Slashdot Mirror
Trump Is Looking at Plans For a Global Network of Private Spies (vice.com)
David Gilbert, writing for Vice: The White House is reportedly looking at a proposal to create a ghost network of private spies in hostile countries -- a way of bypassing the intelligence community's "deep state," which Donald Trump believes is a threat to his administration. The network would report directly to the president and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and would be developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, according to multiple current and former officials speaking to The Intercept. "Pompeo can't trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him," a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals told the website. Described as "totally off the books," the network would be run by intelligence contractor Amyntor Group and would not share any data with the traditional intelligence community.
The U.S. government is becoming more and more corrupt.
Then he's not really doing a good job of directing it, is he?
Uh, isn't this the same reasoning that led to the creation of the SS in the 20s?
What could possibly go wrong?
Ask me how the Heisenberg Principle may or may not have saved my life.
Trump continues to go down the hole to hell further and faster.
America NEEDS mueller to really get on this probe. There is little doubt that Trump committed treason, but now, he is going off the deep end.
THis is exactly how dictators operate and need to be stopped.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You cannot tolerate your president trying to build a power structure outside the one constrained by your Constitution unless you WANT a dictatorship.
He's already tried to bring the FBI and court system to heel (including at least twice now declaring himself above the law), he's expressed an interest in controlling the media to ensure it aligns with his wishes (and taken a few practical steps in that direction), and now he's going to create a new intelligence service that is under his direct control?
Just how far does this guy have to go before he lacks the support to continue?
Yet they have been corroborated a gazillion times and are, unusually, one of the most trusted sources of relevant information these days. Gonzo style journalism sux at first, but it has a "raison d'etre" that sinks in pretty damn fast.
This is the making of a secret police agency that doesn't have any oversight from lawful civil authority (courts, Congress). This idea needs to be shut down. Hard.
So Trump wants us to run two completely independent intelligence networks? How is this not insanely wasteful? What happened to those small government principles?
And here is the kicker:
The group reportedly brought in former Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North to sell the idea to Trump.
Their salesman is going to be the poster boy for corruption in the military. The only reason he's not a felon is a technicality, and he admitted his wrongdoing in front of Congress.
I want to believe this is total bullshit. It's coming from Vice, so maybe it's safe to ignore it for the time being.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Who would be stupid enough to do something like this?
Trump can't even keep his mouth shut long enough to save himself from criminal liability or resist to the urge to give Russian government the location of U.S. nuclear submarines.
Any spy who reports directly to trump is a dead man walking.
This is basically a private secret police agency with no lawful oversight from the courts and Congress. Awful idea.
Intelligence gathered by private spies financed by Trump donors, targeting areas like Iran and North Korea
The best "intelligence" money can buy. Would be a shame if the intelligence leads us into an unnecessary war. A real $hame.
How is this legal? No really, how could this even begin to work. Let's take a simple argument avoiding Constitutional law on which I am no expert but I can't see this passing the sniff test there either... spies like to get paid. The Executive Branch requests a budget and Congress funds what they want. The CIA, NSA, NRO etc have been authorized as expenses by Congress. But a private spy network that is outside Congressional oversight? Does Trump really think that will pass? Remember they need 60 votes in the Senate for that. And I think some Republicans (Rand Paul) might chafe at that.
Both the linked article and its in turn linked source are of dubious integrity, and have highly questionable histories of independent/original reporting. The presentation here at minimum smacks of over-reach and speculation. Our intelligence services - and those of every other country - already do exactly this. So does wikileaks, which is frankly a private intelligence service in all but name. So if the simple story here is "Erik Prince to run privately funded PatriotLeaks" that's a far cry from a US government sponsored "replace the CIA" initiative.
You have been trolled, bro.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Don't announce your spying plans in public! ... hm, he wants us to believe he is founding a new spy company ... hm ...
But, well, I guess it is a trick
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Why are you bringing in the left when it has nothing to do with the article? Deflecting blame is not a valid counterpoint strategy.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
The nation with the most powerful army in the world needs to hire mercenaries. The nation with the biggest spy network and arguably the most shady shit in the clandestine operations needs a ghost network of contracted spies. What the hell is going on here? How does this Make America Great Again? Generally there's a hard enough time rooting out double agents in traditional spy networks, why won't this happen here? Why would they report to the CIA boss who has a perfectly good agency working underneath him? Anybody else think this is a terrible idea?
So your "solution" is a private spy network with even less accountability? YOU ARE A RETARDED CUNT.
