Okay, so since there are potential innocent explanations for any contact between Trump campaign officials and Russians, we never have to hear about the stupid "Trump is a Russian puppet!" conspiracy theories again, and no one should ask about them anymore. Agreed?
I'm not saying we burn Podesta at the stake. I just want someone to ask him (or the people he was emailing), what the actual innocent explanation is. Not for a potential one! Of course potential ones exist. I want the actual innocent explanation.
So the republicans are saying that Pence is fine because it's legal in Indiana.
Well, yes, it's fine because it was legal, and "indiana state business" is nothing like top secret and SAP information.
I do think all levels of government should review their electronic communications records keeping policies and laws. Lots of things about the way we communicate electronically have changed drastically in the last decade or so (is a government agency who deletes a tweet because of a typo destroying official records?) and I doubt every state and local government has kept up.
Aside: And beyond that we need some kind of a consistent philosophy when it comes to government information, private information, leaking, whistleblowing, hacking, cyber warfare (both between governments and between governments and non-state actors). There is no standard doctrine for how the government should respond to a foreign government hacking a private entity.
The democrats are saying that Hilary was fine because it was legal at the time.
But it wasn't. It was never legal to store classified information on your home server. Comey said it wasn't legal, but recommended against prosecution because "eh" and the Democrat AG went along AND THAT DECISION HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH CHATTING ABOUT GRANDKIDS FOR 30 MINUTES ON THE TARMAC WITH BILL CLINTON.
Do you think there's really that much of a difference between the two parties?
Yes. Pence didn't break the law, didn't withhold the emails in his private account from the state, and was handling non-classified information. Hillary did break the law, mishandled top secret and compartmentalized information (SAP stuff...like "10 years in jail for misplacing" stuff), and destroyed records that were under subpoena. Only the most blindly partisan fool could think these are the same things.
Neither of those are a pizza-related map handkerchief.
I'm not saying the pizzagate thing is real, just that the media reaction is bizarre. You would think "lots of pedo connections, weird artwork, creepy pictures, odd phrases" would be enough for the media to even ask the question if there was something going on (elite pedo rings are hardly unheard of), but nope, just dismissed it out of hand and mock anybody who brought it up. What the hell is the point of journalists if they don't even investigate shit? Even just explaining what the real facts are, and the process by which people can be fooled into believing they're indicative of nefarious behavior would be a good story, right? "Here's the innocent explanation, here's the crazy misinterpretation." But you need the real innocent explanation, so you'd need to ask Podesta specifically what he was talking about in those emails.
Nothing? Doesn't the executive lobbying ban count as something?
The ONLY, very very ONLY reason to use a private email to conduct government business (which I doubt was just I am going to be late from the meeting hunny) is to hide something.
No, convenience is a reason to use a private email while conducting government business. One still shouldn't do it, but you now admit there are reasons besides "hiding something."
Anyway, his emails are being properly archived by the state, they can probably be pulled via records requests to see if he was doing anything untoward. How about you find out what nefarious thing he was hiding before you suggest he be "run out of washington?"
Questions could be asked. All I want is somebody to bother asking Podesta and/or the people he was in contact with to give some context to the weird language in the emails. "What did you mean by a pizza-related map handkerchief?" "What did you mean by 'playing dominoes better on cheese or pasta?'" or whatever that was. The weird language is the "shred of evidence," and I'd like it explained. No one ever asked, though, the media just screamed "NOTHING TO SEE HERE FAKE NEWS!" and that was it.
The way that got handled in the media was really weird. "Pizzagate" isn't even pizzagate. The media just came out and screamed "FAAAAAKEEEE!" with no explanation for the bizarre facts that made people think something weird was going on to begin with.
It was not made up out of whole cloth, it was a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are not "fake news," they're...conspiracy theories. Alternative narratives for true facts that do not mesh with the "official" or obvious, default narrative. It would be fake news if someone had said "okay, we want to smear various DNC people as pedos...let's make up a story about this pizza place!" But it came from people reading Podesta's emails and finding odd things that sound like code words, and then tracking connections to known pedos and things that appeared to be pedo-related.
