No, lying is not the same thing as knifing someone. In fact, that's why you need free speech. So that political disagreements could be hashed out with words rather than violence.
This type of statement is white noise every single time. I gave you an exact quote from the Federal Election Commission. You have nothing. Otherwise, post the link and the relevant statute, regulation, or judicial opinion. You have nothing.
No. The "923. 18 U.S.C. 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States" reads (emphasis mine):
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Notice the "commit any offense... OR to defraud..."? This means that committing any coordination between a few people (which has, as its goal, committing a crime) qualifies. Because any coordination to commit a crime is legally a "conspiracy". As long as what the people plotted to do is itself illegal, the fact that they did it together is what qualifies them to be charged under this statute. It need not be fraud. The reporters don't read beyond the sensationalist heading of the statute. But even the simplest parse of the 1st paragraph shows that fraud need not be a part of it.
That's probably bad reporting. The statute which she was charged with is conspiracy to X,Y, or Z. The X is "fraud". But all these charges are usually Y, Z or something down the list (which is not fraud, but something like do something illegal). Some of the (alleged) Russian agents who were previously charged were charged with identify theft (which falls under fraud), but, in this case, she is not alleged to have conducted any fraudulent transactions, so fraud is probably not the part of the conspiracy statute that's being used.
You only have to register if you act as an agent of a foreign state. If you manage money of a private organization, which is not doing anything illegal (and spreading false political narrative is not illegal), you don't have to register.
Lying during political discourse is specifically allowed. The theory is that if it were prohibited, it would make all political rhetoric subject to law suits due to omissions or exaggerations.
she failed to register and then used foreign money. both are against the law.
False.
Only agents of foreign governments have to register. Whatever "project lachta" was, it has not been proved that it's a front for a government. Nor was she charged with not registering. So your assertion that this is the crime at hand is unfounded.
Spending foreign money on advocating issues (rather than advocating for any candidate) is legal. This was decided by Bluman vs FEC. Specifically, the FEC website says
In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281, 290 (D.D.C. 2011), aff’d 132 S. Ct. 1087 (2012).
It's a little more subtle with "basic" research done in academia. The baseline income provided by grants allows for people to take risks which would be too long-term for most players in the free market. I suppose you can make the argument that BSD is the progenitor of IOS and Linux is the progenitor of Android, but that was not the goal of GNU. And even if it was for some of its champions, a clear path from (for example) Slackware to something like Android was never stated. Most people doing work which benefits the GNU "visionaries" do not get anything for their work.
Money is "created" by being borrowed from a black box in a wall (the FED). It has to be paid back to the FED, but it can be paid back with money borrowed again from the FED. Technically, it has to be paid back with interest, but interest is FED's profit. And FED deposits its profits in the US Treasury. So when the Treasury borrows money and then pays interest on that money, the FED refunds it back by "depositing" its profits in the Treasury. There is a perception of debt that this creates, but the end effect is that money is just printed.
Money is just a number. Value comes from people doing work. How the value produced by that work is distributed is how wealth is what determines power and wealth. Money is a token for enumerating exchange.
Any social order based on false premises about psychology end up in mass slaughter. Here's why your premise is wrong. Human being are different from wolfs in how they organize in tribes. The difference is subtle. When wolfs chase a pray, they go as a pack. No one goes sideways to catch a random rabbit they see. Humans hunting as a pack will (sometimes) fall to temptation. This is a natural property of human and wolf psychology. You can try to smooth it with ethics, but you can't eliminate it. When you try, you end up escalating punishments for those who fall to temptations because lesser punishments become less and less effective over time. Corruption becomes so prevalent in centrally managed societies that corruption-based under-the-table economies become as large if not larger than the "main" government sanctioned economies.
It's the same argument as the one made against GNU software. It was initially mostly written by people whose main goal was either self-promotion or by those much of whose income came from grants rather than from being stake holders in the value they created. The extracted value flowed to the top. It's why MS is all too happy to embrace open source now. They realized that there is even more value to be extracted from the process if both majority of creators are paid by someone else while their customers still pay them as the organizers of this fare. Because that's what this is. It's not a cathedral or a bazaar. It's a fare. The customers pay the organizers. Most participants pay the organizers. A few participants a paid by the organizers to create an illusion of a good deal for the starting participants. But most of the value settles in the hands of the organizers.
I am going to tell a joke, but I'll give a warning before telling it. So until the warning, what I say is serious. Moscow residents may not view lights-out as a foreign action. They are much, much more likely to see it as a domestic failure. And if the domestic government-owned news channels subsequently report it as such, 85% of the population will believe it. The remaining 15% never believe anything that the government says, so they won't be a political loss for the RF administration.
Here's the promised joke (because it's too close to the article itself). Question: how can you tell that the US government has fell behind the Russian government in its use of the Internet? Because, unlike the Moscow mayor's website, you can't find the scheduled water outages on the New York mayor's website. This is an actual meme that used to be popular in Russia just a few years ago. Well, it may still be popular, but I was told about it a few years ago.
Now given that Moscow has scheduled water outages, how difficult will it be to explain away electric outages which were not scheduled?
A *refuted* allegation is legally considered false. It's not something that is controversial or unknown. It's known to be false. The allegations against Kavanaugh were refuted. Repeating them as if they were true after they were refuted is slander.
The general trend is not the topic though. The topic is this specific instance. And in this instance, it does look like there is a solid case to be made for Russian spying.
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed you are writing an NDA agreement. Can I make a few suggestions?
No, lying is not the same thing as knifing someone. In fact, that's why you need free speech. So that political disagreements could be hashed out with words rather than violence.
read the indictment.
This type of statement is white noise every single time. I gave you an exact quote from the Federal Election Commission. You have nothing. Otherwise, post the link and the relevant statute, regulation, or judicial opinion. You have nothing.
