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Posted

This morning, 4:30am local (GMT-5h) there were multiple stories about the Comey firing on youtube, including a couple of republican politicians saying the firing was suspicious and reminded them of Watergate. A few hour later, those videos don't show up on recommendations, and I can't find them with specific searches.

 

The reason Trump gave for firing Comey was that he had insulted Hilary during the election, and that it had nothing to do with the Russian-Trump investigation.

 

I also heard Trump fired Spicer, his press secretary, for fumbling when asked about the Comey firing. The story I heard was that Trump had not told Spicer about the firing, and reporters ran to Spicer asking about the firing, and Spicer in some bushes (found a bushes story on youtube). Now, I don't see anything about Spicer being fired, but his deputy did a news conference for him.

 

I think there is a big cover up regarding the Russians.

Posted

I think there's a lesson here somewhere wrt the reach of a president in investigations that may involve them. There needs to be an independent oversight mechanism that prevents them from fiddling with the wheels of democracy and justice and they should actually handle that type of investigation.

Posted

Theoretical that oversight should come from congress (unless I am mistaken). Which does not seem to work out so well. I have not heard anything regarding Spicer (other that he fumbled). There are a couple of senators that have expressed concern, including McCain, but other than that there was not much (yet).

Posted (edited)
  On 5/11/2017 at 8:54 PM, CharonY said:

Theoretical that oversight should come from congress (unless I am mistaken). Which does not seem to work out so well. I have not heard anything regarding Spicer (other that he fumbled). There are a couple of senators that have expressed concern, including McCain, but other than that there was not much (yet).

My post was just a general ongoing comment about what the Americans can learn from the behaviour of the Trump administration and possibly putting legal devices in that stop future presidents changing things to suit them where they shouldn't. A more graphic illustration of what I'm on about is the tendency in some African countries for newly, democratically elected leaders to usurp the democratic process and embed themselves as leaders well beyond the alloted time. Tayip Erdogan is another quite blatant example. I'm pretty sure Trump is in the same mould, although he won't get that far, but, nevertheless, he's doing his best to stretch his power.

Edited by StringJunky
Posted
  On 5/11/2017 at 8:54 PM, CharonY said:

Theoretical that oversight should come from congress (unless I am mistaken). Which does not seem to work out so well. I have not heard anything regarding Spicer (other that he fumbled). There are a couple of senators that have expressed concern, including McCain, but other than that there was not much (yet).

Spicer's understudy performed the White House press briefing today. It's a temporary leave of absence so he can fulfill some duties as a part of the naval reserve.

 

There's been some speculation about whether that is entirely true and if he will be back or not. That's about the extent of that.

Posted
  On 5/11/2017 at 8:10 PM, EdEarl said:

This morning, 4:30am local (GMT-5h) there were multiple stories about the Comey firing on youtube, including a couple of republican politicians saying the firing was suspicious and reminded them of Watergate. A few hour later, those videos don't show up on recommendations, and I can't find them with specific searches.

 

The reason Trump gave for firing Comey was that he had insulted Hilary during the election, and that it had nothing to do with the Russian-Trump investigation.

 

I also heard Trump fired Spicer, his press secretary, for fumbling when asked about the Comey firing. The story I heard was that Trump had not told Spicer about the firing, and reporters ran to Spicer asking about the firing, and Spicer in some bushes (found a bushes story on youtube). Now, I don't see anything about Spicer being fired, but his deputy did a news conference for him.

 

I think there is a big cover up regarding the Russians.

I'm gonna get a billion negative votes for this.

But I'll do it anyway.

 

How did the extremely advanced Russian hack team rig the election?

Well they hacked the democrats emails and documents, and let the public read them to see what they thought about it.

In shorter terms.

They posted crazy shit on Facebook.

Posted
  On 5/11/2017 at 9:52 PM, Raider5678 said:

I'm gonna get a billion negative votes for this.

But I'll do it anyway.

 

How did the extremely advanced Russian hack team rig the election?

Well they hacked the democrats emails and documents, and let the public read them to see what they thought about it.

In shorter terms.

They posted crazy shit on Facebook.

I don't think they rigged the election; I think the Russian connection is about something else, possibly oil.

Posted
  On 5/11/2017 at 9:06 PM, StringJunky said:

A more graphic illustration of what I'm on about is the tendency in some African countries for newly, democratically elected leaders to usurp the democratic process and embed themselves as leaders well beyond the alloted time. Tayip Erdogan is another quite blatant example. I'm pretty sure Trump is in the same mould

151002105839-trevor-noah-donald-trump-pr

 

 

 

  On 5/11/2017 at 9:52 PM, Raider5678 said:

How did the extremely advanced Russian hack team rig the election?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/2/14791084/trump-russia-chart

Posted
  On 5/11/2017 at 9:51 PM, Delta1212 said:

Spicer's understudy performed the White House press briefing today. It's a temporary leave of absence so he can fulfill some duties as a part of the naval reserve.

