no credible evidence supports this narrative.”"
armed robbers randomly targeting people are not criminal masterminds. they are often hastily planned, or are completely opportunistic. you could easily accidentally shoot someone, or the victim says or does something you didn't expect, or you panic. it's very believable someone would abandon a botched robbery.
bloomingdale, washington d.c., where he got shot, has a rate of robbery almost 4x the national average, and twice the murder rate.
> It's more likely he was murdered for doing something he shouldn't have been doing rather than anything else. The area where he lived had no shooting in the past 16 years or so, and this young guy gets clearly murdered for no reason and not even robbed?
There had been a string of armed robberies in the area, which residents had been complaining about.
It also simply doesn't fit the mold of an assassination attempt.
Seth Rich was shot (twice) in the back, not the head, without a silencer.
In fact, he was conscious when police got there, and didn't succumb to his injuries until he was in the hospital 1.5 hours later.
It's been a conspiracy among the right wing that the Clintons have been involved in various criminal activities, including murdering over fifty people, ever since Bill was in office[0,1].
Jeffrey Epstein's body wasn't even cold before people were tying his death to the Clintons, claiming they had him killed to hide their involvement in his sex trafficking ring. It's just one of their go-to memes.
Thank for your very helpful contribution, but you're in the wrong thread. We aren't discussing the Clinton's or any sex trafficking ring, but I'm sure you knew that.
I'm not in the wrong thread. Please read all of the words in my comment before replying, as you seem unable to detect its actual subject or context. Thank you.
Does it not bother you that the RealClear Investigations article provides zero external links or evidence itself? It reads to me like a long obfuscation of the difference between "circumstantial" and "concrete" evidence. Much of it built on the fact that lots of information is still redacted. Once the writer eliminates those two nuances, he can create his own accusation (without evidence, mind you):
"The fact that the Democratic Party employed the two private firms that generated the core allegations at the heart of Russiagate -- Russian email hacking and Trump-Russia collusion – suggests that the federal investigation was compromised from the start."
How does it "suggest" the investigation was compromised? I don't see the evidence.
Based on my evaluation that Trump only does things to further his agenda of sowing distrust in institutions and not out of any sense of justice or progress, here is my take:
He is forcing Assange to say "I will not reveal my sources as I am a journalist". Trump then gets to say he tried. The "media", especially any real journalists that take their profession seriously, will provide analysis that Assange is right for refusing. This gives Trump another opening to smear the media by portraying them as pro Assange, pro hacking and anti DNC.
Thankfully people (other than those very into QAnon) have given up on the n-dimensional chess theories for the most part, but if we needed any more proof nearly incriminating himself in a phone call with Bob Woodward (who keep in mind has already written an extremely critical book about Trump) while trying to woo him (in effect) is the most recent disaster.
For 3rd people like me Trump is very entertaining precisely because he acts with exactly this same disregard for institutions and decorum that our 3rd world populist politicians do, just like Bolsonaro (Brazil), Berlusconi (Italy), Erdogan (Turkey), Kirchner (Argentina), Putin, Duterte, ...
Sure, there was a time on the 19th century when all American presidents were all like that. But the U.S. were a very different country back then, the Federal government was a lot less powerful.
I mean, he’s inhabiting the powerful position that the two parties built!
Doesn’t help that we’ve had God Emperors like FDR.
The American president has also been mythologized. They’re calling all the shots and doing whatever. Unfortunately that means they can trample over the Constitution and only the opposing party usually cares.
The republicans didn't even ratify any policies at the RNC this year.
Obviously you have to support your guy, but if I said to you a majority / near-majority of the speakers at the convention were family and friends of the President would you think of a some backward state or the most powerful democracy in the world.
This is very underrated. Quite often, I see people from developed countries look at poorer countries with pity, despair and wishing the best. We, in developed countries, take our development and good way of life for granted.
The tables are completely turned. America has become the country to show pity towards.
Unless America changes its way of governance this Fall, 4 more years and what exactly is the difference between America and Brazil?
Well, in quite a lot of developed countries, the attitude to the US government has been deeply negative in parts of the population for a very long time.
I recall, probably in the 80's, an incident where the US government objected to a foreign aid organisation distributing food aid in the US on equal basis to the kind of food aid programs operated in third world countries.
Several European countries also refers to "American conditions" as a threat of chaos during political debates. E.g. I grew up in Norway, where the threat of "American conditions" was a common scare-tactic by the left to get people to oppose right wing policies. This was decades ago - the first threats of "American conditions dates back more than half a century.
Well, the difference is that today, even developing, poor countries are talking about "American conditions". Sometimes to justify their own incompetence. Other times to refuse American bullying. More often than not, just out of pity.
This is because poorer countries have seen this story before. They didn't need a war to make them poor. Their incompetent leadership over years was enough.
My parents are immigrants from a dysfunctional democracy and they can't agree more. Not nearly as bad as there, but the tenor is strikingly similar for a sole superpower. [0]
My greatest fear is Trumpism is a harbinger for a half century or more of American instability and decline, the same way Peronism was.
I can't deny it - I'm enjoying it a bit too. Trump's disregard for legal process or even common decency is exactly how I've seen leaders in my country act.
BUT I have to say that even in my 3rd world country, President/Prime Minister tier leaders rarely, if ever, succumb to the kind of rhetoric Trump uses. Usually, that's reserved for tier-2 leaders.
Italy, Turkey and Russia were pretty much not third world countries when that word had a political meaning.
Later on it became a synonym for developing world, which basically rules out most of the rest of your list, since Brazil, Argentina and Philippines aren't on that list either.
So I assume you just use it a slur, meaning that those countries have a dysfunctional political systems, with corrupted strongmen; ok, I guess; just say "corrupt, failed, authoritarian political systems"; third world brings too much baggage, needlessly insulting people who live in those countries and who produce vibrant economies that have nothing to do the perception of starving masses associated with the "third world" slur.
The meaning of the term Third World is different depending on the context. In a bureaucratic sense it has a very strict meaning, but more colloquially it's used as a derogatory to imply that a country is backward or almost savage in comparison to First World countries.
yeah, mine was a long way to say that I felt insulted by using such a derogatory term for the country where live; insult our politician, fine; insult your own politicians, fine; don't drag the rest of the populace into that. All of the places listed are full of industrious people who live and work and enjoy their long healthy lives; I wish people would occasionally stop and think about what the words that get out of the mouths actually mean.
This will always be a mystery to me -- why oh why did we turn to politics into 'entertainment'. I heard it was why Bush was voted in, Gore was 'boring'. It is basic theater- circus for the masses. Decisions makers/show writers don't act in their plays.
Eh. Not so sure about that. The Russian government has long had a tendency of doing things in a manner that is officially deniable but where it is made deliberately obvious that they are responsible. See the novichok and polonium poisonings; they _could_ have used far more plausibly deniable agents there if they had wanted to.
Notably, "Guccifer 2.0"'s IP address was part of a block allocated to the GRU headquarters in Moscow. I seriously doubt that was an _accidental_ disclosure; it was an advertisement. It's an implicit threat to others.
In my experience of reading material on spies, and watching panels with ex-spooks and analysts etc. one thing I have learnt is that you shouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt but you shouldn't refuse to assume incompetence either.
You only have to get your tradecraft wrong once to get caught - in this case I don't think they were at all bothered if they got caught early but it's not impossible that someone got lazy
This is one of these cases where the US appears to have borrowed concepts that existed in the British governmental system at the time of their independence (when this power still vested with the monarch in what was then England, AIUI), and then never got round to reforming them. Today, an individual having an unchecked pardon power is a bit of an anachronism, and very dangerous.
(If you want to be ultra-pedantic this power is still vested in the monarch, but they can't use it without the direction of the Home Secretary, who in turn is bound by convention to generally almost never use it, and certainly not purely of their own initiative.)
I mean, even presidents before Trump often used it rather arbitrarily, but Trump is definitely a new low in recent history.
I think you could divide uses of this power into a few categories:
- Righting past wrongs; pardoning people convicted under old laws now repealed and considered immoral - this is the primary use in most countries that retain a pardon.
- Influencing policy; pardoning people convicted under existing laws that the pardoner is personally opposed to - this happens in the US a bit.
- Electoral franchise; pardoning people to restore their right to vote - this one is mostly only US relevant, as most developed democracies (including large parts of the US) don't remove the franchise for this reason.
- Patronage - Pardoning personal friends/contributors/etc. This historically happened quite a lot in the US.
- Quid pro quo - Trump seems to be the main offender here.
The people I'm referring to are the "I'm alright jack" Trump supporters who basically will do anything if it means owning the libs. Also people who thought he would be non-interventionist (I have seen this on HN this year i.e. after Soleimani) despite "I'd bomb the shit out of ISIS"
You're talking about two different sets of people, neither of whom intersect with the (empty) set referenced above. Of course it's a mistake to believe a presidential candidate who promises peace. In my lifetime, maybe Carter (if one squints hard enough to obscure Iran) and maybe Clinton (if one squints hard enough to obscure Africa) kept that promise. The "lib-owners" couldn't care less about that issue. The idea that Pence would rein in either partisan nastiness or stupid wars, if he even could, is still risible.
While I'm not sure about specific Pence fans, there was definitely a narrative that "Trump is just acting like a crazy person to get elected, and will be a conventional Republican president controlled by advisors when elected".
If you look at those, there's a significant difference in the _sort_ of pardons given, though. Most of the Obama ones seem to be retroactive pardons of mostly rather severe sentences, for random people (note how none of the names are links). This is essentially the traditional use of the power; random person appeals, says their sentence was unjust, his majesty/mr president/the committee agrees and issues a retroactive pardon.
Most of Trump's appear to be pardons of notable people, often aligned with Trump, currently serving their sentence, and in the case of Stone actually convicted for activity relating to Trump. There are a few more traditional cases (eg Jack Johnson), but all in all they're two very different lists, showing a very different use of the power.
To be clear, I'm of the opinion that both are bad and that the power should be restricted to a judicial committee or similar, as elsewhere, but I do think these two cases are _different_.
Even if "most" of Obama's pardons were "good ones", the fact that he pardoned 77x more people than trump leaves a lot of room for more than 25 "bad ones".
I'm not saying this is for sure the case.. just that your comment smells of bias to me.
Who on Obama's list of pardonees was a witness in a criminal investigation of Obama?
By the way, at the end of his first term, Obama had pardoned _17_ people. Expect a flood of pardons from Donald in January (or, if he's re-elected, in January 2025) as is traditional.
