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[guido]

How a Trump Administration Proposal Could Worsen Public Health | The New Yorker

[choke]

I assume you are referring to Judge Dabney Friedrich's 7/1/19 ruling on a motion by said 'troll farm' in the matter of United States of America v. Concord Management & Consluting, LLC.

Uhh...yeah. That is the case that I quoted and provided a link.

If so, the Judge absolutely did NOT rule "that there was no apparent evidence that the Russian 'troll farm' was connected to the Russian Govt."

You are correct, I should have said that 'she stated in a ruling that there was no apparent evidence....". As the linked article stated, "In a July 1 opinion, unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said Barr and Mueller inappropriately linked a defendant, Concord Management and Consulting, to the Russian government, even though prosecutors have not expressly drawn a connection between the firm and the Kremlin." But then much of the Mueller report is that way, long on innuendo but short on fact.

In regards to a genuinely held belief that the troll farm isn't connected to the Russian government, I'm reminded of that old saw about a bridge being for sale.

To say that our views on this are polar opposites would be an understatement.

[Saab2000]

Not journalism per se, but reporting of relevant news.

Another member of Trump's circle is going to prison. I wish I understood the cult of personality surrounding him and why people are willing to destroy their own lives for him. What is their actual goal?

Flynn, Manafort, Cohen, Papadopoulos and now Roger Stone. All convicted felons now and either in prison or going to prison. For what end?

Trump ally Roger Stone convicted of lying to Congress - BBC News

[HorsCat]

Uhh...yeah. That is the case that I quoted and provided a link.

You are correct, I should have said that 'she stated in a ruling that there was no apparent evidence....". As the linked article stated, "In a July 1 opinion, unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said Barr and Mueller inappropriately linked a defendant, Concord Management and Consulting, to the Russian government, even though prosecutors have not expressly drawn a connection between the firm and the Kremlin." But then much of the Mueller report is that way, long on innuendo but short on fact.

To say that our views on this are polar opposites would be an understatement.

I clicked the link but it requires registration so I couldn't read the article. I didn't read the text you quoted, either. Instead, I went straight to the source - the ruling itself. The words "no apparent evidence" do not appear anywhere in the article. Nor does the word "apparent," in fact. I encourage you to read the ruling. Separately, I have a bridge to sell. It's guaranteed to produce a very, very healthy return. PM me if you're interested.

[theflashunc]

Not journalism per se, but reporting of relevant news.

Another member of Trump's circle is going to prison. I wish I understood the cult of personality surrounding him and why people are willing to destroy their own lives for him. What is their actual goal?

Flynn, Manafort, Cohen, Papadopoulos and now Roger Stone. All convicted felons now and either in prison or going to prison. For what end?

Trump ally Roger Stone convicted of lying to Congress - BBC News

Couple things:

1) Nearly everyone in his orbit was on the periphery of establishment Republican politics, and for good reason as they spent most of their time saying the quiet part loud about GOP policy.
2) None of them actually expecting to win, this was all a grift for the resulting TV/book deal for Trump that might roll into another couple hotel deals with shady Eastern European financing that are definitely not money laundering.
3) Access to the levers of power. Amazing what people will deal with to have that seat at the table, even if does ruin your reputation for all time. But none of these folks were ones with particularly good reputations to begin with.

[choke]

I clicked the link but it requires registration so I couldn't read the article. I didn't read the text you quoted, either. Instead, I went straight to the source - the ruling itself. The words "no apparent evidence" do not appear anywhere in the article. Nor does the word "apparent," in fact. I encourage you to read the ruling. Separately, I have a bridge to sell. It's guaranteed to produce a very, very healthy return. PM me if you're interested.

That's odd, when I read the article it wasn't behind a paywall but it is now.

Regardless, even the ruling itself states that "But the indictment, which alleges that private Russian entities and individuals conducted an “information warfare” campaign designed to sow discord among U.S. voters does not link the defendants to the Russian government. Save for a single allegation that Concord and Concord Catering had several “government contracts” (with no further elaboration) the indictment alleges only private conduct by private actors" (page 6).

[ericpmoss]

Pete Buttigieg is a skeezy manufactured candidate.

