Best us political science books according to redditors
We found 450 Reddit comments discussing the best us political science books. We ranked the 184 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 450 Reddit comments discussing the best us political science books. We ranked the 184 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Well one may mistake you for a terrorist one day... So if you dont give a shit about other people maybe you should give a shit about your self.
Or at the very least read a fucking book: https://www.amazon.de/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-Report-Torture/dp/1612194850
E: You cant even excuse yourself as to poor to buy the book here is a pdf: https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/sscistudy1.pdf
There’s a book about the CIA is Organized Crime.
https://www.amazon.com/CIA-Organized-Crime-Illegal-Operations/dp/0997287012/ref=nodl_
This article shouldn't have focused on just North Carolina; they make it sound like this was just something the GOP members of one state did, when it is not.
This was a systematic attack planned and executed across the nation. The GOP looked at every state in the country, determined which seats they could easily flip to gain control of the bodies that make the congressional maps, and then funded the republican candidates there.
This was a concerted effort named Project Redmap, and they used every dirty trick in the book. Attack ads, lies, slander, plotting out districts so that they concentrate minorities or democrats or whatever else they could do.
Get a copy of Ratf**ked. It covers it all, in much greater detail.
The GOP made their plans to take over the country, and they executed it perfectly. They have control of the country now, and it's only going to tighten.
The only way to fix it is a massive wave election for democrats in 2018, which will take a concentrated effort just like the Republicans put forth, and that's not going to happen. You see, they planned for that too, and have been working to keep it from happening.
I'm not quite done with it yet, but I was listening to Clinton Cash over the weekend. In addition to this, they raise the question of why all of these foreign entities need to funnel money through the Clinton Foundation at all rather than simply donating the money to local charities.
I'm only on chapter 7 or 8 so far, but they also discuss how much the Clintons' income for speeches increased during Hillary's tenure as SoS and how she used a special rule that had previously been used to employ experts like scientists to allow operatives to work for the State Department and the Clinton Foundation simultaneously.
It's pretty disgusting. It's as nakedly corrupt as you could possibly want without a full-throated admission of guilt. This is the Clintons' stock in trade. I cannot fathom how all of the liberals who bitched about the war crimes of the Bush administration and the foul influence of money in politics (typically vis a vis the Koch brothers) can possibly support this woman. If I had to dream up a character that embodied corruption I would never be able to supply you with a sketch more on the nose than Hillary Clinton.
I think Scott Adams is right. The only thing potentially stopping Trump is the "crazy racist" charge. If he can neutralize that, he wins in a landslide. There's simply no reason to support Hillary Clinton on the merits and a mountain of objective reasons to oppose her every holding any public office ever again.
That's a big myth, but it's only "capitalism all the way" if it benefits corporations -- things tend to get very pampered, protective and socialist if a regulation helps corporations. Great books on the subject: The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer, and Republic, Lost.
Attempting to blame democrat migration for the state of gerrymandered districts is weak tea and intellectually dishonest. While gerrymandering has always existed in our country, it has never been conducted on the scale which the GOP engaged in gerrymandering after the 2010 census and tea party rise to power. All of this is well documented in this book which shows a coordinated effort by the GOP and their donors to subvert democracy through gerrymandering of congressional districts. We are not only talking about red states here either but also blue and purple states where the majority of voters are dem but are represented primarily by republicans since 2010.
Fortunately gerrymandering is fairly easy to prove in court and we have seen a number of successful legal challenges to the practice over the last year. If this continues, dems may not have such a steep road to re-taking the house, especially when one considers the recent results in special elections...
Unity comes when people within the party know their leader cares for them.
Do you honestly think that Hillary (and Bill) Clinton care about you AT ALL?
Reality check: SHE DOESN'T. (AND HE DOESN'T.)
She'll do whatever to make it SEEM like she cares, but SHE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT US (99% of Americans).
She's in this presidential election to win so her rich donors can get their federal appointments on boards and commissions and their interests lobbied and heard in DC, and implement laws that will ONLY benefit them.
Hillary Clinton is a puppet that's being manipulated by corporate interests.
ie. Clinton Cash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYRUOd_QoM
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469736845&sr=8-1&keywords=clinton+cash
If it comes down to Trump and Hillary, I am NOT voting for the lesser of the two evils that are Trump and Hillary.
Progress will only be made with someone like Jill Stein of the Green Party, who shares the most similar values and beliefs as those of Bernie Sanders.
If you are a true Bernie Sanders supporter, you would vote for Green Party's Jill Stein in 2016.
The only reason Bernie endorsed Hillary is to save his political career.
If Bernie had held out until the very end and refused to endorse Hillary at the Democratic National Convention, then establishment Democratic politicians would not like him, and this would further impede his influence and progress in the Senate, where establishment Democrats make up a good amount of the Senate seats.
So the next best thing we can do is to elect progressive leaders to Congress to impede Trump or Hillary from furthering their top 1% interests and fighting for the 99% (the American people).
One of the best books out there about redistricting is Rat F**ked. A must-read.
>There is also the issue of whether we can trust the Mayday PAC to stay as focused as they claim
Given the primary name behind it, I'm standing behind them (I donated some btc to the cause). Given Lawrence Lessig's history, he can stay pretty darn focused.
Take some time to read up on him, and the uphill (some would say Sisyphean) battles he's fought over the past couple of decades.
> whether their criteria for determining who the Mayday PAC will support ends up correlating to other political issues
That's kind of the point - it doesn't really need to correlate to other political issues. The only issue they're focused on is campaign finance reform. All other points, to them, are moot - because when the reform is in, a real discussion on those points can finally happen. They might support a pro-life pro-death penalty anti-immigration candidate in an election against another pro-life pro-death penalty anti-immigration candidate ... as long as the former candidate is for finance reform, and the latter is not.
Because until the (aboveboard, but no less) corruption is debrided, a real discussion on those topics, free from corrupting influences, cannot happen.
> an issue that everyone has strong opinions about despite the fact that most people only have an extremely limited understanding of the details.
That's right. A lot of what they're going up against is public ignorance - I have a feeling they will be spending just as much, if not more, on public education of the issue in battleground districts/states than on direct candidate endorsement.
> That's great, but let me know when you have drafted the motherhood and apple pie bill so I can actually understand what this means.
But the bill cannot be drafted until the candidates are in. You're putting the cart before the horse, here, to torture another analogy.
Some resources:
https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWfCqsFP05A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aavBn_1llpc
http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress--/dp/0446576441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406230329&sr=8-1&keywords=lawrence+lessig
http://www.amazon.com/Lesterland-Corruption-Congress-Books-Book-ebook/dp/B00C3LLYM2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1406230329&sr=8-3&keywords=lawrence+lessig
And something not really about politics and campaign finance, but his (enlightened) views on intellectual property (also covers the SCOTUS case he lost - and why he thinks he lost - in re perpetual copyrights):
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Culture-Nature-Future-Creativity-ebook/dp/B000OCXHM2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1406230329&sr=8-4&keywords=lawrence+lessig
No the famine was not planned by Mao, but it was a direct result of his regime. You realise there was food available, but people were only able to purchase it through the black market.
Fascism is no better than communism, however I do need to correct you. Nazism revolves around racism. Not all fascism is Nazism, but all Nazism is fascism.
Capitalism is an economic system not a government system. You would have to pair Capitalism against Maxism not Communism. The argument is that Democracy is better than Communism.
Yeah, the US government sucks a lot, but the conditions of US prisons are much better than the conditions of Gulags. Yes, most of the people sent to the Gulags were guilty, but the question is should the law have been in place to begin with? Should someone be thrown in a concentration camp for speaking out against the government. If you think the Gulags were any better than concentration camps You should read the gulag archipelago. It is written by a survivor of the gulags.
This bill board doesn't even argue against marxism in the form of 1st world left wing politics. It is argueing against traditional communism.
What is your opinion on North Korea, which is the only communist regime left?
As for your last point that capitalism kills far more than communism. I think there is a difference between not saving someone and killing them. The Communism death toll is calculated by totalling the number of people that were killed via direct government action. The capitalism one just counts all the deaths. Again, that isn't even the right argument because capitalism is not a form of government, but an economic theory. (Which no nation in the world embrasses to it's full extent. Most economies are somewhere in between marxism and capitalism.) The real argument is Democracy vs Communism, that's what the cold war was about. Democracy works much better than Communism and does not kill anywhere near as many people. The reason people put capitalism up against Communism is because it's much easier to make an argument that way. Even though it's not logically consistent.
