Latest WikiLeaks Reveal Suggests Facebook Is Too Close For Comfort With Clinton (hothardware.com) 437
MojoKid writes: As we quickly approach the November 8th elections, email leaks from the Clinton camp continue to loom over the presidential candidate. The latest data dump from WikiLeaks shines a light on emails between Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta and Facebook Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg. In one email exchange, dated June 6th, 2015, Sandberg expresses her desire for Clinton to become president, writing to Podesta, "And I still want HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can." While that was a private exchange, Sandberg also made her zest for seeing Clinton as the 45th President of the United States publicly known in a Facebook post on July 28th of this year. None of that is too shocking when you think about it. Sandberg has every right to endorse whichever candidate she wants for president. However, a later exchange between Sandberg and Podesta showed that Mark Zuckerberg was looking to get in on the action a bit, and perhaps curry favor with Podesta and the Clinton camp in shaping public policy. Donald Trump has long claimed that Clinton is too cozy with big businesses, and one cannot dismiss the fact that Facebook has a global user base of 1.7 billion users. When you toss in the fact that Facebook came under fire earlier this year for allegedly suppressing conservative news outlets in the Trending News bar, questions begin to arise about Facebook's impartiality in the political race. The report also notes that Sandberg is at the top of the list when it comes to picks for Treasury Secretary, if Clinton wins the election. In an interview with Politico, David Segal, executive director for Demand Progress, said "[Sandberg] is a proxy for this growing problem that is the hegemony of five to ten major Silicon Valley platforms." Lina Khan, a fellow with the Open Markets Program at the New American think tank adds: "If a senior Cabinet member is from Facebook, at worst it could directly interfere [in antitrust actions]. But even in the best of cases there's a real worry that it will have a chilling effect on good-faith antitrust efforts to scrutinize potential anti-competitive implications of dominant tech platforms."
Where's the BoA stuff? (Score:4, Interesting)
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They were deleted by Daniel Domscheit-Berg:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/tech... [bbc.co.uk]
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Do you really think Facebook has no republican employees and could keep some vast conspiracy hidden?
Conspiracies involve few people but with incredible power over others - hence the head of Facebook over 1.7 BILLION people.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm going to have to disagree, Fox's slogan was "Fair and Balanced" for a very long time. It may be obvious and blatant, but they deny it every chance they get.
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You should start watching it then, because every 'take' I see that have both a republican and a democrat arguing against each other or getting their point of view.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because having one token member from the other side (who is sometimes ill-informed, or unable to make a decent argument) and controlling the argument and questions and leading is very fair.
So in your definition, because Trump did make the news, and his posts were on Facebook (hell, his TV station even premiered its first show on Facebook!) this is all moot because Facebook is incredibly fair and there is no favoritism... Yeah?
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You forgot to measure. Shifting things a few percentage points changes an election.
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I think you need to actually watch it instead of go by what hufington post, politico and other liberal sites state.
Fox news has a very large segment that is as anti-trump as you can get. Two prominent examples that come to mind are Shepard Smith and Megan Kelly.
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That's because Fox is pro-Republican, and being pro-Republican and anti-Trump has a fair amount of crossover.
Let's face it, Trump is the Republican candidate, but he is doing far and away more harm to the party than anyone else who ran for the nomination could have. For example, I don't care for Ted Cruz, and I think he'd probably be losing right now as well if he were the Republican candidate, but he, at least, doesn't flip out at 3 a.m. and go on Twitter rants, and he almost certainly wouldn't have been d
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Hilarious that you guys have one media outlet you throw out as being blatantly right while ignoring that every other one is blatantly left.
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I don't know enough about the laws and regulations of the US to judge, but what facebook does seems close to subliminal marketing which the FCC revokes broadcast licences for.
Not sure where you got that idea. There are no rules or laws regarding sublimal messaging. At one point the FCC issued a policy statement saying the use of subliminal perception is contrary to the public interest. That's pretty far from what you are asserting.
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This is such a shill response. The difference is Facebook isn't a news outlet. You watch Fox or CNN knowing that its right or left biased.