If you saw an email that said "hey lets get together and smoke some grass and snort some snow," and someone said "hmmm...that doesn't seem right. I don't think anyone picks blades of grass and smokes them, nor does anyone collect frozen water that falls from the sky and inhale it. I wonder if they mean something else, like illicit narcotics?" would that be "fake news?"
So there was weird stuff in Podesta's emails like someone saying they found a "map handkerchief that appears to be pizza-related," and various other odd food-related statements and wondered what the fuck they were talking about because they made no sense in context. There have always been conspiracy theories about elite pedo rings, and plenty that have been uncovered (British parliament, Catholic Church, the BBC, Epstein's pedo island that the Clintons have visited), Dennis Hastert probably wasn't acting alone, lots of statements from Hollywood child stars who say they were abused but refuse to name names, there were people busted for international child trafficking in Haiti who were bailed out by the Clinton Foundation....is it that ridiculous that the DNC has such skeletons, too? And then people started tracing associates of the Podestas, found the Comet pizza place with the really bizarre photos and social media posts, and a few other things. And then the media completely froze the story, focused 100% on the Comet place, said "This is ridiculous, fake news!!!" without explanation for any of it and that was that. They pretended like the entire story was the pizza place, and never even mentioned the emails, the Foundation, the other connections.
Very strange. Usually when there's a conspiracy theory ("I saw flashing lights in the sky that moved too fast and erratically to be an airplane! It must be aliens!") the g-man is supposed to come out and say "no, that was just swamp gas reflecting off a weather balloon, nothing to see here, move along." In this case they screamed "FAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKEEEEE!" with no explanation. If you want to debunk the conspiracy theory you need to provide the true narrative and explanation for the odd facts. "Oh, this is what a pizza-related map handkerchief is, don't you feel silly now!" Nope. Never did that.
What the fuck is a pizza-related map handkerchief?
Its not illegal, but frankly its immoral to do government business on a private account. The ONLY fucking purpose of that is to hide shit from review.
Depends on the content of the email. "Honey, I'm going to be late to dinner because I'm in this meeting for the XYZ bill." Oh no, there's now details of a government meeting in a private email!
Also, Pence is complying with the records-keeping laws of Indiana by having his AOL account archived. That's the only reason you even know about this story...because he was already doing the right thing. I'm wondering if maybe your outrage over Pence's email is not because you're a real stickler for email practices but because you're opposed to him politically, so anything you can maybe infer isn't perfect turns out to be proof of absolute depravity. Maybe?
That said, I think governments at all levels should review their email records-keeping practices. Government doesn't move that fast, and technology has changed the way we communicate rapidly over the last two decades. I doubt any government agency outside of classified systems has policies in place that Slashdotters would agree are "best practices." And it gets trickier when we start bringing cell phones, texting, and twitter accounts into the mix. If a government agency deletes a tweet (even for a typo), does that count as "destroying government records?" Are they government records, or do they belong to twitter? Interesting, interesting.
When the administration gets into the office on the promise of "draining the swamp" it is not crazy to point out the fact that the water has only gotten deeper under his watch.
"Draining the swamp" was from a specific policy speech about government lobbying with five specific actions he pledged to take. The 2 involving the Executive Branch he's already fulfilled, and the other 3 require congress, which can't get to the legislative agenda until cabinet/executive/judicial appointments are finished and the Dems are dragging their feet, merely delaying the inevitable. If he does those things, he will have "drained the swamp." You're changing the definition to whatever you want (something about government record keeping...retroactive for Indiana governors? I guess?) so you can claim whatever that is he's not doing it. When the fact is no matter what Trump does ("OH MY GOD he didn't appoint a left-handed lesbian eskimo transmidget to the Supreme Court! So much for 'draining the swamp', huh Trumpkins?!?!") you're never going to give him credit for "draining the swamp" because you've simply defined it as "the opposite of whatever Trump's doing."