Now I know this is heading in the direction of an internet argument where people just say shit and no one really wins. I'll leave a couple book recommendations below, and I would really appreciate it if you left me some book recommendations that you think would help me learn. I believe that we should always be challenging our personal beliefs, and I have an audible credit so I'm more than willing to listen to one of your suggestions. Let's make something positive come out of this. I don't want it to just be a digital shouting match.
Battlefield America
Gulag Archipelago
For a New Liberty
I hope sharing this doesn't piss you off too much. I know political discord can easily make people, myself included, mad. I hope you have a good day, and I'm serious about leaving me some links. I'll check them out. Thanks for your imput and feel free to challenge me back. If my view is right then it should be able to take criticism, right?
Please check out republic lost by Lawrence Lessig and join us over at /r/rootstrikers
The analysis of the stock transactions was put forward in a book by Peter Schweizer, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
The book, entitled "Throw Them All Out", and subtitled How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison, was featured in a recent "60 Minutes" investigation that gained a lot of attention.
In it, Schweizer said McDermott "bet big" by buying 2,000 shares in ID Biomedical of Quebec for $10 apiece in June 2004. That was six weeks before the House of Representatives passed the $5.6 billion bill dubbed Project Bioshield. Shares in the company subsequently tripled before McDermott sold them in September 2005.
Asked if he was accusing Rep. McDermott of insider trading, book author Schweizer said, "it is highly unethical to purchase stock in a bill you are supporting and then enjoy the profits when the corporate recipients see their stock climb."
Also named in the book as beneficiaries of cronyism and insider tips are Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Two terrific books on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality-Powerful-ebook/dp/B00603PI3U/
http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress--/dp/0446576441/
Obligatory link to Wolf PAC: http://www.wolf-pac.com
If anyone is interested in reading more about the gerrymandering on steroid that the Republicans been using since 2010 I recommend RatFuck by David Daley
https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628
Stellar Wind called for the very Utah data center the NSA is in the process of finishing. Not closing. Not turning into a warehouse for outdated office equipment. Nor is the government re-purposing all the storage and computing power for some serious online gaming.
The Program is now called Ragtime or Ragtime-P. Status is operational. As is X-Keyscore. This may have been a redesign of Stellar Wind to meet metadata provisions put forth by Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
== Source ==
Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry Details Ragtime-A US-based interception of all foreign-to-foreign, Ragtime-B intercepts from foreign governments that transits through the US, Ragtime-C counterproliferation actvities and Ragtime-P which is all domestic.
Elliot Spitzer's use of prostitutes, General Petraeus or just mundane chit-chat that has not been flagged. Not PRISM alone, it's Ragtime.
>Faulk described the personal nature of many of the calls, and how he and his colleagues would encourage each other to listen into a call where “there’s good phone sex” or “some colonel making pillow talk.”
I only just realised, the Police plot
Madina: "The CIA committed torture!"
CIA/DHS/Police: "do you have evidence?"
Errrm: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-Report-Torture/dp/1612194850
Pat McCrory was a pretty decent Republican mayor in Charlotte as a counter balance to the Dem controlled city council & county board of commissioners. He was likable and worked across the aisle to get things done. When he won the governorship the N.C. legislature had a supermajority due to gerrymandered districts and had been drunk with power. McCory was ill prepared. Art Pope, a long-time right-wing operative, became his chief of staff like Cheney was to Bush. McCrory went along with Art Pope's reckless ideas and never pushed back to the wacko republican legislature and lost his soul.
Charlotte Observer columnist Mark Washburn nets out McCrory's astonishing record. Eleven nice words to describe the reign of Gov. McCrory
North Carolina is a purple state suffering from gerrymandered districts that followed the 2010 census as are these states: Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Here a good book on subject:
Rat F*cked
Keep up the good work! I'm glad I can still run my old copy of Gradius V. The corporate world is hell bent on destroying game culture keep up the good fight. So don't you ever feel a twange of guilt for these companies.
Be sure to pickup some books from Lawrence lessig.
https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Version-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/1455537012
https://www.amazon.com/Free-Culture-Technology-Control-Creativity/dp/1594200068/
It was front page news several weeks ago, and the man who wrote the book about all of this is enjoying a few weeks on the bestseller's list.
Here is where all of the "proof" comes from
Ed Gillespie is the architect of modern gerrymandering. He is directly responsible for the mess we're in right now - the rise of donald trump and white nationalism. Without ed Gillespie, we would have had fair elections, we'd have fair representation in congress, and the few wouldn't be in control of hte many.
Im sorry poor Ed is getting "unfairly" judged as a racist extremist, but his policy of disenfranchising poor, black, uneducated voters, is something that a racist extremist would think up.
> Gillespie was chairman of the Republican State Leadership Conference, the national organization that supplied the money and minds necessary to install GOP majorities in the state legislatures, which, in turn, draw congressional seats.
> Because Republicans now hold two-thirds of the nation’s legislative chambers, it is no surprise that they are comfortably in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives.
http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/jeff-schapiro/schapiro-va-republicans-on-defense-over-redistricting/article_52ebb4a6-089d-5d1e-bd2f-737bc9ba86b6.html
https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506446330&sr=1-1&keywords=9781631491627
>She already did stuff - its well documented. In fact, there is a book about it.
>
>https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
>
>Liberals don't care about it.
Because it's plain and simply put not true. There's not a good damn thing about any of those claims that has been verified. At all.
>The biggest threat facing our country is globalism and that is why Trump literally saved our country.
Globalism is what made America rich.
You don't honestly think we did this by ourselves, do you?
yes. read his book "A Nation of Sheep".. it has a lot of examples of how the Bush administration helped erode rights and liberties through things like The Patriot Act. He was on FOX attacking Bush in '07.. and on the radio attacking him for years before that.
The issues he details in his books haven't changed much since Obama took office, and it's interesting to see a Judge spell out clearly how the federal government has overstepped its bounds.
If by 'best journalism on TV' you mean they read Peter Schweizer's book Throw Them All Out.
http://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Peter-Schweizer/dp/0547573146
Torture doesn't work.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-Report-Torture/dp/1612194850/
Prior to Quantitative Easing 1 (QE1), "there were 18 Federal Reserve Board members who were previously high-level executives of the “too big to fails” that were in line to receive the bailouts, according to a GAO report. And 76 percent of Fed board members also own or owned stock in those same institutions."
"Those (top 6 financial) entities spend billions of dollars to lobby Congress and finance Congressional campaigns and buy Presidents (they own both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney)."
Source
Sounds like plenty of corrupt breathing down of throats already.
If you haven't read Throw Them All Out, I highly recommend it. Both sides are corrupt as the day is long, and the Federal Reserve is just another tool of that corruption.
Gore gave a speech opposing the Iraq War in 2002. He was criticized and ridiculed, predictably—but nothing close to this. (Turned out to be right, as we know.)
He also later wrote a great book, the Assault on Reason, which served as his comprehensive criticism of the Bush Administration and diagnosis of the main ailments of our political system and civil society. It's spot on—and much of it is just or even more applicable to the Trump Regime.
Gore also remained active in the Democratic Party—not just climate change activism. He was a prominent endorser of Howard Dean and President Obama.
He may not have run for office again. But I'd hardly call this "bowing out" of politics.
I eagerly wait their reply. The movie was narrated and based on the book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. I mean the title sounds like the book has already made up the author's mind, and I guess it has... I have not read the book, but it is on my list now. I'd like to see the counterpoints, but the way it is portrayed in the video, the evidence is pretty damning.
Most of the situations the film covers involve the Clinton Foundation or Bill Clinton getting massive speaking fees from foreign countries or businessmen who have an issue being debated by the State Dept. and soon after a check arrives, they get an agreement approved. It's A LOT of that. As the author states in the film: one or two times...OK, maybe coincidence, but it seems to happen A LOT. Beyond that, the deals she agrees to are part and parcel against the progressive values she spews out of her mouth (i.e. human rights, woman's rights, environment, etc.) ....all things she claims she fights for but then proffers favors for shady characters in exchange for cold hard cash.
As stated in this segment, it is based research done in this book, http://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Peter-Schweizer/dp/0547573146/?tag=wwwbreitbartc-20 . The book probably should be required reading.
Also read http://www.amazon.com/Limits-Power-End-American-Exceptionalism/dp/0805088156
and the regime-change beat goes on: Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton
> project Red Map
also "Ratf**ked":
David Daley’s “extraordinarily timely” (New York Times Book Review) account uncovers the fundamental rigging of our House of Representatives and state legislatures nationwide.
https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Your-Doesnt-Count/dp/1631493213/
That's an awesome list. I'd echo that the two very best sources to learn about the exact crimes committed leading up to the financial crisis are The Untouchables and
Inside Job.