Facebook welcomes people right, left, up, down, purple, green, magenta, and so on. Its an open platform for dialogue. If heads of that company are giving advantages to one candidate over another and are leveraging their platform to do so, or enforcing rules more strictly towards those with a different point of view, then that's what this article is referring to.
When Biff
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This is such a shill response. The difference is Facebook isn't a news outlet. You watch Fox or CNN knowing that its right or left biased.
Facebook welcomes people right, left, up, down, purple, green, magenta, and so on. Its an open platform for dialogue. If heads of that company are giving advantages to one candidate over another and are leveraging their platform to do so, or enforcing rules more strictly towards those with a different point of view, then that's what this article is referring to.
When Biff Tanner for President says the election is rigged, he doesn't mean voter fraud/rigging. He means the whole election process, campaigns, media coverage, etc.. to drown out opposing views, ignore the controversies about their person of choice, and further push a pre-determined collaborated narrative under the illusion of independent or neutral platforms. Vote manipulation happened within the primaries. Enough with this Russia crap already.
Evidence has come out again and again that these emails were not altered (thank you, DKIM), and that James Clapper, the one who lied under oath about NSA domestic spying, and pushed the false narrative of WMD's, is the one saying that. Do you really think the Coast Guard, Department of Energy, DEA, US Marine Corps Intel, etc.. are supporting this claim despite being out of their scope? Russia seems to be the scapegoat that she loves to use over and over again, even against Bernie according to the leaks.
Well now you know, Facebook is left/liberal biased (which was kind of obvvious before this stunning revalation) much like the overwhming majority of the tech sector. Get over it. They are doing nothing the right wing media and players like the Koch brothers haven't been doing for years.
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Well now you know, Facebook is left/liberal biased (which was kind of obvvious before this stunning revalation) much like the overwhming majority of the tech sector. Get over it. They are doing nothing the right wing media and players like the Koch brothers haven't been doing for years.
With the acknowledgement that the above may well be completely true, recently I've been flooded with unhinged Trump posts. From FB friends I'd never expect to see it from. So much so that for the first time I've had to unfollow somebody.
For a long time prior to that I was seeing posts/shares from my left-leaning friends from high-school oh-so-long-ago. Which made sense since I came of age in the 70's in a very liberal part of the Northeast. So seeing liberal/progressive messages from my former classmate
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The sad irony is that we know his views and we think he is going to do them or at least try to do them ergo he is honest with his platform. With Clinton, we heard her views but there is no expectation that the views she holds after the election will be the same. We know she is a liar that changes tune as soon as a different group show up or if you have the right connections and money.
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Fox News is (part of) a broadcaster. Plenty of competition so partisanship is acceptable.
Facebook is a medium. No effective compeitition so partisanship is unacceptable.
( But I hope it works anyway :-} )
Company leaders CAN favor whoever they like ... (Score:2)
Of course, it's often a bad business decision to make one's political views public. Just ask the CEO of Chick Fil-A, for example.
But sure, it wouldn't normally be a problem..... except with Facebook and other forms of social media, their purpose is supposed to be to give a voice to EVERYONE who wants to use it and contribute content. If that can't be done impartially, it means the site can't be used properly for its stated purpose. (If you have to worry that your content might get censored/deleted or someh
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We're no longer a democracy, we've crossed the line into corpocracy.
It is made much worse with the supreme court allowing mega-corps to spend massive amounts of money. Beyond that though, lobbyists should be made illegal, it is overt corruption. "Pass this measure for me and I'll host a fundraising event for you - how is that tolerated?
If I were amending the constitution I would include:
No campaign can spend more than $1million (adjusted for inflation) on advertising. (make them win debates, and give int
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You realize why, right? Those people think it's wrong to give Trump money.
I think Peter Thiel is an asshole, and I'm happy to give any company shit that employs him or takes money from him or helps him in any way. That's my right. Your right is to think the same about Zukerberg. Don't use Facebook. Don't give him or any company he has an interest in any money directly or indirectly. That's completely fine by me.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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"Thiel gave $1.25M to a candidate who'd just had it revealed he has serious problems with women (to put a politically correct spin on it),"
Sure sounds like Hillary/Bill to me.
" who is/was telling people he wouldn't accept the results of the election if he loses,"
Maybe you have a point there. After all, it sounds like Trump is agreeing with Al Gore and that's not a good look.
