As a literate person who can spell 'omphaloskepsis', I worry about the future when shallow comic characters are the pinnacle of entertainment. People try to convince themselves that this it sci-fi, but it's only fantasy.
It's not sci-fi or fantasy, it's comic book. The comic book genre is essentially standard action blockbuster with a bit more drama and philosophy than usual.
The pornographic costumes are the main attraction to pubescent viewers and more than a few others.
They're a secondary appeal, but I'd say they're far from the main attraction. To the expect that pubescent viewers go on about them they're just tying to show off for their friends. As opposed to traditional films they're probably unusual to the extent that the leading actresses are able to keep their clothes on.
The simplistic moral lessons are mind numbingly stupid; good versus evil over and over with magical powers on all sides.
But there's always a hope that they will gravitate toward real sci-fi and real human drama that makes interesting storytelling.
Like what? There have been and continue to be pure character dramas and slightly harder SF films, the victims of the comic book movies don't seem to be the more artsy intellectual films, it's the other action blockbusters that aren't getting made.
And as blockbusters go I think they're fine, if anything they do a bit more character and philosophy than most.
The first woman was the one who experienced "rough sex" and the broken condom, which she thought Assange deliberately broke (he claimed he wasn't aware... which seems implausible).
The second women had repeatedly expressed her preference against unprotected sex and so they'd have protected sex. But later she fell asleep and awoke to find him having unprotected sex with her.
The first one seems like some sketchy behaviour on his part but I don't think there's a case on its own.
But the second one is definite rape, not only was she asleep (and unable to consent) when it started, but it was a form of sex she had expressly prohibited.
It is a mockery of justice that a court of law has to sift to that couple's personal life like that. I'd say it would be enough of a reason for her to dump him but it definitely should never have made it to court. Court shouldn't safeguard bullshit stuff like "sexual integrity" because it's impossible. Everyone have different views on that. And if two people have incompatible views they just stop their relationship or change their views.
Having sex with someone who doesn't consent isn't a "couple's personal life", it's rape.
The outer space treaty isn't going to mean squat when companies/countries start claiming chunks of space real-estate. Sure everyone who isn't trying to claim their own piece of planet/asteroid is going to throw a fit but it's not likely to amount to much. Just look at the claiming of the ocean floor, Pre WWII I think it was "internationally agreed" that countries only owned a dozen or so miles off of their coasts. Today most countries claim hundreds of miles and as ocean floor mining becomes more common that is likely to increase.
I think you still need a template of some kind. Assume SpaceCo wants to land on the moon and build a mining facility.
Is it a homesteading arrangement, they build a facility according to a certain spec and they get a 1km radius, or do they buy/lease the land, contributing to some international fund?
You could probably avoid land rights entirely at first since it will be such a struggle to get up there, but it's a good idea to know what kind of eventual system you're working towards.
"""I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office" -- an apparent reference to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe -- "that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40 . . . . " Page does not appear to have responded, according to records reviewed by CNN.""
And if there were some Trump damaging FBI leak immediately after that message, or some official investigative action that didn't really make sense, then you'd have a point.
But you're still missing any evidence of an actual action containing bias, even assuming that text message means what you want it to mean and not what McCabe says, ie:
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office [that we protect our source in the Russia investigation by proceeding more slowly since we know] that there’s no way he gets elected [and the result won't matter] - but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 [so we need to be prepared to get to the bottom of any Russian connection before he win's the election and takes office]”
Have you not been listening to the Text Messages that were read aloud in court from FBI agents clearly admitting they were biasing the case for political reasons?
Biasing how? Point out a biased action that either of them took?
As has been pointed out, they very easily could have leaked the very damaging information of an active FBI investigation into members of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia, but they didn't.
> Hiding income that they got working for a Russia-backed politician in Ukraine and other Russian interests.
That occurred before Manafort was ever on the Trump campaign, so it really has nothing to do with anything.
He worked for a (notoriously corrupt) Russia-linked politician and has a lot of connections with Kremlin linked Russians. It doesn't seem like a weird coincidence that he ended up on Trump's campaign?
> I mean Papadopoulous, while on the campaign, met with a Russian connected individual to get information on emails that would damage Clinton.
Yeah, why would someone working on a political campaign work to find dirt on their political opponent? Next you'll be wondering why Jeri Ryan's divorce records were unsealed.
Getting illegally gained intel from a foreign government?
So are you now working towards the theory that it would be perfectly OK for Trump to have colluded with the Russian government?
Until it has been presented to a court, that is hearsay and inadmissible in this discussion.
