Current Affairs General US politics (ie, not POTUS related)

[tsubaki]

Well this isnt terrifying at all. The man who will control twitter has gone down the Qanon, Extreme Right wing rabbit hole. How long before he accuses Dems of satan worshiping peadophilia

The problem is that some of that (not the Hunter Biden one) is true - Weinstein stories really were killed by these papers / media outlets.

 

[Ghost Rider]

The problem is that some of that (not the Hunter Biden one) is true - Weinstein stories really were killed by these papers / media outlets.

*Swoops in*

The laptop story was true as well and has been confirmed since by the Washington post as being true. It's also true that Twitter and Facebook actively prevented any sharing of the story , weeks before the election.

*Swoops out*

 

[summerisle]

 

[BlueTX]

I wasn't aware of the leaks in the original decision. I fished my copy of Woodward and Armstrong off the shelf, and confirmed that there's nary a peep about it. This just confirmed to me that the take of the press cannot be trusted when it comes to the issue of the leaking of confidential documents.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favor of people like Daniel Ellsberg and Jeffrey Wigand being protected. I just think that the nature of what is being leaked matters, and that leaks which involve private discussions of the issues rather than deception of the public at large are ultimately corrosive to democracy. If people can't have open and honest discussions about what they really want behind the scenes, bargaining breaks down and everything becomes political posturing. I would be against Assange and his views of transparency (eg: diplomatic cables) and pro-Snowden as a consequence.

I would agree that the Court's legitimacy has largely been stripped away by the actions of the GOP, and the case of Merrick Garland in particular. The two most influential justices of the Warren Court (Warren and Brennan) were appointed by Eisenhower. This is totally different. I wouldn't characterize the Court as out of touch to the degree of the House of Lords - there are some outstanding people on the Court right now - but the current conservative coalition is wildly out of step with America as a whole.

One does not summon the FBI to conduct an investigation unless one is serious about bringing some legitimacy to whatever sanctions are handed down, and the findings. I think Roberts is either as furious as Burger reportedly was, or plans to use them to legitimize deception that he conducts by controlling the flow of information to them.

One quibble. The FBI was summoned to investigate multiple claims against nominee Brett Kavanaugh. My bet is the Roberts call for a similar investigation will be conducted just as thoroughly. That is to say, we will likely get a Sargent Shultz-level blind eye.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

*Swoops in*

The laptop story was true as well and has been confirmed since by the Washington post as being true. It's also true that Twitter and Facebook actively prevented any sharing of the story , weeks before the election.

*Swoops out*

lol Are you an owl

 

[FrenchDarrenBent]

If only Rush Limbaugh was alive to witness this glorious day.

 

[BlueTX]

lol Are you an owl

He's clearly a hoot.

 

[Martin Alvito]

One quibble. The FBI was summoned to investigate multiple claims against nominee Brett Kavanaugh. My bet is the Roberts call for a similar investigation will be conducted just as thoroughly. That is to say, we will likely get a Sargent Shultz-level blind eye.

There wasn't anything to find in a decades-old he-said-she-said cold case. That type of case is notoriously hard to prove in the best of circumstances. Ask my sister. If there had been a pattern, they would have found it. If they had tried to cover that up, someone would have leaked it.

 

[Tin-Tin]

Cant see anything changing but it at least puts Senators on record. Wonder what Collins will do?

 

[tsubaki]

*Swoops in*

The laptop story was true as well and has been confirmed since by the Washington post as being true. It's also true that Twitter and Facebook actively prevented any sharing of the story , weeks before the election.

*Swoops out*

I think you are confusing what “true” refers to here. The story was that Biden lied about his business contacts / he was corrupt, which still hasn’t been proved.

What was confirmed was that the laptop had been recovered from the store and some of the emails appeared genuine. That it wasn’t automatically believed at the top me shouldn’t surprise anyone, given the timing, who was involved and so on.

 

[wm02]

As for the source of the leak, follow the money. It’s whoever sells those ghastly pink hats.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I don't think there's any denying the role race plays in power dynamics in America.

Idi Amin was notorioulsy brutal to Christian tribes in Uganda during his time as well.

I don't think it's about race, at the end of the day. It's about money and power. It's about the influence of redlining, slavery and Jim Crow when it comes to asset creation. It's about our property value-based system for funding primary and secondary education, which was (and is) influenced by those things. It's about our pay-to-play legal system, and organizations from corporations to schools to police departments not wanting to write liability checks, irrespective of the color of the victim.

OJ Simpson walked in front of a jury by throwing enough money at the problem. Bill Cosby is a free man, on a technicality.

Our legal and political systems are much like our corporations. They see one color: green. If you want to argue that we built systems to systematically hinder wealth creation by African-Americans, thus denying the vast majority of them civil liberties and equal protection under the law, I'm not going to argue with that. If you want to argue there are plenty of people that are systematically racist on both sides of the divide, I'm not going to argue with that either.

If we want to break the cycle, first we need to collectively understand what the issues actually are. The story is as old as time itself - those with power and money perpetuating possession by oppressing those without.

 

[Lobster Johnson]

I don't think it's about race, at the end of the day. It's about money and power. It's about the influence of redlining, slavery and Jim Crow when it comes to asset creation. It's about our property value-based system for funding primary and secondary education, which was (and is) influenced by those things. It's about our pay-to-play legal system, and organizations from corporations to schools to police departments not wanting to write liability checks, irrespective of the color of the victim.

OJ Simpson walked in front of a jury by throwing enough money at the problem. Bill Cosby is a free man, on a technicality.

Our legal and political systems are much like our corporations. They see one color: green. If you want to argue that we built systems to systematically hinder wealth creation by African-Americans, thus denying the vast majority of them civil liberties and equal protection under the law, I'm not going to argue with that. If you want to argue there are plenty of people that are systematically racist on both sides of the divide, I'm not going to argue with that either.

If we want to break the cycle, first we need to collectively understand what the issues actually are. The story is as old as time itself - those with power and money perpetuating possession by oppressing those without.

I would agree with the vast majority of that. To oversimplify my take on it, I would say that whilst all poor people look the same to the rich, it would probably suck more (systematically speaking) to be poor and of colour than to be poor and white. Not that it's a competition.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I would agree with the vast majority of that. To oversimplify my take on it, I would say that whilst all poor people look the same to the rich, it would probably suck more (systematically speaking) to be poor and of colour than to be poor and white. Not that it's a competition.

I would actually argue the converse: someone who is poor and white in America is worse off along most issue areas. They lack organized advocacy, affirmative action and the ability to have injustices perpetrated against them feed into established media storylines.

The big exception to that general trend is the safety issue. A poor black person is more likely to live someplace where the police is functionally a hostile occupying army in their neighborhood, and behaves accordingly.

Which situation is "worse" then depends on your preferences over risk, and is a question that therefore lacks an objective answer.

 

[neil999]

Apart from the horrific nature of this, its certainly going to dissuade ppl from wanting to work/live in america from abroad