" and who previously has supported violence against his opponents,"
Yeah, Hillary supports violence right now and violated campaign fina
Re:So says every SJW attacking Peter Thiel (Score:4, Insightful)
Clinton did pay for play.
Trump gets it on with a lot of women.
So do we pick the playboy, or the woman who puts the interests of foreign governments before America?
They're all plotting against Trump (Score:5, Funny)
All the media companies online and off-line, Paul Ryan and his Republican insiders, The DNC, all foreign governments except Russia and China. Women, Blacks, Mexicans, disabled people, ex soldiers, they're all plotting against Trump. Jeb Bush, big plotter, Ted Cruz and his sleazy push polls,Fox News and its clown announcers, CNN and their boring anti-trump panelists, Charles Koch and his puppets, MSBNC crazy crazy fraudsters, Marco De Rubio the joke phoney light weight, John Kasich the Absentee Governor who supports Mexico..... ALL PLOTTING!
It's time for the non-Democrat, non-Republican, white, male, full-fit, but not military, who are not in the media, or online media, it's time for that MAJORITY to rise up and put Trump into power he so richly believes he deserves!
Make America Great Again!
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Virtual public spaces (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like China (Score:5, Interesting)
In China, the people who control the media support the party. And the party makes sure the top people who control the media get rich.
We are no different.
Re:Just like China (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't have a state-run media, we have a media-run state. The massive corporations have similar interests (mass immigration for cheap labor, free trade, etc), they own the politicians and the media, the corps make the policy decisions, their politicians enact them and the media propagandizes to the people why things that are clearly not in their best interests like flooding the country with semi-retarded 3rd worlders are the good, moral things to do, citizen, and anyone who disagrees is an evil Nazi. This is how you conquer a nation, with very special episodes of Blossom.
Re:Just like China (Score:5, Insightful)
The distinction is pretty academic: when government becomes too powerful, media, police, politics, etc. all blur into one entity.
"The" massive corporations don't have much of a choice than to participate in this, because if they don't, their competitors will kill them via legal and legislative manipulation.
Ultimately, the failure is always a failure to limit government power. Governmental power will always be abused, and the only way to limit that abuse is to limit how much power you give government.
Re:Just like China (Score:5, Insightful)
Governmental power will always be abused, and the only way to limit that abuse is to limit how much power you give government.
We used to have this document that listed the limited powers of the federal government and strictly forbade it from doing most everything else but nobody pays attention to that thing anymore.
Re:Just like China (Score:4, Informative)
It was a good idea, and it actually lasted quite a while in comparison to other nations. However, even the Founding Fathers were not optimistic that this was going to last forever. As Jefferson wrote:
Re:Just like China (Score:4, Insightful)
The BBC definitely has their own biases, as well.
I prefer adversarial media. With both Breitbart and Mother Jones I know exactly where they stand. Neither is pretending to be unbiased. You can see what issues matter to different people of different ideologies, and then do your own fact-checking. But then you get CNN blatantly editing shit to fit their narrative [youtube.com] while pretending to be unbiased "news." No, it's propaganda. I don't think it's possible to be unbiased. Humans can't be. Anyone claiming to be unbiased is lying.
Doesn't stop pro-Trump posts (Score:5, Interesting)
I am being inundated with all sorts of pro-Trump posts by one of my friends. All the anti-Clinton conspiracy posts. Every damn one of them. Including one that was so bad that even Fox News published a retraction.
So as far as I can tell FB isn't shaping much, otherwise they would have tweaked that mysterious algorithm that only shows you posts from people that they want you to see and then for everything else goes "What post? I don't see any post? What do you mean you saw a post 5 minutes ago and now you can't find it in your feed? No idea what you are talking about."
Apparently it impacted news trends, not posts (Score:2)
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Only real conspiracy theories going around right now are the alt left screaming "The Russians are coming".
A video of someone saying they are committing voter fraud is call evidence.
MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC (Score:4, Insightful)
Rigging the Facebook feed to promote pro-DNC pro-Clinton pro-SJW causes is IMO an effective subliminal ploy even for those that scroll past it so they can see funny pictures of their friends' kids. They're cutting off Twitter feeds and FB pages of people they don't like too even though they have not violated the user agreement. All of them will stop at nothing to brainwash and browbeat us into one mind, and use the SJWs to persecute those who disagree with the positions like useful idiots.
But it isn't just here as we've also seen in Europe with the hiding of stories and statistics on the effects on violence and crime due to mass migration from the third world. And, at this point, anyone who is a blind follower of political parties or of the media is a fool ready to be controlled to the will of an elite willing to throw us back into an effectively feudal system.
Welcome to the Ministry of Truth. We have always been at war. All dissent is doubleplusungood. You don't even need to imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever because it's already coming through your computer screen.
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There's no point in denying this any more. Journalists have always tended to lean left more than right, but 2016 has shown that all pretense of integrity and independence has completely evaporated. Rigged polls, collusion with PACs and the DNC, mudslinging directed at the RNC candidates while ignoring third party options and DNC scandals of the same magnitude as Watergate, and making unsubstantiated accusations of foreign interference by Russia while ignoring the foreign money from Soros and extreme Islamic regimes influencing the electoral process. Nothing is off limits to the same group that doctors audio recordings to falsely show racism and hypes up stories of a few cops committing criminal acts against black people while ignoring the fact that black on black violence is at epidemic levels.
Rigging the Facebook feed to promote pro-DNC pro-Clinton pro-SJW causes is IMO an effective subliminal ploy even for those that scroll past it so they can see funny pictures of their friends' kids. They're cutting off Twitter feeds and FB pages of people they don't like too even though they have not violated the user agreement. All of them will stop at nothing to brainwash and browbeat us into one mind, and use the SJWs to persecute those who disagree with the positions like useful idiots.
I'm guessing lead poisoning.
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I don't think so. The sites I go to are pretty fair with their criticisms of both candidates. It's not MSM's fault that Trump can't control himself and runs his campaign like it's a reality TV show. He is still operating with the idea that any media coverage is good media coverage.
I think this story has more to do with excuses for not doing well. I mean it's hard to take Trump's complaints seriously when he has Fox and Breitbart as allies and not to mention the the talk show hosts. I live in a very red sta
Re:MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC (Score:4, Insightful)
What sources are you seeing fair reporting?
Some sources I have read that are usually decent but are failing on this election:
* The Economist -- does not investigate complaints about Trump and parrots the left's analysis; does not acknowledge any criticism of HRC
* The Intercept -- reporting on Trump includes thorough analysis and opinion, reporting on facts critical of HRC include no analysis or commentary
In fact the only balanced piece I have seen written was in Glamour magazine's op-ed written by the editor! It explained the contemplative process of voting in this election on page one and explained the issues voters face. Then page two was a bunch of claptrap about how women need to vote for a woman.
Re:MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be going to the Church circular, because I have NEVER in all my years seen a Western election where the media has so clearly, relentlessly, and shamelessly picked a side and gone on the attack against a candidate.
People are fooling themselves. What is happening to Trump has never happened to any candidate anyone can remember. There have always been oafs, buffoons, and morons running for office. Regan, Dan Quale, George H.W fucking Bush people. Bush wasn't even that long ago; Sarah Palin if you want something closer.
But People are losing their minds over Trump. Really. He's nowhere near as far out there in comparison to a lot of Republican candidates of yesteryear, but the entire Media have flipped their shit like this is a second 9/11. I don't even think the coverage was this sloppy and slanted during the Iraq War. 90% of it is complete bullshit and hysteria, the other 10% is distorted reporting.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not Trump. He's not that extreme. It's about his policies. They are extreme. But they're also what the public wants. What Sanders' supporters wanted. What a lot of people fed up with 8 years of austerity and 25 years of decline want. And that's why the media is lashing out so aggressively against him. Because unlike all the other batshit Republicans and religious wingnuts, Trump is actually giving the public want they want: Revenge.
It's not about Trump. This is about the media trying to smother a rebellion by the 99%. And boy are they dirty about it.
Trump created his opponents (Score:3)
By definition, Trump can either have extreme opinions or he can represent the majority view, but he can't do both. Getting elected is the art of getting lots of people from the middle of the political spectrum to agree with you.
