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FBI Investigating Fake Texts Sent To GOP House Members (wsj.com)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating fake text messages sent to some House Republican lawmakers from someone impersonating a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, WSJ reported. From the report: Several House Republicans have received the texts, and at least one member has been repeatedly engaging with the imposter, who posed as Alyssa Farah, Mr. Pence's press secretary and a former House staffer, one of the people said. A person familiar with the fake texts said the messages sought the whereabouts of certain lawmakers and their availability for meetings. Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), the House Republican conference chairwoman, has been made aware of the fake texts and referred the matter to the House Sergeant at Arms office, a spokesman for Ms. Cheney said.
Paywalled
A phone number and redirect any two-factor notifications?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
But do we dare? lol
[($)]
Some things really are "totally faked and rigged". It's not just a cliche after all.
Table-ized A.I.
One would think you would want to avoid a single party system. I disagree with one of the parties but i don't wish them ill or disregard them because the idea of living in a nation with a Single party government is Horrifying to me.
I'm sure they'll do their best, in between stints driving for Uber and Lyft during the shutdown.
#DeleteChrome
Whomever it was that decided that hooking an essential communication system like phone or phone testing up to the internet produced one of the stupid ideas ever.
Spam texts, fake texts, SWATting, and other sorts of false and annoying tactics can only happen because the internet allows for anonymous communications to the phone system. Blocking that would block SO much of this annoying crap... but since it would cut into telecom profits, it'll never happen.
how could a single party dedicated to the task of advancing the condition of the people be any worse than two shill parties competing to utter the most inane and sycophantic masturabatory drivel to convince the richest hogs in our superlatively inequal society to bless them with fleeting power
No matter how good the intentions of that hypothetical party may be in the beginning, with all the power it would hold, it would soon be invaded by power hungry sociopaths.
Having more than one party mitigates that to a degree although having only two feels like a band-aid slapped on the crack in a concrete bridge pillar.
Historically, the one form of government that seems to get the most good things done is "Benevolent Dictator". Unfortunately, as history will also attest, most such leaders, or occassionally one of their successors, inevitably proves the maxim that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unless you can come up with a way to maintain a party system akin to the Roman Senate at its peak and are ruthless in your removal of responsibility from those who start to waver from your defined constitution then the people are eventually going to need a way to change not just individual party members but the entire party.
Besides, even if you've got a one party system, there are still going to be factions within that party, just as today's parties have their Tea Parties, Brexiteers, Hardliners, Reformists, or whatever other name they might want to go by. It might be "The Party", but it's still going to be multiple parties in practice.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Da comrade tovarische.
Several House Republicans have received the texts
So the texts are real then. The may be fraudulent, or misrepresentation or whatever, but they seem to definitely exist, were sent and received and all that so the texts themselves are indeed, texts.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Historically, the one form of government that seems to get the most good things done is "Benevolent Dictator".
"Good" is a question of perspective. There is really no such thing as a benevolent dictator. The term itself is an oxymoron. Never has been and probably never will be one. Just because a dictator gets a lot done that is good from the perspective of some does not mean it is a net benefit to all or even most.
Unless you can come up with a way to maintain a party system akin to the Roman Senate at its peak
I suspect you may be hugely overestimating the integrity of the Roman Senate due to a lack of data. We tend to have a very idealized notion of the Roman Senate being this perfectly functioning system when the reality was far from that. History tends to suffer from a lot of survivorship bias in the telling of what happened. It's why people tend to think things were better "back in the old days" even when they objectively weren't.
Besides, even if you've got a one party system, there are still going to be factions within that party, just as today's parties have their Tea Parties, Brexiteers, Hardliners, Reformists, or whatever other name they might want to go by. It might be "The Party", but it's still going to be multiple parties in practice.
Coalitions within a party are not even remotely the same thing as multiple parties. Coalitions might shape the party doctrine to a greater or lesser degree but at the end of the day they generally lack the power to oppose the party without outside help. That difference is not insignificant.