As the plaintiff has shown contempt for the discussion and has been unable to present any material evidence, this case is closed.
You are free to appeal, however you are advised to actually have evidence.
Accurate... yet once again completely missing the point. I have a suspicious you're fully aware why the FBI is trying to avoid a quick trial for this particular case, you're just looking for an excuse to push the "Fake Investigation" Trumpist narrative.
... You need to watch more of your grand mother's police procedural. Maybe go to see her and watch some Law and Order or CSI or something.
Your lack of understanding of how a police investigation unfolds is frankly baffling to me.
For your information, the police generally build a case and THEN accuse people of crimes. Not the other way around.
You're still ignoring the content of the reply. They HAVE a case, they HAVE the evidence, what they don't want to do is have a quick trial where the defendant isn't in the country and won't be subjected to any punishment if found guilty.
Why is it that if the FBI is following protocol that they're confusing judges with why they would do things and being made to look foolish?
Because they're not following protocol. As much is obvious.
And why aren't they following protocol? Do they not know what it is? Are they badly trained? Maybe there is some reason why they're violating protocol? Some... agenda?
Its all transparently obvious. Don't embarrass yourself by defending this farce.
They are following protocol, they just got hit by a clever legal manouver. The FBI expected to either get a defendant they could put in jail (and potentially turn with a deal), or a defendant who was a no-show and therefore there was never a trial.
Instead the defendant found a loophole where it looked like they could force a trial (exposing some of the FBIs evidence) without showing up and risking a punishment. It wasn't certain if the judge would let them use the loophole, but they did, so now the FBI is in a bind with that particular case.
Page 4 paragraphs 14-17 has several defendants changed with the development and deployment of their malware called "X-Agent" on the DNC servers.
Page 8, 23-24, they researched for vulnerabilities in the DCCC and DNC networks, which they seemingly used to install more malware and safely navigate the servers.
Sure, initial access seems to have been phishing, but stuff like screwing with server logs and installing keyloggers is definitely hacking.
Note also the same "Russian Hackerz" tried this with the RNC too but nobody bit.
Now, the RNC hack was of older email accounts so it wouldn't have been as damaging. It's also quite possible they didn't try as hard to hack the RNC because Clinton was their primary target.
if you've got evidence then why can't you go to trial?
Because people are running their mouths and actually don't have evidence.
I know I know... bluster and hummms and hahs... take it to court or its just hot air.
Did you actually read my reply?
They have the evidence. They don't want to go to trial yet because exposing that evidence will make it easier for future targets of the investigation to evade justice.
Think of it this way. I was involved in X, Y, and Z. Individually, they look bad and raise suspicions but you'll probably be fine. But exposing all of them will land me in jail. Now Mueller comes along and asks me under oath if I had anything to do with X, Y, or Z so I say no.
Then Mueller say "aha! I have proof you were involved in X! You just committed perjury, now you're going to jail and it's time to cut a deal!"
That's what happened with Flynn, Panadopolous, and I think Manafort and Gates as well, they didn't know what Mueller knew so Mueller could catch them in a lie.
And that's why the Russians want to force the trial, because the more Mueller is forced to disclose what evidence he has the easier it is for the next subject to figure out what they can lie about and when they should tell the truth.
It says it was hosting 10 billion "worth of cryptocurrency bets". That might mean that cryptos worth 10 billion yuan were currently in the system waiting on the outcome of the next two games. Or it could mean that the ring handled 10 billion worth of bets over the entire 8-month period.
notice, no americans in that indictment... and probably there is an expectation that this "accusation" won't be defended.
Foreign governments rarely show up to a US court to argue they were not guilty.
Thus a baseless accusation can stand because there is no due process because there is no trial generally.
I'd like the Russians to show up. Just send some lawyers to represent their clients. Force the Justice Department to actually argue their case in a court of law.
Already, the justice department was surprised when some Russian companies they accused sent lawyers. And the result was effectively a retraction of the accusations almost immediately.
Some people will accuse me of political bias... these people haven't been paying attention to this circus.
Yes I will, because you're mischaracterizing what happened.
Mueller never expected to put any of the Russians in jail. I suspect the reason for the indictments were because a) to display via indictments that they do have actual evidence of Russian collusion, b) they're limited in their ability to travel because of extradition and c) you've got the evidence of a crime, why not indict?
The reason he's trying to delay proceedings is because the defendant in question has zero intention of actually exposing themselves to punishment so there's not a ton of benefit in winning a case against the company. But during a trial Mueller would have to disclose his evidence that supports the charges. And disclosing that evidence would jeopardize the rest of the investigation.
