Here’s the article btw

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...reforms-340616

This thread is hilarious. Microbet seems to be one of the only posters who actually understands anything and actually wants good things.

People like d10, simplicitus, Loki are not your allies, bros.

Reaching out to grasp what isn't theirs doesn't count, and no, what they need to do is bend the knee. We are the power. We are the people. We have the youth.

Bernie didn't get his vaunted email list by deceit, he got it by appealing to people. You wouldn't need to ask him for his if you offered those people the same things he did.

Never thought I'd see these 3 names grouped together for any reason.

Beleive it or not, I consider deportation of a single individual who has only known the US as his or her home or the failure to provide health benefits for a single child with a treatable condition worse than a warrantless wiretap.

No one gives a **** about your calls or other activities. If you're doing something that leads the FBI to investigate you and produce information sufficient to justify a govt attorney spending a day drafting a request for a FISA warrant, and that requires a 3 judge panel with life-tenure to issue that warrant, I'm pretty much ok with that. Not every slope is slippery.

If they lied and the NSA listened to something they shouldn't have--because they are deep state lizard people--the harm is far less than people rotting in prison due to false confessions or bad witness testimony or unjust laws. People need to get their priorities from reality, not the movies or conspiracy theories. Exhibit A is some the deplorable senators who voted against reauthorization.

Your first paragraph is ridiculous. One can be virulently against both things.

I wouldn't pee on the DNC if it was on fire, I don't care who's president - they're scumbag grifters

Ill vote for whoever the hell fly wants, and somehow I’m not his ally compared to Jules. Makes sense.

The logical argument stems from the idea that assessing means and motive should be at the root of all security debate, and minimizing and/or separating the two is the ultimate goal of any security policy. Agree or disagree? I'm willing to bet whatever policy you advocate boils down to that premise if it's at all reasonable. Even not so reasonable policies like "let's not worry about threats if they're not currently statistically significant" is just an assumption that very few, if any groups of people possess both the means and motive to carry out those threats. If you had info that someone who 100% wanted to nuke the US was given a button that would 100% nuke the US would you sit at home taking comfort in the fact that the US has never been nuked or would you leave the country?

With this in mind and given increasing access to technology, it's not realistic to expect to keep up with restricting access to the means of inflicting serious damage across the board. Pretty much all US foreign and domestic economic policy tends to increase motives for attacking us, so if your criticism is along those lines I'm with you. But no change will alleviate motives to zero so that needs to be just part of a broader solution. Identifying when means and motive meet so that a targeted effort can be made to separate the two is somewhat important now and will only continue to become more important in the future. Feel free to suggest another way to do that if you don't think limited surveillance is the answer.

Now consider this. The FISA extension passed with 60 votes. That's a major piece of legislation that barely passed. Did you hear the same amount of negotiating and whipping of votes for this as you did for the healthcare and tax cut votes? There was nothing, because the passage was never in doubt. How many spoke out against the bill trying to win public support to their side? Just Bernie maybe? Well over 60 Senators actually supported its passage and would have voted for it if needed. I'd bet nearly all of them understand it's a necessary part of modern life. Again, feel free to make an actual argument if you disagree and have better ideas.

The groupthink on this forum is almost entirely anti-surveillance and regards Snowden as a national hero.

Loki,

I gave Bernie my email address and I know where the DNC is if I want to give it to them. Like Fly said, they need to earn it. Aside from that, nothing good could come of Bernie giving the DNC his lists. It would alienate some people from Bernie, which is terrible if he runs again. AND the DNC using it will only further alienate them from Bernie voters and you know it. You think what's keeping Bernie Bros from coming into the Democratic fold is a lack of unsolicited emails from the DNC?

Simplicitus,

You're guilty of magical thinking. Are you from the land of unicorns? We all know President Bartlet wouldn't do anything nefarious with these powers, but that's not the real world. What's the 14th amendment? Wrong. It's the amendment that protects the personhood of corporations. The NSA intelligence gathering will be used to put innocent people in jail, to prosecute the drug war, to break unions, to identify immigrant rights activists and environmental activists as terrorists, to deport and imprison undesirables of many descriptions. In the real world the ex-President of Haliburton walks into the the CIA or the NSA and tells them to find evidence that justifies invading countries. You are giving the next Dick Cheney exobytes of data to comb through to justify whatever they want.

I have no clue what’s keeping them away. Clearly a desire to prevent nuclear war isn’t luring them in. Nor is a desire to promote income or gender equality. Nor is a desire to protect the environment. Nor is all the other actual issues they say they care about but refuse to show they care about by actually doing the one thing that matters - showing up at the voting booth.