How am I just now learning that Betsy DeVoss's brother is the Blackwater guy?! Erik Prince has a soul of pure, black, unadulterated evil. This whole thing is so fucking strange. If they think the CIA is that bad, why not fire everybody and hire new people? Is it even legal for the president to have a personal, private spying apparatus? No congressional oversight? No judicial review? Sure seems like a unconstitutional and unconscionable idea to me!
> Deflecting blame is not a valid counterpoint strategy
It is not valid, but it's been pretty effective for about a year so far.
This isn't reform. This is privatization. This is taking an apparatus that is already basically beyond oversight, and putting it under the direct control of an unstable dictator who cannot tell fact from fiction. Just because we think the CIA is bad doesn't mean it can't get worse.
"If the liberals weren't so racist against Russians"
When did being Russian become a definable race?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Everytime I hear that my ears perk up. It's the kind of crazy conspiracy stuff that crazy dictators have used for years to breed distrust in Democracy so they can 'temporarily' supplement it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
trumps SS will they put the jews in camps?
This has been reported in other, more reputable sources. I don't know why /. went with Vice. Basically, the official line from Trump's people is that there is no way in hell he would agree to this. Seeing as how the guy's sister in in the cabinet, I bet there will be more of this story coming out. My guess is that Trump will tweet about what a great guy Erik Prince is, and what a true patriot Ollie North is, and that the CIA cannot be trusted. I guess we can't really guess what the Angry Cheeto will tweet until Fox and Friends comes out with their version of the story, though.
The same time Mexicans and Muslims did.
You don't have to be liberal to have a moral problem with assassination of foreign leaders.
Any sane person who complains about American intelligence agencies is going to focus on the the lack of oversight and accountability. The transparency and accountability will be far, far worse for private intelligence service that reports only to the President.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
His english not so good. They have him training on Slashdot because of high vocabulary nerds and nobody else goes now there.
I am most definitely not Russian, but I find your comments highly offensive.
Just because slashdot is full of liberals doesn't mean it's a place for politically correct snowflakes like yourself.
Have you tried FARK? That's another dying 2000s website and they go well out of their way to accommodate emotionally handicapped paid posters. Be they Slav, Indian, Chinese, or Pinoy. FARK is a safe and inclusive place for paid shills of all colors and nationalities!
It seems like it would be cheaper and we'd settle a lot of this shit for at least 50 years, maybe longer.
...If the liberals weren't so racist against Russians
"Russian" in this context is a nationality. While "Race" was once used to distinguish people by language, location or politics, that custom disappeared several hundred years ago. Perhaps the gulag's educational system has not kept up?
Sidenote: when I was a kid I was bombarded with talk about them "Ruskies" and "Commies" from hard-core Republican adults. They wished that General George Patton had continued fighting at the end of WW II and leveled Moscow.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Impeach impeach impeach! Get that crazy fucker outta there! 8-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
No, you're just an idiot A.C. crapflooding Slashdot.
Why is this even a topic on Slashdot? More clickbait from mishmash? I looked at the article and it appears to be a spun up fabricated nothing-burger. Not even credible enough to be buzzfeed fodder.
Have you really sunk this low, slashdot owners?
I think it's very racist of them to assume you're a slav when all we know for certain is that you're posting from a smoky internet cafe for peanuts in order to support your starving family.
What could possibly go wrong?
Plenty could go wrong. But there is also a lot wrong with the existing system.
The CIA/DIA/NSA are notoriously weak in HUMINT.
There are also benefits to not depending too much on one channel, or you may end up with another Kim Philby situation.
"I want unlimited power as if I was a king, and there are all these checks and balances! I'm just going to call it the Deep State when I'm not given total power."People with jobs don't like it when I appoint superiors with the directive to shut down their department! Wah wah."
I think Hitler had something like this, no?
Yes. He had Garbo, who provided him with detailed information about the upcoming Allied invasion of Calais.
No way in hell will something like this fly in the USA.
I imagine trump sits in his bed at night, under the covers with his smartphone, and dreams up things just like this as ways to troll the media, so he can point fingers and cry fake news later.
But then again, the more I think about it, the more it seems like this might have been the plan all along. Suddenly all the bananas bullshit of the past year and half starts to make sense when viewed through a "spin up the secret police" filter.
Seriously, if this comes to pass, it's time to start looking at the 2nd amendment solution.... and I don't say this lightly. Once something like this is a thing, people start falling into unmarked vans and black bags.