Go ahead and review Obama's pardons and check for bias. He had an extra 4 years to fill with a legacy of criminal justice reform and forgiveness. I see 1 entry for perjury, a 3 month sentence, and no entries of past employees, advisors, friends, or contacts who plead guilty to or were convicted of crimes connected to the president. Trump pardoned Stone after he literally threatened the judge involved in his case on social media, an open threat against the entire US justice system. Recently a NJ judge's house was attacked and family members killed by someone who took action on that type of threat.
Trump pardoned someone who threatened a judge AND was convicted of lying to protect Trump. Perhaps he should face a second round of impeachment for such abuses of power.
What about judges though? In Obama's last year, an election year, the Senate held open over 100 judge positions including refusing to even hear a SCotUS pick (Garland). Obama had 324 picks confirmed over 8 years or about 40 per year. Trump has had 194 in his 3.5 years including that open SCotUS seat plus 1 or about 55 per year, a nearly 40% increase over Obama. Also, many of these lifetime justices are young, promoted by right wing interest groups including pseudo campaigns for SCotUS seats, and often rated unqualified or unexperienced by various Bar associations which is not only unprecedented but an incredible overreach by the Senate. McConnell held open over 100 seats for Trump to fill but continues to confirm judges for an impeached president in an election year. These justices may have 40+ year careers as partisan hacks disrupting our legal system which already suffers from insane structural racism and inequality (both things Obama was tearing down until his last day on the job).
Trump has appointed 2 SCotUS justices (one who likes to boof and drink) and 40% more judges than Obama, year to year, even after his impeachment and during an election year.
Even if "most" of Trump's pardons were "blatantly corrupt", the fact that he has pardoned those who could implicate him in crimes and corruption and not those with unjust sentences, evidence of innocence, or convicted of breaking laws no longer on the books is downright indefensible and an indictment of his character and corruption as well as blank check from the GOP to cover up hypocritically instilling partisan justices.
It's important to question things and come to your own, well research and evidence based views on issues and events. Some of us have extensive education or experience in reviewing history and politics so the information is readily available or easy to find and it is important to understand where systems are broken and where people are breaking systems that work well when run by honest citizens, like the USPS. Obama definitely had more pardons but also used the power with humility and a conscience to fight injustice, not to further his own ends and protect himself from investigation.
The parent to my comment says about some "convention to use it rarely" though. Trump so far has used the right 77 times more rarely, and I suspect that the person to whom I replied speaks more about their feelings rather than facts.
Not all pardons are the same. Obama mostly pardoned drug offenders who were often too harshly punished during the war on drugs. Trump is pardoning lackeys and friends.
Yeah, Obama had 8 years of criminal justice reform and fighting injustice. Trump pardoned his close friend who was convicted of lying to protect the president and threatened the judge hearing his case.
Obama pardoned 1 person for perjury and they weren't even connected to him.
>Today, an individual having an unchecked pardon power is a bit of an anachronism, and very dangerous.
Of all the things a ruler with unchecked power could do, I'd argue pardoning people is possibly the least dangerous. "Oh no, please help me, the evil dictator is going around flagrantly pardoning people, hope he doesn't pardon me!"
It's telling that in a nation with 4% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners, one still finds complaints about "unchecked pardons". That's before one even considers the odious racial history.
My concern about unchecked pardons is, well, the subject of the article; the use of the pardon power to arrange a quid pro quo. Obviously, separately, the US has major criminal justice problems, but you won't solve those by letting an individual pardon anyone they feel like.
Assange's case is a perfect example of USA's (and, by extension, USA lackey UK's) "major criminal justice problems". This is a man whose only crime was exposing war crimes to the consideration of the general public. His persecutors have argued in court that he doesn't have 1A rights because he's not a USA citizen, but he is still bound by the most maximalist interpretation of an obscure USA law because "fuck him".
I wish I still wondered where this vehement hatred for innocent victims of the state comes from...
Assange's prosecution can be bad, and yet attempting to gain favours from him with the offer of a pardon can also be bad...
In fact, in _very_ corrupt systems, it is common to put people you need something from in legal jeopardy _for the purpose_ of dangling a pardon to get the thing you wanted in the first place. To be clear, I don't think that's the case here; Trump was attempting to get a quid pro quo but probably didn't set up the initial situation.
These aren't different bad things. They are the same bad thing! Trump wouldn't be able to blackmail Assange without credibly threatening him in the first place. No previous president has countenanced a prosecution so extremist in its attacks on basic journalism and whistleblowing. Even Obama, who certainly was trending in that direction, stopped before he got to this point. His administration didn't "set up" this prosecution because he correctly saw it as a threat to the freedom of the press. [0] Yet, somehow the legions of nattering Trump opponents who pretend to accept nothing he does have fallen into line completely with this outrageous miscarriage of justice. Some of them probably are stupid enough to think they oppose Trump by enjoying Assange's plight. [EDIT:] They aren't all that stupid, and weasel words like "To be clear, I don't think that's the case here" are a good sign of that.
Most republics borrow most of their core concepts from monarchies that preceded them. In the early (modern) republics like the US & France, Presidents have a lot of power, especially military power.
Many later Republics (eg Ireland) inherited from monarchist systems with more of a ceremonial role for the king, and presidents tend to have more of a ceremonial role too.
Anyway, to various extents and with lots of caveats... Presidents have the power to pardon in a lot of democratic countries. In Ireland, for example, the power is constitutionally with the President, but in practice the power is with the government/parliament.
Whatever the details, pardons (and clemencies) are a necessary device. Even courts need check valves and this is a way of checking courts without harming the court as an institution. Yes, it is open to abuse, but on balance I do think it's necessary.
I agree that this sounds like an ugly politicisation... but everything about the Assange case is highly politicised. The content of the offense publishing politically damaging information about parties, politicians, defense and intelligence bodies. There have been tactical indictments in multiple countries. Secretive proceedings. Etc.
This was never a case where blind justice reigns pristine. It's an inevitably political shitshow.
For analogy, think of US impeachment. It's an obviously political, and whether or not the President has enough friends in Congress matters more than evidence. It's a whole lot better than nothing though. If you want to see what not having anything looks like, you can look at the shitshow going on in Israel currently.
Sometimes you need a way around standard rules. Standard rules exist for a reason, and bypasses aren't without a cost... but I do think they're necessary.
> Most republics borrow most of their core concepts from monarchies that preceded them. In the early (modern) republics like the US & France, Presidents have a lot of power, especially military power.
While this is generally true, France is a weird case; it was a parliamentary democracy for a bit! The current semi-presidential setup is pretty new.
> Whatever the details, pardons (and clemencies) are a necessary device. Even courts need check valves and this is a way of checking courts without harming the court as an institution. Yes, it is open to abuse, but on balance I do think it's necessary.
Sure, but it shouldn't be at the behest of one person. It's fine if it is ceremonially, as in the UK and Ireland cases, but not if it is _in fact_.
IMO, it needs to be outside of a court or court-like system. Generally, it's in the hands of a high ranking official. A president is high enough in the food chain to avoid motivations going unnoticed.
In any case, aside from motivations, I think this is the sort of case where pardons should be considered. There were a lot of shenanigans. Motivations, political involvement, tactical levers (legal, espionage-ish, diplomatic..) that can't (won't, at least) be revealed. These are the kinds of situations for which pardons exist.
One thing I always fail to grasp is -- if Russia successfully carried out influence campaign to get Trump elected how does it exactly paint Obama and Biden in good light ?
How do make this leap ? I consider Trump to be a horrible president and human being in general. But I don't hold people who dropped the ball on national security in such a major way
in high regard either.
This headline really is a way to create a poisonous and intentionally toxic and politicized reaction to Assange. He exposed some of the biggest corruption and evil in our lifetimes, including torture programs.
We must stay TOGETHER in demanding a pardon, rather than indefinite detention meant to keep him quiet. We must not allow this to get dragged into the political culture wars.
Assange is a cypherpunk and hacker, and is currently undergoing a massive violation of his rights by several leading world powers (who claim legal jurisdiction over many of the world's most prominent hackers) for liberating information to the public (in the spirit of many original hackers).
I'm not sure why it wouldn't.
Not everything that the mainstream culture war has picked up as its touchstones is actually about the mainstream culture war.
Shoehorning leaking of data, by a hacker, about corrupt governments into the standard (and frankly boring) left/right US culture war is one of the most obvious examples of this ridiculous phenomenon.
Regardless of your political affiliation, the world is a better place that this information is public.
> Regardless of your political affiliation, the world is a better place that this information is public.
In its purest form, I'm inclined to agree with you.
But I think Assange is more of a tool than a tool-user. He's a launderer of information provided by parties with an agenda.
This might be inevitable, given the players, but it doesn't make it pure or honest.
Also I think he injects a lot of personal agenda into his curation of released information. This opens him up for legitimate criticism, just like any other activist or politician.
Everyday this man pushes us further and further down. He is by far the worst human being to ever hold high office. He has zero moral character, zero.
The future is not bright for him nor his followers. People who it seems are too blinded by their hatred of others to notice their noses being cut off right in front of their own eyes...
> People who it seems are too blinded by their hatred of others to notice their noses being cut off right in front of their own eyes...
You mean the people so blinded by hatred that they attack, burn and destroy the shops and residences of uninvolved parties? The people so blinded by hatred they can't even give the president credit for making peace between multiple middle eastern countries, and bringing back the soldiers that have been reponsible for thousands of innocent deaths there? The people who march down streets chanting "fuck you Jesus!"?
Maybe you should ask that to the person I was replying to, who literally just implied that around half US the population are blinded by hatred just because they have different political views to him.
Math is hard. Half is literally 50%. Trump only has 1/5th of the population's vote last time, and this time? We'll see... The figures seem to show that 65% of the pop hates the man, so you might need to revisit statistics before you die on this battleground.
Mostly about startups really, with a big lean on technology. On occasion, there are political discussions but they tend to be heavily monitored to stop them becoming too bad.
Try harder. And while you're trying, learn a little US history. The real stuff, not fauxnews talk show host interpretive stories designed to create controversy in order to sell more ads...
Learning, with your eyes and ears wide open will help you tremendously with your life, your relationships and your business success.
>Try harder. And while you're trying, learn a little US history. The real stuff, not fauxnews talk show host interpretive stories designed to create controversy in order to sell more ads...
Could you point me to the part in US history that shows rioting and destroying innocent people's lives and property is not an act of hatred?
Off the top of my head: Boston tea party? (about taxation without representation, and related issues)
I guess it is pretty typical that the establishment doesn't want to understand or acknowledge the real reasons for why rioters are upset, they'd rather smear them and keep things the way they are.
The people involved in that did not go around destroying the property of random uninvolved shopkeepers, it was specifically a rebellion against the English.
When the established rules leave some in a bad enough spot they will become frustrated enough to break the rules as best as they can. Sometimes all you get are pointless riots, sometimes you get music, sometimes you get a revolution. It depends on the situation.
