The News Thread

[Dak]

A lot of news reports (although not yet from the most credible of sources) coming out now that Obama is getting pushed to take on the Dem leadership mantle and try to take down the Trump administration. If those stories turn out to be true, I see that as a very dangerous development to the general political health of the country. Balkanization increasingly looms.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

... beyond dangerous.

 

[rms]

Balkanization increasingly looms.

hmm?

 

[CiG]

He doesn't have the time, too much Richard Bransoning to do.

 

[J.]

A lot of news reports (although not yet from the most credible of sources) coming out now that Obama is getting pushed to take on the Dem leadership mantle and try to take down the Trump administration. If those stories turn out to be true, I see that as a very dangerous development to the general political health of the country. Balkanization increasingly looms.

Dude just needs to go away. And take Hillary.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

.... seriously. I dont want to see that mans face or hear his name for ... shit, forever.

http://conservativetribune.com/musl...tm_content=2017-03-05&utm_campaign=manualpost

 

[zabu of nΩd]

WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents

In what appears to be the largest leak of C.I.A documents in history, WikiLeaks released on Tuesday thousands of pages describing sophisticated software tools and techniques used by the agency to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions.

The documents amount to a detailed, highly technical catalog of tools. They include instructions for compromising a wide range of common computer tools for use in spying: the online calling service Skype; Wi-Fi networks; documents in PDF format; and even commercial antivirus programs of the kind used by millions of people to protect their computers.

A program called Wrecking Crew explains how to crash a targeted computer, and another tells how to steal passwords using the autocomplete function on Internet Explorer. Other programs were called CrunchyLimeSkies, ElderPiggy, AngerQuake and McNugget.

The initial release, which WikiLeaks said was only the first installment in a larger collection of secret C.I.A. material, included 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, many of them partly redacted by WikiLeaks editors to avoid disclosing the actual code for cyberweapons. The entire archive of C.I.A. material consists of several hundred million lines of computer code, the group claimed.

In one revelation that may especially trouble the tech world if confirmed, WikiLeaks said that the C.I.A. and allied intelligence services have managed to compromise both Apple and Android smartphones, allowing their officers to bypass the encryption on popular services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate smartphones and collect “audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.”

 

[Dak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-companies-insight-idUSKBN16F18M

Too much to bother quoting individual snippets. The guy isn't a dummy, and his tweeting is much more calculated than I think people realize.

 

[rms]

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/artic...nt-fuel-opposition-to-paying-college-athletes

Perception is key. As studied and defined by social scientists, "racial resentment" is not the same thing as traditional racism. The latter—used to justify both South African apartheid and American slavery and Jim Crow—is rooted in a belief that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. By contrast, the former is "not outright hatred, but negative views about blacks justified by a belief that other races don't share the values of my group," Nteta says. "It's like when [FOX News host] Bill O'Reilly said on his radio show that he went to dinner with [African-American television host and civil rights activist] Al Sharpton in Harlem and it was just like any other restaurant, with people being respectful and eating their food."

 

[rms]

Too much to bother quoting individual snippets. The guy isn't a dummy, and his tweeting is much more calculated than I think people realize.

I think saying his tweets are calculated is possible, but smart, well time will tell on that.

 

[Dak]

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/artic...nt-fuel-opposition-to-paying-college-athletes

Was Cowherd factually incorrect? Of course that is never to be addressed. I don't even think those comments are so much racial as age based.

Obviously the idea that humans tend to in/out group and have different collective orientations so "wow", groups have less than amazing opinions of each other.

 

[Dak]

Fuck I'm behind the tech. This was over two years ago!

 

[Dak]

https://lendedu.com/blog/spring-break-student-loan-study/

American Liberalism is the ideology of subsidizing neutral to counter-productive behavior. That is its only consistent quality.

 

[rms]

https://lendedu.com/blog/spring-break-student-loan-study/

American Liberalism is the ideology of subsidizing neutral to counter-productive behavior. That is its only consistent quality.

fuck you Dak <3

 

[Dak]

Omg all these students saddled with this terrible debt for their education. omg. omg. omggggggggggggg

 

[zabu of nΩd]

https://lendedu.com/blog/spring-break-student-loan-study/

American Liberalism is the ideology of subsidizing neutral to counter-productive behavior. That is its only consistent quality.

Excuse me but Bernie's free college plan is one of the main reasons I voted Hillary in the primary. Radicalism on either side is bad, you're just being a biased conservative.

 

[Dak]

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/college/

Hillary had to support free college too.

Conservatives have their own welfare pets, like farm subsidies.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I wasn't aware of that, but I guess by the time of the general election it wouldn't have been the greatest of my concerns relative to Trump's supposedly $5.3 trillion spending + tax cut plan.

In anticipation of your reply: I recall you questioning the economics behind the $5.3 trillion debt number at one point. I thought your criticism focused on something like its low GDP growth assumption, so I probably ignored you since assuming magically high GDP growth is the easiest trick in the book to justify a policy proposal, and it's especially unconvincing these days given the structural problems behind our slowing growth.

 

[Dak]

I'm not sure why you have associated assuming high GDP growth with me, since I've pointed out that GDP is a terrible metric, and even if we take it at face value, it almost appears as little more than an inflation tracker at this point. As far as tax/spend plans:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-v-hillary-clinton-comparing-the-cost-of-their-plans/

The most fiscally significant difference between Clinton and Trump is in the net effect of their respective tax plans. Clinton’s tax policies result in a net increase of $1.55 trillion in revenue over the next decade, including $1.05 trillion from increased taxes on high earners and $150 billion in increased business taxes.Trump, on the other hand, would end up adding another $4.5 trillion to the nation’s debt – incurring revenue losses from $1.45 trillion from individual tax reform, $2.85 trillion from business tax reform, and $1.2 trillion from repealing taxes imposed by the Affordable Care Act.”

In terms of spending, however, Trump adds nothing in new spending, while Clinton’s new spending adds $1.65 trillion, close to the amount her tax plan.

Obviously politicians like to claim they won't grow the deficit but they do almost without fail. However, if we just look at these plans, Clinton was open about increasing total federal spending by ~35%. Supposedly it wouldn't add to the deficit because of comparable increases in taxes - but that assumes that increases in tax rates and scope would actually translate into more taxes gathered AND wouldn't hurt the economy, partuclarly in light of those structural problems you mentioned.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I don't remember what exactly your original criticism of the CRFB estimate was, I just remember you had one.

Anyway, Hillary's plan was clearly more revenue neutral than Trump's, regardless of what assumption you want to make about taxes gathered. Although I didn't anticipate the psychological impact Trump would have on the economy, I don't see how Hillary's policies would have been especially damaging - most likely just a continuation of Obama's, with the additional "benefit" of Congress continuing to weaken Obamacare. I'm quite at peace with the economic rationale behind my votes for Hillary, given the choices I had.