There's been some speculation about whether that is entirely true and if he will be back or not. That's about the extent of that.

Just saw that, wouldn't be the weirdest thing.

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 2:03 AM, iNow said:

So......yeah.

They did exactly as I said.

They hacked the democrats emails and documents, and posted crazy shit on face book.

Their hack, was an influence campaign.

They didn't hack votes or anything. They just let out information.

Posted

...very specifically for one side and not the other.

They also paid thousands of trolls to drive division and misinformation, to stir up uncertainty and suppress voter turnout.

They also programmed bots to plant false stories, to retweet them, and make them look more popular than they really were.

 

They also did lots of stuff that's classified and which can't be shared publically since it would give too much information about our capabilities.

 

They did more than just "release a coupla emails." Your downplaying the facts here is akin to suggesting a mother was just providing her new baby some fresh air when in fact she was abandoning it on a park bench never to return. Don't let the spin and propaganda win. That's basically what got us into this mess in the first place.

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 11:04 AM, iNow said:

Don't let the spin and propaganda win. That's basically what got us into this mess in the first place.

 

I want this bumper sticker!

Posted (edited)
  On 5/12/2017 at 10:21 AM, Raider5678 said:

So......yeah.

They did exactly as I said.

They hacked the democrats emails and documents, and posted crazy shit on face book.

Their hack, was an influence campaign.

They didn't hack votes or anything. They just let out information.

 

Fox News was promoting the idea that Russia tried to hack BOTH parties, but the GOP were smart and built up tougher defense against hacking. That is why they resisted the hacking. The democrats, however, were not smart and did not protect their web sites. Now I don't hear that claim any longer, has anyone heard Fox News promoting this claim?

Edited by Airbrush
Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 12:54 PM, Airbrush said:

 

Fox News was promoting the idea that Russia tried to hack BOTH parties, but the GOP were smart and built up tougher defense against hacking. That is why they resisted the hacking. The democrats, however, were not smart and did not protect their web sites. Now I don't hear that claim any longer, has anyone heard Fox News promoting this claim?

It is impossible to refute and to back up.

 

Trump is now warning Comey against "leaking to the media".

 

He is allowed to rubbish Comey and Comey cannot defend himself if Trump is lying on details?

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39899542

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 11:04 AM, iNow said:

...very specifically for one side and not the other.

They also paid thousands of trolls to drive division and misinformation, to stir up uncertainty and suppress voter turnout.

They also programmed bots to plant false stories, to retweet them, and make them look more popular than they really were.

 

They also did lots of stuff that's classified and which can't be shared publically since it would give too much information about our capabilities.

 

They did more than just "release a coupla emails." Your downplaying the facts here is akin to suggesting a mother was just providing her new baby some fresh air when in fact she was abandoning it on a park bench never to return. Don't let the spin and propaganda win. That's basically what got us into this mess in the first place.

Yes.

They hacked the democrats, and not the Republicans.

Which shows obvious favoritism.

 

Also, I was researching on the voter turnout.

One of the major things, is that Republicans are trying to suppress black voters from turning out because they have criminal records.

The criminal records thing though, prevents a lot of people from voting, owning guns, and a lot more.

And they aren't things like petty crime, they're usually for felonies.

I'm just curious on what you think of this. Just wondering. I know a guy who can't vote because of his record, but when I've asked him about it in the past he said he made the mistakes and now he's paying the consequences. But he also said the for the most part, it doesn't interfere with his life.

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 1:19 PM, Raider5678 said:

Also, I was researching on the voter turnout.

One of the major things, is that Republicans are trying to suppress black voters from turning out because they have criminal records.

The criminal records thing though, prevents a lot of people from voting, owning guns, and a lot more.

And they aren't things like petty crime, they're usually for felonies.

I'm just curious on what you think of this. Just wondering. I know a guy who can't vote because of his record, but when I've asked him about it in the past he said he made the mistakes and now he's paying the consequences. But he also said the for the most part, it doesn't interfere with his life.

 

Suppressing black voters for something that already precludes them from voting, claiming voter ID prevents a form of voter fraud that's only happened a few times in the last decade, and gerrymandering districts to favor themselves are the trifecta of Republican hypocrisy. It's all lies, and they learned it from Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and now the wealthy King of Lies, Donald Trump.

Posted

There's also some seriously stupid felonies that should not disenfranchise people. Here's a fun video from earlier this week laying it in an accessible way:

 

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 1:19 PM, Raider5678 said:

Yes.