Why would they? When Hillary broke the law and used her private email server for classified information her voters said "THIS IS FINE AND WE LOVE IT!!!" The public would have to want compliance guys doing their jobs and punishing rule breakers but half of voters vocally approve of this sort of behavior, so why should the government give a shit?
However it's still an incredibly bad idea for an elected official to use a personal email for any type of official work as it provides an easy way to hide documents and correspondence that should be in the public record or at least archived.
I agree, I think the problem is that when you're an elected official so much of your personal life is conflated with your private life it's hard to keep 100% separate. If you're emailing your wife about being late to your daughter's dance recital because you're "still in this meeting talking about the XYZ bill," oh no, now there's "details of official meetings" in your personal email!
It seems a lot of government agencies at all levels probably need to review their email handling procedures. Law, particularly for technology and behavior of elected officials, doesn't move that fast. A lot of things that seem obvious because they're common practice in industry don't get written into law because there isn't that much of an incentive to do so.
The fact that he only recently started archiving the work emails from his private account strongly suggests that he had no intentions to do so unless pressed for them.
They might have been meaningless. See above with the dance recital example.
In light of the furor that Republicans built up after Hillary's email issue, the fact that someone high up in the current administration did essentially the same thing (no matter if it was allowed or not) smacks of hypocrisy.
Ehhhhhh no. You're mixing up the medium (email) with the crime (mishandling of classified information). Pence did not have top secret clearance as governor of Indiana and was not trafficking in classified information. Hillary did and was. This is a type of "fake news." True facts about Pence's use of personal email, but completely fake context to damage his reputation by tying his legal behavior to Hillary's illegal behavior.
let 'em fly. douse the R's in the same shit they gave hillary.
DROWN them in it. let them realize that any weaspon you use, the other side will use, when its THEIR turn.
Trump was right in his statement last night about Sessions that the Dems have lost their grip on reality. Pence broke no laws. It's not illegal to use a private email account for Indiana state business. You're fixated on "EMAIL!" when the issue with Hillary wasn't email, but breaking laws about the handling of classified information. Nothing is going to come of this, and you're going to descend further and further into madness.
Fake News would imply the content was incorrect, invented or misleading.
I think there are two different definitions of "fake news" running around. In the original "fake news" story it was about a left-wing activist who wanted to "prove" right wingers were dumb and will fall for stupid shit so he created a news blog with completely made up facts, like that protestors were being paid $3500 to protest against Trump. This wasn't true, protestors were being paid around $16 via craigslist posts by people affiliated with Moveon.org, but it's useful disinformation for those who don't pay too much attention. Mention some protestors are being paid, and someone can scream "that was fake news!" And they're half right because they heard about the $3500 fake news and not the $16 real news. Anyway, then he'd post his fake news site in the comments sections of right wing blogs, and immediately someone would say "don't spread this crap, it's fake." The author then goes on NPR and says "hurr durr Trump won because these right wingers are peddling all this fake news I made!" Uh, if the left wing hack weren't making the fake news there wouldn't be fake news, if he weren't spreading it fake news wouldn't spread, and nobody believed him anyway. It's literally the "I was just pretending to be retarded" meme.
Then we have the way the mainstream media does fake news, which is fake context. People don't think in terms of facts, they think in terms of narratives. CNN does shit like this where you have a true fact (the video of the sister) but a fake narrative ('urged peace;" she did not). Or this story, where they're trying to conflate Pence's legal use of a private email account for state business with Hillary's illegal use of a private email server for classified information. The facts don't really matter. They're working a narrative ("Trump's administration is full of sloppy crooks who are puppets to Russians/Jews/aliens/Lizard Men from the Hollow Earth") using confirmation bias. Put out enough scary-sounding headlines describing legal behavior or wild speculation and confirmation bias takes over until people unironically believe that ultra-nationalist Jeff Sessions is a commie-rooskie agent. This won't work on Republicans or most normal independents, but the left has lost their grip on reality long ago, and Dems are probably checking under their beds for Russians at this point.