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Notice the "commit any offense... OR to defraud..."? This means that committing any coordination between a few people (which has, as its goal, committing a crime) qualifies. Because any coordination to commit a crime is legally a "conspiracy". As long as what the people plotted to do is itself illegal, the fact that they did it together is what qualifies them to be charged under this statute. It need not be fraud. The reporters don't read beyond the sensationalist heading of the statute. But even the simplest parse of the 1st paragraph shows that fraud need not be a part of it.
Have you been in a coma for 25 years?
That's probably bad reporting. The statute which she was charged with is conspiracy to X,Y, or Z. The X is "fraud". But all these charges are usually Y, Z or something down the list (which is not fraud, but something like do something illegal). Some of the (alleged) Russian agents who were previously charged were charged with identify theft (which falls under fraud), but, in this case, she is not alleged to have conducted any fraudulent transactions, so fraud is probably not the part of the conspiracy statute that's being used.
You only have to register if you act as an agent of a foreign state. If you manage money of a private organization, which is not doing anything illegal (and spreading false political narrative is not illegal), you don't have to register.
Free speech is an institution of democracy. Without it, you can the same vote tallies as you do in North Korea.
Lying during political discourse is specifically allowed. The theory is that if it were prohibited, it would make all political rhetoric subject to law suits due to omissions or exaggerations.
she failed to register and then used foreign money. both are against the law.
False.
Only agents of foreign governments have to register. Whatever "project lachta" was, it has not been proved that it's a front for a government. Nor was she charged with not registering. So your assertion that this is the crime at hand is unfounded.
Spending foreign money on advocating issues (rather than advocating for any candidate) is legal. This was decided by Bluman vs FEC. Specifically, the FEC website says
In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281, 290 (D.D.C. 2011), aff’d 132 S. Ct. 1087 (2012).
Although, I guess, you can argue that academic tenure is a form of basic income with a very high self-selection mechanism.
It's a little more subtle with "basic" research done in academia. The baseline income provided by grants allows for people to take risks which would be too long-term for most players in the free market. I suppose you can make the argument that BSD is the progenitor of IOS and Linux is the progenitor of Android, but that was not the goal of GNU. And even if it was for some of its champions, a clear path from (for example) Slackware to something like Android was never stated. Most people doing work which benefits the GNU "visionaries" do not get anything for their work.
UBI doesn't need to be discredited. It has has not credibility at all. It has to prove quite a bit of it to have any, in fact.
Money is "created" by being borrowed from a black box in a wall (the FED). It has to be paid back to the FED, but it can be paid back with money borrowed again from the FED. Technically, it has to be paid back with interest, but interest is FED's profit. And FED deposits its profits in the US Treasury. So when the Treasury borrows money and then pays interest on that money, the FED refunds it back by "depositing" its profits in the Treasury. There is a perception of debt that this creates, but the end effect is that money is just printed.
Money is just a number. Value comes from people doing work. How the value produced by that work is distributed is how wealth is what determines power and wealth. Money is a token for enumerating exchange.
Any social order based on false premises about psychology end up in mass slaughter. Here's why your premise is wrong. Human being are different from wolfs in how they organize in tribes. The difference is subtle. When wolfs chase a pray, they go as a pack. No one goes sideways to catch a random rabbit they see. Humans hunting as a pack will (sometimes) fall to temptation. This is a natural property of human and wolf psychology. You can try to smooth it with ethics, but you can't eliminate it. When you try, you end up escalating punishments for those who fall to temptations because lesser punishments become less and less effective over time. Corruption becomes so prevalent in centrally managed societies that corruption-based under-the-table economies become as large if not larger than the "main" government sanctioned economies.
It's the same argument as the one made against GNU software. It was initially mostly written by people whose main goal was either self-promotion or by those much of whose income came from grants rather than from being stake holders in the value they created. The extracted value flowed to the top. It's why MS is all too happy to embrace open source now. They realized that there is even more value to be extracted from the process if both majority of creators are paid by someone else while their customers still pay them as the organizers of this fare. Because that's what this is. It's not a cathedral or a bazaar. It's a fare. The customers pay the organizers. Most participants pay the organizers. A few participants a paid by the organizers to create an illusion of a good deal for the starting participants. But most of the value settles in the hands of the organizers.
That wasn't the question though, was it?
If wikipedia doesn't owe its free volunteers for taking advantage of them, why does Amazon owe wikipedia for taking advantage of them?
And the flip side is?
All AC comments accusing others of being russian trolls are (without exception) themselves russian trolls hired by the Democratic party.
I am going to tell a joke, but I'll give a warning before telling it. So until the warning, what I say is serious. Moscow residents may not view lights-out as a foreign action. They are much, much more likely to see it as a domestic failure. And if the domestic government-owned news channels subsequently report it as such, 85% of the population will believe it. The remaining 15% never believe anything that the government says, so they won't be a political loss for the RF administration.
Here's the promised joke (because it's too close to the article itself). Question: how can you tell that the US government has fell behind the Russian government in its use of the Internet? Because, unlike the Moscow mayor's website, you can't find the scheduled water outages on the New York mayor's website. This is an actual meme that used to be popular in Russia just a few years ago. Well, it may still be popular, but I was told about it a few years ago.
Now given that Moscow has scheduled water outages, how difficult will it be to explain away electric outages which were not scheduled?
A *refuted* allegation is legally considered false. It's not something that is controversial or unknown. It's known to be false. The allegations against Kavanaugh were refuted. Repeating them as if they were true after they were refuted is slander.
You don't have to confess. I already know who you are.
The general trend is not the topic though. The topic is this specific instance. And in this instance, it does look like there is a solid case to be made for Russian spying.