What is always true is that the establishment wants to maintain the current order. They don't want to understand or accommodate the malcontents. Instead they smear and continue to oppress them.
In the case of the recent riots, there is a large segment of white america that want to see blacks kept down, and are happy for the police to do their dirty work. That's why there are protests, and that's also why there are riots - different people expressing their anger and frustration in their own ways.
The US revolution wasn't people going around randomly burning down other people's houses and businesses, it was specifically targeted at the English oppressors.
Hmm, do we really want to open this conversation to making broad generalizations about groups based on small groups of extremists within it? Neither side wins in a conversation like that.
>Hmm, do we really want to open this conversation to making broad generalizations about groups based on small groups of extremists within it? Neither side wins in a conversation like that.
I'd argue it's still a better outcome than if only one side is allowed to make broad generalizations about groups based on small groups of extremists within it, while the other side is silenced.
Did you see the part where the person calling all Trump supporters full of hate was upvoted while the comments I made highlighting some hateful acts by non-Trump-supporters was heavily downvoted? Maybe not literal silencing, but seems people here would definitely rather only hear one side of the story.
No, my point is exactly the opposite: choosing the worst possible examples of someone who supports X to argue that's the norm is bad thinking. If you want to play the 'broad generalization' game, then you have to be able to suck it up and admit that on one side of the argument we have neo-Nazis, so if you identify with that side you'll be called a neo-Nazi.
the worst really? We've had a rapist or two. I don't know why anyone tries to pretend that there's a moral high ground in the American political landscape.
To people upvoting the parent, do you really believe that the half of the population who don't have the same politicals views as you could only possibly be motivated by hatred? It's not possible for you to imagine anyone disagreeing with you might have a legitimate philosophical difference?
I have yet to meet a single "follower" who can articulate the policy actions of this POTUS in any way shape or form. They instead talk about ideals and feelings... Not a single one can cite any policy and the facts and figures that come with these changes and moves. So yes. They are by motivated by hatred and bigotry and worse, ignorance.
Regardless, one can support the policies of the GOP and not the man. And that is the problem here. People supporting the man in spite of the facts.
So who is blind in that scenario? Those who cite facts or those who stick to their guns regardless?
maybe the "followers" you know don't go into detail about policy because they can tell you just think they are motivated by hatred and bigotry and know that any detailed discussion with you will be pointless.
"don't cast your pearls before swine" and all that. Why waste the energy having a detailed discussion with someone who has preconceived biases and won't listen anyways?
I'll list some of the less fanciful of those that many Americans agree with.
-"Made in America" Tax Credits
-Return to [covid] Normal in 2021
-Make All Critical Medicines and Supplies for Healthcare
Workers in The United States
-Tax Credits for Companies that Bring Back Jobs from China
-Allow 100% Expensing Deductions for Essential Industries like Pharmaceuticals and Robotics who Bring Back their Manufacturing to the United States
-No Federal Contracts for Companies who Outsource to China
-Cut Prescription Drug Prices
-Lower Healthcare Insurance Premiums
-Cover All Pre-Existing Conditions
-End Surprise Billing
-Provide School Choice to Every Child in America
-Teach American Exceptionalism
-Pass Congressional Term Limits
-Fully Fund and Hire More Police and Law Enforcement
Officers
-Increase Criminal Penalties for Assaults on Law Enforcement
Officers
-Block Illegal Immigrants from Becoming Eligible for Taxpayer-Funded Welfare, Healthcare, and Free College Tuition
-Mandatory Deportation for Non-Citizen Gang Members
-Require New Immigrants to Be Able to Support Themselves Financially
-Launch Space Force, Establish Permanent Manned Presence on The Moon and Send the First Manned Mission to Mars
-Stop Endless Wars and Bring Our Troops Home
-Get Allies to Pay their Fair Share
-Continue nominating constitutionalist Supreme Court and lower court judges
-Support the exercise of Second Amendment rights
Now you may say, those are just words, they mean nothing. Well during his term he did a reasonable job of sticking to his campaign promises: tax cuts, bans on Chinese companies like Huawei and Tiktok and higher tariffs with China, sanctioning Chinese officials in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, withdrawing troops back from the Middle East, negotiating pharmaceutical discounts, even building the stupid wall to limit illegal immigration.
Recently there are three issues in particular that attract many people to him compared to Biden: he's seen as anti-covid-lockdowns, he's not going to try and take away their guns, and he's pro law-and-order, so they think if he wins he'll send in national police to stop the ongoing riots.
You are not an American and yet you are here, telling us what is accurate and important when assessing the words, actions and policies of the POTUS? And using his own campaign site as fact???
Wow. I cant even begin to unwind your skewed propaganda with actual facts but no that none of those things you cited are factually correct. Not one.
What country do you call home? Curious how you fall for propaganda without question or research. Where are you? And why do you think you have any place in this conversation?
>You are not an American and yet you are here, telling us what is accurate and important when assessing the words, actions and policies of the POTUS?
I'm sorry, does being American give you some special privileged access to American news that foreigners aren't allowed to see? I see the same news you do, interact with the same people online that you do. Facts don't change regardless of where you live; ethics doesn't change regardless of where you live.
>And using his own campaign site as fact???
The question was about his policies; what better source of his policies could there be than the actual site where he officially announces his policies?
Many voted Trump not because he is ideal but because he is a republican (on paper at least) or because he seemed to be somehow better than Hillary. And it will happen again. Here on HN many are upvoting not because of party affiliation (many of us are from outside US) but because of mans works. If Trump wants to pardon Assange on condition - to get material to fight against democrats - and not on principle, then you may get a picture of what kind of a person he is! He is (just) a trader, not a man of principle... (unless this principle is called trading)
I definitely don't, but it doesn't change much to the parent's point; keyword I'd "blinded", not "hatred". There is a lot of hate but what is really appalling is how few trump supporters can be reasoned with. Or can see reason at all. The ones that could... are no longer Trump supporters. It is somehow easier to believe that it's just hatred misguiding people, because the alternative is worse.
Please do keep in mind that while it may be "half the US population" (it's not), it's definitely not half the world population. An absolute majority of the world is looking at the USA in utter disgust.
>There is a lot of hate but what is really appalling is how few trump supporters can be reasoned with. Or can see reason at all. The ones that could... are no longer Trump supporters.
This is literally the exact same thing Trump supporters say about Democrats, that they only reason with emotion and can't use facts or logic.
>Please do keep in mind that while it may be "half the US population" (it's not), it's definitely not half the world population. An absolute majority of the world is looking at the USA in utter disgust.
> This is literally the exact same thing Trump supporters say about Democrats
In the US it's generally true on both sides, because your politics are ridiculously "team" centric.
A lot of democrats can't be reasoned with, with regards to their party's policies. The major difference is that the Trump "camp" takes it to an absurd level of cognitive dissonance and at this point, either you know what I'm talking about already, or it's not worth my time and energy to explain it here (sorry).
Really? I am so sick of people absolutely trashing Trump because of his personality. I mean yeah, his personality SUCKS, no question. He is rude, disrespectful, and a jack ass. But lets look at some facts. Obama, brought us from 2 wars/conflicts to 7. Obama, set a precedent for drone striking American citizens overseas. Obama approved fraking in the Artic. Obama started a drone war in Yemen (at the behest of the Saudi's) that has killed many innocent people. The Obama Administration used so many bombs the military RAN OUT OF FUCKING BOMBS!
Trump helped negotiate 2 peace deals in the middle east. Reduced our troops in Afghanistan, and got us out of Syria.
Let me be clear though, I am not a Trump support. Don't like the guy didn't vote for him. I have never voted for the "lesser of two evils". But if you were to force me to vote for the lesser of two evils, Trump would be the clear winner. Yeah he is loud mouth jack ass, yeah he has done some shitty things, but he has done less shitty things than Obama/Biden.
That seems like a reasonable request, possibly clear up some of the hysterical conspiracy theories.
It "is" clear that the Russians/Chinese/Iranians/Naughty Koreans are keen to disrupt the US elections and did so in 2016 as well.
All very entertaining, thanks for the show!
Basically they were pushing the narrative that Manning only leaked info which put US personal in danger. That his leaks didn't really reveal any human rights violations.
Yeah, I remember that. Just massive floods of comments saying she's clearly a traitor and no punishment is severe enough.
It was weird, because news started out as a blend of neutral/positive/negative when the issue was first known. Then suddenly--and not only on reddit--within 30 minutes of a Chelsea Manning topic being posted anywhere, it would have an absurd number of outrageous, angry responses.
The same happened with Assange news. Sometimes even Snowden.
Ill put my tin foil hat on and say the internet is completely manipulated with fake commenters for a host of reasons...because it is. Probably something like 70/30 fake to real proportion.
436 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 291 ms ] thread> Democrat Party is an epithet for the Democratic Party of the United States, used in a disparaging fashion by the party's opponents. While the term has been used in a non-hostile way, it has grown in its negative use since the 1940s
But in my view, Assange is unprincipled enough that he'll say whatever Trump/the thugs running the West wants, so he can be freed. Or to paint it in a different light, they're torturing him so he'll say whatever they want him to say.
The fact that he didn't go with the pardon offer this very page is discussing suggests that this is wrong. You don't think Assange had options to be freed in the past however many years?
"biased hit piece" indeed
This is in a British court, and the President is not empowered to gag the courts anyway (except sort of I guess, at the highly-constitutionally-questionable national security trials)
Pardon offers are in no way binding or enforceable, so no actual gambling is involved. You just don't follow through unless you get the answer you want, as well as making very clear (such as by spending multiple years building a particular public narrative which the defendant actively participated in around your preferred answer) what the expected answer is so that, regardless of what the true answer is, the defendant knows what answer gets them free of the charges.
No, Assange being paid off by Trump for saying that it's someone other than Russia (which Assange has said, in less specific terms, before, repeatedly, as part of denying that he himself was acting as a witting or unwitting Russian agent and not an independent actor won't embarrass anyone) won't embarrass anyone.
OTOH, the offer (if there's was concrete evidence of it) itself would bolster Assange's claim that this is a political prosecution by the US Administration.
A lot of people are still salty that Assange did journalism that exposed Hillary Clinton's wrongdoing, even people who idolized him until 2016 for his excellent work on America's foreign conflicts, so it's really hard to navigate this labyrinth and get away with doing the right thing.
Also, being able to pardon Assange would also be his version of the Obama->Manning moment: viciously prosecutor a whistle blower and then symbolically free said whistle blower to make yourself look like the hero.
Even though the Russia narrative has pretty much been shown to be a pile of rubbish, a lot of Americans still don't believe it. Having Assange say it would reinforce that reality.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/mar/18/wikileaks-rus...