Getting nominated of course is a different matter. To get nominated you just have to get a plurality of a subset of voters, and ones predisposed to agree with you at that. News organizations were also predisposed to like Trump. He sells a lot of newspapers, and drives a lot of pagevi
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By definition, Trump can either have extreme opinions or he can represent the majority view, but he can't do both.
Only if you assume an "extreme" opinion is measured by the public view. If you're talking about extreme compared to what other politicians are saying, then it is possible to do both.
Re:MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC (Score:5, Insightful)
Except some of the polls showing Trump behind are from Fox News.
When Fox has a recent poll that shows Clinton is ahead by 6-7 points (depending on whether it's a 2-way poll or 4-way), well, I really doubt they're carrying water for Clinton.
And you have to understand... there's a certain percentage of the voting populace that is going to vote for the Republican candidate no matter who it is or how they are presented (good, bad, indifferent). There are likewise going to be a certain percentage of voters that are going to vote for the Democratic candidate no matter who it is or how they are presented (good, bad, indifferent).
It doesn't matter what scandals dog those candidates, they will always get a certain percentage of the electorate.
The trick is appealing to those who normally fall into one party or the other but don't care much for the candidate AND getting voters who class themselves as "independent".
Unless something causes an inordinate number of voters from one party or the other to stay home, it is generally impossible to win the Presidential election with just the voters that you can automatically count on. You have to attract voters from outside those blocks.
And Trump hasn't been doing so.
Sure, he's gotten a few. Can't argue that. But he's spent so much time actively insulting blocks of voters that he's effectively reversed the inroads that the Republican party started making among (for example) Hispanic voters after Romney's defeat in 2012. Not to mention African-American voters, some Jewish voters, some Asian voters....
He's trying (whether he means to or not) rely on the angry older white voter, and hey, he's gotten that block fairly well nailed down. But it's been at the expense of every other block of voters that he would need to win.
The "easiest" path for a Trump victory in two weeks is to carry every state that Romney won in 2012 and then flip enough states to make up the 64 electoral votes that Romney fell short of.
The problem there is that not only is Trump apparently failing to do that (it's unlikely that he's going to flip Pennsylvania or Florida, and Ohio might be out of reach as well), it's possible that he's going to lose some of the states that Romney won. He might lose Arizona, he might lose North Carolina. Hell, he might lose Utah.
Facebook and other social media don't need to do anything to make Trump look bad. They just need to give him a forum, and Trump will do that himself.
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Attack the person, not the argument: it's a logically fallacy called argumentum ad hominem.
Classic American liberalism.
When the "argument" is entirely devoid of anything resembling a logical thread, ridicule is pretty much the only sensible response.
To use her own words (Score:3, Insightful)
"Why at this point does it even matter?"
Seriously, the media organizations in this country have decided that HRC would be our next president. It doesn't actually matter what she did or didn't do, the legality, the money, etc.
To be clear: the voting is a pointless detail.
Who cares? (Score:3)
So Hillary has made friends in businesses. So has Trump. The fact is, few politicians are completely clean. If you get into politics, you’re almost forced to play dirty because you know your competition isn’t going to pull any punches either.
Karma (Score:5, Funny)
Anybody that still has karma, I recommend that you do NOT make comments in this thread.
Here be dragons!
What bothers me more (Score:4, Informative)
It bugs me that this is even an issue. Why are so many people apparently willing to get their news from Facebook?
Develop some critical thinking skills, people.
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Because people are social creatures, and they trust their friends more than they trust some random journalist. And that would actually be a good thing if Facebook didn't censor and manipulate how people communicate.
We already know this (Score:2)
Virtually all mainstream media is in collusion with the hegemony that is the Democratic Party, the Republican party leadership, the federal bureaucracy, popular media, banking, and the capital markets worldwide. Only those not paying attention or those relying only on the most popular and most loyal media for their information. You wonder why I include the Republican Party leadership? Do not. They are only interested in preserving their positions of power. They collude with their traditional opposition to
it's about money and power (Score:3, Insightful)
Sandberg is angling for a cabinet position: after having graduated from growing up in a wealthy and privileged family to becoming a billionaire, her ambitions are higher, and what else is there other than political power? And even if she doesn't get the cabinet position, sucking up to the Democrats is good business for Silicon Valley companies.
