John McAfee Pondering Presidential Bid
An anonymous reader writes: Since this U.S. presidential election cycle clearly isn't chaotic enough already, it seems John McAfee is now considering a campaign as well. Wired reports that McAfee hasn't decided for sure yet, and he's hoping to persuade somebody more charismatic to run with his backing. He said his advisors are pressing him to run, adding, "I have many thousands of emails saying please run for President. It's not something I would just choose to do on my own." What would his platform be? It actually sounds pretty simple: "It's clear that the leadership of our country is illiterate on the fundamental technology that supports everything in life for us now, that is cyber science, our smartphones, our military hardware, our communications." He'd be a strong proponent for privacy and autonomy. We should know in a few days whether McAfee is in or out — Wired says he "seems far more concerned with having his voice heard on one particular issue than with taking a seat in the Oval Office."
Something seems to have changed his mind about politics: in a 2014 interview here, McAfee said. "I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot." According to the paperwork McAfee has filed, he is founding a new party (PDF).
I want to know which party he'd run under. Or if he would be independent.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Doesn't the President need a security clearance?
Can someone who ran a drug lab get a security clearance? I think they ask specifically about drug use if you apply for a security clearance.
This is a front page story.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Most of the other candidates are batshiat crazy, why not throw John into that mix?
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Yep, I know I'd want a guy who's voluntarily played Russian Roulette to occupy the presidency. No wonder he wants to emphasize who he'd run with, or who'd run in his place.
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
Business leaders should spend at least 4 years as a representative in Congress or a state governor in my opinion, and show aptitude there. Running government and dealing with politics is too different from the private sector. You have to learn how to compromise and persuade, not just order around underlings to carry out your vision your way.
This also applies to Trump, Carly, and Carson.
Table-ized A.I.
I wonder if he has also reconsidered his position on driving a nail through his foot?
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
What the hell. I'd vote for McAfee before I vote for Trump. If Trump can run, why not McAfee?
Its only illegal if you don't get caught
Wasn't he a fugitive from murder charges, and also not born in the US. Only slightly better presidential option than Trump.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Who cares if anyone runs without backing from either side of The Party? It's not like anyone who wasn't part of the DemReps was elected president in the past century and a half.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I thought that felons were ineligible to run for the US Presidency.
?
It's free, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to install it.
If McAfee is installed in the White House, do we havet/get to renew his subscription every year?
Time to fight fire with fire, McAfee is the only bloated slow unusable solution for our governments problems
I don't believe John McAfee is running for president. He's so tripped out from the bath salts that he probably thinks he's ordering Thai food from an Irish pub on a dare his talking gorillacorn (yes, that's half gorilla, half unicorn) made.
Mod me down, I shall become more off-topic than you could possibly imagine.
Maybe the US should just consider picking someone at random. Just write a program that takes all adults that meet the criteria for president (age, born in the US, etc) and select one. Can't be worse than what's going on now. And as a added bonus US carbon emissions will plummet since there won't be all of the campaigning.
Larry Lessig is looking for a running mate, so that he can resign in favor of the VP after reforming the electoral system.
I'm gonna need a spec.
He meets all of the qualifications to run.... ...and he could even pardon himself for that murder in Belize... ...but lacks all the skills necessary to represent 319 million US Citizens.
Still... it would be the quickest way to get the Executive (including the DoJ)
to lay off pot... and he's not as loony as Donald Trump.
E
They need a lot of prep time to have a hope of challenging President Trump in 2020.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
As insane as this sounds, I would love to watch a debate between McAfee and Trump. I think it would be some form of epic.
Nevermore.
McAfee as president? This isn't even funny. McAfee is just about certifiable, In fact about all that keeps him out of a publicly funded mental institution is his money. Should he run out of money, he would be locked up in pretty short order for either breaking the law or being a danger to himself and others.
Where I understand the general "we hate politicians" bent in this country right now, can we please stick with supporting people who are something more than just bombastic loudmouths who say outrageous things, even if we think they generally give lip service to our pet issues? What this country needs is a bit of carefully thought out leadership by somebody who isn't beholden to either their ego or the people who fund their campaigns. An outsider perhaps, but one who isn't going to drive us headlong into stuff by being driven by their egos to say stupid things and act rashly. This ISN'T McAfee...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I think you mean "Compete" and not "Contend".
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
I like John... but my vote would hinge on his selection of a VP.
Sadly the VP selection is so late in the game that I cannot convince myself
that knowing what I need to know when I need to know it is very much
in doubt.
I would like to keep the Electoral College and change primary laws to
address a team from the get go.
The EC may prove to to be out best check and balance in this upcoming popularity poll.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Also on the form are some other very interesting names, including... http://www.fec.gov/press/resou... Harry Potter MLG Jesus Dog Lord Lord Freiza Jeffrey Dahmer Forrest Gump
And a gram up every backside!
Since we know for a fact that Obama came to earth from Krypton, any birth certificate is ipso facto a forgery.
Why? We need a real man...
Says the guy posting as an AC
Business leaders should spend at least 4 years as a representative in Congress or a state governor in my opinion, and show aptitude there. Running government and dealing with politics is too different from the private sector. You have to learn how to compromise and persuade, not just order around underlings to carry out your vision your way.