...at least one member has been repeatedly engaging with the imposter, who posed as Alyssa Farah...
I hope somebody bothers to tell him that she isn't really interested in him before he tells his parents about the engagement.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
yeah why have just one party of power hungry sociopaths when we could have two or more parties of power hungry sociopaths striving to out-powerhungrysociopath each other
No China are all Communist and think and do exactlly the same thing, it's in their name!!
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WindBourne
They might eventually do something about it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Things would be better if we had 5 or 6. Then none could have a majority whereby they could force their agenda through without at least working with other groups.
1800secret service. Hello? Butthurt retard on the internet? Hold on let me shit a brick
Things would be better if we had 5 or 6. Then none could have a majority whereby they could force their agenda through without at least working with other groups.
You've got what? 50 different parties in the US these days. The biggest problem is that all your small parties are in general gigantic fuckups. Here in Canada, we have say 4 main parties. Just take a look at the absolute state when a single party has had power for the last 3.3 years. Sure are plenty of PT jobs, massive losses in FT jobs. 60% of mortgage holders are 2mo away from defaulting, and 40% of mortgage holders are in automatic defaults if the prime interest rate goes up by 0.25%. Oh and while we're at that, only 188k jobs were created last year but the government wants to hold immigration levels at 300k-500k people/year. Not counting the illegals from the US, that decades of governments have either refused to enforce immigration law, or were complicity acting in a manner to obstruct it.
Om, nomnomnom...
Tired Libertarian false narrative. Lack of good ethical government in other words "corruption" leads to bad things. Modern western socialized democracies don't tend toward slavery but weak governments with false ideas about small governments with maximum personal freedom has lead to things like being able to open carry assault rifles in fast food restaurants with many small kids and has clearly been shown by the GOP and NRA to not lead to a sane society where good things happen. But you keep that head in the sand where it belongs and keep believing that everything will just workout if people are able to do whatever they want or in other words more personal freedom and low business regulation. All the libertarian stuff infecting the GOP rhetoric is just rich people looking for a way out of the responsibility or having wealth, its an argument mankind has been having since there has been haves and have-nots. If you are a have-not then DJT and the GOP are not your friends speaking strictly from the actual policies they have passed.
And so tech stupid and insecure about their tech ignorance and gullibility
Since cellular security has been a joke for a long time, maybe this will finally lead to the replacement of SS7. The carriers haven't done it themselves, in spite of the known problems. So the question is: Will there finally be outside pressure?
Upgrades cost money, so we're still running a protocol designed in the 80s. A protocol which has been demonstrably broken for over a decade.
The fact that this happened isn't surprising in the least. The fact that we haven't taken steps to prevent it... well, that's just embarrassing.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Things would be better if we had 5 or 6. Then none could have a majority whereby they could force their agenda through without at least working with other groups.
A 2 party system and 5-6 party system are not much different. You still have coalitions of different groups combining to get 50% of votes. It isn't like every Republican agrees with every other Republican (and the same goes for Democrats). What you do get out of a 2 party system is you see how the coalition looks before voting, as opposed to waiting until after votes are cast for the leaders to form those coalitions.
The problem as I see from today's US politics (which is also a significant reason I switched parties in my 20's) is the Republicans took a hard line stance against any form of compromise after Bush lost his second term and Gingrich took over as the de-facto party leader. Bush raising in his first term was a shining example of how politics can work. He actually compromised.
I really want to go back to having two worthy of voting for, but Republicans are fundamentally unfit for leadership under their current form. The gridlock from their inability to compromise makes it look like a 2-party system cannot work, but it my opinion that is only a illusion created by the Republicans in part so they can claim government doesn't work.
I foresee myself switching back over to the Republican party at some point in my life if they get their act together, but considering they are having success pandering to the lowest common denominator of our electorate I think it will be a while.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Who would bother to send real texts to them?????
A 2 party system has only 1 more party which really isn't much.