How far we have fallen.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Yes, I'm sure all those "private spies" in that network will be totally trustworthy and only take $$ that they have earned...
That's what's been missing in the plan for global domination!
rather than the 'other party' or even better, a third party.
The badge next to a person's name is more important than either their stated policies or character. Although the policies on both sides tend towards extremism as well, rather than focusing on bipartisan bulletpoints and letting the social movement stuff be decided by the people when they are ready (or not.)
As to this private spy army: Look at who is involved in it Blackwater, Amyntor, the CIA director. This isn't spinning up a new spy network, this is simply taking an existing off the books intelligence network and placing it on the books. Giving legitimacy to an illegitimate network that has probably existed for 10-20 years, perhaps longer. The US has maintained extra-legal military assets outside of the country for 30-50 years, if not longer. Go look up 'Sandwind' I believe they used to be called... based out of Bermuda or the Bahamas. They were a primarily US ex-military mercenary unit that was incorporated off-shore to avoid US legal issues surrounding mercenaries while still being close enough to provide rapid deployment under covert US led and financed orders.
What could possibly go wrong? While we are at it how about setup a network of privately funded nuclear weapons? We can't trust the bureaucracy in the Pentagon with WMD's.
Every day is April 1st now, and all the jokes are real!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
17 spy depts that we pay for and he want to create yet another one? That answers only to him?
How far is the batshit allowed to go before he is removed? How many definitions of the word narcissist need to be explained?
How long before he wants to change 'President' to 'Utmost Supreme Leader"?
Your sig here!
You don't think maybe they call Trump a racist because he declared there were many very nice white supremacists?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
> "Russian" in this context is a nationality
This never stops liberals when they want to call someone a racist.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
PRIVATE spies who report only to tRump and cronies?
The problem isn't a Philby, the problem is tRump!!!
He wants another gov't paid spy system?
Use the CIVIL SERVICE TO HIRE THEM and make them report to Congress!
That's a false equivalency. It used to be true that both parties helped the rich donors while placating their voters, but they had core sets of values that they would more-or-less adhere to when push came to shove. There's a huge difference between Trump's "Republican" party and the old Republican and Democratic parties, and it's not and improvement to abandon all sense of truth and decency, eliminate as many checks and balances as possible, call reality "fake news", and lie so much and so blatantly that it almost becomes normalized..
Did you cash your Putin check today, apparatchnik?
Have you really sunk this low, slashdot owners?
I think we all know the answer.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
That's not why people know him to be a racist.
Of course Dump and his administration cannot trust the CIA. The CIA's mission is to take out enemies of the United States of America. Dump and his entire administration *ARE* enemies of the United States of America. There is no way in hell that a PRIVATE army of spies should ever represent the interests of the U.S. or any other nation on the planet. PRIVATE spies CAN BE BOUGHT... at least, if not more, easily than ones that legitimately work for the government. This idea should be killed by congress and the courts before it gets off the ground... but it probably won't be. :(
The spy agencies were created, because we as a group needed a way to get information from other groups for our common causes.
Subpoena's are supposed to cover this gap whereas you can subpoena a private company, get private data and turn them into your spies for a minute.
--
"Throw all of the tea over" - Samual Adams
The White House is reportedly looking at a proposal to create a ghost network of private spies in hostile countries
Since +/- 65% of Americans are hostile to The White House, I'm guessing that The U.S.A. is high on the list
why is it whenever Benghazi is mentioned no one ever looks at the fact that a Republican controlled Congress slashed the security budget for the State Department?
I don't know if this applies to Benghazi but what the Republicans normally do is make sure that any spending cuts manifest themselves on the Democrat's watch. They are doing the same thing with the current tax cut. I believe it is called the "Two Santa Clause" strategy. Both parties have a Santa Claus, Republican Santa and Democrat Santa. What the Republicans must do is send in Republican Santa Claus, run up a huge deficit by having Republican Santa promise people massive and popular tax cuts, then defer the financing of those tax cuts until the democrats are in power and force them to shoot their Santa Claus to pay for Republican Santa's largesse. This theory was popularised by a guy called Jude Wanniski back in the late 1970s and the American electorate and the Democrat party are still falling for it, with Obama being the latest victim. Remember how the Republicans screamed their heads off over Obama's policies causing deficits that he actually inherited from the Bush administration? ... that was the Republicans forcing Obama to shoot Democrat Santa to pay for the presents handed out by Republican Santa (and if you don't believe me get a Republican strategy lesson straight from the horse's mouth). Apart from defeating Republican tax cut bills, the only way out of this would seem to be for the Democrats to become just as fiscally irresponsible as the Republicans and continue deferring the spending cuts in some way and dump them in the lap of the next Republican administration. Either that or mount a grass roots revolution, dump their current leadership, read Machiavelli and the Republican playbook, fight back and get massively better at communicating with the electorate but that seems about as likely to happen as a dog laying an egg and that egg hatching into a unicorn.