While your statement is factually correct the narrative to which the submitter is reference is the "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative. People want it to be true to get rid of Trump. These are all publicly available in indictments.
Hiding income that they got working for a Russia-backed politician in Ukraine and other Russian interests.
Only Pinedo, has anything to do with Russian involvement and that has to do with him selling some of the fraud services to the Russians. Pinedo wasn't involved with Trump's campaign. Each of the indictments of individuals associated with the Trump campaign have nothing to do with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians.
It's surprising that you went to the trouble to link to the indictments that actually contradict your claims.
I mean Papadopoulous, while on the campaign, met with a Russian connected individual to get information on emails that would damage Clinton.
What possible definition of "with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians" does that not satisfy?
And so for many people Trump is a racist, blowing a dog whistle that racists and liberals can hear clearly. For others, Trump is a practical leader doing what's best for the nation.
Which is the correct view?
The one where Trump is a racist blowing a dog whistle (and then telling people that he's blowing a dog whistle incase they didn't hear).
Everyone who isn't lying or in denial should agree that Trump has said and done racist things. The disagreement is about the second part, whether he's "a practical leader doing what's best for the nation".
His supporters think that racism is doing something practical that is best for the nation, his opponents disagree.
Which brings me to the Mueller investigation, which I have always believed to be based on nothing.
Which is incorrect. Just based on publicly available information there's more than enough cause to investigate, and Mueller knows a lot that isn't public.
It seems perfectly obvious that the *amount* of Russian involvement in the election is well into the noise - to the tune of something like $13 million over several months, compared to $3 billion (-ish, depends on what you count) spent by Clinton and Trump.
Am I (and half the country) dismissing something important because of cognitive dissonance?
Yes you are.
You characterized the Russian involvement solely in terms of ad buys, then used the relatively small cash value to trivialize the importance overall. But in doing so you completely ignored the large scale social media campaign and the email hacking which is what everyone actually means by Russian interference.
Of course, I don't know if that's your "cognitive dissonance" or just an effort to mislead.
On the other side, Julian Assange has stated several times that the leaks didn't come from Russia. Julian never identified the actual leaks, speculation has it that it was Seth Rich.
Julian Assange is a sufficiently trustworthy source not to be dismissed out of hand, and the US justice system should allow the evidence to be combed through by the media.
My hunch is that Russia passed the files to an intermediary who fed their Wikileaks contact the "DNC insider" story and Assange is happy to be the "useful idiot" role and play along. Assange doesn't want the repercussions from admitting that Wikileaks was used by Russia, and depending on his future legal situation he might want to pull a Snowden and settle there long term.
Let's see the actual demographic makeup of their devs. Spoiler: it's overwhelming male and white / Asian / Indian like all other big tech firms. This is just a cheap soundbite to placate the SJW crowd with absolutely no substance behind it, and everyone knows it. Besides, I'm confused: doesn't the H1B program that Microsoft et al abuse exist in practice solely to bring (temporary) immigrants into the country (to work as indentured tech servants and save big corps money)? Their statement here about caring about immigrants is 100% trash -- follow their money.
I personally know a bunch of Iranians who've gone to work for Microsoft (and other big tech firms) and I'm pretty sure it was under HB1, and I know many of them made really nice salaries and now have green cards.
Now I don't know how typical their story is, but certainly not all use of HB1 is abuse.
"Drug dealers pleased to inform customers of lower bitcoin prices to increase sales"
Sadly, I don't think that's the case.
The importance of crypto-currency to the black market is that it exists at all, the value is almost irrelevant. As long as they can convert to-from the fiat currency, and then anonymize the exchange with the crypto-currency (depends on the specific currency), they're fine.
The only sketchy activity this might cut down on it's the hackers, the lower the reward for mining the fewer people looking to hijack your devices.
China is a developing country and it as of 2018 puts out more CO2 than the US does as a total. India is also a developing country and it is second on the chart, expecting to pass the US soon. So, yes developing countries are putting CO2 into the are at a ever increasing rate. Don't hand me that tired line "developing countries are not responsible."
Cute how you changed "responsible almost none of the accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere and very little of the new CO2" to "developing countries are not responsible".
It's hard to find number but I suspect China and India are still responsibly for a relatively small portion of the accumulated problem. Now they're emitting a lot now, and accounting for an ever bigger portion of the problem, but they also contain 34% of the world's population. It's hard to argue they shouldn't be allowed to make about 34% of the world's emissions.