I have no idea how to break people out of these hallucinations. I wondered when Trump won the New Hampshire primaries and HuffPo ran their headline, literally in all caps "WAR IN EUROPE" sized that "NEW HAMPSHIRE GOES RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC!!!!!" what would happen when Trump wins the general election? New Hampshire voters went for Trump because he said he'd get the $10 heroin off their streets, not because they're secret nazis. Would their readers snap out of it and realize HuffPo was misleading them? Nope. My FaceBook page is still full of hysterical women who think Russian Hitler is about to gas all non-straight white christian males. And the media just keeps adding fuel to the fire. How does this end?
I think they're bad, based off my opinion of their business model.
But if the media just decided they have to die, I'm VERY suspicious of that in and of itself.
Yeah, it seems like they're going after every aspect of their business. "Their CEO's a shit! They're sexist! Nobody likes them!" And then when some kind of coordinated regulatory crackdown hits them next month there will be no public outcry because "well serves them right for hatin' wimminz and being mean and shit."
As far as the economy goes its not the cars that concern me its the drivers.
I agree, that's my actual concern. The fact that these people cannot find better employment is a troublesome indicator for the state of our economy and society. I just point out the cars being run into the ground because the drivers don't understand amortization. They think that they're making a passable living when they're basically just eating their cars. Driving for Uber is not a good deal for the drivers, and is among the reasons I choose not to use the service.
You don't have to manufacture anything. But if all of a sudden every newspaper is writing stories where they've decided to interview all your ex-girlfriends, your third grade teacher, your mailman, to plaster every negative thing about you that you've ever done across the media landscape, every bit of it might be true but that's still a coordinated effort by some group in the media to take you down. I've never liked Uber, but I am curious as to who has suddenly decided that Uber needs to die.
I also have never liked Uber, as I think the "sharing economy" is a scam, and (formerly?) middle class people running their cars into the ground operating an illicit taxi service is not "innovative" but an indictment of a dying economy and society eating itself.
That said, Jesus, what is up with the "everything about every aspect of Uber sucks" stories every other day? Either somebody's waging a coordinated media campaign against Uber, or I guess every other news outlet just randomly decided to write about Uber's failings in the last few weeks?
If they were actually booting Nazis, that wouldn't be so bad. The problem is the left's Nazi detector has completely lost calibration and now identifies anyone to the right of the love child of Jane Fonda and Joseph Stalin as "literally double mega hitler." This makes them look insane to normal people.
Honest question: what behavior are you talking about?
Filibustering Trump's cabinet? It's taking forever, for no other reason that Democrats dragging their feet. Republicans did not do this to Obama's cabinet, and approved 7 of his appointments on Obama's first day in office.
I'm not arguing Republicans didn't use obstructionist tactics later in Obama's presidency, but I don't see how you can say Democrats aren't being obstructionists now when they've filibustered cabinet appointments. It ultimately doesn't matter because they have no power and can't actually stop anything. They're merely delaying the inevitable.
There's an anti-Uber story every 2-3 days now it seems. Now, I've always hated Uber and been shitting on them for years on/. because I think the "sharing economy" is a scam, but this looks like a coordinated media hit to me. Either Uber really is just the most god-awful shithole in every way imaginable and everyone just suddenly now realized it...or somebody's got it out for them.
This seems to me like the only way to get live sports online, though, right? So if you were somebody who wants to cut the cord because $120/month for cable is retarded but still wants sports, this is attractive, no?
Slashdot Mirror
potential innocent explanation
Okay, so since there are potential innocent explanations for any contact between Trump campaign officials and Russians, we never have to hear about the stupid "Trump is a Russian puppet!" conspiracy theories again, and no one should ask about them anymore. Agreed?
I'm not saying we burn Podesta at the stake. I just want someone to ask him (or the people he was emailing), what the actual innocent explanation is. Not for a potential one! Of course potential ones exist. I want the actual innocent explanation.