Here's a summary of some of the key findings [2]. Among other things, the head of the Trump campaign was sharing confidential campaign information with an individual that the new GOP report identifies as a "Russian intelligence officer". It's all around pretty shocking stuff, if we lived in a world where people could be shocked anymore.
> Kilimnik was also the “primary liaison” between Manafort and one of his clients, sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, according to the Senate report, which also alleges that Manafort “worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.”
> The GOP-led committee said it “obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU's hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election,” a reference to the Russian cyberattacks that targeted the DNC in the run-up to the election.
> Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, hinted that senators have additional information, including “evidence connecting Kilimnik to the GRU's hack-and-leak operations,” but those elements are redacted.
[1] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/rubio-statement-se... [2] https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/512613-five-tak...
Additionally, CrowdStrike admitted in sworn testimony that it didn't have any concrete proof. That their findings were based on appearances and estimations and assumptions.
Yes, because the only source of intelligence on an operation is the crime scene itself. Clearly this is bogus and so is the insinuation that there is no other sources of intelligence on Russian operations than evidence from the hacked server.
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
It's unlikely that someone with such an understanding (whether or not it's a correct assumption) would believe that Assange coming forward and saying he was given the emails by Russian assets coordinating with Roger Stone under the direction of Trump would then result in the promised pardon.
Note that, since then, Assange has not come forward with exculpatory evidence for Trump and the administration has begun prosecuting Assange.
In the event that Assange could prove some other actor sourced the emails, that would mean that the FBI, NSA, and CIA were wrong, and the single biggest argument in support of the 'Russia Collision' narrative would go away. Trump would fold this into his narrative that the investigation into Russian collusion was a witch hunt.
Which is just about impossible for him to prove. Does Assange have access to the kind of IT forensics experts, access to the hacked systems and other resources to prove someone else did it? No, he does not. He didn't do the hacking himself. Whoever he did get the leaked info from could of course claim not to be working for the Russians as an intermediary. But that is just a claim, and not proof.
If that sounds like an official act in return for a personal political favor to the president to help his reelection chances and therefore is illegal, you would be correct!
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/julian-assange-our-source...
Edit: oh wow, to -2 in less than 2 minutes.
It's a point of information, not an endorsement.
Double-edit: Ha, ok, colour me shocked. The discussion thread is excellent and I thank everyone involved for remaining civil.
Though they are still both very partisan.
15 years ago I might have agreed with you... Not so much anymore.
How many open Trump supporters do you interact with a week? Or would you feel comfortable telling your coworkers you plan to vote for Trump? He very well may win this election.
As I said, about 5-8 depending on how active my group chats are.
Why would I tell my coworkers I'm voting for Trump? I'm not going to. So yes I would feel uncomfortable lying.
I don't think this is the same as bush era politics. How can I exist with coworkers while we do anti racist book clubs, and then announce support for the man who calls black protesters thugs? We don't have room for racism at my company. That's only a political issue because the republican party nominated a racist - I don't see how that's our problem.
Want some help?
How can I exist with co-workers who think every point of inequality is systemic racism and white supremacy, Trump supporter's are all trailer park hicks, 97% of the protests are peaceful, believe that just because of your skin color you shouldn't be called a thug for looting, believe Trump colluded with the Russians despite 0 evidence, think Flynn deserves to be in prison, think Trump isn't helping the black community...
Uhhh isn't palmer luckey a Trump supporter? And Kanye west? Plus a bunch of rich old folks back home. Lol obviously not all Trump supporters are trailer park (do you mean poor?), My experience at protests in LA alone would make it absurd to believe that.
Thug is a racist dog whistle. Is property damage an improper response to murder? Yet conservatives defend a kid that committed murder after traveling to protests to "protect property," so I guess murder is an appropriate response to property damage.
Are you not reading reports from yesterday wherein intelligence community members are warning congress about russian influence in the upcoming election? You make me suspect the only "evidence" you'll accept is Putin being caught with his fingers literally in the guts of a voting machine.
Trump passed a couple democrat written prison reform bills that vaguely helped the black community, but his DOJ is specifically targeting those early release people for reconviction, so it's moot.
I don't really care about Flynn.
I guess I don't fit into the clean little Other that Rupert murdoch defined for you?
Maybe property damage might be a proper response to murder, _if it was the property of the murderer_ (the police), as opposed to random small business nearby, many owned by minorities.
Have you not seen the videos of "peaceful protestors" literally smashing and burning down buildings? Committing indiscriminate property destruction and arson makes people thugs, regardless of the colour of their skin.
I saw a couple videos of burning buildings, sure. I had trouble caring though, because the only places that happened in are the ones where soldier cops got insanely abusive with peaceful protesters. The onus is on the state to back down, not the people.
Did you see video of out of state proud boys driving in armed caravans to protest areas, paintballing and pepper spraying indiscriminately?
Really? I'm a native English speaker, albeit not American, and I've never heard thug implied to have racist connotations. The original word comes from a Hindi word for criminal, which was also used for a violent cult: "Devotees of the goddess Kali, the Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travellers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s."
>I had trouble caring though, because the only places that happened in are the ones where soldier cops got insanely abusive with peaceful protesters.
How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?
It doesn't absolve any responsibility, but if you take a step back - the police behavior was the indirect and sometimes direct cause of the other symptom.
E.g. on NPR you hear talking heads speak about “staunch conservatives” like Bill Barr. This term is now a dog whistle on the left that means ‘white nationalist’
Like you did in this comment, to the word "dog whistle?" Let me guess, SJWs are the enemy of the people?
What shall we call it when a white supremacist waggles his eyebrows and says "those people" then? Willful ignorance is painful to witness.
Maybe if staunch conservatives stop being white nationalists, or stopped catering to white nationalists so overtly, or actually spoke out against their white nationalist base (instead of "both sides"ing them), people wouldn't associate staunch conservatism with white nationalism? Just a thought.
The non-GTP-3 agent above was surprised to learn that the word ‘Thug’ now means something else. It’s like the rug was pulled out from under them.
Yes, really.
> albeit not American
That's why, then. America has a long and really terrible history of anti-black racism.
> The original word comes from a Hindi word for criminal
Neato, "negro" means "the color black" in Spanish. Now go on the English language news in the USA and use it to describe a black person, see how well that goes for you lmao.
Here, our linguistic history: https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/thug-tupac-racis...
> How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?
How does protesting the murder of citizens at the hands of police make it ok for police to show up with "less lethal" weaponry and brutalize protesters?
Great! Then, the protesters are acting in self defense as well, as the bar is apparently quite low for self defense.
What's the point of claiming that a tech bubble is a "cancer" and a "drain on the progression of ideas"? There's definitely a "valley paradigm" of sorts, but there are multiple technology centers around the world. I do think it is important to be aware of paradigms and try to reach out from them, mind you, but this seems more like a generalized accusation.
And I'm not sure where Trump comes into this. I do have Trump supporters within my extended family; I have plenty of non-Trump supporters in my circle too. While the information is still incomplete, it is still more information than I have about, say, (random example) National vs. Labour voters of New Zealand (or one of the many other smaller political parties in that country), since I have no one who I directly talk to from there.
The one nugget that I know from the limited experience I have is that generalizations of cultural blocs must be taken as the simplification that it is. It is an unfortunate necessity to generalize complexity, of course, so while they tend to be "incorrect" in the details, I tend to have no problems with non-malicious generalizations, as long as the generalization tries to be as accurate as one can and tries to be thoughtful instead of relying on tired tropes. However, I do tend to look heavily down on any malicious, inflammatory generalization of a culture -- I mean, even the ordinary generalizations often are wrong at some level, right? People who use wrong information to inflame and anger receive poor marks from me, and if they are doing this in spite of knowing better, even more so.
If the bubble is just Democrats and Republicans and other Americans, then it's still a fairly small bubble with a narrow view on the world.
It's a huge world, and there's a lot more perspectives on it than is likely to be _easily_ encountered during water cooler conversations at the office.
You can disbelieve what Assange says if you don't believe him. Discounting what Assange says, explicitly, clearly and deliberately because Hannity is interviewing him is foolish. It was a friendly interview. So what.
Weird how I didn't mention any of these in my comment. The problem is that the interview is not designed to elicit credible testimony. It's designed to put on a show. Thus, I discount it heavily.
Not to mention the way the questions were worded allowed Assange to answer without answering. Did the Russian government directly give Assange that data? No, and that would be hilariously inept for Russia. The way Hannity phrases all his questions allows Assange to easily answer "no." Just a terrible interview.
This "interview" is why Hannity is not, and should not be considered, a journalist.
Secondly, about your second point, many people will downvote you simply for complaining about downvotes. Next time, just wait. Votes eventually land where they should be, and complaining about votes adds nothing to the conversation.
>ASSANGE: Yes.
>HANNITY: ... or anybody associated with Russia?
>ASSANGE: We -- we can say and we have said repeatedly...
>HANNITY: Right.
>ASSANGE: ... over the last two months, that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.
He's basically saying that Vlad didn't call him up one day and say "Russia wants to give you some files." No shit.
-----
> Researchers from the Atlanta-based cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks reported that the emails had been obtained through a data theft carried out by the hacker group Fancy Bear, a group of Russian intelligence-linked hackers that were also responsible for cyberattacks that targeted the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), resulting in WikiLeaks publishing emails from those hacks.
> On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that the Russian government was behind the hack and gave to WikiLeaks a collection of hacked emails from John Podesta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta_emails#Data_theft
> "The committee found no reason to dispute the intelligence community’s conclusions," Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the panel, said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-report-affirms-u-s-intel...
> Following a comprehensive investigation that CrowdStrike detailed publicly, the company concluded in May 2016 that two separate Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries breached the DNC network.
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
> We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
etc, etc, etc.
I thought this was pretty well accepted at this point.
He won't elaborate on the DNC hack because he says he has no original reporting. Does that mean no one on the forums or in the subculture talks about it?
He said:
"Based on what I’ve learned over the past decade studying Russian language, culture and hacking communities, my sense is that if the Russians were responsible and wanted to hide that fact — they’d have left a trail leading back to some other country’s door."
And note, the founders of phishing in the early 90s were mostly teenage kids, maybe 14-16. It doesn't take a state actor to 'spear phish'.
> They can and they have. Let's not pretend we live in fantasy land.
He didn't say they're incapable of lying to Congress, just that it's illegal for them to lie Congress. By the GP's statement, if they lied then they also broke the law.
Not this claim, but a recent example of the CIA lying to Congress with impunity.
> "The committee found no reason to dispute the intelligence community’s conclusions," Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the panel, said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-report-affirms-u-s-intel...