Trump just forked the CIA. Sort of like LibreOffice and OpenOffice but with guns.
It's not just the Gulag; there's no shortage of Americans calling Trump "racist" because he purposed a ban on Muslim immigration from certain countries, or because he wants to build a wall between the US and Mexico. This wanton abuse of the word "racist" is quite common.
Or maybe they're not-subtly saying that he's racist and proposing a ban on Muslim immigration because Muslims are predominantly Arab, and proposing to build an ineffectual and costly wall between the US and Mexico to tap into anti-Latino racism?
Seriously, it should be transparently obvious to everyone that Trump is racist because of the things he says and does, but it's not entirely his fault. He did grow up during the era of segregation. It's pretty likely that he was taught at an early age that blacks were inferior to white people. That type of mental damage can be hard to unlearn, and Trump doesn't like ever admitting that he was wrong, so fat chance of a sincere change of heart on his part, especially at his age.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Give the white house a private army / spy network / whatever else controlled exclusively by the president, and it will still be there for the next president.
If you give Trump a private army / spy network / whatever, there would be no next president. Do you for one second think that Trump would step down from power if he had a private army? He has been attacking established intelligence agencies, The FBI, the free press, and grabbing power where ever he can. Even Nixon, one of the most arguably corrupt presidents we have ever had took six years to come to a point where he stated that a president cannot break the law because he is above it. Trump is defending his actions in under a year. You give this guy an inch and you will have America's first dictator.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
someone has to say it
Second term for one thing.
Or maybe they're not-subtly saying that he's racist and proposing a ban on Muslim immigration because Muslims are predominantly Arab
Only about 15% of Muslims are Arab.
Also Arab isn't a race, either, so that's a double fail there.
and proposing to build an ineffectual and costly wall between the US and Mexico to tap into anti-Latino racism?
"Latino" also isn't a race. Neither is "Hispanic", any more than "Anglo" is.
Seriously, it should be transparently obvious to everyone that Trump is racist because of the things he says and does
When you have no clue what the words "race" and "racist" mean, I suppose it is. It's also wrong.
I think Hitler had something like this, no?
So did Woodrow Wilson.
Yes, and I would hope most Americans would think laws such as the Sedition Act of 1918 would be considered appalling by modern standards as well. I hope no one mentions to Trump what the Sedition Act was because he would love it.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Yeah, reminds me of someone who was a proponent of something called "The Big Lie".
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I can't see how this could be accomplished via normal government funding. Even black budgets have some level of congressional approval, literally nobody in congress is willing to write Trump a check for his own private spy agency. The best they could do is hand out some short term contracts, not create their own agency.
BONUS CONSPIRACY THEORY
A "private intelligence agency" could produce some really impressive results for cheap if all they needed to do was launder information from some other intelligence organization funded by a government.
I'm sure his friend, the Little Russian Spymaster, is helping him out immensely with the initial planning.
#DeleteChrome
Yes, but what is truly terrifying is that there's a non-zero chance that the fatalists are right. Everything *has* changed with Trump, and not for the better. Even the most far-fetched conspiracy theories are now a tiny bit plausible. I for one have no doubt that Trump actually talked with some people about this idea. I do not believe, however, that it came to anything or will come to anything.
Before Trump there was a certain decorum, gravitas, and respect with which the president acted, both before fellow citizens, and with nations and leaders abroad. The US was respected and feared because of this, despite the rapid changing of power between the major parties over the last 100 years. Conspiracy theories had no weight, because of this respect. Despite party politics, the US could be depended on to act in ways that were beneficial to US interests, but also benefited the rest of the world. That has all changed now, and no one knows from moment to moment what Trump might do or say. This breeds intense anxiety in the world and at home.
Trump has also given license to people to express freely their baser natures, to the detriment of all. And this is actually what the evil is.
As a moderate I'm very disturbed by the affects of Trump's presidency on the nation. Seems like everyone is being forced to take an extreme side. The middle is getting quite lonely and increasingly under scorn.
Also what disturbs me is that otherwise rational American citizens would rather vote for men of dubious reputation and open allegations of sexual assault, than vote for someone of the other party. This ties directly back to Trump and what he's started.
