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GW Hayduke

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Posts posted by GW Hayduke

  1. 20 minutes ago, Tuco said:

    Prior to reading the report, I believe that Comey had an imperfect approach to a no win situation.  It seems silly to use "deviate from norms" as a criticism of an unprecedented situation.  If an analysis of what he should have done takes more than the time he had to set his path, then it certainly something I take with a grain of salt. 

    And that's with the understanding that his imperfect actions likely lead to the election of the worst president in American history.  The severity of the results does not define the unreasonableness of the actions. 

    Now, I'm open to being convinced otherwise, once I dig into the specifics of the report.

     

    What was unprecedented about it? I understand the FBI/DOJ have conducted investigations and inquiries into parties involved with campaigns in the past. This seems simple to me. There was a policy that prevented disclosures near elections. Comey chose not to follow the policy. He had his reasons, but still chose not to follow the policy.Policies are in place to aid decision makers during difficult times. They are also in place to protect the decision makers. 

  2. 36 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

    Isn't this separate from the Mueller investigation? If he's cooperating in this case, that doesn't mean they can ask him if he met with Russians in Prague as reported in the Steele dossier, does it?

    It is separate from the Mueller investigation; however, if Cohen is cooperating with federal prosecutors, he will be sharing everything about Prague.

  3. Axios:

    The American Medical Association has formally — and overwhelmingly — endorsed a slate of gun control measures, calling gun violence a public health crisis. 

    Why it matters: The AMA isn’t as powerful as it once was. But in the uphill climb to frame gun violence as a public health issue, having the AMA on board certainly can’t hurt.

    According to AP, the policies the AMA endorsed at its annual policy meeting yesterday include:

    Banning gun sales to people younger than 21.

    Requiring safety training along with licensing and registration.

    Expanding limits on gun ownership — for example, allowing families of potentially suicidal people to seek a court order removing guns from their possession.

    https://www.axios.com/american-medical-association-endorses-gun-control-16b9e100-ff8d-4b92-a056-1712bac958b7.html

  4. 1 hour ago, PittsburghTiger said:

    That's awesome. ^^

    There was another Tweet from some media guy about Trump loving dictators, or something along those lines, and then someone showed his Tweet about Obama calling good Ol' Raul Castro and how wonderful it was.

    I know there is an affinity to look at this as BoTh SIDeS but that isn’t an accurate comparison.

    Trump has repeatedly gone against our democratic allies (canada, UK, Germany, France, Mexico, Australia) while showing openness to and never attacking anti-democratic authoritarians (Putin, Erdogan, Duterte).

    Trump loving dictators while attacking democracies isn’t equivalent to Obama’s approach. 

  5. I suspect this is a reflection of critical thinking skills along with the ability to differentiate between news and opinion and the ability to gauge the differences in quality journalism. I would be interested in someone taking a look at the media consumption habits of these different groups.

  6. 2 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

    adorable...all illegals are free to the tax payer, who needs a middle class?  Surely the wage gap decreased during Barry right?  Pathetic

    California - the Mecca of unchecked illegal immigration spends 1.3 billion over two years in welfare payments for illegal immigrants

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/03/la-made-1-3b-in-illegal-immigrant-welfare-payouts-in-just-2-years.html

    More Americans leave California each year compared to any other state

    http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-california-losing-low-income-people-gaining-wealthy-people-per-report-20180221-htmlstory.html

    California is also in the middle of a homeless crisis......

    http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-housing-crisis-20180330-story.html

    Unchecked illegal immigration has huge consequences half of the people fail to even acknowledge.  If you can't have an honest conversation and include all factors without resorting to emotional antidotes and name calling, then you get where we are now.

    California's sanctuary state has demolished their middle class, but the 1% feel altruistic when they are able to create more new "Americans" through open borders while not giving two shits about the middle class.

     

    So do you still believe there are no real costs, or is it just completely irresponsible government from the Democrats in California eliminating the middle class and increasing the homeless population exponentially?