They hacked the democrats, and not the Republicans.

Which shows obvious favoritism.

 

Also, I was researching on the voter turnout.

One of the major things, is that Republicans are trying to suppress black voters from turning out because they have criminal records.

The criminal records thing though, prevents a lot of people from voting, owning guns, and a lot more.

And they aren't things like petty crime, they're usually for felonies.

I'm just curious on what you think of this. Just wondering. I know a guy who can't vote because of his record, but when I've asked him about it in the past he said he made the mistakes and now he's paying the consequences. But he also said the for the most part, it doesn't interfere with his life.

Blacks are convicted of felonies at higher rates than whites, additionally, there is a disparity in how laws are created that is often non-obvious in their goals and ultimate effects.

 

For instance, cocaine and crack are essentially the same drug, with the latter being slightly modified to allow it to be smoked. Cocaine is more popular with wealthier and whiter communities, crack in poorer and blacker communities.

 

In terms of legal trouble, 1 gram of crack is considered the equivalent of 18 grams of cocaine for sentencing purposes.

 

Enforcement in general tends to disproportionately focus on on poor offenders and black offenders.

 

Overall this contributes to a felony disenfranchisement rate among blacks that is more than 3 times the national average.

 

This is not a coincidence, and nor is it a coincidence that many states expanded felony disenfranchisement rules following the adoption of the 14th amendment that gave blacks the right to vote.

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 1:35 PM, Phi for All said:

 

Suppressing black voters for something that already precludes them from voting, claiming voter ID prevents a form of voter fraud that's only happened a few times in the last decade, and gerrymandering districts to favor themselves are the trifecta of Republican hypocrisy. It's all lies, and they learned it from Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and now the wealthy King of Lies, Donald Trump.

I have a question.

Democrats are often separated into geographical clusters.

Someone drew up states into rational non-partisan lines(someone from the New York Times, I'm not sure who) and found the Republicans still gain a huge advantage in votes because democrats are often clustered together in huge groups in cities.

And in order to make it fair, you'd have to gerrymander in a specific way to try and balance out the cities with the rural populations.

 

This can be explained by a few things.

One, your vote counts for more if you live in a state with less people.

If you live in Wyoming, your vote is 3.52 times more influential then Texas's.

So yeah. The electoral college is messed up, and we should rely on popular vote. That way, at least we'd have a sane president in office.(also good news, I'm finding a majority of the people who were radically Trump voters, are now anti-Trump where I live.)

But simply saying the Republicans won because of Gerrymandering is false. They did not. They Gerrymandered, yes. But even if they didn't, you'd have to go out of your way to make weird county lines so that it wasn't unfair.

If all the support is in a city, where your vote counts less then in rural areas, you have to somehow split up the city to cover the rural areas.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/upshot/why-democrats-cant-win.html?_r=0

Posted

Try to remember that gerrymandering affects more than just the presidential election. It also heavily affects congress, senate, and state governors, legislatures, and councils, too. We feel it most severely in the House.

Posted (edited)

The firing of Comey seems to be a major development because the truth of what happened during that "nice dinner" that Trump had with Comey seems momentous. Consider what Trump is claiming, that he asked Comey, at a dinner that he invited Comey to (Trump claims Comey wanted to have dinner with Trump) if he was under investigation and Comey answered him that NO Trump is not under investigation. Further, Trump called Comey by phone once and Comey called Trump once, as if to double verify this, to discuss the fact that Trump was NOT under investigation. That seems absurd! Comey is a by-the-book kind of guy and would probably not answer Trump's fateful question. Trump shot himself in the foot again. Nice shot Donnald! :)

 

Then today Trump tweeted something about that Comey better hope he was not recorded at the dinner.

 

This is obstruction of justice.

Edited by Airbrush
Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, Delta1212 said:

Blacks are convicted of felonies at higher rates than whites, additionally, there is a disparity in how laws are created that is often non-obvious in their goals and ultimate effects.

 

For instance, cocaine and crack are essentially the same drug, with the latter being slightly modified to allow it to be smoked. Cocaine is more popular with wealthier and whiter communities, crack in poorer and blacker communities.

 

In terms of legal trouble, 1 gram of crack is considered the equivalent of 18 grams of cocaine for sentencing purposes.

 

Enforcement in general tends to disproportionately focus on on poor offenders and black offenders.

 

Overall this contributes to a felony disenfranchisement rate among blacks that is more than 3 times the national average.

 

This is not a coincidence, and nor is it a coincidence that many states expanded felony disenfranchisement rules following the adoption of the 14th amendment that gave blacks the right to vote.

I was curious about that.