Of course, there is an enormous amount of hypocrisy and self-delusion in Sandberg's positions. She has led such a privileged life that 99.9% of the men whose backs she walks on can only dream of.
Politicians pander to their biggest supporters?!? (Score:3)
Re: Why even have elections? (Score:4, Insightful)
It gives the serfs the illusion that they have some say in who their rulers are.
Re: Why even have elections? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think even the lowliest serf is ignorant anymore that every media outlet and talking head is campaigning for Hillary.
I wonder, though, if this won't backfire. People don't like being lied to, deceived, having information kept from them, or being talked down to like the media is doing. The average voter might lean right or left, but they want the process to be fair, and the media to be fair, and for the ballots to fall where they may.
This growing perception that the media will never relay the truth about Hillary or honestly investigate her scandals, that all the corporate interests (including Google and Facebook now) are manipulating public opinion for her - people aren't going to like this nonsense. I wonder if it won't cost her more votes than it nets her.
Re: Why even have elections? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see the left and right coming together on this. The right hates Clinton, and so does much of the left. Both are sick and tired of her lies, manipulation and the dirty tricks political machine. I would never vote to put Clinton the Second back into the White House again, but for me it is even more about her coziness with Wall Street and her penchant for wars of regime change (e.g., Libya) and her pro-trade deal and drill-baby-drill stances than it is about her lies and deceitfulness.
Re: Why even have elections? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am voting third party, even though I have always voted Republican in the presidential election.
I wish people would revolt. Everyone likes to pretend that we wouldn't vote for the worst person in the world just because they bear our favored party's lablel. Well, this time around both sides get to prove it. To prove that honest government is more important than my desire for my side to dominate.
If not now, when?
Re: Why even have elections? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with revolting is that, what ever comes after, there is no guarantee that it will be better. More often than not it is worse.
Re: Why even have elections? (Score:5, Funny)
I find both candidates to be revolting.
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We can all agree on that.
So let's give up the idea of having a good President, let's focus on which one will give us more entertainment. Let's ask ourselves: which of those two could resurrect press conferences and the state of the union? Would you ever tivo a Clinton speech so you can watch again the good parts? Unlikely. Even is she was competent, she's exciting as a doorknob.
Trump, however, would give us a good show. Insult foreign dignitaries that don't deserve the VIP treatment. Blame people, companies
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Good candidate don't run for president, and the few that do don't get very far. By very nature of being decent, they don't attract corporate or lobbyist money.
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Right.
Because we hate Wall Street, let's instead put a billionaire real estate scammer whose entire adult life has been spent trying to kiss up to investors and banks to get loans for his businesses, and who refuses to reveal what banks he's in debt to in power.
Because we oppose the Libyan conflict, let's put in power someone who wants to bomb the children of terrorists, insists that waterboarding isn't harsh enough, wants more nations to have nuclear weapons, wants to build a new generation of nuclear weap
Re: Why even have elections? (Score:4, Informative)
I supported Bernie Sanders, and the DNC used every cheating dirty trick in the book to make sure he failed. If Independents had been allowed to vote in all the primaries, he would have won. Jill Stein is the only other candidate that is talking about the same issues. Clinton is talking about no fly zones over Syria. You also know she will push through any trade deals that Obama fails to get passed. I voted for the Democrats most of my life (my first presidential vote was for Carter). But that is over. Now that they are the other corporate controlled party, I will be sticking with the Greens until the DNC gets taken back from the billionaires.
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Now, why would the DNC have to cheat? They wrote the rules! And the rules say, they can nominate whoever they want. The superdelegates are there for just that reason, to overturn the primaries if the people don't pick the one they want. The primaries are only advisory. The results are not binding. This is by design. The
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Every media outlet? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
So you are saying the following are shilling for Clinton:
- Fox News
- Breitbart
- EIB (Rush Limbaugh)
- Wall Street Journal
- New York Post
- Forbes
I could go on but you get the point.
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:4, Insightful)
Except (Score:4, Informative)
Most of what she has supposedly "Done" are outright fabrications.