The Pars agreement was nothing more than a attempt to grab money from developed countries, while forcing them to hobble their economies at the same time. That money would be paid to developing countries while at the same time mostly absolving them from current CO2 emission and future emissions.
Nothing wrong with transferring wealth to developing countries as long as it is done in fair nature to both parties.
So define fair. There's people in China and India who are still largely subsistence farmers without electricity. Is it fair that China and India not give them power because they can't afford solar or nuclear, nor give them tractors because of the CO2 emissions. Even as they still have a fraction of the per-capita emissions as the west?
China and India are both really worried about Global Warming but like everyone else they have a concept of fair, and while rich nations with huge per-captia emissions are really not doing much to reduce emissions they're not going to be willing to spend a bunch of money to reduce emissions either.
We never had any commitments to this agreement. Obama made the agreement on his own accord and not with the backing of congress. This pretty much makes it worthless.
What we are seeing is people trying to guilt us back into the agreement so the money can keep flowing. This was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to transfer wealth to 3rd world nations.
You really expect a developing economy, responsibly for almost none of the accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere and very little of the new CO2, to be held to the same standard as rich developed economies who got rich by doing exactly the thing we want those developing nations to avoid?
Of course any climate deal is going to involve wealth transfers to developing countries.
Abuse of power is all fun & games when you're in power, the problem is when you're on the receiving end.
Your memory is incredibly short - remember it is the Democrats that abused power, not Republicans.
The ACA passage? Some political manoeuvring, but not abuse of power. In fact, if it weren't for the fairly extraordinary policy of "no GOP Senator is allowed to vote yes" it would have garnered quite a few GOP votes, it was afterall a GOP concept.
Why is it so darn hard for the FBI to describe when and why they started their Trump Investigation?
It's not hard, Carter Page blabbed his mouth to a diplomat about the leaked emails months before anyone knew of leaked emails. That's a good and very valid pretext.
Why did the FBI pay individuals to try and infiltrate/influence the Trump campaign?
Why were there so many "unmasking" requests from the US Ambassador to the UN in the final year of the Obama administration? (Her defense is that it wasn't her, it was her "staff"!)
I can't recall this one off-hand but I'll look into it, I'm not hopeful that it has any more validity than your other points.
But even without trade-wars, we are statistically due for a recession based on the length of the current upturn. The fact the yield curve is inverting is yet another warning sign. Based on past yield curves, we got roughly 18 months until it "hits".
Trump may unfairly get the blame for a slump. Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT defending his overall economic policy, but generally the sitting President's popularity is largely tied to the current economy, and it has been this way for more than 100 years.
There's a relationship, but it's pretty fuzzy when the government is divided. Who gets the credit/blame for the economy? The President who runs the administration or the Congress who passes budgets? Still I think it matters, government need to be willing to spend to keep things going in a recession, and when things are good they need to cut back to slow down the economy (and cut deficits). There's still other things driving the economy, but their actions do matter.
I think the Bush tax cuts were a disaster that exacerbated the last recession. They overheated an already hot economy and took away a lot of opportunity to stimulate the economy when it did crash. I think this last round of tax cuts were even worse, how are you going to pass stimulus when you're already running massive deficits?
Hate to victim blame, but anyone who buys an IoT thingy and actually plugs it in to the internet is all but asking for it. If it can't do it's job not connected, don't buy it, and if it does, don't connect it.
Except in this case if the victim protested they were liable to get punched.
This isn't a story about devices being hacked. This is a story about abusers installing smart home tech in order to control and monitor their partner.
But biological psychology lecturer Dr Peter Etchells said the move risked "pathologising" a behaviour that was harmless for most people.
Well if that's the criteria for not being a disorder I guess we can cross off alcohol and opioids (ie, medical painkillers) off the list of medical addictions.
Slashdot Mirror
As a literate person who can spell 'omphaloskepsis', I worry about the future when shallow comic characters are the pinnacle of entertainment. People try to convince themselves that this it sci-fi, but it's only fantasy.
It's not sci-fi or fantasy, it's comic book. The comic book genre is essentially standard action blockbuster with a bit more drama and philosophy than usual.
The pornographic costumes are the main attraction to pubescent viewers and more than a few others.
They're a secondary appeal, but I'd say they're far from the main attraction. To the expect that pubescent viewers go on about them they're just tying to show off for their friends. As opposed to traditional films they're probably unusual to the extent that the leading actresses are able to keep their clothes on.
The simplistic moral lessons are mind numbingly stupid; good versus evil over and over with magical powers on all sides.
Did you see the latest Avengers? The plot was literally driven by a difference in philosophy.