    I get that some folks feel illegal immigrants are SPOOKY these days. Please note that Trumpism has embraced immigration as an emotional wedge issue to divide our country. Putin did the same thing in his country concerning homosexuals, immigrants, and ethnic minorities. 

    First, Trump is pushing the republican party to not just be on a war footing against illegal immigrants but also against legal immigrants. Trumpism is against ALL immigrants.

    Second, our country is a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.  This is who we are. This is our history.  

    Third, everyone wants to enforce our immigration laws and all sides feel that our immigration system needs massive reform. There is lots to debate on this issue.

    However, I understand that you are concerned by the potential economic impact by illegal immigrants. I hope that this is a legitimate concern for you and not just an emotional appeal to tribalism. 

    You provided sources showing that California has a high homeless population and a high level of out-migration. I'm not sure how that is relevant.

    Your other source is a Fox News piece seems to cite a few studies. For a more balanced perspective, the below Wikipedia page does a fare job.  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants_in_the_United_States

  7. 1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

    Fight clean?  WE ALL LOSE.

    This is your assumption that I believe most don't agree with.

    We need patience. See Mueller. See the 2018 midterms. See the 2020 presidential elections.

  8. 10 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    I don't know if there's another thread for this, but can someone please set me straight on the facts of this awful family border separation story?   From everything I've read, the actual facts seem to be:

    -some families were separated at the border in 2013 or 2014.  There was some suggestion in the Obama administration of doing so to deter future illegal immigration, but it didn't become a large scale thing.  It is now being portrayed by former Obama officials as an exception that happened in a small number of cases. 

    -separating families increased under Trump and then exploded under the Sessions zero tolerance immigration policy.   Existing procedures are being followed, but separation of families is not required by statute, and is purely a result of a new Trump/Sessions policy having a practical consequence within the existing system.   And there is some suggestion from Trump administration officials that this is being done to deter future illegal immigration. 

    -Congress could change the law, but Trump/Sessions could also not separate families if they wanted. 

    -some Ds circulated an image of kids behind bars, mistakenly suggesting they were separated from their families by Trump, but the pic was actually from 2014.   But they were kids who arrived without families at the border, so they are not part of the family separation story at all.  Red herring either way. 

    Did I get any of that wrong?  I find this story incredibly disturbing, regardless of who started it.  If it was Obama, I regret not being aware of it before now, and shame on him.  But either way, it should stop. 

     

     

    I understand there are legitimate reasons to split a family during initial processing. There needs to be a determination that the child is safe and that they are really a family. 

    However, this is the first time that family separation for the purpose of deterrence is used. The UN has spoke out against this practice. There was a time when the UN spoke out against other countries.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/05/un-says-us-must-stop-separating-migrant-children-from-parents

  9. 10 minutes ago, Nivek said:

    Idiocy, lies have a home among trump supporters and donut men.    It doesn't work on people who care about integrity.   Al Franken was forced out by his side for poor judgement, while the other team promoted a child predator.    One side inherently gives a shit about the rules.

    I agree. Lies, dishonesty, hypocrisy, adoption of un-American values aren’t going to be tolerated by the Democratic Party. 

    Trumpism has bought into tribalism, us-vs-them, identity politics that put winning above country.

    Democrats need to be the alternative to trumpism. 

  10. Patience.

    Citizens United has had consequences.

    Media deregulation has had consequences.

    Disinvestment in education has had consequencses.

    Republican debasing of American values have had consequencses.

    Elections have had consequences.

    The great American ship has turned a dark course. It will take time to fix ills and correct the course. However, we still have the drunken captain with his cronies locked in the control room and they will be there for a bit unfortunately. Gotta take steps.

    Step one is to make the 2018 Republican ticket pay a price for what has occurred. Patience.

    • Like 3
  11. I think folks are ok with the article. The issue is what you are trying to show based on the article.

    49 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

    And the article was about Canada's cracking down in illegally entering immigrants.

    The article is not about Canada "cracking down" on anything. The article is about Canadian officials spreading the word that Canada has immigration laws and follows them and why they are doing that. You seem to be making the point that Canada enforcing their immigration laws is somehow notable and somehow means something.  All countries have immigration laws and enforce them. IMO it is more telling that immigrants/refugees are trying to leave the US and get to Canada.