So the republicans are saying that Pence is fine because it's legal in Indiana.
Well, yes, it's fine because it was legal, and "indiana state business" is nothing like top secret and SAP information.
I do think all levels of government should review their electronic communications records keeping policies and laws. Lots of things about the way we communicate electronically have changed drastically in the last decade or so (is a government agency who deletes a tweet because of a typo destroying official records?) and I doubt every state and local government has kept up.
Aside: And beyond that we need some kind of a consistent philosophy when it comes to government information, private information, leaking, whistleblowing, hacking, cyber warfare (both between governments and between governments and non-state actors). There is no standard doctrine for how the government should respond to a foreign government hacking a private entity.
The democrats are saying that Hilary was fine because it was legal at the time.
But it wasn't. It was never legal to store classified information on your home server. Comey said it wasn't legal, but recommended against prosecution because "eh" and the Democrat AG went along AND THAT DECISION HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH CHATTING ABOUT GRANDKIDS FOR 30 MINUTES ON THE TARMAC WITH BILL CLINTON.
Do you think there's really that much of a difference between the two parties?
Yes. Pence didn't break the law, didn't withhold the emails in his private account from the state, and was handling non-classified information. Hillary did break the law, mishandled top secret and compartmentalized information (SAP stuff...like "10 years in jail for misplacing" stuff), and destroyed records that were under subpoena. Only the most blindly partisan fool could think these are the same things.
Or the Washington Post!
Neither of those are a pizza-related map handkerchief.
I'm not saying the pizzagate thing is real, just that the media reaction is bizarre. You would think "lots of pedo connections, weird artwork, creepy pictures, odd phrases" would be enough for the media to even ask the question if there was something going on (elite pedo rings are hardly unheard of), but nope, just dismissed it out of hand and mock anybody who brought it up. What the hell is the point of journalists if they don't even investigate shit? Even just explaining what the real facts are, and the process by which people can be fooled into believing they're indicative of nefarious behavior would be a good story, right? "Here's the innocent explanation, here's the crazy misinterpretation." But you need the real innocent explanation, so you'd need to ask Podesta specifically what he was talking about in those emails.
So far he has done NOTHING to clean up washington
Nothing? Doesn't the executive lobbying ban count as something?
The ONLY, very very ONLY reason to use a private email to conduct government business (which I doubt was just I am going to be late from the meeting hunny) is to hide something.
No, convenience is a reason to use a private email while conducting government business. One still shouldn't do it, but you now admit there are reasons besides "hiding something."
Anyway, his emails are being properly archived by the state, they can probably be pulled via records requests to see if he was doing anything untoward. How about you find out what nefarious thing he was hiding before you suggest he be "run out of washington?"
Questions could be asked. All I want is somebody to bother asking Podesta and/or the people he was in contact with to give some context to the weird language in the emails. "What did you mean by a pizza-related map handkerchief?" "What did you mean by 'playing dominoes better on cheese or pasta?'" or whatever that was. The weird language is the "shred of evidence," and I'd like it explained. No one ever asked, though, the media just screamed "NOTHING TO SEE HERE FAKE NEWS!" and that was it.
fake news is stuff like Pizzagate.
The way that got handled in the media was really weird. "Pizzagate" isn't even pizzagate. The media just came out and screamed "FAAAAAKEEEE!" with no explanation for the bizarre facts that made people think something weird was going on to begin with.
It was not made up out of whole cloth, it was a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are not "fake news," they're...conspiracy theories. Alternative narratives for true facts that do not mesh with the "official" or obvious, default narrative. It would be fake news if someone had said "okay, we want to smear various DNC people as pedos...let's make up a story about this pizza place!" But it came from people reading Podesta's emails and finding odd things that sound like code words, and then tracking connections to known pedos and things that appeared to be pedo-related.