But there's always a hope that they will gravitate toward real sci-fi and real human drama that makes interesting storytelling.
Like what? There have been and continue to be pure character dramas and slightly harder SF films, the victims of the comic book movies don't seem to be the more artsy intellectual films, it's the other action blockbusters that aren't getting made.
And as blockbusters go I think they're fine, if anything they do a bit more character and philosophy than most.
There were two women.
One said he raped her but she later revealed that she did, indeed, express a liking for rough sex.
The other woman only wanted to talk to Assange to inquire as to whether he had any sexually transmissible diseases, because a rubber broke.
That woman self-tested and was found to be OK.
Both women dropped the charges.
Sweden, on its own volition, issued an arrest warrant for Assange on the premise that they wanted to question him.
He said, "Fine. Let's meet and talk."
Sweden ordered him to come back there.
Fearing a trap, Julian declined.
Not quite.
The first woman was the one who experienced "rough sex" and the broken condom, which she thought Assange deliberately broke (he claimed he wasn't aware... which seems implausible).
The second women had repeatedly expressed her preference against unprotected sex and so they'd have protected sex. But later she fell asleep and awoke to find him having unprotected sex with her.
The first one seems like some sketchy behaviour on his part but I don't think there's a case on its own.
But the second one is definite rape, not only was she asleep (and unable to consent) when it started, but it was a form of sex she had expressly prohibited.
It is a mockery of justice that a court of law has to sift to that couple's personal life like that. I'd say it would be enough of a reason for her to dump him but it definitely should never have made it to court. Court shouldn't safeguard bullshit stuff like "sexual integrity" because it's impossible. Everyone have different views on that. And if two people have incompatible views they just stop their relationship or change their views.
Having sex with someone who doesn't consent isn't a "couple's personal life", it's rape.
The outer space treaty isn't going to mean squat when companies/countries start claiming chunks of space real-estate. Sure everyone who isn't trying to claim their own piece of planet/asteroid is going to throw a fit but it's not likely to amount to much. Just look at the claiming of the ocean floor, Pre WWII I think it was "internationally agreed" that countries only owned a dozen or so miles off of their coasts. Today most countries claim hundreds of miles and as ocean floor mining becomes more common that is likely to increase.
I think you still need a template of some kind. Assume SpaceCo wants to land on the moon and build a mining facility.
Is it a homesteading arrangement, they build a facility according to a certain spec and they get a 1km radius, or do they buy/lease the land, contributing to some international fund?
You could probably avoid land rights entirely at first since it will be such a struggle to get up there, but it's a good idea to know what kind of eventual system you're working towards.
This is pathetic. The legs of your position were blown off and you're just crawling around. Just stop.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/12...
"""I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office" -- an apparent reference to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe -- "that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40 . . . . " Page does not appear to have responded, according to records reviewed by CNN.""
And if there were some Trump damaging FBI leak immediately after that message, or some official investigative action that didn't really make sense, then you'd have a point.
But you're still missing any evidence of an actual action containing bias, even assuming that text message means what you want it to mean and not what McCabe says, ie:
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office [that we protect our source in the Russia investigation by proceeding more slowly since we know] that there’s no way he gets elected [and the result won't matter] - but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 [so we need to be prepared to get to the bottom of any Russian connection before he win's the election and takes office]”
Have you not been listening to the Text Messages that were read aloud in court from FBI agents clearly admitting they were biasing the case for political reasons?
Biasing how? Point out a biased action that either of them took?
As has been pointed out, they very easily could have leaked the very damaging information of an active FBI investigation into members of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia, but they didn't.
> Hiding income that they got working for a Russia-backed politician in Ukraine and other Russian interests.
That occurred before Manafort was ever on the Trump campaign, so it really has nothing to do with anything.
He worked for a (notoriously corrupt) Russia-linked politician and has a lot of connections with Kremlin linked Russians. It doesn't seem like a weird coincidence that he ended up on Trump's campaign?
> I mean Papadopoulous, while on the campaign, met with a Russian connected individual to get information on emails that would damage Clinton.
Yeah, why would someone working on a political campaign work to find dirt on their political opponent? Next you'll be wondering why Jeri Ryan's divorce records were unsealed.
Getting illegally gained intel from a foreign government?
So are you now working towards the theory that it would be perfectly OK for Trump to have colluded with the Russian government?
Until it has been presented to a court, that is hearsay and inadmissible in this discussion.
As the plaintiff has shown contempt for the discussion and has been unable to present any material evidence, this case is closed.
You are free to appeal, however you are advised to actually have evidence.