    3 hours ago, phdhorn said:

    "People seem to think that if they cross the border there's this land of milk and honey on the other side," Boissonnault said from the Canadian consulate in Miami on Thursday. "What we want is for people to have the right information. We want them to do the right thing for their families."

    Another point you seem to be making is that Canada's "strict" immigration laws and enforcement somehow makes the US's laws and enforcement look easy, less strict, more humane, or something. Why do you feel you need to make the US's immigration situation look a certain way? 

    Points from the article:

    - Canada is expected to increase their total number of admitted immigrants and total number of refugees.

    - The trump administration is decreasing the total number of admitted immigrants and total number of refugees.  

    - Canada and the US are expected to accommodate almost the same number of refugees.  Considering our differences in total populations, this is rather significant. 

    The article didn't even paint the entire picture of US's current immigration situation: trump ran on an anti-immigrant platform inline with the alt-right, trump has attempted various muslim bans, and his administration has implemented the policy of splitting up families in the name of deterrence.

    Your main evidence that Canada is "stricter" seems to be that they use qualifications/skills when evaluating immigrants.  This wasn't described in the article. If you are interested in having an intelligent conversation on the pros and cons of US's and Canada's approach, another article would probably be more relevant - one that preferably provides some grounding in the basics.  I would advise that immigration is a wedge issue that is often used to inflame emotions, so care should be taken if you want to have a productive discussion.

    • Like 1
  12. 1 hour ago, Machinator said:

    I don't care that Moro Ojomo is 16 right now. He came in at about 10% body fat. He's mature, already powerful, and very quick off the ball. It will be easy to assimilate him at defensive tackle in four-man fronts, which we'll see a lot of.

    Are folks expecting to see our defense run a lot of four-man fronts? 

  13. Canada is having an election in 2019, and they are currently a top target for the alt-right, xenophobic, Russian disinformation campaigns. r/canada on reddit has a huge alt-right presence now. 

    I don't believe this particular piece by USA today is straight up fake news or xenophobic propaganda, nor do I think phdhorn is a witting alt-right troll. However, news articles like this can easily be re-framed into a divisive, misleading discussion. Taking legitimate news and turning it into a wedge between groups is classic tribalism, identity politics. 

    • Like 3
  14. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article212299529.html

     

    A new Russian influence operation has surfaced that mirrors some of the activity of an internet firm that the FBI says was deeply involved in efforts to sway the 2016 U.S. elections, a cybersecurity firm says.

    A website called usareally.com appeared on the internet May 17 and called on Americans to rally in front of the White House June 14 to celebrate President Donald Trump’s birthday, which is also Flag Day.

    FireEye, a Milpitas, Calif., cybersecurity company, said Thursday that USA Really is a Russian-operated website that carries content designed to foment racial division, harden feelings over immigration, gun control and police brutality, and undermine social cohesion.

    The website’s operators once worked out of the same office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency had its headquarters, said Lee Foster, manager of information operations analysis for FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence.

    “We’re not saying it (USA Really) is the Internet Research Agency but there are a number of indicators that suggest it is,” Foster said.

    Russians involved in the website work for the Federal News Agency, which is known by its Russian acronym FAN and closely follows the Kremlin line on international issues. Ownership of the agency is not publicly known.

    The new website may be part of a pending broader campaign, Foster said.

    “There are a bunch of other domains as well that play on USA Really that we are monitoring that haven’t launched,” he said.

    But so far, he said, Russians haven’t been pushing the website and its stories using robotic networks, or botnets, to promote them on social media, and they may be holding back. The House intelligence committee recently released thousands of Facebook posts that they said were Russian creations.

    USA Really has created a Facebook page and a Twitter account. On Friday afternoon, after a McClatchy reporter queried Facebook about the USA Really page, the company said it disabled it. The Twitter account remained active, with 385 followers.