If you saw an email that said "hey lets get together and smoke some grass and snort some snow," and someone said "hmmm...that doesn't seem right. I don't think anyone picks blades of grass and smokes them, nor does anyone collect frozen water that falls from the sky and inhale it. I wonder if they mean something else, like illicit narcotics?" would that be "fake news?"
So there was weird stuff in Podesta's emails like someone saying they found a "map handkerchief that appears to be pizza-related," and various other odd food-related statements and wondered what the fuck they were talking about because they made no sense in context. There have always been conspiracy theories about elite pedo rings, and plenty that have been uncovered (British parliament, Catholic Church, the BBC, Epstein's pedo island that the Clintons have visited), Dennis Hastert probably wasn't acting alone, lots of statements from Hollywood child stars who say they were abused but refuse to name names, there were people busted for international child trafficking in Haiti who were bailed out by the Clinton Foundation....is it that ridiculous that the DNC has such skeletons, too? And then people started tracing associates of the Podestas, found the Comet pizza place with the really bizarre photos and social media posts, and a few other things. And then the media completely froze the story, focused 100% on the Comet place, said "This is ridiculous, fake news!!!" without explanation for any of it and that was that. They pretended like the entire story was the pizza place, and never even mentioned the emails, the Foundation, the other connections.
Very strange. Usually when there's a conspiracy theory ("I saw flashing lights in the sky that moved too fast and erratically to be an airplane! It must be aliens!") the g-man is supposed to come out and say "no, that was just swamp gas reflecting off a weather balloon, nothing to see here, move along." In this case they screamed "FAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKEEEEE!" with no explanation. If you want to debunk the conspiracy theory you need to provide the true narrative and explanation for the odd facts. "Oh, this is what a pizza-related map handkerchief is, don't you feel silly now!" Nope. Never did that.
What the fuck is a pizza-related map handkerchief?
Its not illegal, but frankly its immoral to do government business on a private account. The ONLY fucking purpose of that is to hide shit from review.
Depends on the content of the email. "Honey, I'm going to be late to dinner because I'm in this meeting for the XYZ bill." Oh no, there's now details of a government meeting in a private email!
Also, Pence is complying with the records-keeping laws of Indiana by having his AOL account archived. That's the only reason you even know about this story...because he was already doing the right thing. I'm wondering if maybe your outrage over Pence's email is not because you're a real stickler for email practices but because you're opposed to him politically, so anything you can maybe infer isn't perfect turns out to be proof of absolute depravity. Maybe?
That said, I think governments at all levels should review their email records-keeping practices. Government doesn't move that fast, and technology has changed the way we communicate rapidly over the last two decades. I doubt any government agency outside of classified systems has policies in place that Slashdotters would agree are "best practices." And it gets trickier when we start bringing cell phones, texting, and twitter accounts into the mix. If a government agency deletes a tweet (even for a typo), does that count as "destroying government records?" Are they government records, or do they belong to twitter? Interesting, interesting.
When the administration gets into the office on the promise of "draining the swamp" it is not crazy to point out the fact that the water has only gotten deeper under his watch.
"Draining the swamp" was from a specific policy speech about government lobbying with five specific actions he pledged to take. The 2 involving the Executive Branch he's already fulfilled, and the other 3 require congress, which can't get to the legislative agenda until cabinet/executive/judicial appointments are finished and the Dems are dragging their feet, merely delaying the inevitable. If he does those things, he will have "drained the swamp." You're changing the definition to whatever you want (something about government record keeping...retroactive for Indiana governors? I guess?) so you can claim whatever that is he's not doing it. When the fact is no matter what Trump does ("OH MY GOD he didn't appoint a left-handed lesbian eskimo transmidget to the Supreme Court! So much for 'draining the swamp', huh Trumpkins?!?!") you're never going to give him credit for "draining the swamp" because you've simply defined it as "the opposite of whatever Trump's doing."
Anyway, stay mad. It's fun.
Why don't politicians have compliance guys?
