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User: tbannist

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  1. Re:Hillary's for prison! on Congress Opens Probe Into FBI's Handling of Clinton Email Investigation (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    He went to prison for publishing unauthorized pictures of the classified section of the submarine he was working in, after being repeatedly told it was illegal and he was going to get into a ton of trouble by a fellow sailor. The guy wilfully and deliberately broke the law. Clinton, on the other hand, responded to an email that was sent to her and that had a classified line in it, without noticing it. Whether or not you see a different in the crimes is probably going to be tied to your political leaning. However, multiple experts have said that what Clinton did was grounds for a reprimand and maybe a refresher course on how to handle classified information. And they have said that criminal prosecutions are only warranted when the infringement is done wilfully and with foreknowledge that they were exposing or likely to expose classified information. In the end, the FBI recommended against charges because Clinton no longer held a position where it was possible to impose the normal punishments that would be applied for the minor infractions that she actually committed.

  2. That's a fine story there, the problem is that there's nothing here to indicate that it's any way true. And from having looked at this previously, I seriously doubt your allegations because it directly contradicts multiple sources (including the FBI) that indicated there was little classified information and no evidence the server was ever hacked, and the only "American spy" that I'm aware of that was executed by Iran was exposed by his mysterious disappearance from Saudi Arabia and equally mysterious reappearance in Arizona. The Iranians didn't believe his story that he was kidnapped and tortured by the CIA, and they wouldn't have needed emails from Clinton's server to doubt his implausible story.

  3. Re: Ajit Pai is a cunt on FCC Ends Decades-Old Rule Designed To Keep TV, Radio Under Local Control (variety.com) · · Score: 1

    I thought that was already taken:
    "I just trumped in that toilet. You do not want to go in there."

  4. Re: An alarmist view on FCC Ends Decades-Old Rule Designed To Keep TV, Radio Under Local Control (variety.com) · · Score: 1

    It's because the government got the right to use FORCE! Corporation can not send armed thugs to get you to comply!

    That's a false statement. Corporations can send armed thugs to get you to comply. Of course, most don't because it would be illegal and the government can use force to punish them for violating the law.

    The anarchist libertarians want to strip the government of any ability to enforce any law. So, in their ideal world, there would be nothing but the moral imperative to not initiate violence (and the threat of retaliatory violence) to prevent corporations from sending thugs to compel your compliance with whatever they think you should be doing.

    I find it deeply ironic that libertarians tend to side with Republicans, who are the very people who are responsible for the militarized police that the libertarians claim to hate. You gotta love the people who are selling the solution to the problem they helped to create.

  5. Re:whatever on Star Trek: Discovery Is Returning For a Second Season (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    I just couldn't make it through Season 2. I lost the ability to watch after one too many episodes where plot-induced-stupidity meant the crew was doing things that were completely unreasonable.

    However, when I heard they brought Manny Coto on for Season 4, I watched it and you are right. His input made all the difference, they started cleaning up all the junk from the first two Seasons and pretty much ignored Season 3. Unfortunately, it was just too late.

    Enterprise is on Netflix, but I can't bring myself to try watching any of the episodes that I didn't watch when it was on the air.

  6. Re:Highest in history... Trust me. on Star Trek: Discovery Is Returning For a Second Season (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    And yet it's only anonymous cowards complaining about it. Log in and maybe people will take you seriously....

  7. Re:whatever on Star Trek: Discovery Is Returning For a Second Season (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    They failed to sell me, and up to this point, I watched every single live action Trek show in existence.

    Even Enterprise?

  8. Re: The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    The radical left though, somehow believes it's only the blacks, the LGBT, the immigrants and the feminists who benefit from their activities. Somehow they completely lose sight of who benefits of America being split in twain by groups that violently oppose the democratically chosen government.

    And yet here you are splitting the country and blaming other people. Not into self-knowledge are you?

  9. Re: The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    It was the leftists groups that got played by Russians like a fiddle, as the article proves.