Trump lies like he breathes, but that doesn't mean we have to believe obvious fantasy that obviously supports the continued stupid wars of the military-industrial complex. In general, the most likely possibility is that both the president and the TLAs are lying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
I agree with you but I think using terms like this can hurt credibility.
As I understand it the DoD is just the department these agencies fall under (unless it's the DHS). The actual agencies you've just about covered, surely? CIA, NSA, ICE being the most problematic, then FBI and, what else?
I mean yea they suck but I don't think it's necessarily a hydra.
The CIA is entrusted with protecting US interests, much like every other intelligence service in the world. They do a range of things, much of them boring. It's government.
They have outlets to disseminate disinformation just like Russia does. We're just arguing about where and how it's happening.
I think this is increasingly protecting the interest of the super rich (those with vested interests in large corps). Not "the people".
I'm not claiming other govts are better. Just saying they've shown they cannot be trusted.
Yeah, I remember that: even with the bold and explicit lies put forward by the White House and political leadership at DoD, particularly, and some other agencies, the actual releases from the intelligence agencies were quite guarded and reserved.
The intelligence community is in the business of lying to it's targets, sure, but also of protecting it's credibility to decision makers, both within the executive branch and outside of it, including even the American public. The political leadership, OTOH, is often more shortsighted.
The CIA spied on the Senate, the director lied to them about it, and nothing happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/cia-di...
The CIA would be no good to anyone if they were in the business of lying.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.ht...
This is exactly what I said.
> Hanyok further argues that Agency officials had "mishandled" SIGINT concerning the events of August 4 and provided top level officials with "skewed" intelligence supporting claims of an August 4 attack. "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred." Key pieces of evidence are missing from the Agency's archives, such as the original decrypted Vietnamese text of a document that played an important role in the White House's case. Hanyok has not found a "smoking gun" to demonstrate a cover-up but believes that the evidence suggests "an active effort to make SIGINT fit the claim of what happened during the evening of 4 August in the Gulf of Tonkin." Senior officials at the Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House were none the wiser about the gaps in the intelligence. Hanyok's conclusions have sparked controversy among old Agency hands but his research confirms the insight of journalist I.F. Stone, who questioned the second attack only weeks after the events. Hanyok's article is part of a larger study on the National Security Agency and the Vietnam War, "Spartans in Darkness," which is the subject of a pending FOIA request by the National Security Archive.
To figure out who the liars are we need to know who engaged in a cover-up. Who manipulated, withheld information, or lied. You already know my opinion: I don't think it was the NSA.
For example "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred" suggests that the NSA's information was, in fact, good. It just was ignored, manipulated, omitted, etc.
I don't find that you mention NSA ITT before my comment. Parent comment did mention them, and your response was the off-topic (for Tonkin, anyway) "CIA doesn't lie!"
Neither supposed "attack" occurred! NSA reports were used to claim that they did occur! You don't think NSA has and is currently withholding information? Why don't you read what you pasted above? "Key pieces of evidence are missing"? If only the TLAs had the technology to preserve the information they gather... this is not credible.
Even if NSA reports had said "there was definitely no Vietnamese attack", those reports were used by the executive branch to ramp up the war. The authors of those reports, and every superior of those authors up the chain to the president, would have had a duty to contradict the false claims. Of course this is fantasy. NSA doesn't oppose war, and its reports reflect this.
I think the lying occurs higher up in the command structure where some intelligence is omitted from consideration because it doesn't fit the narrative the higher-ups are pursuing. I suppose there's a question here about who, exactly, is involved in this process of filtering out inconvenient information. Are those people part of the intelligence agency or not? This is a tricky question but, even if they are part of the intelligence agency, the pressure to omit comes from the executive branch. The NSA/CIA/etc aren't pursuing a pro-War policy...the executive branch is.
For example, imagine someone in the CIA is asked to provide a report about the likelihood of Iraq having radioactive material that could be weaponized. This person performs diligent research and produces, to the best of their abilities, a factual report. The executive branch presents this report as a "slam dunk" which shows that Iraq has radioactive material. Who lied?
Toward the end of your post, you blur the distinction between "lying" and "having a duty to contradict false claims". I'm only talking about lying although I agree that people do have an imperfect duty to contradict false claims.
In every press conference announcing some fresh horrific stupid war, there are spooks present and they do receive direct questions. It would be better for humanity if they didn't lie when answering.
Claims that CIA aren't pro-war and must be corrupted by evil presidents are pure fantasy. CIA have fought wars, by themselves, without telling the president. [0]
[EDIT:] If you've reached the point that you're imagining that honest secret reports are overruled by the public statements and actions of dishonest elected officials, could you accept that the whole idea of government secrecy is mistaken? Why not have these conversations in the open? Surely we'd make better decisions?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Personally I'm pro-regime change, especially in Cold War Latin America, but that doesn't change anything.
Why does the military industrial complex together with intelligence agencies fabricate lies to keep us embroiled forever in these evil endless wars? Every time we try and pull out there's a new BS story from these groups that everyone laps up: "Bounties on US soldiers! War is good! War is peace! War forever!"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/cia-di...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs&t=402
Unironically yes, because the alternative wants Americans dead by putting bounties on American servicemembers' scalps.
Also recent reports indicate that their is no evidence to support that story:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-comma...
I would not consider him CIA material, let's say. :)
It's not just a case of believing what the CIA say, they and other independent cyber security teams who have also investigated this, have also presented evidence to back up their investigations to show why they think this. There are also other cases of known proven Russian hacking. Assange has provided nothing. So let's not pretend this is a symmetric case of word versus word.
Saddam's non-existent WMDs? Reported by the CIA under an presidential administration that was clutching for any reason to go to war with Iraq.
Gulf of Tonkin? Again, the CIA reporting on something that buttressed the case for war. Again, aligned with the then-presdential administration's desire to escalate things in Vietnam.
The DNC hack is reported by the CIA to be Russia. The current presidential administration has full-throated in their bias toward Russia and against any supposed pro-Trump Russian interference in the 2016 election. And the CIA still says a highly-damaging (to the Democrats' electoral chances) email dump was orchestrated by Russia.
One of these things isn't like the other.
President Obama signed off the operation, however it was a CIA creation & execution, with the help of Arab intelligence.
CIA does way more than lying and propaganda. They create wars too.
No one is saying they don't create wars. Look into the School of Americas for all the death and destruction the CIA caused in Latin and South America. The CIA was also first on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq post-9/11. But that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about a CIA report on a subject of importance to the president. The CIA isn't going to release that report without sign-off from the top brass, all of whom serve at the pleasure of the president.
The CIA trying to overthrow Assad is good though, the humanitarian disaster is his fault, and Putin's.
None of it is "propaganda".
Yes, this is splitting-hairs, but the Russian Federation isn't anything like North Korea - nor remotely Communist.
These groups are either working explicitly with governments, or their leadership has been approached by domestic police forces and are strong-armed into focusing their attention on specific organizations.
p. 38 and beyond. Also check out the table of contents; it will point you to other technical specifics.
I guess they're all part of the deep state cabal too?
It's like religion, you think your news source is right while all the other ones are wrong (Fox news watchers don't think theirs is propaganda, while MSNBC/CNN viewers clearly see Fox News as propaganda. But MSNBC/CNN does as much propaganda as Fox News).
Anyways, if you're interested in non-corporate news, where if you watch it over many months, thing start to become obvious to the point where you can't unsee it anymore, I recommend Jimmy Dore. He's a comedien. Kind of like a modern day court jester who can tell the truth. Of course, make your own decisions, he may be totally wrong as well, but I've found it to be an insightful source.
Here is one on Crowdstrike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRoTGlQ4JMA
My comment links to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, NBC News, the WSJ quoting Republican leadership, and CrowdStrike's own account. They're all collaborating on some elaborate lie and Jimmy Dore has dug up the truth? Give me a break.
I don't know if you're mostly joking; if so, I'll admit it's over my head.
Jimmy Dore isn't the only one, there are lots of other great commentators such as Kyle Kulinski, Rising With The Hill's Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti (this one may be more your style, Krystal is left-leaning and comes from MSNBC and Saagar is right-leaning. They don't agree with everything but they cut through the BS pretty well).
I would just say be open-minded and simply start watching one of these sources, it's good to be skeptical. You probably won't agree with them much in the beginning, but when you start seeing how things play out over months, it starts to make a lot more sense, then eventually it becomes obvious.
Note: I am not a conspiracy person AT ALL! Having been captivated by Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World over 20 years ago, I'm actually a big skeptic. Huge James Randi fan, etc. So, don't think that I'm some conspiracy hack, quite the opposite.
I don't own a TV or watch cable news; I get most of my news from feeds like AP or Reuters, then try to decide for myself what I think before reading some commentary/analysis.
It's a little worrying to hear things like "[...], if you watch sources like Jimmy Dore over a period of months, it starts to become obvious." This is exactly how conspiracy theories and other quackery work. People get fed up with the mainstream and seek out alternative narratives about how the world _really_ works, then over time cede so much factual ground that their frame of reference becomes broken. This is exactly how people get into flat earth, 9/11 was an inside job, etc.
A slightly better "alternative" might be a news org like The Intercept or a writer like Matt Taibbi. Both are highly ideological but fairly constrained by the facts.
Another symptom of the illness that ails us. It's the job of comedians to make us laugh, not to tell the truth. If a lie is funny enough, some comedians will tell it for that reason alone.
>> Kind of like a modern day court jester who can tell the truth
Responding to the GP: I think that's a misunderstanding of the myth of court jesters. It wasn't that they were the only ones that could tell the truth, it was that they were the only ones that could hint at uncomfortable truths to the king if they wrapped it up in enough humor. Other people could tell the truth amongst themselves, but they had to flatter the king because of his power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_o...
Why take it from a comedian? There is a much more reliable source that knows all[0], sees all and reads a lot.
More details[1].
#WWG1WGA
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/08/20/904237192/journalist-enters-t...
All I'm saying is, start watching the commentators I'm suggesting over a period of time, and you will see they are not conspiracy theorists.
FWIW, sometimes my posts get significantly downvoted at first, and within a few hours end up with a lot more upvotes. I try to not care in the first place, but sometimes this makes me feel better.
Assuming Assange is telling the truth, how would he even know who the ultimate source was?
I mean, Russia might be sophisticated enough to not pass on information like this using someone with an obvious connection to them. It's not like their agents are required to have an accent out of a Bond movie and wear a KGB/FSB uniform all the time.
Edit - as the original post I was responding to has been removed I have edited out my response to it delving into more information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#WikiLeaks_...
If he received the emails from someone with direct access to them - e.g. someone who worked for the DNC - Occam's Razor would suggest a lack of Russian involvement.