Accurate... yet once again completely missing the point. I have a suspicious you're fully aware why the FBI is trying to avoid a quick trial for this particular case, you're just looking for an excuse to push the "Fake Investigation" Trumpist narrative.
... You need to watch more of your grand mother's police procedural. Maybe go to see her and watch some Law and Order or CSI or something.
Your lack of understanding of how a police investigation unfolds is frankly baffling to me.
For your information, the police generally build a case and THEN accuse people of crimes. Not the other way around.
You're still ignoring the content of the reply. They HAVE a case, they HAVE the evidence, what they don't want to do is have a quick trial where the defendant isn't in the country and won't be subjected to any punishment if found guilty.
Why is it that if the FBI is following protocol that they're confusing judges with why they would do things and being made to look foolish?
Because they're not following protocol. As much is obvious.
And why aren't they following protocol? Do they not know what it is? Are they badly trained? Maybe there is some reason why they're violating protocol? Some... agenda?
Its all transparently obvious. Don't embarrass yourself by defending this farce.
They are following protocol, they just got hit by a clever legal manouver. The FBI expected to either get a defendant they could put in jail (and potentially turn with a deal), or a defendant who was a no-show and therefore there was never a trial.
Instead the defendant found a loophole where it looked like they could force a trial (exposing some of the FBIs evidence) without showing up and risking a punishment. It wasn't certain if the judge would let them use the loophole, but they did, so now the FBI is in a bind with that particular case.
And by "hacking" we mean - sent a phishing email asking to verify passwords that somebody at the DNC responded to.
If only there were a document with actual details:
Page 4 paragraphs 14-17 has several defendants changed with the development and deployment of their malware called "X-Agent" on the DNC servers.
Page 8, 23-24, they researched for vulnerabilities in the DCCC and DNC networks, which they seemingly used to install more malware and safely navigate the servers.
Sure, initial access seems to have been phishing, but stuff like screwing with server logs and installing keyloggers is definitely hacking.
Note also the same "Russian Hackerz" tried this with the RNC too but nobody bit.
Correction, the RNC was also hacked, they just didn't release any info.
Now, the RNC hack was of older email accounts so it wouldn't have been as damaging. It's also quite possible they didn't try as hard to hack the RNC because Clinton was their primary target.
if you've got evidence then why can't you go to trial?
Because people are running their mouths and actually don't have evidence.
I know I know... bluster and hummms and hahs... take it to court or its just hot air.
Did you actually read my reply?
They have the evidence. They don't want to go to trial yet because exposing that evidence will make it easier for future targets of the investigation to evade justice.
Think of it this way. I was involved in X, Y, and Z. Individually, they look bad and raise suspicions but you'll probably be fine. But exposing all of them will land me in jail. Now Mueller comes along and asks me under oath if I had anything to do with X, Y, or Z so I say no.
Then Mueller say "aha! I have proof you were involved in X! You just committed perjury, now you're going to jail and it's time to cut a deal!"
That's what happened with Flynn, Panadopolous, and I think Manafort and Gates as well, they didn't know what Mueller knew so Mueller could catch them in a lie.
And that's why the Russians want to force the trial, because the more Mueller is forced to disclose what evidence he has the easier it is for the next subject to figure out what they can lie about and when they should tell the truth.
It says 10 billion yuan. Is the yuan fictional?
No but the 10 billion might be.
It says it was hosting 10 billion "worth of cryptocurrency bets". That might mean that cryptos worth 10 billion yuan were currently in the system waiting on the outcome of the next two games. Or it could mean that the ring handled 10 billion worth of bets over the entire 8-month period.
notice, no americans in that indictment... and probably there is an expectation that this "accusation" won't be defended.
Foreign governments rarely show up to a US court to argue they were not guilty.
Thus a baseless accusation can stand because there is no due process because there is no trial generally.
I'd like the Russians to show up. Just send some lawyers to represent their clients. Force the Justice Department to actually argue their case in a court of law.
Already, the justice department was surprised when some Russian companies they accused sent lawyers. And the result was effectively a retraction of the accusations almost immediately.
Some people will accuse me of political bias... these people haven't been paying attention to this circus.
Yes I will, because you're mischaracterizing what happened.
Mueller never expected to put any of the Russians in jail. I suspect the reason for the indictments were because a) to display via indictments that they do have actual evidence of Russian collusion, b) they're limited in their ability to travel because of extradition and c) you've got the evidence of a crime, why not indict?