 

http://www.projectknow.com/discover/drug-arrest-across-america/

 

This study shows that the majority of drug use is in cities.(Note, I said majority. There's also proof, given above.)

So, unless I'm wrong, the majority of drug arrests will be in cities.(note, I said majorities. Not all. Just saying that now. Study also proves this.)

 

https://priceonomics.com/the-most-and-least-diverse-cities-in-america/

This shows another thing.

African American and Hispanic populations usually are equal to White and Asian populations in cites.

Now, this is important.

Delta, you're logical. So thing about this.

Even though Whites outnumber Blacks and Hispanics, inside of cities they are usually equal. In events where they aren't equal, it's not the same ratio of White to Black as in the general population as it is in cities.

 

So the majority of drug use is in cites, the majority of drug arrests are in cities, and inside of cities the populations are much more balanced then in the general population.

So from this premise, we can conclude that if the drug arrests in cities should be fairly equal in the ratio of Whites to Blacks. And regardless if they aren't, we should see the disparity of drug arrests in a population with a more balanced ratio.

So, looking at Oakland, CA, the most balanced.

Of all the searches, 25% of the searches resulted in incriminating evidence. And, the ratio of those found with criminal items were the same through all races. 25% of whites, 25% of African Americans, 25% of Hispanics, etc.

But, due to comparing that to general population statistics, you could still say African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested for drug use as whites.

Which they do say that.

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 2:40 PM, Raider5678 said:

I was curious about that.

 

http://www.projectknow.com/discover/drug-arrest-across-america/

 

This study shows that the majority of drug use is in cities.(Note, I said majority. There's also proof, given above.)

So, unless I'm wrong, the majority of drug arrests will be in cities.(note, I said majorities. Not all. Just saying that now. Study also proves this.)

 

https://priceonomics.com/the-most-and-least-diverse-cities-in-america/

This shows another thing.

African American and Hispanic populations usually are equal to White and Asian populations in cites.

Now, this is important.

Delta, you're logical. So thing about this.

Even though Whites outnumber Blacks and Hispanics, inside of cities they are usually equal. In events where they aren't equal, it's not the same ratio of White to Black as in the general population as it is in cities.

 

So the majority of drug use is in cites, the majority of drug arrests are in cities, and inside of cities the populations are much more balanced then in the general population.

So from this premise, we can conclude that if the drug arrests in cities should be fairly equal in the ratio of Whites to Blacks. And regardless if they aren't, we should see the disparity of drug arrests in a population with a more balanced ratio.

So, looking at Oakland, CA, the most balanced.

Of all the searches, 25% of the searches resulted in incriminating evidence. And, the ratio of those found with criminal items were the same through all races. 25% of whites, 25% of African Americans, 25% of Hispanics, etc.

But, due to comparing that to general population statistics, you could still say African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested for drug use as whites.

Which they do say that.

 

I am not quite clear in what you are trying to say. The statistic shows the cities with the largest diversities in the US. The vast majority will not be like this. As such I am unclear what conclusions you try to draw. The other, more relevant issue is that minorities tend to get suspected and searched far more often than white people (ca. 80% were black or Hispanic). This imbalance obviously will lead to more arrests among those minorities. This is especially damning as over the years there has been no significant difference between Hispanics, white and black people (see Data from the National Survey on Drug use and Health).

And that is what (I think) Delta is alluding to. Minorities are disproportionately punished for basically the same offence. I.e. higher arrest and incarceration rates (and also higher punishment for the the arrest).

Posted
  On 5/12/2017 at 4:23 PM, CharonY said:

And that is what (I think) Delta is alluding to. Minorities are disproportionately punished for basically the same offence. I.e. higher arrest and incarceration rates (and also higher punishment for the the arrest).

This is what I was alluding to.

The Blacks and Hispanics in Oakland have a 25% arrest rate each, as well as whites.

So their chances of being arrested if searched is 25%. No matter race.

Yet, they say they have a 6 times higher chance of being arrested if they're black, because of the general populations difference.

 

Think of it like this.

In the general population, 13% are African Americans.

In Okaland's population, 25% are African Americans.

When 1/4 of the African Americans are searched and found incriminated, rather then referencing to Oakland's population, they refer to the general population.

And that leads to the conclusion that African Americans are 6 times more likely to be arrested if searched in Oakland.

Now, can you see where that's flawed?

1/4 of any race inside of Oakland will be arrested if searched. Whites, Blacks, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Well, 1/4 of the searches they committed.

So they expect that the African Americans should make up 13% of Oakland's arrests, rather then the 25% that they do.

 

But if Africans did only make up 13%, wouldn't that mean they were less likely to be arrested, considering they consisted of 25% of Oakland's population?

Or am I wrong there?

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