And I'd add a third:
Predator Nation (written by the guy who made Inside Job)
If people just want a single source, The Untouchables is where they should go. It shows how banks sold products they knew were defective. That is fraud, and it is criminal. Simple as that. The executives were knowingly selling those products (and there were many) should be in jail.
Here's a fuller list of selections I can recommend from a reading list at TooBigHasFailed.org. Any of these sources are good for learning what was going on leading up to the crash.
Podcasts
NPR: The Giant Pool of Money |
NPR: Return to the Giant Pool of Money |
NPR: Another Frightening Show about the Economy |
EconTalk interview w/ Simon Johnson
Documentaries
Addendum to Inside Job |
PBS: Money, Power, & Wall Street |
Aljazeera: Meltdown |
60 Minutes: The Speed Traders |
Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street
Books
I.O.U. - John Lanchester |
Griftopia - Matt Taibbi |
Infectious Greed - Frank Partnoy |
All the Devils are Here - Joe Nocera & Bethany McLean |
Traders, Guns, and Money - Satyajit Das |
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report
ETA: I see that a moderator here is requesting academic sources. Here are three good ones: Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan | Republic, Lost - Lawrence Lessig | This Time Is Different - Reinhart & Rogoff
To be honest, most of the academic sources I've read don't focus on criminality on Wall Street. I'd love to find more that do, though.
Thought I would share the guys book. He knows more about the high tech and the low tech neo-fascist Police State that is America, than anyone else that I know of. I hate what has become of this rotting piece of shit warmongering country. It's tearing me apart. We are the brainwashed Evil Empire. We do more harm and killing and destroying than the rest of the countries in the world combined.
Even the fucking Nazis didn’t make women remove their clothes in public after a traffic stop so they could stick their fingers into their vaginas while they check for drugs. The United States is fucking insane, and Donny Trump is leading the charge.
-
Battlefield America: The War On The American People
“This follow-up to Whitehead’s award-winning A Government of Wolves, is a brutal critique of an America on the verge of destroying the very freedoms that define it. Hands up!—the police state has arrived.”
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590793099/counterpunchmaga
Here's the opinion from a few experts who have written books on it.
Kurt Eichenwald
500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D1G86BU/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_ap_am_us?ie=UTF8
http://vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/06/prism-isnt-data-mining-NSA-scandal
>Now, anyone who discusses this process without also mentioning minimization procedures is also either very uninformed or intentionally hyping the story. Minimization is a term of art in the world of NSA intercepts which essentially means “stay out of American citizen’s business.” If information about specific Americans (or even foreigners inside the United States) is captured, those details must be removed from all records and cannot be shared with any other entity in the government unless it is necessary to understand and interpret related foreign intelligence or to protect lives from criminal threats. But passing intelligence information to criminal investigators requires several layers of review and is not easily approved; minimization procedures are meant to insure that information collected by the NSA isn’t used in routine criminal investigations.
https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/347888405981569025
>Sigh. These last 2 stories have been little more than boilerplate recitation of Sec 702. I doubt ill persuade u, but so be it... are anonymized, meaning the info has been run through an algorithm that spits out an anonymous designator, such as XDSVC...
Marc Anbinder
Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118146689/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_ap_am_us?ie=UTF8
https://twitter.com/marcambinder/status/348144189378281472
>as I said, I think the programs are good. Transparency by/ trust in USG lacking
Joshua Foust
http://prospect.org/article/three-guiding-principles-nsa-reform
>Yet, to even begin the discussion of reform, we have to grapple with why things got to where they are. One document published in the Guardian shows a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court order for Verizon, the telecommunications giant, to hand over phone metadata (telephone numbers, call length, and location). The Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that the Fourth Amendment does not protect such metadata. Similarly, the PRISM data-mining program, which automates access to Internet company databases, was, misreporting aside, publicly discussed as a software platform used by the military and intelligence community for many years
http://joshuafoust.com/can-the-nsa-search-for-americans-who-knows
>The Committee report says the IC and DOJ requested additional queries authorities, which the Committee considered then rejected while studies of existing capabilities were finished. While Marcy is correct that this passage shows the Intelligence Community requested the ability to search on this data, the text of the report also shows that the Committee rejected that request and made the Intelligence Community and Department of Justice reaffirm that any queries adhere to the letter of the law and not circumvent “the general requirement to obtain a court order.
Bob Cesca
http://bobcesca.thedailybanter.com/blog-archives/2013/06/greenwalds-latest-snowden-leak.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=greenwalds-latest-snowden-leak
>But here’s the most revealing part of Greenwald’s article: the program was stopped by the Obama administration in 2011. As Charles Johnson tweeted yesterday, the article’s headline could actually be “Obama discontinued NSA email program started under Bush.”
>Furthermore, Greenwald wrote: “It did not include the content of emails.” The NSA only collected metadata, authorized by bulk FISA court warrants. The program, like everything else, sought overseas communications, and those communications might have inadvertently included some data from US persons connected with the overseas emails. And, again, reminder: any data from US persons that’s inadvertently collected is anonymized, encrypted and destroyed. It’s only decrypted with an individual warrant.
And from the comments of the last:
>Just before that article went up, Glenn and Ackermann had another one go up, "How the NSA is still harvesting your online data". Now when you read that you instantly think any email we send here in the U.S. is going to the NSA. Well there's nothing but speculation in that article about that, but the kicker they are focusing on is that the NSA bragged about processing their "trillionth" piece of metadata in 2012. In 2009 it was estimated the 294 billion emails were sent globally every single day, so that trillion is hardly anything, when you consider that 294 billion per day translates to about 90 trillion PER YEAR.
Another Edit:
Just found a great AMA!
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1h6r3v/iama_former_nsa_agent_turned_educatorauthor_amaa/
Also FYI I have posted this comment multiple times because I think there is a lot of misinformation out there.
Disclosure I also work on the helpdesk for a gov agency that is no way affiliated with anything military etc....
I remember when that book came out detailing the insider trading and horrible corruption going on in the halls of Congress. As I recall, 75% of the politicians mentioned negatively in the book are Democrats with the remainder obviously being Republicans. Guess who /r/politics ragged on . . .
Toilet cleaning should be a privilege for these jackals. They deserve to be on a chain gang turning big rocks into smaller rocks. Read "throw them all out" by Peter Schweizer to learn about how nearly all of our elected officials are straight up criminals, via insider trading and other shady deals they all conduct.
In addition to the fact that it would demobilize that parties activists, like /u/vincentstaples already mentioned, because "single-issue voters" aren't really voting based on a single issue, they are using a single issue as a litmus test for ideology. If that test was taken away they'd just get another one.
According to Lau and Redlawsk (2006), single issue voters don't really care about only one issue. They just use politicians stance on some issue (i.e. abortion, marijuana, gay rights, etc...) as a heuristic for a specific bundle of other preferences. And it's effective too. For example, if I told you, "I am pro-choice," would you be able to reliably guess my opinion on the Affordable Care Act, gerrymandering, medical marijuana, or Kavanaugh's confirmation? You probably could make a pretty accurate guess. That's because my (hypothetical) support for women's choice is associated with my other preferences due to a phenomenon known as partisan conflict extension (Layman and Carsey 2002).
​
For example:
>I am Pro- choice.
>
>Pro-choice people are probably liberal.
>
>Liberals probably think X.
>
>Therefore: If I am pro-choice then I am probably a liberal.
>
>Therefore: If I am a liberal I probably think X.
​
People who are "single-issue" voters are really no less partisan than anyone else. Even "independents" predominantly vote for one party over the other (V.O. Key 1966, Klar 2016). The only difference, according to Lau and Redlawsk, is that single-issue voters use a tiny-amount information in one key area and about only one candidate to determine if that candidate is sufficiently conservative or liberal (Republican or Democrat). Meaning: a Low-information, Low Comparability strategy.
Interestingly, low information voting was more effective at determining the candidate closest to the voters own naive-preferences than "rational-actor" strategy (high information, high comparability) for all but the most politically knowledgeable voters. Lau and Redlawsk suggest this is because voters don't know how to prioritize and process the huge amount of information available to them in the "rational actor" strategy. Voting for your party ID (low information, high comparability) was actually the most effective strategy for choosing the candidate that best matched their net preferences.
So what does this mean to your question? It means that if a party switched positions on, for example, abortion and the Democrats became "pro-life" then "pro-life" would stop being a useful proxy for "Republican" and those single issue voters would just select a different heuristic.
​
https://www.amazon.de/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-Report-Torture/dp/1612194850
You can buy it on amazon
This guy called the 2016 vote in early 2016...good read for someone interested in gerrymandering. The GOP has been working this and planning it since 2010.
https://smile.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Your-Doesnt-Count/dp/1631493213/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=
I have no idea how you managed to get that from that presentation.