How many "investigations" have to come up empty before you admit that there is no fire behind the smoke that Republicans call Benghazi?
Clinton Foundation is shown to have average overhead expenses.
Etc.
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notice how she never claims the wikileaks dumps are fakes, just deflects responding and blames russia (with no real proof), potentially inciting ww3????
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. So let's take a look at how this "excerpt the gotcha" plays into that.
Slashdot writes about Zuckerberg:
Except that the email from Shelly about Zuckerberg very clearly begins:
Likewise on the other email from Cheryl. They mention the "She came over and was magical with my kids" re. Clinton. They don't bother mentioning the reason for Hillary's visit, which can be seen in what she's replying to:
This wasn't some buddy-buddy campaign visit, this was a "person I know's husband just died" visit. Likewise, the implication that they're supposed to give here is that they know her because of Facebook. No bothering to mention that the reason that they actually know her is because she was Larry Summers' Chief of Staff during the Clinton administration.
Almost anything can be made to look sinister when you take it completely out of context. Which is the whole purpose of these emails.
Furthermore, do you honestly think you couldn't do the exact same thing by picking through the Trump campaign's internal messaging? Do you have any clue how many people of note a major campaign interacts with, how many people work for them, etc? We know given Trumps record on server security that hacking him would have been a breeze, but miraculously nobody bothered. Why do you think that is?
Lastly: take everything you read with a grain of salt. I know everyone's reaction to statements that emails could have been altered (and scattered amongst real ones) is going to be "You just don't want to discuss them!" No, the reason you should take things with a grain of salt is that the other anti-Clinton hacks this year have done exactly that. Leaks posted by the hackers in different places involved cases where they had involved changing the same file to say different things (such as a donation list where they added a donation from Soros to a Russian democracy activist, but had different values for the donation in different versions of their release), cases where files were dated to after the hack occurred, and cases where file metadata showed the changes they'd been making. Salting real data with fake is something that they've been doing this year, so it'd be naive to think that they're just going to stop doing it now. Come on, even the most die-hard Clinton hater is going to be hard pressed to actually believe that the Clinton Foundation has a directory sitting around literally called "Pay for Play".
Yes, the majority will be real. But don't be naive when viewing them and assume that you can just take everything at face value.
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Who the fuck cares about his tax returns? As if Trump doesn't have enough other problems?!
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Really? You think it sounds pretty good? Are you okay with it when the police and the judge are buddies? Are you okay with it when you got on the polices wrong side and you're claiming the police wrongfully arrested you and you're trying to convince the judge that his buddy is lying?
And if you don't get why I used that analogy then we're done here. We'll never see eye to eye.
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Really? You think it sounds pretty good?
Yeah. It mean's she'll actually be an effective President. Having ties is only equivalent to being subject to undue influence in the minds of conspiracy nuts.
The ironic thing about the Wikileaks dump of Podesta's emails is that they give a picture of a highly effective political organization, which makes me want to vote for Clinton even more than I did before. I'm not the only one I know who feels this way.
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effective at what exactly and to whos benefit? not the american people thats for sure
Well, let's see:
- Strengthening the Affordable Care Acts is to the benefit of the American people.
- Increasing taxes on the very wealthy to close the deficit is to the benefit of the American people.
- Strengthened bank legislation is to the benefit of the American people.
- Sensible gun control legislation is to the benefit of the American people.
- Wider access to women's health care (including abortion) is to the benefit of the American people.
- Appointing non-right-wing Supreme Court justices is to the ben
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Hooray! An effective president at going to war! At empowering Walll Street! At colluding with big business! At conspiring against open and fair elections! At being above the law! Who needs a president that is constrained by law when we can have an effective leader that 'gets business done'?
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Is the government there to serve the interests of the biggest businesses, or the people? Because you know what'll really help the American middle class is millions of more H1-B visas for FaceBook.
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Hey, those middle class Americans will be training the H1-B visas before they are replaced for a generous severance package. Of course it is good for the American middle class. How else will they get that 'generous severance package'?
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The only respect I've seen shown him is when he married an ugly women after he made his fortune.
?
Priscilla Chan isn't a supermodel, but she's a very beautiful woman.