The Problem With Pete Buttigieg’s “Douglass Plan” for Black America

And of course, the latest anyone-but-Bernie candidate, Deval Patrick, is totally sleazy. Articles forthcoming.

[guido]

Opinion | Turkey’s Tyrant Eats a White House Turkey - The New York Times

[ides1056]

Pete Buttigieg is a skeezy manufactured candidate.

The Problem With Pete Buttigieg’s “Douglass Plan” for Black America

And of course, the latest anyone-but-Bernie candidate, Deval Patrick, is totally sleazy. Articles forthcoming.

And Bernie's not been vetted. When he is, he won't look so good to anyone. This written by a friend who has done the research:

This election we have coming up in 2020 is important -- I'm sure we all agree.
I Know a lot of my friends and colleagues feel that Bernie is a good candidate. I'd just like to reiterate my own feelings about him as a candidate.
As a person and a public servant, I love Bernie, but he shouldn't be our candidate for President.
Here's why (and this is just my opinion):
Everyone seems to think Bernie will be a good candidate -- that he'll be someone that people will vote for.
I don't think so. Because, Bernie has never been vetted as a candidate. I don't think that Bernie would have won in a million years in 2016, and for the same reasons, I don't think he has a chance in 2020.
The Clinton campaign didn't put out one negative ad against him for fear of alienating their own voters and further dividing the party; and, the right had no incentive to rough him up, because they saw him as a candidate that they would love to run against.
And, back in 2015, the media often failed to treat Sanders as a plausible contender, which would have entailed a much greater degree of scrutiny than he received. As a result, issues that, fairly or not, would be obsessively scrutinized in a general election went almost entirely unexamined.
But, had he won the nomination? It would have gotten very ugly, very quickly.
And, I think the same will happen here, if we're unlucky enough to nominate him.
We all like Bernie, but he comes with a whole lot of baggage that middle America just won't be on board with, even if he has nice rallies across the country.
Let's just look at his past; and the things he's not been questioned about, simply because he didn't become the nominee. These are the same things he will be asked about if he prevails as a candidate for 2020.:
He was never asked to account for his relationship with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, for which he served as a presidential elector in 1980. At the time, the Party proclaimed solidarity with Iran (this was during the Iran hostage crisis); and sought to abolish the U.S. military budget.
There was also little coverage about Sanders’ 1985 trip to Nicaragua, where he reportedly joined a Sandinista rally with a crowd chanting, “Here, there, everywhere/ The Yankee will die.”
While it would be nice to think that this is because some national consensus had been reached about the criminal nature of America's support for the Contras, I suspect that the media just didn't do its due diligence on Sanders.
Sanders’ youthful sex writings were also largely ignored.
However, Republican TV Ads will write themselves.
Imagine an ad drawn from his essay “The Revolution Is Life Versus Death.” First it might have quoted Bernie commenting on child nudity taboos:
“Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others [sic] sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing!” Then it might have quoted Bernie celebrating girls who defy their mothers and have sex with their boyfriends: “The revolution comes … when a girl pushes aside all that her mother has ‘taught’ her and accepts her boyfriends [sic] love.”
Finally, it might have quoted from "Man-and-Woman," a 1972 essay that begins: "A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused. A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously."
In addition, ads will tell voters that Sanders was one of 14 congressmen to vote against the law establishing the Amber Alert system and one of 15 to vote against an amendment criminalizing computer-generated child pornography.
Now, I personally don't have a problem with child nudity or teenage sex if the participants are mature and careful; and, I understand that as the latter essay progresses, he makes clear that this is a commentary on dangerous gender roles, but that is all beside the point.
And, in a general election attack, it would also be entirely beside the point that his votes were made for civil libertarian reasons.
Everyone knows exactly how this will be presented to middle America:
Bernie Sanders is a sexual weirdo, and potentially a child molester.
And, then there is his platform, with which I have little problem, but support for which tends to evaporate when people find out their taxes will go up.
As the nominee, Sanders will have to explain why he used to be opposed to public education; and his past praise for parents who think it better for their kids not to go to school at all, if it means going to a "normal type of establishment."
He will have to explain whether he still feels that sexual repression in girls and women causes cancer; whether he still opposes the concept of private charity; and, if he still supports the public takeover of the television industry.
Finally, though Bernie is widely admired for running his campaign on small donations, and not being a corporate shill, it's always part of the Republican playbook to question a Democratic candidate's financial integrity, and they probably will do it by attacking Jane Sanders, who was accused of trying to defraud the Catholic Church on a land deal when she was president of Burlington College. She was eventually forced to leave her position, but was given a $200K golden parachute.
Will this matter to his campaign? I don't know, but remember that Hillary never personally profited off of Whitewater, the land deal that became the pretext for endless investigations of the Clintons.
How did I get on to all of this? I guess it just annoys me that I so often hear that Bernie can win, He has never been looked at in any critical way.
If, and I very much hope not, he looks to be approaching being our candidate, he will be a disaster. There's no effing way he can overcome all of this.
Please, those of you who support Bernie, realize that he's in the best place possible in the Senate to do the best he can do. Don't let the GOP have their way with him.