Quote: "“Instead of targeting terrorists engaged in true threats, the government has turned ordinary citizens into potential terrorists, so that if we dare say the wrong thing in a phone call, letter, email or on the internet, especially social media, we end up investigated, charged and possibly jailed,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “This criminalization of free speech, which is exactly what the government’s prosecution of those who say the ‘wrong’ thing using an electronic medium amounts to, is at the heart of every case that wrestles with where the government can draw the line when it comes to expressive speech that is protected as opposed to speech that could be interpreted as connoting a criminal intent.”"
It's a bit comforting to see a sane voice of reason amidst the insanity of the current anti-terrorism climate. The governments of the world dont need world war anymore. They can directly turn on common citizens, strip them of rights, torture and brainwash them, and deport them to a warzone where they will be hunted and killed by drones.
Mad Max has nothing on this plot.
There was.
http://www.amazon.com/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-Report-Torture/dp/1612194850
People massively underestimate just how badly things have been gerrymandered. I just finished this book, Ratfucked a few hours ago:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016APOCRU/
To win at the ballot box would take a monumental wave of turnout. Something that doesn't happen on off-presidential years.
More importantly, it requires a rethinking of the entire districting system in the US (and UK for that matter) which encourages this shit to get worse and worse every ten years.
Follow the money. The Clintons have hundreds of millions from Russia but they just seem to get a pass.
Ok "certainty" overstates it. What can be mathematically proven is that in plurality voting, it's in each voter's best interest to vote for his favorite of the two candidates most likely to win. Since voters tend to vote strategically, plurality voting has a strong tendency towards two-party dominance; this is Duverger's Law.
Proportional representation and some voting systems like approval or range voting don't have this problem.
Also see the book Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone.
If you really want to know about our role in torture you could read the complete Senate report on it
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1612194850/ref=oh_aui_i_sh_in_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thanks for the comment, very interesting stuff. Like all these other comments it's making me really look forward to reading the rest of Against the Day.
In general I am the same in that I don't generally feel the need to discuss it, and forums like these are incredibly restrictive for such things. My thinking with this post and the other I did was to give people who haven't read his stuff much a bit of a starting point and save them some time -- it took me five reads of Gravity's Rainbow before I felt I really had a decent understanding of what's going on, let alone the surrounding material/psychoanalysis/science/history, and I'm very aware that most people don't have anything like the time to do that.
It's the political/historical importance of some of his work that makes me feel most obliged to make these posts (hence my username) because I think too many people, especially somewhat complacent critics who write the reviews, are far too quick to say "conspiracy theory" without delving fully into some of the really nasty and real history it refers too. Of course his use of things like Hollow Earth/UFOs/Atlantis is a little different, but I do think it's crucially important for people to read and spread proper history books like The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America's Secret Government or The CIA as Organized Crime not only to help them understand Pynchon's work better, but also actually do their bit in doing something about the bad stuff going on in the world.
After all that term "conspiracy theory" was heavily promoted by the CIA to begin with, it's the definition of a weaponised term, and I think the more we can get away from phrases like that the better (not saying we should accept ridiculous lizard people stuff or anything of course).
Along with the Byron the Bulb stuff in GR, there's some little bit in Bleeding Edge about "secret anarchist code messages" and later on, the Global Consciousness Project. And I think people are generally becoming more conscious of all this hidden history. Though perhaps this is just a way for me to rationalise spending so much time reading him, by convincing myself that it's politically useful.
I've rambled as well. Here are the rest of the letters in that set, since you liked that one. It was a collection someone posted on 4chan a while ago as I recall.
https://imgur.com/r/ThomasPynchon/P1Cwr
FWIW my post was mostly a synopsis of this book:
The Limits of Power
I read it in 2008 before the "Financial Crisis". It probably had a lot more impact back then because it predicted the mess we're in now before it was common knowledge - I'm always impressed by books that predict the immediate future.
It's still worth reading IMO.
One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that the author is a self-proclaimed conservative who vilifies Reagan as a "Fraud Conservative".
He makes a very convincing case that so many of the problems we have today are due to the fact that Republicans talk like fiscal conservatives but spend like drunken sailors.
In other words, fiscal conservatism is scientifically and historically the most defensible aspect of conservative ideology.
And it is precisely this aspect of conservatism that modern "conservatives" militantly ignore.
The FBI was tipped off by a (NYT bestselling) book?
Ok. That explains a lot
If you have not read it yet and is interested, The Senate Intelligence Commitee Report on Torture is worth reading.
Two books on the public policy process:
Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies by John W. Kingdon
Public Policymaking by James E. Anderson
You can read all about it here
Anyone interested in the 2010 redistricting that insured republican majorities should take a look at this
Thanks for sharing this!
In a similar vein, this book talks specifically about the Republican plan to control all state legislatures through systematic redistricting starting in 2008. They've been immensely successful in their plan, called REDMAP. (yes - REDMAP - Redistricting Majority Project)
The Amazon excerpts of the introduction give a good sense of the book, then a state by state breakdown of their actions starting in 2008. Wake County libraries have this book - I'd recommend it.
https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628
See the book "Ratfucked" by David Daley, where he lays out exactly how it was done.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ratf-ked-david-daley/1123515748
https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483937743&sr=8-1&keywords=Ratfucked
They have indeed. This book lays out exactly how they did it too. Here's a hint: it wasn't because they had better candidates. They simply saw an opportunity to redraw all the maps... and took it.
Pretty evil stuff if you ask me.
"Gaming the Vote" is a great read for anyone interested. It covers history and math of voting, and makes a strong case for both range and approval voting. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K154R0/
Here's a good book to start with.
Edit: The only thing people can say is "hur dur right wing" because facts and morals do not matter to these scumbags.
Al Gore's book on the topic is quite good.
http://www.amazon.com/Assault-Reason-Al-Gore/dp/1594201226
Peter Schweizer was a foreign policy advisor to Sarah Palin. He works with Andrew Breitbart and has authored several books with titles such as Makers and Takers: Why conservatives work harder, feel happier, have closer families, take fewer drugs, give more generously, value honesty more, are less materialistic.
But I don't bring this up to discredit the man. I think it's great to see a person of his character addressing such a pertinent issue like insider trading in Congress. The fact that it is him delivering this message encourages unity between conservatives and liberals so that we can more effectively confront the extensive corruption within our state and corporate systems.
Edit: This story was also covered well by Newsweek. Peter Schweizer's new book, on this topic and based on his independent research, is Throw Them All Out.
The problem with the world is, there are way too many people that have been apathetic for too long about political corruption. It's start to demand change at every level of Government, which means kicking out all incumbants and anyone that was so much affiliated with anyone participating in any type of Fraud, Waste, or outright Abuse. Anytime anyone in government commits fraud, they should immediately be forced to resign, or should be voted out in the next election cycle.
But that's the thing - people didn't think they were voting against their interests. Trump promised jobs. He promised action. He promised to shake things up. He reached out to a segment of the population that has felt left out, and told them that what they've been through is horrible, and he can make it better. And he gave them a boogeyman in the news and "PC Culture".
I think you'd be surprised at how much of the country still is OK with racism. Still believes in white supremacy. They may not state that they are racist, but their policies and behaviors show they are.
Also, don't underestimate what happened the last couple of weeks of the election. Those letters, and subsequent gobbling up by the media is likely what pushed all of this over the edge.
Finally, read this book which goes into the strategy the GOP used to Gerrymander districts which made this no field day.
>I've often said the firings of Comey and McCabe may be the only recourse we ever see.
>after being promised that Mueller was going to prove Russian Collusion for 2 years
It's nice that you get to have it both ways: simultaneously latching on to the most overwrought predictions about the Russia investigation to invalidate its findings while accepting apparently nothing of substance resulting from the Origin Investigation as a thorough vindication of your version of reality.
If you believe someone like Andrew McCarthy, you'd think this was one of the most diabolical plots against our democracy that we've ever experienced. The consequences of which should warrant the stripping down and imprisonment of the former President and top members of his cabinet.
And that's not going to happen, why? Because our system is corrupt? The levers of justice too weak? And that failure of our system couldn't also apply to the current President and his game of footsie with the Russians?
Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig.
>In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government-driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission-trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.
>With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic-and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left-Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories. And ultimately he calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted-but redeemable-representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness.
>While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it. In REPUBLIC, LOST, he not only makes this need palpable and clear-he gives us the practical and intellectual tools to do something about it.
>About the Author
>Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Prior to rejoining the Harvard faculty, Lessig was a professor at Stanford Law School, where he founded the school's Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
Yes, Ratfucked summarizes the story pretty well
[Amazon link] (https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497177188&sr=8-1&keywords=ratfucked)
https://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Out-Politicians/dp/0547573146
This book is incredible, it probably has a Republican bias to some extent but well worth reading. The legal standard for insider trading among US politicians is completely different from what you’d find in business.