(Not saying this is the case, just pointing out one possibility.)
Well, you have to realize when you link Fox News, most people wouldn't call that a "point of information".. If one links any obviously biased news site, then it is perceived more of an endorsement than just putting a 'fact' out there.
He has no way of knowing if where he got them from was hired by Russia.
So Russia, aswell as any of every other organization, state or individual on the planet, might indirectly have handed the info over.
> It's a point of information, not an endorsement.
Please follow the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), specifically: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. "
Honestly, I think "our supposed higher IQ's" (or more precisely: a self-image as being much smarter than average) can actually be a handicap when dealing with areas outside of one's specialty. It can very easily lead to overconfidence.
They go into other fields, declare that the field is just so easy, try to model things as 1m radius spheres of water, see that the four interstitial cell layers of the bovine second stomach are hyper-complex and noisy when saline levels change 2% (or things to that effect), declare that the field still needs to change, write a paper up that is simplistic and help no one in the field, get a bit of press coverage, assuage their damaged egos, and then try out landscape painting or Ethiopian cooking.
This phenomenon of overconfident and un-humble emeritus Physicists is not restricted to just them, I'm afraid, but all people.
Humility is a virtue.
I'm guessing it's a generalization from a relatively common great respect for academic science as an institution. However, even that's far from universal, which the pandemic has shown.
I do agree with you. I think there's at least as much overconfident mistrust of institutions than respect for them there.
(Saddam had incentive to pretend he had WMD. He certainly didn't want Iran to know he didn't. He obviously didn't want inspectors inside his government buildings. But Bush and his team used Saddam's behavior as evidence he was hiding WMD, rather than the fact that he was hiding the lack of WMD.)
Once the CIA realized that war was inevitable, it went into cover-your-ass-mode and said Saddam might have chemical weapons so that US soldiers wouldn't go into Iraq with insufficient protection in-case there were chemical weapons after all.
Bush was unwilling to listen to counter-naratives. If Condi Rice or, more likely, Colin Powell had been willing to say "I don't think war is such a good idea" maybe it wouldn't have happened. But Bush surrounded himself with yes men. If Powell hadn't supported the war, likely he and his entire staff would have had to resign. If that had happened, Bush would have lost Tony Blair's support and with that, any international support. Bush probably would have at least thought twice about going to Iraq alone.
So in this case, it wasn't so much that the institutions weren't trustworthy, it's that they fell in line with pressure that started from Bush. It doesn't do any good to have experts at your disposal if you're not going to listen to any of them.
Source: Robert Draper's exhaustively researched book on how Iraq happened:
https://www.amazon.com/Start-War-Bush-Administration-America...
Interview with the author:
https://www.vox.com/2020/9/2/21417224/why-did-america-invade...
(Also, the U.S. media didn't do its job. The cynical side of me says there's money to be made in covering war. But probably, it was just incompetence. I still haven't forgiven the NYT though.)
How does falling into line with pressure that started from Bush make them trustworthy? That is exactly the kind of failure which makes them untrustworthy.
So were the intelligence institutions trustworthy to provide good information? Yes.
Bush did an end-run around them.
Were they able to stop the U.S. from going to war? No. But that was Congress’s (and maybe the US media’s) job and certainly _those_ institutions failed.
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-phishing-email-that-hacked-...
That said, considering the context of the election, Trumps close ties with Russia and Russian agents, and the broad and multifaceted attempts at hacking the election attributed to Russia (disinformation farms, hacking state election networks), it is very likely that Russia was also behind the DNC hack. These weak attempts at casting doubt on Russia's involvement are transparent.
You, directly above that: Assange's denials about Russia's involvement aren't credible on its face.
Yeah, I'm confused. This is all beside the point. It is lawful to publish true information about candidates that is of interest to the public.
Actually it's an established fact. They were being watched live on their computers and security cameras as they were doing the hacking.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch...
Imaging burning a source so valuable for the sake of the U.S., only to have us elect Trump anyways and four years later pretend like its still an open question whether Russia was involved.
Is there some connection between State Dept in 2014 and DNC in 2016?
I'm sticking with the 007 analysis that UK intel is golden and the US contact is about as cowboy as a spy can get but won't stand injustice.
Same old biological biases embedded within.
For example, how this forum often lauds certain non-gods and ignores the math that luck of time and place, not inherent abilities, are what bring people wealth.
Ignoring all the alternatives and historical evidence of high taxation’s value to a society, this forum likes to cling to celebrity worship of economists and tech elites who can only be elite given a tilted economic reward system tilted by biological indoctrination that’s proven in experiment....
Or how in a democracy we seem to end up in a pretty tilted political power structure.
But here they are anyway ignoring science because of biological contentment.
Western culture is as irredeemable as any other. Logistical capabilities are what matters, not ideology. Humans can’t escape their own ego though.
Yes, I guess it's a report. But it contains just assertions, so it's only meaningful if you trust the institution making it. I've read reports that actually contained the process the core conclusion were arrived at, like various opensource investigations from Bellingcat, etc. And these were indeed more convincing.
Not sure why hacker should just go by blind trust to institutions, lol.
"According to Crowdstrike..."
That's it. No one else did any investigation, just Crowdstrike. The same underhanded, dishonest company that LulzSec and Anonymous felt the needs to expose time and time again for their fraudulent ways. People who have no problem lying or framing people.
It's correlated with the recent rise in Trump's polling. Left wingers who oppose lockdowns, cancel culture and the riots are being pushed towards the right.
The more popular a site is, the more enticing it becomes to those who are interested in marketing/manipulation/etc. To give credit where it's due, I think HN is far more resilient to these kinds of attacks than most other sites. But it's still important to keep in mind that these malicious actors do exist, and are attempting to influence your opinions.
Tech culture is changing. The generation that was primarily brought up around CS and engineering in academia and influenced by the counterculture of the 70s, Free Software and anarchism is being replaced by a tech culture raised by Silicon Valley techo-libertarianism, Reddit and 4chan. The Unabomber manifesto is far more influential on the politics of modern tech culture than the Hacker Manifesto. We've gone from hackers building the web to liberate the world from the gatekeepers of information and communication to hackers wanting to burn the web down because it's too mainstream.
That's a cultural schism that Hacker News hasn't been able to deal with.
It’s like a detective saying “I think he’s guilty, so there’s no need to get a statement.”
The lack of thoroughness here has always bothered me.
https://apnews.com/ef3b036949174a9b98d785129a93428b/Report:-...
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch...
I don't believe anything the state says and so far every leak Asange has provided has been proven to be true. At this time he has more credibility than the government.
And the question here isn't if his leaks were true, it's if they were coordinated with Russia to disseminate information stolen in an attack targeted to influence one side of America's election. It has been proven in court that Assange was working the Trump campaign via Roger Stone. There is an abundance of evidence the hacker alias who procured the emails was a front for GRU. There is an abundance of evidence that GRU was actively working to support Donald Trump. Trump openly supported their help. The email leak came out immediately after the Access Hollywood tape revealed Trump's penchant for sexual assault.
What happened to the time that the people actually were wise enough to see those with suspicion?
The "convincing evidence" has been of the kind "let's prosecute this guy involved in big politics selectively for stuff that everybody else has been doing on the side for decades, and pretend like he is some rare exception, and hope that people wont see that it doesn't really prove anything about our greater point". Or the kind "yeah, our guys totally have seen these people attacking that system, and they can't be anything but X, would we ever lie? Here's a report".
Narratives matter to most people far, far, far more than facts.
This is the world we live in now. And tbh, this is the problem.
1. Assange really will choose to say who is or isn't a source (that carries its own risks in so many directions...).
2. Assange actually wants to tell the truth about the source...
3. Assange actually KNOWS the nature of the source? If Bob comes to him and says he's from Brazil (random country selected) and he got the info from Australia (another rando country) ... how sure can Assange be?
I'm not sure I find Assange to be a reliable narrator. The nature of wikileaks has for a while felt like it wants to craft its own narrative rather than just release information. Even as far back as when they were on Facebook (not sure if they still are) any question that seemed to even be distantly critical was deleted. They'd announce a big upcoming leak and nothing would happen ... if you asked anything about it your post was deleted.
I felt like they were playing their own game(s).
But even if that isn't the case, I don't trust that Assange can be as sure as he sounds about where information comes from. If he just up and trusts what his source tells him or just assumes he has the resources to be sure, that's kinda naive...
That said, Wikileaks was very proud of its "reporting" track record, methods, and sources. Their minimal exposition was journalistic cover for their original sources that was typically so thin that it would be difficult to contain errors.
Based on that track record and lengths Assange has gone through to maintain that integrity, I tend to believe who he says his source wasn't, that he would not intentionally reveal a source - living or dead, and that their are likely intermediaries or collaborators that would be compromised even if the original source would no longer be affected. That chain of trust is how they help ensure other leakers come to them first, and it seems their opsec is good enough to keep those sources secret even when the organization is significantly compromised.
I completely agree that they often oversold their releases. There were often claims of a deadman switch as well. If that hasn't triggered after all that's happened, was it a bluff? did it fail? was it compromised? did it contain information about the wrong target?
Conclusion: Assange is not a Russian asset.
It's really confusing then: If he know that he did not use Russia, acquiring that knowledge wouldn't help much since the next election is in 3 years, so it can't be used as a leverage, unless he wanted the information as an insurance to the probe being biased by DNC influence. If he did, why would he want to know the source? The only thing he would want to know if Assange have been contacted by democrat, or if that information were available to begin with.
Sure is a news that asks more question than it answers, and why was it even mentioned in a court in London?
I'm not sure about the reasoning for why one would do this, but it's the same person that took a gamble to get dirt on Biden and got impeached over it, so probably shouldn't approach it from a place of pure rationality. It's terrifying that Rohrabacher was a part of this though, and really skews my personal take that nothing about this was above board.
If I’m reading this correctly, they were literally trying to create a disinformation campaign to demonize their opponents, which is very much in line with all these Republican operatives flying to Ukraine trying to get some dirt on Biden.
It can be assumed that he wasn't making this deal in order to implicate Russian hackers (and Assange would likely have known that).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house...
Edit: It appears CrowdStrike has officially changed their conclusion in their investigation after the FBI concluded theirs. I hope you people know this is all complete nonsense. The CEO himself said they ONLY had 'circumstantial evidence', and nothing at all concrete. Not a single thing.
Edit2: https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/05/13/...
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/05/13/...
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
Anecdotally I remember reading an intel report from Crowdstrike about Fancy Bear...
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/05/13/...