[guido]

“Everywhere She Went Turned Bad,” Says Man with Six Bankruptcies | The New Yorker

[ericpmoss]

And Bernie's not been vetted. When he is, he won't look so good to anyone. This written by a friend who has done the research:

<etc>

We could run Jesus Christ himself and he'd be branded a gay hippy open-borders Palestinian terrorist communist who hangs out with whores and hates the American Way. That aside, all that innuendo was thrown at Bernie during his runs for mayor, the House, and the Senate, but he kept winning with increasing margins because he did what he said he'd do. He is endorsed by rank-and-file votes from nurses unions and teachers unions. He has a 100% rating from pro-choice, environment, labor, and veterans groups. Current polls have him >10 points up on Trump. Not one person I know gives a crap about a bumbling essay from 50 years ago in comparison to their health care costs or student debt or job prospects.

[ides1056]

My friend is a dyed-in-the-wool lefty, very knowledgable about politics.

And yes, when Jesus comes again the 40% who are in favor of the man in the White House will nail Him up again. He was a radical in every respect.

For the record, I voted for Bernie.

[BBB]

“Everywhere She Went Turned Bad,” Says Man with Six Bankruptcies | The New Yorker

Very amusing!

[Scott G.]

[snip]
He was never asked to account for his relationship with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party,[snip]

Finally somebody has a sense of humor, thanks for the laugh line.

Comrade Bernie would be a right deviationist of the Socialist Revolutionary Party,
with Menshevik leanings. This is based on my reading of Petersons Field Guide to Socialists.

To relive the really bad old days, read Victor Serge, "Memoirs of a Revolutionary"

[guido]

Dirt-Road America | The New Yorker

[marley]

Dirt-Road America | The New Yorker

very cool

[j44ke]

Finally somebody has a sense of humor, thanks for the laugh line.

Comrade Bernie would be a right deviationist of the Socialist Revolutionary Party,
with Menshevik leanings. This is based on my reading of Petersons Field Guide to Socialists.

To relive the really bad old days, read Victor Serge, "Memoirs of a Revolutionary"

I can't find that Peterson guide on Amazon. Can you send me a samizdat?

[theflashunc]

We could run Jesus Christ himself and he'd be branded a gay hippy open-borders Palestinian terrorist communist who hangs out with whores and hates the American Way. That aside, all that innuendo was thrown at Bernie during his runs for mayor, the House, and the Senate, but he kept winning with increasing margins because he did what he said he'd do. He is endorsed by rank-and-file votes from nurses unions and teachers unions. He has a 100% rating from pro-choice, environment, labor, and veterans groups. Current polls have him >10 points up on Trump. Not one person I know gives a crap about a bumbling essay from 50 years ago in comparison to their health care costs or student debt or job prospects.

Give it a solid year of campaigning in the general around anti-semitic innuendo and it'll be a different story sadly. Willie Horton wasn't that long ago after all...

[ides1056]

114, Students in N.Y.C. Are Homeless. These Two Let Us Into Their Lives. - The New York Times

and I imagine my life is hard

[davids]

We should all know much more about Amazon:

Is Amazon Unstoppable? | The New Yorker