Why would they? When Hillary broke the law and used her private email server for classified information her voters said "THIS IS FINE AND WE LOVE IT!!!" The public would have to want compliance guys doing their jobs and punishing rule breakers but half of voters vocally approve of this sort of behavior, so why should the government give a shit?
However it's still an incredibly bad idea for an elected official to use a personal email for any type of official work as it provides an easy way to hide documents and correspondence that should be in the public record or at least archived.
I agree, I think the problem is that when you're an elected official so much of your personal life is conflated with your private life it's hard to keep 100% separate. If you're emailing your wife about being late to your daughter's dance recital because you're "still in this meeting talking about the XYZ bill," oh no, now there's "details of official meetings" in your personal email!
It seems a lot of government agencies at all levels probably need to review their email handling procedures. Law, particularly for technology and behavior of elected officials, doesn't move that fast. A lot of things that seem obvious because they're common practice in industry don't get written into law because there isn't that much of an incentive to do so.
The fact that he only recently started archiving the work emails from his private account strongly suggests that he had no intentions to do so unless pressed for them.
They might have been meaningless. See above with the dance recital example.
In light of the furor that Republicans built up after Hillary's email issue, the fact that someone high up in the current administration did essentially the same thing (no matter if it was allowed or not) smacks of hypocrisy.
Ehhhhhh no. You're mixing up the medium (email) with the crime (mishandling of classified information). Pence did not have top secret clearance as governor of Indiana and was not trafficking in classified information. Hillary did and was. This is a type of "fake news." True facts about Pence's use of personal email, but completely fake context to damage his reputation by tying his legal behavior to Hillary's illegal behavior.
let 'em fly. douse the R's in the same shit they gave hillary.
DROWN them in it. let them realize that any weaspon you use, the other side will use, when its THEIR turn.
Trump was right in his statement last night about Sessions that the Dems have lost their grip on reality. Pence broke no laws. It's not illegal to use a private email account for Indiana state business. You're fixated on "EMAIL!" when the issue with Hillary wasn't email, but breaking laws about the handling of classified information. Nothing is going to come of this, and you're going to descend further and further into madness.
Fake News would imply the content was incorrect, invented or misleading.
I think there are two different definitions of "fake news" running around. In the original "fake news" story it was about a left-wing activist who wanted to "prove" right wingers were dumb and will fall for stupid shit so he created a news blog with completely made up facts, like that protestors were being paid $3500 to protest against Trump. This wasn't true, protestors were being paid around $16 via craigslist posts by people affiliated with Moveon.org, but it's useful disinformation for those who don't pay too much attention. Mention some protestors are being paid, and someone can scream "that was fake news!" And they're half right because they heard about the $3500 fake news and not the $16 real news. Anyway, then he'd post his fake news site in the comments sections of right wing blogs, and immediately someone would say "don't spread this crap, it's fake." The author then goes on NPR and says "hurr durr Trump won because these right wingers are peddling all this fake news I made!" Uh, if the left wing hack weren't making the fake news there wouldn't be fake news, if he weren't spreading it fake news wouldn't spread, and nobody believed him anyway. It's literally the "I was just pretending to be retarded" meme.
Then we have the way the mainstream media does fake news, which is fake context. People don't think in terms of facts, they think in terms of narratives. CNN does shit like this where you have a true fact (the video of the sister) but a fake narrative ('urged peace;" she did not). Or this story, where they're trying to conflate Pence's legal use of a private email account for state business with Hillary's illegal use of a private email server for classified information. The facts don't really matter. They're working a narrative ("Trump's administration is full of sloppy crooks who are puppets to Russians/Jews/aliens/Lizard Men from the Hollow Earth") using confirmation bias. Put out enough scary-sounding headlines describing legal behavior or wild speculation and confirmation bias takes over until people unironically believe that ultra-nationalist Jeff Sessions is a commie-rooskie agent. This won't work on Republicans or most normal independents, but the left has lost their grip on reality long ago, and Dems are probably checking under their beds for Russians at this point.