    “They may also be contemplating what risks are involved if we were able to positively ID Russia trying to influence the 2018 mid-terms. To what extent does that undermine denials about 2016 activity? I’m sure that’s something that’s playing around in their minds as well,” Foster said.

    • Like 1
  15. Collusion isn't defined, and neither side is ever going to agree on whether collusion occurred.

    30% maybe 25% of the population that make up the core base of trump will always deny collusion because it means trump is winning and it wouldn't matter what evidence is ever presented.  Colluding with Russia makes him smart, or trump is being framed.  They would believe 2+2=5 if it meant Trump is winning.

    On the other side, there is maybe 35% of the population that already thinks Trump and his campaign colluded.  They don't need any more evidence.

    The middle 30% will be swayed by what else comes out.  A question is at what point will evidence start to sway them in the midterms and in 2020.

    Another question is is there even a tipping point at which republicans in Congress will step up to remove him.  

  16. 54 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

    GW, I understand the statistics during the crack epidemic are skewed, but why is that much different than now? There’s a thread on here about how bad Chicago’s (and many other shitty cities) murder and shooting rates are.  They aren’t all easily blamed on crack anymore, but are still gang violence.  You have no issue looking at the violence rates of today without adding to the discussion that vast amounts of it are still from gang/drugs.  If the time up to 1994 needs to be excused, a lot of the violence we see today does too. 

    Its not that the stats were skewed during 90s. I’m not excusing the rates from the 90s. We just have an understanding of why we had a big spike during that time.

    My point is that just comparing two points in time (one in peak crack cocaine era and the other today) and concluding that rates of violence has plummeted and therefore we don’t have a problem, isn’t the best way to look at it. 

    Hence, a need to look at a range of stats/information to come up with an understanding of the gun violence issue in the US. Looking at how we compare to other countries is an attampt to do this. Vox attempted to do this. See items 6 and 7 in the below vox link.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

    See page 5 of the BJS study I linked earlier today. Blacks have a higher rate of homicides when compared to whites, and Hispanics have a higher rate when compared to non-Hispanics. IMO no one should be saying that we don’t have a gun violenece problem because non-white people are involved. Blacks and Hispanics are still part of our community. 

    https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

    The opposite occurs when looking at suicides. Whites make up more of suicides by firearm then blacks.

    Basically, most suicides by firearms are whites and most homicide by firearm are blacks.

  17. Hopefully the trolling has gone away.

    The below report looks at gun violence from 1993 to 2011. Note that after the crack epidemic of the 80s and 90s, rates have been relatively flat.

    https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

    In addition to the crack epidemic and war on drugs, another potential factor that may have helped lower rates of gun violence in 90s was the lowering of lead levels in the blood of children during the 70s.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-crime_hypothesis

  18. 11 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    Never mind that Wolfe is not being charged with leaking classified material.

    True. But we should still want things applied consistently. If he lied to the feds, he should be prosecuted. 

  19. 5 minutes ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:


     

     


    Thank you for illustrating essentially the 2 step process Trumpkins use for evaluating the veracity of information.

    1. Is this negative information on Trump?
    2. If yes, then probably untrue and UNFAIR!

     

    There is an unfortunate sizable percent of our population that has completely bought into the tribalism, us-vs-them identity politics to the point that 2+2=5, facts/logic/science are replaced with feelings, trolling is appropriate, and nothing matters as long as my side comes out on top. 

  20. 2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    I was in school in the 80s.  Can you list the school shootings from that time when 5+ (or pick your own mass shooting definition) students were killed?  

    Or are you comparing 2018 to 1993 only.  You may be right that 1993 itself was worse than 2018.  

    We were experiencing the tale end of the crack-cocaine epidemic in 1993. 1993 isn’t a good year to compare gun violence. Since then, change in rates of gun violence have been relatively flat, while also being much higher when compared to other countries.

  21. 7 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    Christ, there are even more. ... what the fuck?

     

    I suspect this us-vs-them, tribalism politics has led folks to think that trolling is an appropriate response to take. This mentality led to someone swatting Hogg. Why do folks think this type of trolling is ok? 

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