The reason he's trying to delay proceedings is because the defendant in question has zero intention of actually exposing themselves to punishment so there's not a ton of benefit in winning a case against the company. But during a trial Mueller would have to disclose his evidence that supports the charges. And disclosing that evidence would jeopardize the rest of the investigation.
While your statement is factually correct the narrative to which the submitter is reference is the "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative. People want it to be true to get rid of Trump. These are all publicly available in indictments.
Papadopoulos - Perjury
His perjury was about a meeting on Clinton's emails that he had with a man whom he knew to be connected to the Russian government.
Flynn - Perjury
Perjury about his phone conversations with the Russian ambassador.
Manafort & Gates - Falsified income tax filings and bank fraud.
Hiding income that they got working for a Russia-backed politician in Ukraine and other Russian interests.
Only Pinedo, has anything to do with Russian involvement and that has to do with him selling some of the fraud services to the Russians. Pinedo wasn't involved with Trump's campaign. Each of the indictments of individuals associated with the Trump campaign have nothing to do with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians.
It's surprising that you went to the trouble to link to the indictments that actually contradict your claims.
I mean Papadopoulous, while on the campaign, met with a Russian connected individual to get information on emails that would damage Clinton.
What possible definition of "with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians" does that not satisfy?
And so for many people Trump is a racist, blowing a dog whistle that racists and liberals can hear clearly. For others, Trump is a practical leader doing what's best for the nation.
Which is the correct view?
The one where Trump is a racist blowing a dog whistle (and then telling people that he's blowing a dog whistle incase they didn't hear).
Everyone who isn't lying or in denial should agree that Trump has said and done racist things. The disagreement is about the second part, whether he's "a practical leader doing what's best for the nation".
His supporters think that racism is doing something practical that is best for the nation, his opponents disagree.
Which brings me to the Mueller investigation, which I have always believed to be based on nothing.
Which is incorrect. Just based on publicly available information there's more than enough cause to investigate, and Mueller knows a lot that isn't public.
It seems perfectly obvious that the *amount* of Russian involvement in the election is well into the noise - to the tune of something like $13 million over several months, compared to $3 billion (-ish, depends on what you count) spent by Clinton and Trump.
Am I (and half the country) dismissing something important because of cognitive dissonance?
Yes you are.
You characterized the Russian involvement solely in terms of ad buys, then used the relatively small cash value to trivialize the importance overall. But in doing so you completely ignored the large scale social media campaign and the email hacking which is what everyone actually means by Russian interference.
Of course, I don't know if that's your "cognitive dissonance" or just an effort to mislead.
On the other side, Julian Assange has stated several times that the leaks didn't come from Russia. Julian never identified the actual leaks, speculation has it that it was Seth Rich.
Julian Assange is a sufficiently trustworthy source not to be dismissed out of hand, and the US justice system should allow the evidence to be combed through by the media.
My hunch is that Russia passed the files to an intermediary who fed their Wikileaks contact the "DNC insider" story and Assange is happy to be the "useful idiot" role and play along. Assange doesn't want the repercussions from admitting that Wikileaks was used by Russia, and depending on his future legal situation he might want to pull a Snowden and settle there long term.
Let's see the actual demographic makeup of their devs. Spoiler: it's overwhelming male and white / Asian / Indian like all other big tech firms. This is just a cheap soundbite to placate the SJW crowd with absolutely no substance behind it, and everyone knows it. Besides, I'm confused: doesn't the H1B program that Microsoft et al abuse exist in practice solely to bring (temporary) immigrants into the country (to work as indentured tech servants and save big corps money)? Their statement here about caring about immigrants is 100% trash -- follow their money.
I personally know a bunch of Iranians who've gone to work for Microsoft (and other big tech firms) and I'm pretty sure it was under HB1, and I know many of them made really nice salaries and now have green cards.
Now I don't know how typical their story is, but certainly not all use of HB1 is abuse.
You're just mad because you want to see America fail.
I know people who want to see America fail.
They're hopeful that Trump is the one to pull it off.
"Drug dealers pleased to inform customers of lower bitcoin prices to increase sales"
Sadly, I don't think that's the case.
The importance of crypto-currency to the black market is that it exists at all, the value is almost irrelevant. As long as they can convert to-from the fiat currency, and then anonymize the exchange with the crypto-currency (depends on the specific currency), they're fine.
The only sketchy activity this might cut down on it's the hackers, the lower the reward for mining the fewer people looking to hijack your devices.
China is a developing country and it as of 2018 puts out more CO2 than the US does as a total. India is also a developing country and it is second on the chart, expecting to pass the US soon. So, yes developing countries are putting CO2 into the are at a ever increasing rate. Don't hand me that tired line "developing countries are not responsible."