I have no idea how to break people out of these hallucinations. I wondered when Trump won the New Hampshire primaries and HuffPo ran their headline, literally in all caps "WAR IN EUROPE" sized that "NEW HAMPSHIRE GOES RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC!!!!!" what would happen when Trump wins the general election? New Hampshire voters went for Trump because he said he'd get the $10 heroin off their streets, not because they're secret nazis. Would their readers snap out of it and realize HuffPo was misleading them? Nope. My FaceBook page is still full of hysterical women who think Russian Hitler is about to gas all non-straight white christian males. And the media just keeps adding fuel to the fire. How does this end?
Yes, the Republicans were obstructionist. The Dems are currently being obstructionist. We're agreed on both these points, right?
Maybe they are bad, I don't know.
I think they're bad, based off my opinion of their business model.
But if the media just decided they have to die, I'm VERY suspicious of that in and of itself.
Yeah, it seems like they're going after every aspect of their business. "Their CEO's a shit! They're sexist! Nobody likes them!" And then when some kind of coordinated regulatory crackdown hits them next month there will be no public outcry because "well serves them right for hatin' wimminz and being mean and shit."
Fuck Uber, sure, but also fuck the media.
As far as the economy goes its not the cars that concern me its the drivers.
I agree, that's my actual concern. The fact that these people cannot find better employment is a troublesome indicator for the state of our economy and society. I just point out the cars being run into the ground because the drivers don't understand amortization. They think that they're making a passable living when they're basically just eating their cars. Driving for Uber is not a good deal for the drivers, and is among the reasons I choose not to use the service.
But you know they're all going to pass anyway, right? The Dems aren't persuading anyone, they're just filling up time.
You don't have to manufacture anything. But if all of a sudden every newspaper is writing stories where they've decided to interview all your ex-girlfriends, your third grade teacher, your mailman, to plaster every negative thing about you that you've ever done across the media landscape, every bit of it might be true but that's still a coordinated effort by some group in the media to take you down. I've never liked Uber, but I am curious as to who has suddenly decided that Uber needs to die.
I also have never liked Uber, as I think the "sharing economy" is a scam, and (formerly?) middle class people running their cars into the ground operating an illicit taxi service is not "innovative" but an indictment of a dying economy and society eating itself.
That said, Jesus, what is up with the "everything about every aspect of Uber sucks" stories every other day? Either somebody's waging a coordinated media campaign against Uber, or I guess every other news outlet just randomly decided to write about Uber's failings in the last few weeks?
I don't think you understand the debate procedures in the senate. The Dems are spending as much time talking as allowed so they can delay each vote.
If they were actually booting Nazis, that wouldn't be so bad. The problem is the left's Nazi detector has completely lost calibration and now identifies anyone to the right of the love child of Jane Fonda and Joseph Stalin as "literally double mega hitler." This makes them look insane to normal people.
But they don't punish racism. If you post "kill whitey" they won't do a thing to you.
if you simply allow the cranks to control your medium, it will fester into nothingness.
Indeed. Look at the cesspool that is CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, etc.
Honest question: what behavior are you talking about?
Filibustering Trump's cabinet? It's taking forever, for no other reason that Democrats dragging their feet. Republicans did not do this to Obama's cabinet, and approved 7 of his appointments on Obama's first day in office.
I'm not arguing Republicans didn't use obstructionist tactics later in Obama's presidency, but I don't see how you can say Democrats aren't being obstructionists now when they've filibustered cabinet appointments. It ultimately doesn't matter because they have no power and can't actually stop anything. They're merely delaying the inevitable.
There's an anti-Uber story every 2-3 days now it seems. Now, I've always hated Uber and been shitting on them for years on /. because I think the "sharing economy" is a scam, but this looks like a coordinated media hit to me. Either Uber really is just the most god-awful shithole in every way imaginable and everyone just suddenly now realized it...or somebody's got it out for them.
This seems to me like the only way to get live sports online, though, right? So if you were somebody who wants to cut the cord because $120/month for cable is retarded but still wants sports, this is attractive, no?