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
During the 2016 election these news outlets breathlessly repeated the misleading statement that 17 intelligence agencies agreed Russia was responsible for the stolen emails based on a statement from USIC, which represented 16, and Crowdstrike, which was the 17th. The USIC statement says nothing about how many subsidiary agencies were actually suggesting this (later we learned it was 3 or 4).[1] A year later when Trump’s USIC issued a statement, NPR was quick to point out that the USIC comprises 17 organizations, but only a few of them reached conclusions in the report.[0] We’ve also since learned that Crowdstrike, while publicly saying Russia was responsible for exfiltrating data from the DNC, was telling Congress under oath that it had no evidence to such claims. no other agency had access to the servers in question, including US federal intelligence agencies, which could have performed forensics while a sympathetic party was still in control of the executive branch.
0 - https://www.npr.org/sections/memmos/2018/07/18/630057400/gui... 1 - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016...
(edit: s/ ased/ based/)
My personal opinion is that all major news outlets (Fox included) can not be taken at face value, requiring an unreasonable amount of research to determine what’s actually happening in current events. It’s not even just major events, it’s even happening at the local level. Our local newspaper monopoly reported that our neighborhood school district was opening last week with no evidence and after the board had just decided to delay opening. It’s unclear there was an agenda or just sloppy reporting, but this was then used by parents to as evidence to pressure their own districts to open. None issue public retractions or corrections anymore, just stealth edits.
Then I come to a place like HN where I find critical thinkers in nearly every aspect except current events which have become so polluted by political bias. We get it, conservatives need to shut up and tow the line. I’m getting too old for that. Facts can stand on their own outside opinion. /getoffmylawn
What's more likely, that Seth Rich really was murdered for leaking some (overall fairly tame) emails or that his death is completely unrelated and it was just opportunistically reused by far-right groups to make up one of the conspiracy theories they like so much?
Because it is. Don't waste your attention on this.
Rich was pissed at what the DNC did to Bernie (look at his past), and I think it's a fair guess to say he wanted to screw them over. He was in the perfect position to do so. If that's the truth, why Assange won't leak that, I'm not sure.
On top of all this, CrowdStrike themselves said under oath that it's likely it was hacked internally, although they have now conveniently changed their stance. See my original comment.
im sure you're an expert on crime but it is not in fact ridiculous that when a robbery is botched and someone gets shot they won't steal anything because you want to run immediately. you're sheltered.
I can't prove a negative, but I am not sure where you got the idea that Seth was in a "perfect position to screw" the DNC over, nor the idea he was motivated to do so. His family has begged for years for conspiracy theorists like you to let this rest.
-Crowdstrike said it's likely someone internally hacked the server
-Seth Rich was in the position and time to do so and had a direct grudge against the DNC
-He was murdered almost around the exact same time the server was hacked in a wealthy area with no history of something like that ever happening.
You can come to other conclusions. I've come to mine. It's not certain of course, but it's the most likely with the information I have now. If you think it's more likely he was randomly murdered, that's possible but it's not the most likely.
You can come to any conclusion you'd like. Just like I can point out your obvious hypocrisy. You demand far more evidence from others than you present for your own stance. The Mueller Report and Senate Intelligence Report each investigated this allegation and found it to be non-credible [1].
Mueller Report:
"Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had made statements “designed to obscure” the source of the DNC leaks and of having “implied falsely” that Rich was his source."
Senate Intelligence Report:
"One narrative from Assange involved a conspiracy theory that Seth Rich, a DNC staffer killed in a botched robbery, was the source of the DNC email leak and had been murdered in response. On August 9, Assange gave an interview on Dutch television implying that Rich was the source of the DNC emails, and that day WikiLeaks announced that it would be issuing a reward for information about Rich’s murder. In a subsequent interview, Assange commented about the WikiLeaks interest in the Rich case as concerning “someone who’s potentially connected to our publication.”
The bipartisan Senate report was unequivocal about the factual basis for this theory: “The Committee found that no credible evidence supports this narrative.”"
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/senate-i...
bloomingdale, washington d.c., where he got shot, has a rate of robbery almost 4x the national average, and twice the murder rate.
There had been a string of armed robberies in the area, which residents had been complaining about.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/bloomingd... https://www.popville.com/2016/07/two-more-armed-robberies-in...
It also simply doesn't fit the mold of an assassination attempt. Seth Rich was shot (twice) in the back, not the head, without a silencer. In fact, he was conscious when police got there, and didn't succumb to his injuries until he was in the hospital 1.5 hours later.
Conspiracyland (https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY29...) did its season 1 on Seth Rich murder. I highly recommend it.
Jeffrey Epstein's body wasn't even cold before people were tying his death to the Clintons, claiming they had him killed to hide their involvement in his sex trafficking ring. It's just one of their go-to memes.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Body_Count
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clinton_Chronicles
"The fact that the Democratic Party employed the two private firms that generated the core allegations at the heart of Russiagate -- Russian email hacking and Trump-Russia collusion – suggests that the federal investigation was compromised from the start."
How does it "suggest" the investigation was compromised? I don't see the evidence.
He is forcing Assange to say "I will not reveal my sources as I am a journalist". Trump then gets to say he tried. The "media", especially any real journalists that take their profession seriously, will provide analysis that Assange is right for refusing. This gives Trump another opening to smear the media by portraying them as pro Assange, pro hacking and anti DNC.
Sure, there was a time on the 19th century when all American presidents were all like that. But the U.S. were a very different country back then, the Federal government was a lot less powerful.
Doesn’t help that we’ve had God Emperors like FDR.
The American president has also been mythologized. They’re calling all the shots and doing whatever. Unfortunately that means they can trample over the Constitution and only the opposing party usually cares.
The republicans didn't even ratify any policies at the RNC this year.
Obviously you have to support your guy, but if I said to you a majority / near-majority of the speakers at the convention were family and friends of the President would you think of a some backward state or the most powerful democracy in the world.
But yea the major party duopoly is gross and has been for a while now. The dynastic families are insufferable.
The tables are completely turned. America has become the country to show pity towards.
Unless America changes its way of governance this Fall, 4 more years and what exactly is the difference between America and Brazil?
I recall, probably in the 80's, an incident where the US government objected to a foreign aid organisation distributing food aid in the US on equal basis to the kind of food aid programs operated in third world countries.
Several European countries also refers to "American conditions" as a threat of chaos during political debates. E.g. I grew up in Norway, where the threat of "American conditions" was a common scare-tactic by the left to get people to oppose right wing policies. This was decades ago - the first threats of "American conditions dates back more than half a century.
This is because poorer countries have seen this story before. They didn't need a war to make them poor. Their incompetent leadership over years was enough.
My greatest fear is Trumpism is a harbinger for a half century or more of American instability and decline, the same way Peronism was.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/opinion/can-bal-keshav-th...
BUT I have to say that even in my 3rd world country, President/Prime Minister tier leaders rarely, if ever, succumb to the kind of rhetoric Trump uses. Usually, that's reserved for tier-2 leaders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
Italy, Turkey and Russia were pretty much not third world countries when that word had a political meaning.
Later on it became a synonym for developing world, which basically rules out most of the rest of your list, since Brazil, Argentina and Philippines aren't on that list either.
So I assume you just use it a slur, meaning that those countries have a dysfunctional political systems, with corrupted strongmen; ok, I guess; just say "corrupt, failed, authoritarian political systems"; third world brings too much baggage, needlessly insulting people who live in those countries and who produce vibrant economies that have nothing to do the perception of starving masses associated with the "third world" slur.
Just as much as Trump doesn't want Russia to have helped him become president, Assange doesn't want to be seen as an unwitting pawn of Russia.
Notably, "Guccifer 2.0"'s IP address was part of a block allocated to the GRU headquarters in Moscow. I seriously doubt that was an _accidental_ disclosure; it was an advertisement. It's an implicit threat to others.
(If you want to be ultra-pedantic this power is still vested in the monarch, but they can't use it without the direction of the Home Secretary, who in turn is bound by convention to generally almost never use it, and certainly not purely of their own initiative.)
I think you could divide uses of this power into a few categories:
- Righting past wrongs; pardoning people convicted under old laws now repealed and considered immoral - this is the primary use in most countries that retain a pardon.
- Influencing policy; pardoning people convicted under existing laws that the pardoner is personally opposed to - this happens in the US a bit.
- Electoral franchise; pardoning people to restore their right to vote - this one is mostly only US relevant, as most developed democracies (including large parts of the US) don't remove the franchise for this reason.
- Patronage - Pardoning personal friends/contributors/etc. This historically happened quite a lot in the US.
- Quid pro quo - Trump seems to be the main offender here.
(This isn't a political statement. I liked Obama, and I don't like Trump.)
I would have replied sooner but i'm being slowbanned. Mea culpa.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executi...
Most of Trump's appear to be pardons of notable people, often aligned with Trump, currently serving their sentence, and in the case of Stone actually convicted for activity relating to Trump. There are a few more traditional cases (eg Jack Johnson), but all in all they're two very different lists, showing a very different use of the power.
To be clear, I'm of the opinion that both are bad and that the power should be restricted to a judicial committee or similar, as elsewhere, but I do think these two cases are _different_.
I'm not saying this is for sure the case.. just that your comment smells of bias to me.
By the way, at the end of his first term, Obama had pardoned _17_ people. Expect a flood of pardons from Donald in January (or, if he's re-elected, in January 2025) as is traditional.
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2017/0120/On-Obama-s-l...
Go ahead and review Obama's pardons and check for bias. He had an extra 4 years to fill with a legacy of criminal justice reform and forgiveness. I see 1 entry for perjury, a 3 month sentence, and no entries of past employees, advisors, friends, or contacts who plead guilty to or were convicted of crimes connected to the president. Trump pardoned Stone after he literally threatened the judge involved in his case on social media, an open threat against the entire US justice system. Recently a NJ judge's house was attacked and family members killed by someone who took action on that type of threat.
Trump pardoned someone who threatened a judge AND was convicted of lying to protect Trump. Perhaps he should face a second round of impeachment for such abuses of power.
What about judges though? In Obama's last year, an election year, the Senate held open over 100 judge positions including refusing to even hear a SCotUS pick (Garland). Obama had 324 picks confirmed over 8 years or about 40 per year. Trump has had 194 in his 3.5 years including that open SCotUS seat plus 1 or about 55 per year, a nearly 40% increase over Obama. Also, many of these lifetime justices are young, promoted by right wing interest groups including pseudo campaigns for SCotUS seats, and often rated unqualified or unexperienced by various Bar associations which is not only unprecedented but an incredible overreach by the Senate. McConnell held open over 100 seats for Trump to fill but continues to confirm judges for an impeached president in an election year. These justices may have 40+ year careers as partisan hacks disrupting our legal system which already suffers from insane structural racism and inequality (both things Obama was tearing down until his last day on the job).