Cute how you changed "responsible almost none of the accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere and very little of the new CO2" to "developing countries are not responsible".
It's hard to find number but I suspect China and India are still responsibly for a relatively small portion of the accumulated problem. Now they're emitting a lot now, and accounting for an ever bigger portion of the problem, but they also contain 34% of the world's population. It's hard to argue they shouldn't be allowed to make about 34% of the world's emissions.
The Pars agreement was nothing more than a attempt to grab money from developed countries, while forcing them to hobble their economies at the same time. That money would be paid to developing countries while at the same time mostly absolving them from current CO2 emission and future emissions.
Nothing wrong with transferring wealth to developing countries as long as it is done in fair nature to both parties.
So define fair. There's people in China and India who are still largely subsistence farmers without electricity. Is it fair that China and India not give them power because they can't afford solar or nuclear, nor give them tractors because of the CO2 emissions. Even as they still have a fraction of the per-capita emissions as the west?
China and India are both really worried about Global Warming but like everyone else they have a concept of fair, and while rich nations with huge per-captia emissions are really not doing much to reduce emissions they're not going to be willing to spend a bunch of money to reduce emissions either.
We never had any commitments to this agreement. Obama made the agreement on his own accord and not with the backing of congress. This pretty much makes it worthless.
What we are seeing is people trying to guilt us back into the agreement so the money can keep flowing. This was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to transfer wealth to 3rd world nations.
You really expect a developing economy, responsibly for almost none of the accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere and very little of the new CO2, to be held to the same standard as rich developed economies who got rich by doing exactly the thing we want those developing nations to avoid?
Of course any climate deal is going to involve wealth transfers to developing countries.
Abuse of power is all fun & games when you're in power, the problem is when you're on the receiving end.
Your memory is incredibly short - remember it is the Democrats that abused power, not Republicans.
The ACA passage? Some political manoeuvring, but not abuse of power. In fact, if it weren't for the fairly extraordinary policy of "no GOP Senator is allowed to vote yes" it would have garnered quite a few GOP votes, it was afterall a GOP concept.
Why is it so darn hard for the FBI to describe when and why they started their Trump Investigation?
It's not hard, Carter Page blabbed his mouth to a diplomat about the leaked emails months before anyone knew of leaked emails. That's a good and very valid pretext.
Why did the FBI pay individuals to try and infiltrate/influence the Trump campaign?
When even a top GOP member disagrees with you it means your conspiracy theory
Why were there so many "unmasking" requests from the US Ambassador to the UN in the final year of the Obama administration? (Her defense is that it wasn't her, it was her "staff"!)
I can't recall this one off-hand but I'll look into it, I'm not hopeful that it has any more validity than your other points.
/me Shoots fireworks off. Damn proud of my country. USA! USA! USA! 4 more years!
Abuse of power is all fun & games when you're in power, the problem is when you're on the receiving end.
Do you really want Trump's tactics to be normalized when the Democrats get back in power?
But even without trade-wars, we are statistically due for a recession based on the length of the current upturn. The fact the yield curve is inverting is yet another warning sign. Based on past yield curves, we got roughly 18 months until it "hits".
Trump may unfairly get the blame for a slump. Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT defending his overall economic policy, but generally the sitting President's popularity is largely tied to the current economy, and it has been this way for more than 100 years.
There's a relationship, but it's pretty fuzzy when the government is divided. Who gets the credit/blame for the economy? The President who runs the administration or the Congress who passes budgets? Still I think it matters, government need to be willing to spend to keep things going in a recession, and when things are good they need to cut back to slow down the economy (and cut deficits). There's still other things driving the economy, but their actions do matter.
I think the Bush tax cuts were a disaster that exacerbated the last recession. They overheated an already hot economy and took away a lot of opportunity to stimulate the economy when it did crash. I think this last round of tax cuts were even worse, how are you going to pass stimulus when you're already running massive deficits?
Hate to victim blame, but anyone who buys an IoT thingy and actually plugs it in to the internet is all but asking for it. If it can't do it's job not connected, don't buy it, and if it does, don't connect it.
Except in this case if the victim protested they were liable to get punched.
This isn't a story about devices being hacked. This is a story about abusers installing smart home tech in order to control and monitor their partner.
But biological psychology lecturer Dr Peter Etchells said the move risked "pathologising" a behaviour that was harmless for most people.
Well if that's the criteria for not being a disorder I guess we can cross off alcohol and opioids (ie, medical painkillers) off the list of medical addictions.