That's a bunch of "nice to have"s. But making it a requirement would be an arbitrary limit on the citizens' ability to elect a candidate of their choice. Sorry, I can't support it.
Between the constitutional limits on who can be president (natural-born, 14-year resident, 35 years or more of age, hasn't held the office for two terms already, and hasn't been convicted in a federal impeachment), and the de facto arbitrary limits by the two major parties' lock on the electoral process, we already have enough limits, thank you.
(Additionally, a requirement that someone has already succeeded in running the congressional-election gauntlet, twice, in the party-dominated electoral process, would give the established parties yet another lock on their control of the government. It would make reform movements nearly impossible, delay them by four to six years, and give the parties four years notice who the potential candidate(s) were and four years opportunity to spike them.)
If the people are convinced that congressional service, or other political officeholding, is a requirement, they are free not to vote for anyone who "doesn't qualify". On the other hand, they are also free to elect anyone they want, even a convicted crook (or some anti-establishent figure convicted of some trumped-up bull-bleep in an attempt to keep him from bothering the current power structure), as long as they pass the handful of constitutional qualifications.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I wonder what Peter Norton is up to these days?
Run as a Libertarian or as a Democrat. Since Biden may not run, and Hilary is imploding, that's the best opportunity
Among people who understand what McAfee software was intended to do, the Lessig/Sanders ticket probably has that demographic tied up.
I know I'd want a guy who's voluntarily played Russian Roulette to occupy the presidency.
What's wrong with a little bit of gambling with a toy gun?
A vote for Mickey Mouse is a vote for Bob Iger, and a vote for Bob Iger is a vote for copyright maximalist idiocy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
He has my vote.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
It's clear that the leadership of our country is illiterate on the fundamental technology ...
Yes, there is no doubt that most politicians in most countries know pretty little about technology, science, maths, medicine etc. Being a successful politician - and even more, being a successful president - requires skills that are very far removed from what it takes to be a good engineer. They may not be skills that we as engineers appreciate or admire, but that is to some degree because we simply don't have those skills. And of course, in recognition of that, they have advisors to help them make decisions in those areas. A good politician or president is not necessarily someone who knows everything, but somebody who knows how little he understands, who is able to find good advisors and listens to them.
The same thing can be said about business leaders - just because you have been able to build up a big company and made a lot of money, it doesn't mean that you have any of the skills that would make you a good politician. In a democracy, you need to be able to make people believe that you are the right person for the job and that you will be able to unite the nation and work for the benefit of everybody, even your opponents.
Would be WIIIIIDE OPEN! Free pot to the disadvantaged, so he'd have the poor vote and the tech vote.
Free birth control of all kinds, so he'd have the women's vote.
Sounds like he could win!
"Sometimes the truth is stupid." - Lawrence, creator of Prime Intellect
McAfee is just about certifiable, In fact about all that keeps him out of a publicly funded mental institution is his money.
You mean like Trump?
That's how money is. That's how presidential candidates are. The last decent man of a president we had was Carter. Since then it's been career politicians who lie to you as easy as they look at you. If we somehow end up with Trump then we get the first obviously insane president since the later Reagan years, that would be entertaining. I actually bothered to register to vote so I could support Bernie, though. I don't know if he has a chance to win, or change anything substantive if he does, but it didn't cost me anything.
I did, however, register as a member of the Scorched Earth party. Because fuck the democrap party as much as the republiscams. Yeah, I said that immature shit. Fuck 'em both anyway. I'd rather make a statement than align myself with either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What? Now I have coffee all over my desk.... Carter? Where you even alive then? I remember the national speed limit, gas rationing and the brain dead energy policies he put in place.
Until the current administration, Carter was the worst president in history and was a career politician like the rest since then. His foreign policy was a disaster (curiously with Iran and the middle east in tatters by the time he left office) and his economic policy a total failure during his term in office (curiously like we have now) which prolonged the recession we fell into as he took office. He may have been too little of a politician actually, who was prone to say stupid things which just shouldn't have been said.
Carter may have been a nice guy, but he was a horrible president... I salute him for his activities since leaving office, but IN office he was a disaster.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The last decent man of a president we had was Carter.
Carter may have been a nice guy, but he was a horrible president...
Thanks for agreeing with me. You could have done it with a shorter comment.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For someone with a proven track record, we could always nominate Hans Reiser.
Have gnu, will travel.
Still, you made me wipe my desk down this morning...
Being a "nice guy" does not preclude one from doing stupid stuff and in Carter's case one could argue his "nice guy" image was actually a problem for him as a leader. Personally, I don't believe leaders can be like Carter and be effective.
Also, I think you are discounting the last Bush... He seemed like a nice guy to me... Don't get me started on Romney, who was a *really* nice guy, who got pillaged by the press for being a mean rich white guy when it really wasn't true. Yes he had made a lot of money, yes he was white, but he wasn't what the press and his opponent portrayed him as.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
McAfee said. "I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot."
But... I could actaully see him doing that. Just once to experience the sensation of it.