So no, I readily admit that I don’t understand people willfully participating in the destruction of our country and our planet because they has a sad over not getting their club’s top chairmanship or wtf ever.

Snowden is more of a human hero than a national hero.

The bolded is not true. Any policy could cause some individual or group to be more likely to do violence, but on the net some policies increase the risk and some decrease it. But you bring up a good argument. This policy may well increase the risk of violence more than it decreases it.

You are still only making arguments for "limited surveillance" and not for this specific policy.

I expect a big part of the reason for support for this policy is similar to support for the F-35. There's a lot of money being spread quite widely. Who sponsored this bill? Orrin Hatch. Where's he from? Utah

The DNC as a whole sucks. Hope that helps.

You're pretty bad at this. Young people vote less than old people and they always have. Bernie dominated with young voters. Not every single person who voted for the loser in the primary ever votes for the party in the general. And on the other hand, Democrats have been winning a lot since Trump. And the vast majority of people who voted for Bernie voted for Hillary in the general.

Maybe you got into some big fights on Facebook with some Bernie supporters who were never Hillary, but the chip on your shoulder is at least 99% irrational. The Democrats are a ****ty party with loads of ****ty officials and they support loads of ****ty policy. Party loyalty for ANY party is a ****ty trait that leads to ****ty policy. When push comes to shove people should make the best choice available, but expecting no criticism of party leadership is, well, very totalitarian of you.

The DNC does not bother me.

Congrats Factivist!

Almost speaking of activism, did the DNC at least suggest you hit the streets on January 20th?

Not sure, I delete their emails and did not sign up for Factivism, but I think the DNC is sincere in their efforts and helps plenty of candidates. I don't see a blue wave if everyone is just hoping and few are recruiting and supporting candidates and helping them deal with the ins and outs of elections.

I did sign up for the Moveon thing if Mueller is fired.

I'm not going to engage much on the FISA thing. Suffice to say, I think we probably gain a good deal more than we lose and that it's not that important as an issue. If "unintentional" domestic wiretapping helps sink Trump (e.g., if taps on the Russian ambassador implicate Kushner), then I can be pretty flexible on the civil liberties. Though if Mike Pence somehow uses it to go full handmaids tale, I'll be against it.

The important thing for this thread is that Scott Walker is legit shook due to that primary result and the dems may actually be calling the shots come 2020 redistricting in many statehouses. Trump could set back, or even crush, the GOP agenda for years, if we survive.

I'm pretty forgiving of the dem establishment and can be critical of lefties on a lot of fronts. But this one is unforgivable imo. I don't understand how they can possibly think it's a good idea to give the government a weapon like this when we now have a crystal clear example of how easy it is for a president to upend norms and decimate institutional barriers.

Also Snowden is a damn hero.

When democracy ends in the US, it cannot happen w/o a) weaponizing domestic surveillance and b) purging those agencies of people not willing to do so. B is happening right now. How that isn't crystal clear to some of you I don't understand. Maybe read up on the KGB and Stasi or something.

Sure, but for those of us living in a fact-based reality, they are the only alternative to Republicans until/unless we change to a proportional representation system.

Yes, that’s not new information. I’ve already admitted as much.

Yes, I’m aware something like 90% of Bernie fans supported Hillary.

Who said not to criticize party leadership? It’s a good thing party leadership is making any strides toward bringing in the Bernie wing. It would be nice if they made larger strides or just handed over total leadership so we could finally be done with this nonsense, but it looks like neither of those is happening. All I’m saying is this is a two-way street. There has to be give and take on both sides. Demanding everything you want in exchange for nothing is ludicrous.

https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/955500239779258368

I'm fine being with the ladies. They live longer, commit less crime, get in fewer fist fights, are better educated, and, as a straight male, are generally more interesting.



https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/sta...14036027494400

Schumer should be canned, dude is a total loser.

GOP is a lock to not do **** about DACA and in three weeks the same thing is going to happen again and chucky is going to roll over again.

There is something truly wrong with the fact that the population of women and men are so similar. Seems like it should be at least 10:1. It's like evolution has failed us.

The whole article is about how the DCCC is a corporation machine dedicated to raising money and to do that they endorse well heeled but uninspiring corporate types who will bring them money even if they under preform in races.

The absurdity is pointed out that a DCCC affiliated PAC, End Citizens United, a PAC ostensibly dedicated to ending SuperPAC spending enforced a Democrat that ran a SuperPAC for the medical device industry that donated huge sums to Republicans.

The response to Democrats sponsoring corporate SuperPAC types?

It's a good read about where the Democratic Party is at

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/...-progressives/