Something like http://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Out-Politicians/dp/0547573146?
> Political ratfuckery is a fun way to describe this.
> Looks like I know what I'm reading up on today in my free time.
Hey look, two birds with one stone!
They're all process crimes. I'm not really interested in this low-level nonsense. I'm much more focused on the #Spygate fallout that's coming up:
See the following:
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic]
https://www.theepochtimes.com/spygate-the-true-story-of-collusion_2684629.html
Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency
https://www.amazon.com/Ball-Collusion-Election-Destroy-Presidency-ebook/dp/B079C2VT7Y
> National Review’s Jonah Goldberg suggests Trump apologize. His colleague Andrew McCarthy (author of a 2014 book arguing President Obama had committed seven entire categories of impeachable offenses) argues Trump’s misconduct does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
Yea... OK.
I can't seem to find an ebook of either of these, but there are probably PDFs out there. The paperback copies are pretty cheap - and used copies run under $10. They're both seminal and deeply important texts (IMHO):
s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381329839&sr=1-1&keywords=policy+paradox)" - Deborah Stone
Edit: Regarding the Ed Policy component, neither one of these really tackles too much of that particular subject, but are great at explaining the processes and levers of policy. For ed policy specific, there a $10 Kindle edition of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" by Diane Ravitch, which is supposed to be great. I haven't read it myself - but many people who I respect deeply think her ed policy analysis and insight on modern reforms is spectacular. She blogs here.
Andrew Bacevich The Limits of Power. A blunt, concise, and brilliant look at American imperialism from the mid-20th century until now. I would vote for this guy as a presidential candidate regardless of party.
>How could changing the outcome of an election not lead to impeachment?
Putin probably cannot be impeached
>Hillary Clinton would have won 2016 had the Russians not intervened.
and asked Hillary to sell them the uranium which was exposed in
Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich
which helped Trump win
Well, we found bin Laden so I'd say that it wasn't a failure.
There's a whole report on it:
https://www.amazon.com/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-Report-Torture/dp/1612194850
Pretty dry reading tho.
I recommend a book called "Rat F*cked," by David Daley, which details how Republicans took advantage of the 2010 Census through their "REDMAP" plan. Every 10 years, we redraw districts once we get new data from the census. While Democrats have a decided technological advantage on GOTV, Republicans applied that same type of data analytics to Gerrymandering, capturing many state houses which then decide federal level districting plans.
> Oh Hell. Post-Gaddafi Benghazi was a huge supply depot for Syrian war. Various and sundry Sunnis had all the supply destinations in their own hands. There was no control over the destinations of these arms. The US thrives on creating chaos and Hillary Clinton is the Queen of Chaos: https://www.amazon.ca/Queen-Chaos-Misadventures-Hillary-Clinton/dp/0989763765
Full tweet:
>RT @AndrewCMcCarthy: Today is the day: book is out. https://www.amazon.com/Ball-Collusion-Election-Destroy-Presidency-ebook/dp/B079C2VT7Y/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ONL3DGUCYI5L&keywords=ball+of+collusion+andrew+mccarthy&qid=1565696153&s=gateway&sprefix=Ball+of+%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-1
Tweeted using app/device: Twitter for iPhone
Tweeted at: Fri Aug 23 04:05:22 +0000 2019
If you really want to lose your mind at how bad it is, read this book. It’s insane what they’re legally allowed to get away with.
https://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Out-Politicians/dp/0547573146
>So why did you vote for him
I didn't. I campaigned for Bernie, then voted Stein. Trump got elected on Bernie's platforms. Sadly, Trump was lying while Bernie was not. And yes, Hillary is just as corrupt and dishonest as Trump if not more so. Plus she's a real war monger. Look at Libya, her slave selling jihadi run baby. Just think if she had not attempted a rigged, crooked self-coronation, Bernie would be our President not Trump. Hillary cares nothing for the We the People and thinks even less of allowing registered Dems a real choice in their own primary. Hillary is responsible for Trump not the Rooskis. And remember her stamping her foot and saying "never,ever,ever" to universal heathcare during her campaign? She even lacks foresight and vision.
https://www.amazon.com/Queen-Chaos-Misadventures-Hillary-Clinton/dp/0989763765
I'll leave this here:
https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Version-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/1455537012
> The government now serves the will of the rich lobbyist groups.
You are not the only one to say that!
This book was written in 2012-- have you read it?
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It
Yes, you are correct. That's a big issue.
I haven't read the book yet, but I really should.
For “House of Cards” fans who can’t get enough of fictional President Frank Underwood and his First Lady Claire, it must be tempting to view Bill and Hillary Clinton as their real-life political doppelgangers.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_%28U.S._TV_series%29]
Certainly there’s fertile ground for those seeking parallels between the main protagonists of this quintessential political soap opera, and our more flesh and blood “heroes.”
Like their imaginary foils, the Clintons’ moral compass is functionally impaired, so much so one suspects the HoC scriptwriters modeled their lead characters on the Democratic Party’s resident “royal couple.”
To be sure, a critical assessment of Hillary Clinton’s fitness for the Oval Office can’t be undertaken absent some reference to the respective roles she and her husband have played in each other’s professional lives.
Many folks will recall their indelible slogan from Bill Clinton’s successful tilt at the top job in 1992, where the campaign pitch to voters was, “Two for the price of one.”
President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea parade down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 1997. (White House photo)
Again, one not unlike the mantra the Underwoods might concoct for voters.
One wonders why the Clintons have not retooled that hoary old refrain for 2016, and here I’m thinking, “Buy one, get one free” might fit the bill.
The Clintons then (cue Frank and Claire again) are the consummate political “chancers” (British slang for “opportunists”), with style overwhelming substance, ruthlessness eclipsing truthfulness, and political expediency supplanting personal integrity. Occupying their own “house of cards” is a long, yet not so illustrious history of deception, malice, corruption, duplicity, careerism, avarice, turpitude, warmongering, hubris, incompetence, arrogance, media manipulation, venality, hypocrisy, influence touting, and everything in between that the ugly, sleazy side of politics has on offer.
[http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/03/hillary-clintons-foreign-policy-resume-what-the-record-shows/]
This reality was first underscored most notably when — in what must be the modern American narrative’s most indelible “stand by your man” moment — the then “Tammy Wynette” of U.S. politics vigorously defended her husband against allegations of unbridled lechery and sexual predation.
These allegations, along with many others in her view, were invented by what she later defined as a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” one that was unscrupulously trying to take them down and out.
[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-the-vast-right-wing-conspiracy-is-even-better-funded-now/]
But irrespective of whether this much touted “conspiracy” was actually a reality (the Clintons surely had powerful and well-heeled enemies), a product of Mrs. Clinton’s penchant for self-aggrandizing delusion, or simply dirty politics (the perfect tautology if there is one), it is now safe to say it was going to take much more than a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to stop the Clinton juggernaut in its tracks.
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/25/hillaryclinton.uselections2008]
Powerful Juggernaut
That this “juggernaut” shows few signs of losing steam is evident; at the same time it continues to showcase all that’s wrong about Establishment politics — Republican or Democrat.
And whilst we can say now the accusations against her husband contained more than a grain of truth (at least those related to womanizing and self-aggrandizement), both Bill and Hillary were in for the long haul.
That she tendered her impassioned denials in the full knowledge that many were true is difficult to refute, and if nothing else, says much about the candidate’s capacity to deny reality in the service of a larger ambition.
And without placing too fine a point on it, this is one area where given the prevailing zeitgeist in Washington – in both neoliberal and neoconservative circles – Hillary Clinton is most definitely qualified as both the preferred candidate of Democratic insiders and the Establishment’s choice for president (including a number of erstwhile Republicans).
In any event, the Clintons themselves are no slouches when it comes to playing “dirty politics,” for whom we might say all’s fair in love, war and their chosen vocation.
They embody moreover, raw political ambition at its hard-core finest, steeled by narcissistic megalomania, all of it unencumbered by accountability, transparency, humility, ethics, honesty, scruples or altruism.
Her seemingly inevitable selection as the 2016 Democratic flag-bearer — and from there most likely the presidency — is ample indication of that “long haul” ambition.
To their credit as political survivors, they’ve been effectively dodging political snipers ever since they parachuted into public consciousness during the 1992 campaign.
And if the current contest is any guide, the Clintons have not lost their innate talent in this regard.
As for Hillary Clinton, one suspects even her most zealous detractors could not help but admire — if begrudgingly — the mix of chutzpah and resilience that have been key to her longevity, with her not always subtle campaign “trump” cards: “It’s my turn!”
