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US Politics: The Ides of Mueller


Paladin of Ice

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2 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I dont see how one could honestly come to any other conclusion at this point. This is high treason were looking at.

And if its allowed to stand, the citizenry may be correct to view the Trump administration as a beligerant occupying regime in our country. We are under seige at this very moment imo.

It's not treason per the laws of the United States. Treason is making war on the U.S, or "adhering to its enemies". However, "enemies" is defined in law as fairly narrow: nations that have declared war on the U.S. or are involved in open warfare against it. We are not at war with Russia by any conventional sense of the word, no more than we are at war with China.

It's certainly disloyal, but it's not treason.

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4 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I dont see how one could honestly come to any other conclusion at this point. This is high treason were looking at.

And if its allowed to stand, the citizenry may be correct to view the Trump administration as a beligerant occupying regime in our country. We are under seige at this very moment imo.

I concur with the gentleman.

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11 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I dont see how one could honestly come to any other conclusion at this point. This is high treason were looking at.

And if its allowed to stand, the citizenry may be correct to view the Trump administration as a beligerant occupying regime in our country. We are under seige at this very moment imo.

As Bannon is quoted saying in the Guardian Cambridge Analytica expose, he does see himself an cohorts making war on the US and using illegal data gathering  to change the nation's culture as the best weapon in the armory.  War and weapons are his words.

It's certainly how the German Nationalist party, the German Nationalist Workers Party, etc. operated in the 1920's and 30's -- right down to planting false news (as they called it) in news outlets in every country as well as Germany and Austria.

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With all the justified outrage over Cambridge Analytica, I somehow feel the urge to point out, that people are not really talking enough about Facebook's business model in this context, and in general. The evil genius of facebook was to get people to give up their rights to privacy and voluntarily share their (most) personal data with a company for free. If you think about it, if some random guy knocked at your door and asked you all the personal stuff you happily gave to facebook you would probably slam the door in his face (best case). For facebook users here. You have made that faustian deal and you have fed that kraken. So you kinda share some small bit of responsibility.

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2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Given the extent this investigation has exhibited thus far, I am not sure it that it can reach a state where all leads are exhausted within a reasonable time (e.g. one decade). This isn't about Trump and Russia anymore, it's about anything and anyone even vaguely related to Trump and there's a whole lot of these entities.

There is no possible way you, I, or anyone outside Mueller's staff knows the extent of the leads they are pursuing, why they are doing so, nor have even a vague estimation of how long it will take until those leads are exhausted.

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50 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I dont see how one could honestly come to any other conclusion at this point. This is high treason were looking at.

And if its allowed to stand, the citizenry may be correct to view the Trump administration as a beligerant occupying regime in our country. We are under seige at this very moment imo.

I have a suggestion. Why not wait and  see what the Mueller investigation comes up with first and then you can decide.  Our system is premised  on the idea of Innocent until proven guilty,  is it not?

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14 minutes ago, Notone said:

With all the justified outrage over Cambridge Analytica, I somehow feel the urge to point out, that people are not really talking enough about Facebook's business model in this context, and in general. The evil genius of facebook was to get people to give up their rights to privacy and voluntarily share their (most) personal data with a company for free. If you think about it, if some random guy knocked at your door and asked you all the personal stuff you happily gave to facebook you would probably slam the door in his face (best case). For facebook users here. You have made that faustian deal and you have fed that kraken. So you kinda share some small bit of responsibility.

I'm sorry but this is truly stupid.

It falls under the category of "if she hadn't worn that mini-skirt she wouldn't have been raped".

 

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I've been somewhat puzzled the last week as Republican talking head after Republican talking head has compared McCabe with General Flynn, repeatedly saying "what McCabe did was much much worse".

Finally the penny dropped. McCabe has lost his pension while Flynn has kept his.

And they were making the comparison days before the firing. The WH must have sent around the talking points, no?

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2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Finally the penny dropped. McCabe has lost his pension while Flynn has kept his.

Robert Hansen got his pension despite almost two decades of spying for the Soviets, for that matter.

The McCabe situation stinks to high heaven.

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Just now, Fragile Bird said:

I'm sorry but this is truly stupid.

It falls under the category of "if she hadn't worn that mini-skirt she wouldn't have been raped".

Excuse, but now I am not sure in which category of stupid analogy this falls.