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I guess "ugly" is a code word for "intelligent and educated, and not a bad looker, either, except that she's not white"?
I can find fault with Zuckerberg on a lot of counts, but his taste in women is not one of them.
Disclaimer: I'm also married to an intelligent and educated Chinese woman who is also not a bad looker, so I may not be without my own prejudices in this regard.
Re:Cui Bono? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are saying this without sarcasm you are an idiot. Agree/disagree with Wikileaks all you want but at least know what the organization is about [wikileaks.org].
WikiLeaks specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying and corruption. It has so far published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses.
IOW, they specialize in government dealings because that is what is 'censored or otherwise restricted official materials'.
The difference is that if you have dirt on Trump any media source will publish it and you won't need protection from the government. If you leak government secrets you either get jailed, holed up in Russia, or worse. The point of Wikileaks is to protect the leakers from the government you mongoloid.
There are plenty of other news organizations that are digging up dirt on Trump. Or did you forget getting grabbed by the pussy? Or did you forget the X million of dollars losses in a tax return leak? Or did you forget the lawsuits of Trump University?
FFS. Apologetic shills just get to me in the morning before I have had my coffee.
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You realize WikiLeaks doesn't obtain the files themselves, right? They publish what they're given. If they were given Republican/Trump docs and then they sneakily held on to them to protect them, the leaker would just hand the docs over to CNN. Either the Republicans run a tighter ship with better security, or there's nothing incriminating/shady to leak.
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Either the Republicans run a tighter ship with better security, or there's nothing incriminating/shady to leak.
OR they simply aren't as heavily targeted - the Russian government is only interested in finding dirt on the Democrats after all. They may have even broken into the RNC/Trump campaign to the same extent but kept the information for themselves rather than leaking it.
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You can't just assume it was the Russian government, as the evidence doesn't back that up. It could have been anyone from a Russian proxy, or the phishing attacks could be unrelated to the leaked email. i.e., they could have both stupid users who fall for phishing attacks, and disgruntled employees leaking their shit.
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I agree with that. I would think an RNC leak would actually help Trump. It would show all the RNC executives shitting on Trump and conspiring against him like the DNC did Bernie, except Trump had a strategy for beating them. It would corroborate Trump's narrative that the system, including the primaries, is rigged.
Re:The New American: (Score:4, Insightful)
Magazine of the John Birch Society. Yep, I need to hear from them.
Ah, the argumentum ad hominem [lander.edu]! Always strange to see a logical fallacy modded up...
Re:The New American: (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it is. The scumminess or non-scumminess of the source is not relevant to the strength of their argument. If they are scum, it may be more likely that they have made false arguments, but it is not guaranteed, and the proper counter is to root out the falsity of their arguments.
Re:The New American: (Score:4, Insightful)
You might feel safe in ignoring them, but if you attempt to refute them, using "they're scum" is still a logical fallacy. If you feel there's no point in refuting them any more, that's a different matter. But laziness is not logic.
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Hey look, it's the Fallacy Fallacy.
The original poster never said he was trying to refute them. He was simply dismissing them.
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You should have made that argument first instead of trying "it's not ad hominem if I don't like them". Still not sure I agree with it, but you'd be on firmer ground.
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Arguing against the Civil Rights Movement is effectively saying all citizens should not be equal, which is kind of one of the principles our country was founded on (admittedly it took us a long time to approach that point).
At this point the Civil Rights movement seems to be more interested in pushing for special rights for favored groups and blaming any problems its favored groups encounter on -isms like racism or sexism. Moreover Civil Rights groups tolerate honest discussion, or dissenting views, about as well as Soviet Russia. Indeed they take special pride in punishing dissenting political views such as anyone who donated to California Proposition 8 (citation below). This is why I chuckle when Civil Rights groups are m
Re: The New American: (Score:3)
I think this is a different group.
Correction - which "The New American": (Score:4, Informative)
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Because of your partisan mindset, you assume that because the Democrats are crooks, the Republicans must be as well, and if the evidence for that isn't leaked, it must be because of some vast right wing conspiracy that keeps such information from the public. Add paranoia to the sin of ignorance and partisanship on your part.