Even without playing the “elect me as your first woman president” card, the palpable sense of quasi-regal entitlement becomes icing on the Clinton cake!
[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card/480129/]
We might argue that given the weight of mounting evidence against her fitness for office — a modicum of which would deep-six most politicians’ career ambitions — they have become ever more adept at keeping their political ducks flying in a row, and well out of the range of the shooters.
Not that they’ve achieved this all on their own.
In this the Clintons have been ably served by the mainstream media (MSM), who’ve generally eschewed the forensic analysis — whether political, policy or personal — vital to objectively evaluating her fitness as the Democratic nominee (and therefore president).
[http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/04/28/new-york-times-helped-hillary-hide-hawk/]
Mistress of Malevolent Mayhem
The prospect then of another Clinton presidency should make all right-thinking Americans increasingly concerned – even afraid – about the direction in which their country is heading. I know I am, and I’m not even an American!
Like many of America’s key allies over recent years, our country Australia is no different in that more and more Aussies are harboring anxious — one might say existential — fears about the respective agendas of the U.S. neoconservative and neoliberal establishments.
And notwithstanding her blandly reassuring campaign rhetoric on both counts, Clinton hasn’t just aligned herself with these agendas; it’s increasingly clear she’s the preferred standard bearer of the authors.
With this in mind, outside of her aforementioned Tammy Wynette moment, we should explore a little more of the aspiring president’s résumé.
In an excellent book, aptly titled Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton, Diana Johnstone does just this.
[http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Chaos-Misadventures-Hillary-Clinton/dp/0989763765]
The author chronicles in a clear-eyed manner her subject’s back story in excruciating detail.
What makes Johnstone’s tome all the more remarkable and essential is the depth and breadth of her narrative, one that goes way beyond the outwardly narrow focus suggested by the book’s title.
For Johnstone, Clinton’s “misadventures” aren’t simply a reflection of the warmongering misadventures of the country she aspires to lead and whose dubious “virtues” Clinton obsequiously and glibly extols at every turn...
More: https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/21/hillary-clintons-house-of-cards/
What exactly has Hillary achieved that has impressed you?
As far as I'm concerned, she is a garden variety crony politician who has sold her influence to anyone who has the money (very successfully).
She was the one who pushed to go to war with Libya and the US economy has been stagnant under Obama and I presume her if president. She brings no new ideas to the table.
There are multiple books written about the Clintons and their corruption,
https://www.amazon.com/Queen-Chaos-Misadventures-Hillary-Clinton/dp/0989763765/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462121390&sr=1-1&keywords=queen+of+chaos
Yeah.. I can kind of see that so I sort of lean more towards war breaking out between other countries (with maybe a little covert help from the US to get things kicked off).
I've heard that the people of the US are more heavily armed than any military in the world (including the US military) if you're just going by the number of small arms. If true (and I don't doubt it much) then that's something to consider.
Britain is too well armed. No country would be crazy enough to go to war against Britain - especially a small number of little rag tag colonies (and many of the people in those colonies support Britain).
Also, we're to believe that despite the US being so heavily armed that nobody messes with us...... a tiny number of thugs hiding in caves half way around the world is such a threat to the US that we need to shred our Constitution and spend trillions trying to blow them up.
The Assault on Reason, Al Gore, 2007.
David Daley launched a book earlier this year called "Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy"
The title sounds like a crazy conspiracy... because it is. It chronicles the literally secret plan flawlessly executed by republicans in anticipation of the 2012 elections and how we're now stuck with this for decades.
There was an excellent interview on NPR's Fresh Air with the author a few weeks ago. Moneyball applied to politics as they call it, complete with outside consultants, computer modeling, secrecy and everything.
Here's one and the other is all the shit Comey said.
Thanks, Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count
Hmm... Try contacting the office of your state rep to confirm, or the state AG's office. That's pretty shady, considering how REDMAP and other private firms have been able to get their hands on all the registrations.
Also I highly recommend the book Ratfucked if you want to really learn about REDMAP and the other scams.
This book is entirely about Gerrymandering and is something every American should read.
Popular Vote went Clinton - Meaning in vote total she won by 3 million votes. but that doesnt matter.
GOP Quotes of the Effect of REDMAP on the election - Your Party speaking on boundary movement.
Extra Reading:
NPR
Ney Yorker
Book (RatF**ked)
I'm not blaming anything, the GOP used american systems well to win the race. But don't act like you know shit, and as much as Hillary makes people awful people trump is a dumbass candidate making you a dumbass. Learn to spell, learn how the race was won, and learn more you uneducated mong.
Certainly true, but it's also pretty hard to agree on which new voting system should be used if we ever switch; they're all better than FPTP, but all have some major problem that makes them sound like a poor choice (even if it's an improvement overall). In the case of IRV (single-winner STV), you get weirdness where one candidate would win, but then a few new people decide to vote for them and now suddenly they lose because of the shift in how other candidates get eliminated.
Gaming the Vote did a good job of making me fear all voting systems. Every time they described a new one I thought "well, that sounds quite good", and then the next page would be "let me tell you how this is secretly terrible". STV is my personal favorite (although I think range voting was the one generally considered to give the best results), but the whole thing is absurdly complicated
I don't make shit up. I read more than just reddit headlines. Here are several things you should read:
Selling tainted blood
Uranium One was Clinton turning over control of most of USA uranium deposits to the Russians. It's akin to Obama selling control of our ports to the Chinese. While not illegal, it's a bit fucked.
Haiti Under Clinton: $1,300,000,000 in aid. 0.6% went to Haitian Organizations. 9.6% to the government. During this time Hilary's brother tried to open a gold mine using funds from The Clinton Foundation. Instead of rebuilding, they spent millions on a fee based system where you can use cell phone credits to pay for goods.
Would you like to know more?
There's no end to their corruption.
FBI’s top lawyer believed Hillary Clinton should face charges, but was talked out of it.
Did you forget about Whitewater?
As someone who believes in science as much as you do... your ideas are really unscientific.
What you basically are saying is "I don't walk because I value eating healthy more than the physical ability to walk". You are just confirming the stupid belief of r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM has that centrists are just too dumb to look into any political issues.
You haven't stated a single political issue in any of your comments. Its like saying "I'm a centrist when it comes to the debate of neanderthals being a cousin subspecies of modern man because I value the discussion of the Higgs boson."
Just identify as a-political if you have no care for politics. Centrism implies something a lot deeper than what you are saying.
Politically Center ≠ Centrist ≠ A-Political
Centrists in today's meaning implies, by definition, center right beliefs.
Its a right-wing version of a liberal.
A liberal is someone who defaults to the center left except for key issues.
A centrist is someone who defaults to the center right except for key issues.
Based on what you've said so far I, ironically, do think you are a centrist. You just never learned the definition of the term. You are a centrist because you are center right and will side with people on the right-wing on almost all issues save a few key points.
What irks me is 2 things:
1- Your use of science to defend your political position.
2- The fact that you think you admire science yet approach social issues so unscientifically
There is a rich field of Social Sciences that you can draw from but instead you look at all of it and just say "oh, who cares. Planet is dying lul".
I used to be like you. I used to say things like "social sciences aren't real sciences" without ever taking a course or reading any of the works.
This weird dichotomy between social issues and science you have is the exact one that I had... then I grew up. I went to University and left that high-school way of thinking. I don't know how old you are but as someone who is, seemingly, just getting into politics let me tell you an important piece of advice:
Your political position or opinions don't matter nearly as much as the reason you have them.
You being in favor of locking up people addicted to crack doesn't matter as much as you wanting to do it because crack users tend to be black.
You are a centrist but your reasons are juvenile and unexplored. Most centrists and a lot of liberals (less than in the past) suffer from this and this is why the idea that they are stupid has become so popular. You could have all the same view points but if you gave me a half-way decent but of reasoning I would be a lot more respectful.
I will recommend this book to you. Its about policies but its a good 101 intro into practical political science. As someone who likes science it will be a good jumping into politics so you can bridge the two and gain a new ability to judge the people you maybe voting on.
All benefits go really rich people and corporations.
Why? Because really rich people and corporations are getting better and better at buying off our political system. (Link.)
We are a Nation of Sheep
Ratfucking is like political subterfuge. Nowadays it usually refers to super gerrymandered districts. David Daley, the EiC of Salon, wrote a book with the same title. Good book, if disheartening, but it was the first time I had ever heard the term. Not sure how widespread it is.
No worries, and I appreciate the difficulty of asking a seemingly charged question but intending neutrality; the way your original question was worded brought to mind a number of different theories or areas of social science research, and it was difficult to pin down.