Under Trump, "deep state" is code for "rule of law". -- David Frum
The secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
We already have the CIA, NSA, etc. The president changes, these guys stay the same. They are far more dangerous than anything Trump can do in his 4 years.
This is just the logical next step for someone so self-delusional - representing equally delusional and cowardly people - that he actually believes the latest lie out of his mouth, even if it contradicted the one before it.
Remember "peace with honor" and Kissinger's secret Vietnam peace plan? Of course not. You obviously aren't old enough to remember Nixon.
The anti-war stuff didn't empower Nixon, they constrained him to do things in secret like bomb Cambodia. No doubt anti-war protests inflamed his base to the point where they'd approve of that, but Nixon had to keep it secret because he was expanding the war at a time he was forced to tell the public he was scaling it back.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Ok, so how will they fund it? There's not a petty cash fund for creating redundant executive departments. That's a thing to watch.
Oliver North funded the Contras with arms deals. That sounds pretty super-villainous in fact.
-Dave
Hold my beer!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Off the books"?!? In other words, they can spend as much as they want, and congress cannot cut off the funds, even if they are used explicitly for espionage on businesses competing with businesses owned by the Trump mob family?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The Waters of the United States issue was a clear power grab by Obama. It doesn't matter where you stand on the EPA. That was clearly a power grab.
And yet for all the slurs and barbs the right has concocted about Obama for no other reason than that he had the wrong skin color, there was a peaceful transition of power when his term was up. What reason is there to form a secret police force, other than to extra-judicially enforce the will of the president and keep him in power? The only reason to form a 'Off the Books' intelligence service is to BREAK LAWS.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Which was a lie as every single person marching in the white supremacist side self identified as worthless scum.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
English is a language you have yet to learn at all evidently.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
that there won't be another Democrat. Ever. Come on, you've got to start keeping up with these things.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
the Republican party. Because once an idea like this is out there that's about the only thing that's going to stop it. I say that not to be partisan (though Lord knows I am) but because this idea was able to be flown in the first place and hasn't completely ended the Rebublican's mid-term elections. Seriously, you've got a party that is supposed to be in favor of limited gov't who's head (like it or not Trump's the president, so defacto head) just came out in favor of a secret police. Either the party cannot stand for that or the party is going to throw in with that. It's too extreme an idea for it to go any other way. And once a party starts trying to get something like this they're not going to stop. To do so would be to admit they did wrong, and the entire thing would unravel if they started doing that.
The trouble with the Republican party is, oddly, Clinton (the Mr, not the Ms). Bill moved the Dems far right to form an alliance of economically right wing and socially left wing to get him into office. It worked, but it left the Republicans without an identity. So they moved right, hard right so they could establish a new brand. They're going to keep going, and this is part of that. The next step is an actual dictatorship. Trump's lawyer has already said he's above the law (e.g. that he can't obstruct justice). And now this. The Republican party cannot survive this. Well, it can, but if it does Democracy in America can't.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So run an automatic UserScript to purge the discussion threads of AC's - in today's age of information overload - there's almost no reason to waste time "listening" to anyone that isn't at least willing to post behind a pseudonym.
this is how most democracies and through them empires die. The only difference is we've got a media reporting on it while it's happening. Damned if I can do anything to stop it. I'm knee deep in it. It's all I can do to survive.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You have extremely well developed ideas about what does and does not constitute racism. I wonder why that might be.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Must be because I'm a Nazi.
In vain may heroes fight and patriots rave,
If secret gold sap on from knave to knave.
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly
Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things,
Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings;
A single leaf shall waft an army o'er,
Or ship off senates to some distant shore;
A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro
Our fates and fortunes as the winds shall blow;
Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen,
And silent sells a King or buys a Queen.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Que?
Private Spies
They're watching you
They see your every move
Private Spies
They're watching you
Private Spies
They're watching you
Watching you
Watching you
Watching you
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Goodwin's Law strikes fast with the Drumphf! rubes.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
... welcome our new Trump Praetorian Guard overlords. Hail President Donald Trump, Lord-God Emperor of EVERYTHING FOREVER!
Because you know his super-secret, accountable-only-to-him will operate EXCLUSIVELY in hostile countries, right?!? Like... America, for example, when enough Americans wake up and realize what kind of... "person," for want of a better word, is "president".
Christ... to think we have at most, (based on a human lifetime never being recorded to exceed about 117 years,) only about 45 more years of Trump being president before whichever of his kids takes over as President For Life. Now might be a good time for anyone not wanting to live under that to get out while the getting's good, because once the border walls go up, (mark my words, there'll be two,) they won't just keep other people OUT.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Well, if you say so.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Giving direct power to the president and CIA director. Surely there is no way that could be exploited? Surely, the US citizens see no problem with it, given its tradition for checks and balances as well as the constitutional right to overthrow the government/president should they amass to much power?
When will you Americans learn to spell. It's cheque. FFS
I heard they will name or Gestapo II
Well duh, you need alternative intelligence to tease out the alternative facts. I can be a "private spy". All I'd need to do is sit in front of my computer and pull stories out of my ass that align with alt-right conspiracy theories.
Seriously, I read this headline as: "Trump refuses to believe ears and eyes, tries to obtain new ones."
Or I'm smart enough to figure out that "very nice people" don't say to themselves "hey, I think I'll go hang with the neo-Nazi scrum today and try to start a riot" you ignorant fucking douchebag.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Res ipso loquitor
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You don't get to say "the fatalists are right" when YOU ARE A FATALIST. Do you refer to yourself in the third person usually?
You are literally blaming Trump for turning society upside down singlehandedly.
You are blaming the one spark for the forest fire, as if hundreds of sparks weren't coming within days of the start of the fire.
But where is the evidence of the fire? Your subjective interpretations that are really just reflections from a media narrative?
You are severely, severely mentally ill. You have been drinking out of the media toilet far too long. You have left your humanity behind you. Bad dog!
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
Also Arab isn't a race, either, so that's a double fail there.
"Latino" also isn't a race. Neither is "Hispanic", any more than "Anglo" is.
When you have no clue what the words "race" and "racist" mean, I suppose it is. It's also wrong.
Race covers all three of those groups, it's a loosely used word, so you can find people referring to the Arab race, Latin race, Hispanic Race, and English race. Only pointlessly blithering pedants try to pretend otherwise, yet their very attempts to create some particular conceptualization of race are even more flawed due to their faulty insistence on a restrictive terminology that is more subject to error than the people willing to accept the loose usage of the term.
Similarly, racist is also well known and established as a term of bigotry with some degree of ambiguity, but people are nonetheless familiar with it.
I mean, really, if you want to lament the ambiguities of the way humans use language, in particular the English language, you can, but you'll just look stupid hanging your hat on these specific examples.
Heh. "Smart".
Trump wants to "create a ghost network of private spies in hostile countries "? Isn't that a basic description of Wikileaks?
Heh. Plonk
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
Hmmmm. Sounds like someone currently squatting in the White House.
No. I really don't.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Way too much power for 1 person using my tax dollars!
Dear Mr Trump: Your insecurity is showing! Try honest, transparent, reasonable actions and see if that gains any new allies!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
I suppose I was naive for hoping that "off the books" meant that the government wasn't paying for it. Fooled by that "private" designation.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I thought that government was "By the people, for the people". Here we want a billionaire to bypass the people, to bypass the CIA, and then congress and the senate.
Give it 8 years and the USA will be more of a dictatorship than it already is.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
Casteism
i think every dictatorship had something like this : the "duty" to report your fellow citizens :)
... they have "neighbourhood information networks", they got popo propaganda on tv trying to make them look sympa, and i see they recently got a series of comic books on the neighbourhood police. They dont seem to understand for some reason NO ONE likes to see them coming
... well .. "for looking at a car and stuff" ... i dont trust them, they're legalized militia, not to serve anything but the lawmakers
they once had a masterplan here in the police state of belgium too, they wanted to enlist the mailmen to alert at the first sign of anything suspicious since (back then) they got to see into peoples houses as they delivered the cheques and pension funds and stuff
privacy in hellgium is a somewhat flexible concept
and me
GET ME OUT OF HERE before i make like half of antwerp and join IS
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
If "Race covers all three of those groups" because "it's a loosely used word", then the original dipshit saying that people are "racist against Russians" is equally correct. Since, you know, it's a loosely used word.
I understand that there are millions of morons who misuse the word; that does not magically legitimise it.
There IS a reason they are called "La Raza" after all, whitebread
1, Patton would have been slaughtered by Zukov.
2, Communist policies did not set food prices worldwide such that 1/2 BILLION died of hunger over the 75 years of Capitalist control of food pricing via commodities exchanges (see "maximum value theorem")
3, in fact, the Capitalist Axis powers killed far more than Mao and Stalin combined
Lie
He in fact said there were "Good people" among them