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48 minutes ago, Ran said:

It's not treason per the laws of the United States. Treason is making war on the U.S, or "adhering to its enemies". However, "enemies" is defined in law as fairly narrow: nations that have declared war on the U.S. or are involved in open warfare against it. We are not at war with Russia by any conventional sense of the word, no more than we are at war with China.

It's certainly disloyal, but it's not treason.

The case may be made that Trump has given aid to a country (Russia) that had destructive intent and actions against the U.S.

It could be argued that this meets the requirement to adhering to an enemy. per the definition youve shared.

 

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15 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

I have a suggestion. Why not wait and  see what the Mueller investigation comes up with first and then you can decide.  Our system is premised  on the idea of Innocent until proven guilty,  is it not?

I dont know what system your under, im a citizen of the U.S. and Donald Trump has publicly committed obstruction of justice in plain sight already. When we witness the crime we arent in need of waiting for results to speak truth to power.

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20 minutes ago, Notone said:

With all the justified outrage over Cambridge Analytica, I somehow feel the urge to point out, that people are not really talking enough about Facebook's business model in this context, and in general. The evil genius of facebook was to get people to give up their rights to privacy and voluntarily share their (most) personal data with a company for free. If you think about it, if some random guy knocked at your door and asked you all the personal stuff you happily gave to facebook you would probably slam the door in his face (best case). For facebook users here. You have made that faustian deal and you have fed that kraken. So you kinda share some small bit of responsibility.

When most of us registered on facebook, we knew that we shouldn't put private information on our profile, but probably didn't think about the information that could be provided indirectly (like what link you "like", or who you talk to).
And even if we could think about that, it was widely assumed that such information would be used for commercial purposes. I think it's fair to say no one expected this kind of data to be used for purely political purposes.

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6 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I dont know what system your under, im a citizen of the U.S. and Donald Trump has publicly committed obstruction of justice in plain sight already. When we witness the crime we arent in need of waiting for results to speak truth to power.

Several of Trump's declarations can indeed be considered to be breaches of American law on some level or the other.

And anyway we aren't part of the US judicial system nor are we journalists so we have no obligation to respect presumption of innocence.
I can say that Trump has laundered money for the Russian mob if I want to, as it has zero consequences.

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11 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

 

I can say that Trump has laundered money for the Russian mob if I want to, as it has zero consequences.

If you didn’t have evidence, you might get sued for libel.

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43 minutes ago, Notone said:

With all the justified outrage over Cambridge Analytica, I somehow feel the urge to point out, that people are not really talking enough about Facebook's business model in this context, and in general. The evil genius of facebook was to get people to give up their rights to privacy and voluntarily share their (most) personal data with a company for free. If you think about it, if some random guy knocked at your door and asked you all the personal stuff you happily gave to facebook you would probably slam the door in his face (best case). For facebook users here. You have made that faustian deal and you have fed that kraken. So you kinda share some small bit of responsibility.

Some people, like myself have been talking about this very thing for years, and everyone shrugged.  It was more important to stay in touch NOW with people whom they'd happily forgotten existed entirely for years.  I have always been a FB refusnik and for all these reasons.

However, what FB collaborated with Cambridge Analytica goes fare beyond the fine print in their contracts re privacy, data gathering and the rest.  They've also lied / denied all along that their platform that was deliberately constructed to harvest data and sell the user had anything to do with anything -- while reaping profits from pushed ads, fake news etc. in favor of violence, hate, white supremacy, sexism -- you name it, they were profiting from it.  Their excuse was people kill people, guns don't.  Our platform is totally innocent and isn't even media.

 

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25 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I dont know what system your under, im a citizen of the U.S. and Donald Trump has publicly committed obstruction of justice in plain sight already. When we witness the crime we arent in need of waiting for results to speak truth to power.

Damn right!  And we in this city have been watching this jerk and his family and his cohorts committing crimes and other equally pernicious, malicious and vicious acts all their lives.

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7 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

If you didn’t have evidence, you might get sued for libel.

Not in this country -- libel laws are different here than in the UK, where so many were always concerned with protection of the upper classes being made fun of by the lower, and even just catching them in lies.

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31 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I think it's fair to say no one expected this kind of data to be used stolen for purely political purposes.

fify

As for FB, I'm on FB and have never given them much as far as personal info, not  who I work for, not my phone number, they have my bd tho.  The scary part is that my profile could have been stolen so easily, and what did FB do about it?  Nothing really.  I cringe when my nieces put so much info on FB, so many pictures of their children and other stuff.  FB and other social media seems to have become one big show and tell and privacy seems to have faded.  scary

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