So, for your first point, there is not specific research I am aware of that could measure that sort of thing directly, as the causal mechanism (the leader's espousal of an opinion) would be extremely difficult to isolate from an entire universe of other potential causes.
What this does bring to mind, however, is a body of research known as Agenda Setting in Public Policy research. Broadly, this is a theory which describes how different problems or policy alternatives get pushed from the available pool to the ultimate decision making process, and leadership plays an important role in the promotion of problems. Classics in this area are Kingdon and Cobb and Elder (1983).
On your second point, while a number of other strands of social science research come to mind, I'm not sure there's anything on point that would provide much clarity.
The core of the problem with these claims (e.g. Rhetoric used in the 2016 US Presidential Election causes a spike in recruitment for extremist organizations in the Middle East), and what makes them difficult to answer is that there are too many variables to control for which makes it difficult to get leverage on the problem or a 'clean' answer.
I hope this helps!
edit: minor clarity/specificity
>Hi reddit!
>
>In advance of this year's national election, AAAS is bringing together scientists who have studied how people make up their minds about political issues and, once their opinions are set, how people can change their views.
>
>Science Magazine has published a few articles on this topic in 2016. One paper, by Noah Friedkin, explored the question "how do some beliefs within groups persist in the face of social pressure, whereas others change and, by changing, influence a cascade of other beliefs?" Another written by two of us, David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, describes our field experiment that showed that 1 in 10 Miami voters shifted their attitudes toward transgender individuals and maintained those changed positions for 3 months.
>
>We are joined by Drs. Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov, authors of "Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction."
>
>In the final weekend before the election, we suspect that many family and friends will be speaking about issues that are important to them. Ask us anything on the science of political persuasion!
>
>Dr. David Broockman is Assistant Professor of Political Economy, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
>
>Joshua Kalla is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley
>
>Dr. Samara Klar is Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Arizona.
>
>Dr. Yanna Krupnikov is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University.
>
>We’ll be back at noon EST (9 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!
>Hi reddit!
>
>In advance of this year's national election, AAAS is bringing together scientists who have studied how people make up their minds about political issues and, once their opinions are set, how people can change their views.
>
>Science Magazine has published a few articles on this topic in 2016. One paper, by Noah Friedkin, explored the question "how do some beliefs within groups persist in the face of social pressure, whereas others change and, by changing, influence a cascade of other beliefs?" Another written by two of us, David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, describes our field experiment that showed that 1 in 10 Miami voters shifted their attitudes toward transgender individuals and maintained those changed positions for 3 months.
>
>We are joined by Drs. Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov, authors of "Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction."
>
>In the final weekend before the election, we suspect that many family and friends will be speaking about issues that are important to them. Ask us anything on the science of political persuasion!
>
>Dr. David Broockman is Assistant Professor of Political Economy, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
>
>Joshua Kalla is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley
>
>Dr. Samara Klar is Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Arizona.
>
>Dr. Yanna Krupnikov is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University.
>
>We’ll be back at noon EST (9 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!
Obama put 9 whistleblowers in jail, and spied on tons of people besides Trump. I'm not sure he would have been as cooperative as you imagine.
But the point is that Obama didn't have hardly any MSM attacking him, in spite of all the laws he broke: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/06/president-barack-obamas-complete-list.html
People have written entire books on Obama's abuses of power. https://www.amazon.com/Faithless-Execution-Building-Political-Impeachment/dp/1594037760/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
The media decide what the population should be outraged about. I'd be interested to know what you think Obama's top few most impeachable scandals are from that pretty complete list. Mine is probably the $100B to Iran, and the Iran deal. However, I also think Obamacare could be as well since it was such a disaster, and involved lies in passing it.
Here, we've got impeachment on made-up Trump crimes in Ukraine.
Recommended reading for those interested
Per the Constitution, states control the way they arrive at their districts. Most states leave it up to the legislature with occasional governor input (Wisconsin). The legislatures even gerrymander the legislature's districts. That's why you have supermajorities in states that aren't really that partisan. To combat this, there are several means.
The linked tweet was tweeted by @ggreenwald on Mar 20, 2018 11:26:53 UTC
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Many Democrats have been led to believe this term was invented and popularized last year by Sean Hannity to help Trump. It's actually been something that serious foreign policy and government secrecy experts have discussed and analyzed for many years https://www.amazon.com/Deep-State-Government-Secrecy-Industry/dp/1118146689 https://twitter.com/Morning_Joe/status/976045546946232320
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^• Beep boop I'm a bot • Find out more about me at /r/tweettranscriberbot/ •
The term originated in Turkey, actually, and has been used a lot by academics. I'm not sure when it first worked its way into US political discourse -- at least by 2013 when this book came out.
Regarding your 2: there are five different scandals linked on that linked page alone, just from the time Bill was President. There have also been many scandals she's faced since that time. You don't consider that a problem, seriously? They say that whenever you see one cockroach you should conclude that there are several nearby. So what then should we conclude when we see several cockroaches, if not that there's an infestation?
I can see three main possibilities: either she is an innocent person and keeps getting accused of illegal actions due to the worst luck in the universe, or there's a far reaching conspiracy focusing on manufacturing false claims against her specifically (much more often than against any other potential target), or she is guilty but calls in favors and destroys relevant evidence in order to get away with things she shouldn't be able to get away with.
Which seems the most probable to you: a corrupt politician getting away with it, a powerful conspiracy against a politician existing but somehow failing over and over and over again to get rid of her, or someone innocent of all wrongdoing repeatedly facing scandals for absolutely no reason?
If you don't think it's a big deal when politicians break laws in order to make themselves and their friends money, I'm astonished. Corruption is the ultimate form of rent seeking, and the proximate cause of highly extractive institutions. Additionally, when someone who's corrupt is in power, they'll tend to bring other rent seekers in their wake. They are likely to sympathize with their friends promoting special interest groups, rather than to dispassionately evaluate the costs and benefits of policies for the average citizen. I think the laws that we do have are permissive enough as it is. I'd much prefer a candidate who seeks to strengthen and broaden these laws in order to give government policymakers good incentives, over a candidate who prefers to weaken them, circumvent them, or break them.
The cattle controversy is the one I'm most familiar with. She got a hundred fold return shorting the cattle futures market during a time when the cattle futures market was rising. Expert economists, using a model "stated to give the hypothetical investor the benefit of the doubt... concluded that the odds of such a return happening were at best 1 in 31 trillion." Whatever the justice system might or might not require, I don't need any more evidence than that. An exact description of how she did it seems unnecessary, in my view, when such an implausible outcome occurring without corruption is essentially impossible. I am very much inclined to think that if she were a normal person, rather than a rich white ex first lady who has lots of friends and knows lots of secrets, one of these scandals would have landed her in jail by now. Politicians are corrupt all the time, and get away with it all the time, and she shows every possible sign of being typical in that regard.
I am not saying that because she is corrupt, she's automatically worse than any other possible candidate running for the presidency. I'd prefer Clinton to Trump, certainly, and am essentially indifferent between her and Sanders. However, I do think that it's shameful to our legal system that someone like that is allowed to walk free, and shameful to democracy in general that she's the best candidate our electoral system has managed to produce for us this year. It has become mainstream for people to mock and insult the Republicans for having Trump leading the polls, and the Republicans deserve it, but if the world made sense the Democrats would be receiving similar insults too, and just as frequently, but they are not.
It's not just Hillary I think is corrupt, though, lest you think this is all coming from a place of partisan bias. Karl Rove belongs in jail too. As do many other "respectable" people who've helped guide our country, in both the major political parties, whose names are too numerous and controversial for me to list here.
Do you realize Hillary is a joke as far as Secretary of State matters go? She was pretty bad according to this book. http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Chaos-Misadventures-Hillary-Clinton/dp/0989763765
> "Deep State" is Russian talk. Kremlin talk. It didn't exist before it besides on Infowars
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-State-Government-Secrecy-Industry/dp/1118146689
https://web.archive.org/web/20140102073615/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/opinion/sunday/a-wordnado-of-words-in-2013.html
Actually it came from discussions of Egyptian politics and was used by people on the left for years. I must be a Russian shill collecting paycheques from Putin by pointing this out though. Or is the shill joke only funny when liberals are making fun of paranoid morons and not leftists?
I highly suggest you review some information regarding this system and the pros / cons to it.
Namely, you should look at the history and current struggle of voting rights and gerrymandering. NC is in the news right now for exactly these reasons. RatF**ked: Why your vote doesn't count and Give Us The Ballot are two relatively recent books that describe a lot of the issues voter equality faces. The reality here is that the GOP is gaming the system while they have the ability to, in order to keep that ability without evolving. So, to make this change like you suggest which is supposed to be easy, it is an uphill battle where Democrats have to essentially win elections that have been heavily slanted towards the other side. If they do win, they need support from the rest of the governing body at that level which is struggling from the same problem, as you can see with KY. Despite Beshear's victory, the GOP is now trying to strip him of a lot of governing powers to limit effectiveness.