Trump has appointed 2 SCotUS justices (one who likes to boof and drink) and 40% more judges than Obama, year to year, even after his impeachment and during an election year.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/06/04/senate-obst...
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-c...
Even if "most" of Trump's pardons were "blatantly corrupt", the fact that he has pardoned those who could implicate him in crimes and corruption and not those with unjust sentences, evidence of innocence, or convicted of breaking laws no longer on the books is downright indefensible and an indictment of his character and corruption as well as blank check from the GOP to cover up hypocritically instilling partisan justices.
It's important to question things and come to your own, well research and evidence based views on issues and events. Some of us have extensive education or experience in reviewing history and politics so the information is readily available or easy to find and it is important to understand where systems are broken and where people are breaking systems that work well when run by honest citizens, like the USPS. Obama definitely had more pardons but also used the power with humility and a conscience to fight injustice, not to further his own ends and protect himself from investigation.
Obama pardoned 1 person for perjury and they weren't even connected to him.
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-pardons
Of all the things a ruler with unchecked power could do, I'd argue pardoning people is possibly the least dangerous. "Oh no, please help me, the evil dictator is going around flagrantly pardoning people, hope he doesn't pardon me!"
I wish I still wondered where this vehement hatred for innocent victims of the state comes from...
In fact, in _very_ corrupt systems, it is common to put people you need something from in legal jeopardy _for the purpose_ of dangling a pardon to get the thing you wanted in the first place. To be clear, I don't think that's the case here; Trump was attempting to get a quid pro quo but probably didn't set up the initial situation.
[0] https://theintercept.com/2018/11/16/as-the-obama-doj-conclud...
Many later Republics (eg Ireland) inherited from monarchist systems with more of a ceremonial role for the king, and presidents tend to have more of a ceremonial role too.
Anyway, to various extents and with lots of caveats... Presidents have the power to pardon in a lot of democratic countries. In Ireland, for example, the power is constitutionally with the President, but in practice the power is with the government/parliament.
Whatever the details, pardons (and clemencies) are a necessary device. Even courts need check valves and this is a way of checking courts without harming the court as an institution. Yes, it is open to abuse, but on balance I do think it's necessary.
I agree that this sounds like an ugly politicisation... but everything about the Assange case is highly politicised. The content of the offense publishing politically damaging information about parties, politicians, defense and intelligence bodies. There have been tactical indictments in multiple countries. Secretive proceedings. Etc.
This was never a case where blind justice reigns pristine. It's an inevitably political shitshow.
For analogy, think of US impeachment. It's an obviously political, and whether or not the President has enough friends in Congress matters more than evidence. It's a whole lot better than nothing though. If you want to see what not having anything looks like, you can look at the shitshow going on in Israel currently.
Sometimes you need a way around standard rules. Standard rules exist for a reason, and bypasses aren't without a cost... but I do think they're necessary.
While this is generally true, France is a weird case; it was a parliamentary democracy for a bit! The current semi-presidential setup is pretty new.
> Whatever the details, pardons (and clemencies) are a necessary device. Even courts need check valves and this is a way of checking courts without harming the court as an institution. Yes, it is open to abuse, but on balance I do think it's necessary.
Sure, but it shouldn't be at the behest of one person. It's fine if it is ceremonially, as in the UK and Ireland cases, but not if it is _in fact_.
In any case, aside from motivations, I think this is the sort of case where pardons should be considered. There were a lot of shenanigans. Motivations, political involvement, tactical levers (legal, espionage-ish, diplomatic..) that can't (won't, at least) be revealed. These are the kinds of situations for which pardons exist.
We must stay TOGETHER in demanding a pardon, rather than indefinite detention meant to keep him quiet. We must not allow this to get dragged into the political culture wars.
Edit: thankfully the headline has been changed.
I'm not sure why it wouldn't.
Not everything that the mainstream culture war has picked up as its touchstones is actually about the mainstream culture war.
Shoehorning leaking of data, by a hacker, about corrupt governments into the standard (and frankly boring) left/right US culture war is one of the most obvious examples of this ridiculous phenomenon.
Regardless of your political affiliation, the world is a better place that this information is public.
In its purest form, I'm inclined to agree with you.
But I think Assange is more of a tool than a tool-user. He's a launderer of information provided by parties with an agenda.
This might be inevitable, given the players, but it doesn't make it pure or honest.
Also I think he injects a lot of personal agenda into his curation of released information. This opens him up for legitimate criticism, just like any other activist or politician.
https://www.2600.com/hackedphiles/current/idsoft/
The future is not bright for him nor his followers. People who it seems are too blinded by their hatred of others to notice their noses being cut off right in front of their own eyes...
You mean the people so blinded by hatred that they attack, burn and destroy the shops and residences of uninvolved parties? The people so blinded by hatred they can't even give the president credit for making peace between multiple middle eastern countries, and bringing back the soldiers that have been reponsible for thousands of innocent deaths there? The people who march down streets chanting "fuck you Jesus!"?
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Learning, with your eyes and ears wide open will help you tremendously with your life, your relationships and your business success.
Could you point me to the part in US history that shows rioting and destroying innocent people's lives and property is not an act of hatred?
I guess it is pretty typical that the establishment doesn't want to understand or acknowledge the real reasons for why rioters are upset, they'd rather smear them and keep things the way they are.
The people involved in that did not go around destroying the property of random uninvolved shopkeepers, it was specifically a rebellion against the English.
What is always true is that the establishment wants to maintain the current order. They don't want to understand or accommodate the malcontents. Instead they smear and continue to oppress them.
In the case of the recent riots, there is a large segment of white america that want to see blacks kept down, and are happy for the police to do their dirty work. That's why there are protests, and that's also why there are riots - different people expressing their anger and frustration in their own ways.
Start with the US revolution... and then find your way up through the 20th century. There are thousands of instances.
I'd argue it's still a better outcome than if only one side is allowed to make broad generalizations about groups based on small groups of extremists within it, while the other side is silenced.
- Ignoring "facts and logic"
- Suppressing free speech
- Being hateful
- Blindly following mainstream media
- Being agents of foreign influence
Did you see the part where the person calling all Trump supporters full of hate was upvoted while the comments I made highlighting some hateful acts by non-Trump-supporters was heavily downvoted? Maybe not literal silencing, but seems people here would definitely rather only hear one side of the story.
https://xkcd.com/1357/
There is a tremendous difference between silencing, disagreeing with someone, and only listening to one side of the story.
Regardless, one can support the policies of the GOP and not the man. And that is the problem here. People supporting the man in spite of the facts.
So who is blind in that scenario? Those who cite facts or those who stick to their guns regardless?
"don't cast your pearls before swine" and all that. Why waste the energy having a detailed discussion with someone who has preconceived biases and won't listen anyways?
I'll list some of the less fanciful of those that many Americans agree with.
-"Made in America" Tax Credits
-Return to [covid] Normal in 2021
-Make All Critical Medicines and Supplies for Healthcare Workers in The United States
-Tax Credits for Companies that Bring Back Jobs from China
-Allow 100% Expensing Deductions for Essential Industries like Pharmaceuticals and Robotics who Bring Back their Manufacturing to the United States
-No Federal Contracts for Companies who Outsource to China
-Cut Prescription Drug Prices
-Lower Healthcare Insurance Premiums
-Cover All Pre-Existing Conditions
-End Surprise Billing
-Provide School Choice to Every Child in America
-Teach American Exceptionalism
-Pass Congressional Term Limits
-Fully Fund and Hire More Police and Law Enforcement Officers
-Increase Criminal Penalties for Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers
-Block Illegal Immigrants from Becoming Eligible for Taxpayer-Funded Welfare, Healthcare, and Free College Tuition
-Mandatory Deportation for Non-Citizen Gang Members
-Require New Immigrants to Be Able to Support Themselves Financially
-Launch Space Force, Establish Permanent Manned Presence on The Moon and Send the First Manned Mission to Mars
-Stop Endless Wars and Bring Our Troops Home
-Get Allies to Pay their Fair Share
-Continue nominating constitutionalist Supreme Court and lower court judges
-Support the exercise of Second Amendment rights
Now you may say, those are just words, they mean nothing. Well during his term he did a reasonable job of sticking to his campaign promises: tax cuts, bans on Chinese companies like Huawei and Tiktok and higher tariffs with China, sanctioning Chinese officials in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, withdrawing troops back from the Middle East, negotiating pharmaceutical discounts, even building the stupid wall to limit illegal immigration.
Recently there are three issues in particular that attract many people to him compared to Biden: he's seen as anti-covid-lockdowns, he's not going to try and take away their guns, and he's pro law-and-order, so they think if he wins he'll send in national police to stop the ongoing riots.
Wow. I cant even begin to unwind your skewed propaganda with actual facts but no that none of those things you cited are factually correct. Not one.
What country do you call home? Curious how you fall for propaganda without question or research. Where are you? And why do you think you have any place in this conversation?
I'm sorry, does being American give you some special privileged access to American news that foreigners aren't allowed to see? I see the same news you do, interact with the same people online that you do. Facts don't change regardless of where you live; ethics doesn't change regardless of where you live.
>And using his own campaign site as fact???
The question was about his policies; what better source of his policies could there be than the actual site where he officially announces his policies?
Please do keep in mind that while it may be "half the US population" (it's not), it's definitely not half the world population. An absolute majority of the world is looking at the USA in utter disgust.
This is literally the exact same thing Trump supporters say about Democrats, that they only reason with emotion and can't use facts or logic.
>Please do keep in mind that while it may be "half the US population" (it's not), it's definitely not half the world population. An absolute majority of the world is looking at the USA in utter disgust.
He's actually relatively popular in India (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/08/how-people-...), and also in China (can't find a better source than https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Trump-popular-in-China, but if you know many mainland Chinese you could ask them), which make up a significant chunk of the global population.
In the US it's generally true on both sides, because your politics are ridiculously "team" centric.
A lot of democrats can't be reasoned with, with regards to their party's policies. The major difference is that the Trump "camp" takes it to an absurd level of cognitive dissonance and at this point, either you know what I'm talking about already, or it's not worth my time and energy to explain it here (sorry).
How mature. I stand by my statement. People are willingly cutting off their own noses to spite their face...
I wish you luck overcoming your hatred and bias. Your life will become infinity better when you stop repeating and start investigating.
"Internet armies" is very real, not some conspiracy.
It was weird, because news started out as a blend of neutral/positive/negative when the issue was first known. Then suddenly--and not only on reddit--within 30 minutes of a Chelsea Manning topic being posted anywhere, it would have an absurd number of outrageous, angry responses.
The same happened with Assange news. Sometimes even Snowden.