    The irony is that you still think you weren't played as well.

  10. Re: The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    No, simply this generation of Blacks picks violent assault as the first option, not the last, when all peaceful options fail.

    You keep telling yourself that. Surely those black people are fundamentally different from you. It's not like you're all Americans, right? Look down on them if it makes you feel better. Rip yourselves and each other apart for all I care. I'm just pointing out that you're an easily manipulated fool, but you don't have to believe me. You can go back to the people who tell you what you want to hear, I'm sure they have nothing but good intentions for your unthinking obedience. I'm sure the liars, the cheaters, and the con men have nothing but your best interest at heart.

  11. Re: The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    When dealing with propagandists, it will always be staged to look that way.

  12. Re:The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    Its been 10 months! If there was real evidence of and actual crime that would get a President impeached it would have leaked by now.

    Things don't go quite that quickly. It took over 2 years to go from the start of Watergate to Richard Nixon's resignation, for example.

  13. Re:The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    But Russians spent more on Clintons (both Bill and Hillary) than that. In fact, RF paid out 500k to Bill Clinton for just 1 speech. Hundreds of millions of dollars were donated to Clinton foundation by state-actor donors. 85% of that money was spent on Clinton family expenses rather than on charity. How is this someone not getting caught? There was nothing to catch. Clintons were openly bribed by foreign powers. Why would Russians spend millions on Clintons in the open only to go and then spend a few hundred thousand on Trump in secret? The whole Russian influence story doesn't make any sense if you consider all the publicly known information which you are asked to not consider as part of the story. Why are unproven accusations and innuendos (that Russia helped Trump) more important than what is known for a fact (that Russia helped Clinton)?

    Because there is only on true statement in this paragraph that you wrote? It was Renaissance Capital (a Russian Bank) that paid Bill Clinton for the speech, not the Russian Federation. Hundreds of millions of dollars were not donated to the Clinton foundation by (Russian) state-actor donors. The Clinton Foundation is an audited charity, around 89% of money raised is spent on their charitable work. There is no evidence that the Clintons were bribed, openly or otherwise by any foreign powers. The Russians didn't "spend millions" on the Clintons, in fact, Putin kind of hates Hillary Clinton's guts because she openly questioned whether he had been legitimately elected the last time he rigged the Russian elections.

    The one true thing: "There was nothing to catch". Maybe Russia tried to influence Hillary through Bill, but there's no evidence that it did happen, and Hillary had no influence on the decisions they supposedly wanted her to have made. This is nothing more a pernicious lie that you believe despite all the evidence saying you're wrong. Russia did help Trump, we're seeing more and more evidence of that every day, unlike the tired old distraction story that Trump's people, and now you, are circulating. This story is meant to distract you from the fact that Putin picked Trump because he's weak, unstable, and soft on Russia. They helped the wrong man get elected, and you're going to pay for it.

  14. Re:The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    Because of the shameless right-wing media, we have a large portion of the electorate living in an alternate reality. Many years of Fox News and right-wing radio created it, and this is why they were primed for Trump’s ridiculous promises. The Russians love this, of course. Not only are Americans divided over nonsense issues the other half doesn’t even know about, (heard about the upcoming Anftifa coup?), they have a fool in the White House.

    And this is pretty much the Russian goal. Divide Americans and push them into stupid decisions. Push the idiot in chief into alienating America's allies and isolating the United States on the world stage. The Russian goal isn't to destroy America, it's to enable Russia to act with relative impunity so it can take whatever it thinks it can get away with taking. Like it or not, the Russians recognized that Trump was going to hurt America and benefit the Russians and that's why they worked to make sure you elected him, while the election rigging barely worked, it worked and now too many Americans are just too stupid to realize that Trump is working beyond the wildest dreams of the Russian propagandists who started on their mad quest to get him elected.

  15. Re: The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    FBI statistics also indicate that black commit extremely disproportionately skewed numbers of murders & manslaughter (52.2% of all murder/manslaughter committed by blacks), rapes (31.3% of all rapes committed by blacks), robbery (56.4% of all robbery committed by blacks), assault (33.9% of all assaults committed by blacks). On the positive side, only 12.5% of DWI are committed by blacks.

    Don't you mean that blacks are extremely disproportionately convicted of a skewed number of murders & manslaughter?

    The FBI rates would be based on successfully prosecuted court cases, of course. So if the police were biased against black defendants and the courts were biased against black defendants, wouldn't you actually expect to see a disproportionately higher rate of conviction of black suspects? The courts don't even need to wrongfully convict many suspects to skew the statistics, they would just need to fail to convict a higher proportion of non-black defendants.

    You might want to really think about how you would prove that the courts are biased for a while, and then see if you can do that.

  16. Re: The key is not getting caught on Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    Did you miss the wording from my first post? " A couple trolls under the flag of 'All lives matter' " In a casino, playing Poker, you're sure your opponent is bluffing. The bet is rather large currently. Choose correct course of action: a) Play cautiously. Match the bet and Call. b) Go all in. Call. c) Fold. d) Attack the opponent with your fists. Apparently, BLM members believe d) is the best course of action.

    How many people did they have to taunt before they found someone willing to engage in d)?

    You ask for perfection and are predictably disappointed.

  17. Re:Russian bots did nothing on Twitter Is Crawling With Bots and Lacks Incentive To Expel Them (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Russians! narrative is not meant to convince any Trump voters, it's meant to create an excuse for Democrats so the corrupt machine can remain in control of that party. There's not a single Trump voter saying to themselves today "Dang, the Russians tricked me!"

    Of course not, all Trump voters know they're infallible, and that the coal jobs are coming back, and the wall is going to keep out the damn Mexicans.

  18. Re:Media Matters? Correct the Record? on Twitter Is Crawling With Bots and Lacks Incentive To Expel Them (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    Or, you know, it could be that other people think you're an idiot who's posting moronic comments.

    I'm just saying don't blame malice when (your) incompetence is a sufficient explanation.

  19. Re:And Nourse's _Blade Runer_ was excellent. on Why Is 'Blade Runner' the Title of 'Blade Runner'? (vulture.com) · · Score: 2

    We have government run health care in the United States. Its called the VA and a review of the headlines of the operation of the VA over the last decade or so shows why Americans are suspicious about government run healthcare.

    Reviewing headlines about anything is a terrible way to learn anything of substance.

    You can also see how many Canadians seek treatment abroad. That bastion of the alt-right, the Huffington Post claims 50,000 Canadians crossed the border to seek treatment in the U.S. even though they had to pay for it themselves. They claim patients are waiting up to 20 weeks for medically necessary procedures.

    Actually, that number comes from the Fraser institute, and I'm not sure if it's trustworthy because I've caught them telling lies to further their right-wing political goals before. The Chair of Canadian Doctors for Medicare has inidcated that she believes there are a lot of flaws in teh way the Fraser Institute reached it numbers. Additionally, the number may be misleading because it's measured from the time from when you see your regular doctor, so it includes the time between being sent for a referral, having the meeting with the specialist, and then the time to schedule the surgery afterwards. Many people would likely imagine that it means you're waiting 20 weeks from when you're told you need an operation to when it occurs. Also, medically necessary does not include emergency life-saving treatment where you need to have the operation now (or the wait time figure would be much, much lower). Medically necessary generally means lower priority treatment that has been prescribed by a doctor. It tends to be things like knee surgery.

    The article quotes a Canadian doctor who says, "Everyone has access to free medical care that is ‘good enough.’ If you want to pay for better health care, you can’t,” he said. “That’s why those who can afford to, tend to go down to the U.S. for care if they have anything serious happen to them. You can have the greatest doctors in the world, but if the bureaucrats that run the system are making them treat patients with one hand tied behind their back, are they going to be delivering the best possible care?”
    I don't call that working, especially when what's 'good enough' is a subjective term.

    And yet it delivers better results than the American system and is less expensive. The Canadians who travel to the U.S. for treatment are people who don't want to wait a few weeks and can afford to pay so they don't have to wait. If you've got the money, that's an option.

    Plus don't fool yourself. Politicians and insiders probably get better treatment by default, even if people with just more money don't. But of course they can find somewhere where the government doesn't hobble the system to get their health care. Only the middle class gets screwed.

    That has happened, of course, and it helped bring down the longest running conservative government in Canada (in Alberta). It's illegal and when it's revealed heads roll. Even with insiders occasionally getting better treatment, the middle class doesn't get screwed nearly as badly as it does in the U.S. Medical bankruptcies are unheard of in Canada. There are very few cases where lifesaving medical treatment is not available in Canada, and usually if it's not available the provincial health care system will send the patient to where it is available at no additional cost to the patient.

    On the other hand, the American system is objectively terrible, it rations health care based on who can afford to pay the most, and who can prevent their health insurance company from denying them coverage. The Canadian system may not be the best in the world, but it does better than the American system on every measure except one: the American system does a better job of caring for multi-millionaire patients who don't need health insurance.

    Y

  20. Re:Slashdot readers should sure hope so on Ask Slashdot: Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Free Speech? · · Score: 1

    They generate jobs and employment, as well as put out products that are useful. Think about running a business without Excel for spreadsheet work, or Word for documents? Without Microsoft, we would be still using pencils and doing double-entry bookkeeping on ledgers.

    I'd rather be using pencils and double-entry bookkeeping on ledgers than Excel and Word.

    Having said that, Microsoft was not first to market with either spreadsheet software or word processing. In fact, without Microsoft killing investment in both product types, we'd likely have better spreadsheet and word processing software than we do now.

  21. Re:Slashdot readers should sure hope so on Ask Slashdot: Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Free Speech? · · Score: 1

    I’m sure this is true, and I’m sure it’s not an isolated case. However, that is a long way from “every corporation is actively working against the interests of society”.

    That's not what the person you responded to said. He said every corporation that can make a buck by working against the interests of society, will.

    Now, I don't agree with that statement, but you do need to address what he actually said.

    I think that there are many corporations where the executive officers are not amoral sociopaths, however, if even one competitor in their field is, then the public will probably be screwed. Even worse, if screwing the public is economically beneficial, then the companies led by people with morals will compete less effectively in the marketplace and they are likely to be replaced by their less ethical competitors. So in many ways, unregulated capitalism ends up as a race to the least ethical, most exploitative behaviour possible.

  22. Re:I Blame on US Jobs Dropped By 33,000 In September, Likely Due To Storms (npr.org) · · Score: 2

    I've always thought Obama and Clinton were moderate conservatives.

    You only think that because they are moderate conservatives.

  23. Re:Counter-intuative on Netflix is Raising Its Prices, Again (mashable.com) · · Score: 2

    Shocking, isn't it? You would think MBA degreed folk would know a thing or two about economics.

    Only if you've never met any...

  24. Re:Still better than cable on Netflix is Raising Its Prices, Again (mashable.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, Luke Cage starts slow, but it eventually pays off. Don't forget it's a series, not a movie. The ending of The Defenders definitely left me wanting more (in the good way).

    House of Cards is always slow. It's a political drama and pretty much every major character is also a terrible person. I watch to see how everyone's meticulously laid plans are going to blow up in their own faces, often because of petty and foolish behaviour.

    If you like Orange is the New Black you might also like Wentworth. It's a more dramatic and less comedic take on a very similar premise.

  25. I've been enjoying The Orville too. I just find it funny that so many people who seem to hate Discovery for the "touchy feely crap" and "forced diversity" seem to love that show.

    It's probable that Alex Jones doesn't know about The Orville yet, so they haven't been told that they're supposed to hate it yet.