As a second point here, the government is not designed for rapid change. The idea that it is difficult to do so is an intended outcome; hypothetically, the majority of proposals will get shot down and only the "best" make it through. Constitutional amendments require time and lots of energy to implement, and as such, the removal of the electoral college is going to be extremely difficult. And to an extent, this is a good thing. Think of how easy it would be to strip voter rights, etc, if you could easily change the Constitution. The unfortunate reality is that we live in an era of instant gratification where people want change, want it now, and forget about it 10 minutes later. This will take time, and people have to keep at it for years, gradually taking two steps forward and one step back.
https://www.amazon.ca/Queen-Chaos-Misadventures-Hillary-Clinton/dp/0989763765
Clinton Cash is a better choice.
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
If we want real third parties, we need to change how our electoral system works. Our current system just guarantees that if three candidates run, the first choice will never win.
http://rangevoting.org/
http://www.amazon.com/Gaming-Vote-Elections-Arent-ebook/dp/B003K154R0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1381631276
Yes, Al Gore in 2000 was pathetic. And despite his visionary leadership, and his continuing insight into American politics, the fact that he didn't join the 2008 race confirms he doesn't have what it takes.
And I quite agree with you about the Dems' ideas. Their incompetent, spineless, and unprincipled leadership may lose them the upcoming elections. Perhaps running a Hillary and losing would be the best thing that could happen to them. If that wouldn't disrupt the DLC powerbase, I don't know what will.
Yet, there seems to be something else at work -- whose fault is it that we have these two dreadful parties to choose from? Why do those particular people have sway? Is it "the Democrats" fault, the media's fault, the Republican's fault, retarded primary voters, the demented American public, or avaricious power brokers? That is American politics, a frighteningly self-reinforcing system, where something rots in the heart of every institution which plays a role.
Ask yourself - could a coherent principled left-wing message (like Kucinich's) actually make it in today's media environment? Or would it only be ridiculed? Why is it that there are not more principled leaders like him? Why is it that a visionary like Gore won't run for election? Why is it that when he ran he was spineless? Why do Kucinich's personal foibles make him seem unelectable, why was Al Gore portrayed as a fibber, whereas Bush's folksy idiocy was touted as a selling point (and his failures and substance abuse problems ignored)? These all point at deeper structural problems in American politics, and perhaps the American psyche. The ideas are there - but can they be voiced? Would they be recognized? Or are we all collectively too corrupt, too lost to see a way?
Eh.. I don't know about that. I mean, historically that has been the case, but ever since Citizen's United gerrymandering has taken on a whole new form. The republicans have mastered it and are now the king of ratfucking.
You would like this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467733922&sr=8-1&keywords=ratfucked
One of the reviews from amazon below
> - first, they provided funding to state congressional races in order to obtain veto-proof majorities in state legislatures. The republican party very strategically picked republican candidates in key states and provided them with almost unprecedented funding so that their campaigns and advertising budgets would overwhelm their opponents. The plan was spectacularly successful and resulted in republicans taking over large number of seats in a number of important state legislatures.
> - second, following the 2010 census, when the new census results mandated that state districts be re-evaluated, the republican controlled state legislatures used their power to very carefully re-draw the boundaries of enough districts in order to ensure that the voting from those districts would be strongly in favor of any future republican candidates.
> - third, in the following years when states elected their representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives, the newly constructed state districts performed as planned and brought significant numbers of new Republican faces to Washington D.C., bringing control of the House solidly into Republican hands.
One of the first things I've used my bitcoin for! So cool to pay with my phone and see it instantly verified on the site. Anyways, if you haven't had the chance to read Lessig's book, Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress, I highly recommend getting a copy. I'd consider it one of the most important political books I've ever read. Quick read too!
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0CQK1sKv8Y
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/21/former-haitian-senate-president-world-trusted-clintons-help-haitian-people-deceived/
(you should read this) https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474489652&sr=8-1&keywords=clinton+cash
(you should watch this) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmMe-2qaSss
Now I feel that it bears mentioning that I did say IIRC because I was on my phone and didn't feel like finding sources. As a result my statement wasn't completely accurate. They didn't STEAL 14.2 billion, they siphoned it. They lined their pockets with it while supplying "aid". So I guess in that sense, you're right. Congrats. Worth stalking me for a couple days?
But you know what? Even if you can prove definitively that they didn't directly steal 14.2 billion from the Haitian relief fund, there is simply too much blood on their hands and too much mud in the water for me to possibly concede that they aren't evil. The child trafficking, the e-mails, Bill's countless rape allegations, Project Veritas, voting fraud, her seizures, her shady af past, Lolita express, her ties to Saudi Arabia AND Russia (uranium deal), her collusion with MSM during the election, her collusion with the DNC to steal the election from Bernie, her ties to pedophiles and suspected pedophiles.
So yeah good job bud, you won an argument based on a technicality.
We done here?
Approval is great, range is better though! That being said, pretty much anything is better than plurality. If you're really interested in this kind of stuff, William Poundstone's "Gaming the Vote" is a great intro to different voting systems. It gives background on how the systems came about, and how they work. It can get a little long winded at times, but I'd definitely recommend it!
As far as sources go, this book is replete with them. https://www(dot)amazon(dot)com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
Then read this
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
They're the ones fighting against the gerrymandering that has the House on permanent lock down for the traitorous GOP. Traditional dems may accept corporate hand outs for favorable policy, but there is a mountain of difference between that and accepting aid from foreign intelligence agencies to sabotage your opponents so you can install a religious oligarchy. I can tell you which one is both more dangerous for our democracy and more immediate! Get the ducks in the right row here. There is a reason the GOP is talking about "illegal voter fraud". They are trying to cement in a one party state that has the veneer of legitimacy.
All I see are Uncle Sam's Yanqui-Doodle Martyrs Brigade.
Kinda funny how these "protesters" are shooting people with arrows, beaning people with bricks, setting shit on fire and attacking anyone who disagrees with them, even after obtaining their stated goals of stopping the extradition bill.
It's almost as if the Yanqui Doodle Regime Change You Can Believe In Machine decided to double-down, having zero fucks to give about its "shina" pawns.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1510703365
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0997287012
It's not a grand conspiracy that capitalist nations and their ruling classes and rich people seek to demonize socialism with all means available, including convincing everyone of what should normally seem to be absurd lies -- it's what you'd expect, and they of course own all of these news media. That the the state department, CIA, and other foreign policy organs of imperialism promotes false information expecting it to get uncritically reported by the mass media is plainly visible once you understand how it works and it's also completely unsurprising.
>No, what I'm saying is the means are totally justified, and the ends will be what they are.
Wow. This is some truly terrifying, Nazi level rhetoric.
>I think Donald Trump is in hock to the Russians.
So much for innocent until proven guilty.
>After what Trump did in the 1990s, no American bank wanted to work with him and he had to go to Russia to get cash.
You mean while he was a democrat?
>If he's capable of separating that from his duties as Commander in Chief, god bless him
He literally just outlined out his plans for doing this.
>And, frankly, his views on Russia are extreme in the American political landscape, so my expectations for him in the investigations aren't so high right now.
Oh, so now the democrats are the hawks? Interesting.
> I care far more about good results than I do about good process.
Glad to hear you are for stop and frisk! Worked in NY!
>Hasn't always been that way, but then I got into international business at the executive management level, and I got a family. In short, I grew up.
Please. You're middle management material...
>This is me being a patriot and wanting to make sure that my government isn't, in fact, a puppet to a foreign power.
Ever stop to think that YOUR reaction is actually the one the Russians want to invoke?
Go read a book from one of the foremost experts on the subject - the highest ranking Soviet Intelligence Officer ever to defect to the US:
https://www.amazon.com/Disinformation-Strategies-Undermining-Attacking-Promoting-ebook/dp/B00D99V2RY
A patriot, you are not. Soldiers who defend the president/country, regardless of political persuasion are patriots. Are you nothing close to the person you imagine yourself to be.
Besides, Clinton is already in Russia's pocket. The UraniumOne deal proved that.
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
She already did stuff - its well documented. In fact, there is a book about it.
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
Liberals don't care about it.
Why would I care about a Trump surrogate trying to make money?
The biggest threat facing our country is globalism and that is why Trump literally saved our country.
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296/
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296?tag=nypost-20
There's even a book about various tracked and checked governments and countries that have done what every proper government would do, and in which the US are true masters.
Here's one to start with Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich