What sort of freaking bizarro-world have we entered? https://t.co/8Ui0gouepq pic.twitter.com/fhMeRC2icW
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) January 1, 2017
And by “angry rubes” I mean, of course, the Very Serious Media Village Idiots. The full clip doesn’t quite do justice to the sleight-of-hand on display:
Trump’s new press secretary, Sean Spicer… was asked if President-elect Trump accepts the conclusion of seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia was responsible for the hacks that sought to damage Clinton’s bid for the presidency.
“Why aren’t we talking about the other influences on the election? Why aren’t we talking about Hillary Clinton getting debate questions ahead of time?” Spicer said in response.
“No one is asking those questions. The fact is that everyone wants to make Donald Trump admit to certain things. When do we talk about the other side, which is what did Hillary Clinton do to influence the election? Is she being punished?”
Because HRC’s team maybe getting a standard journalistic courtesy is just the same as Trump encouraging a foreign power to hack the election for his benefit.
I knew the “Assholes” tag would get much use during the President-Asterisk’s administration, but I hadn’t realized they’d all be wholly-owned operatives of the Russian security services, thus keeping the “Foreign Affairs” tag in heavy rotation as well.
Baud
Um…and because she won’t be the president.
Rathskeller
Can someone explain Glenn Greenwald to me?? I had always thought of him as a contrarian asshole, but still fact-based. His appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show with its embrace of conspiracy theories and denial of well-known spying evidence was deeply disturbing to me.
Oatler.
THIS is how they conduct a bloodless coup.
Gravenstone
What the everfucking fuck? Influencing the election by participating in it? These pricks won’t be happy until there are show trials and PPV executions of their myriad and sundry “enemies”.
Baud
@Rathskeller: I don’t follow GG, but my impression is that his audience, and therefore his financial interest, is tied to young white males who buy into this world.
Major Major Major Major
@Rathskeller: he’s either gone full Putin-owned hack or full useful idiot.
Mnemosyne
@Rathskeller:
He’s either being paid by the Russians or is desperately trying to pretend to himself that he didn’t get duped by Russian operative Ed Snowden.
Yarrow
Didn’t Megyn Kelly have something in her book about Trump getting questions ahead of time?
BillinGlendaleCA
Seems to me that this is an attempt to make nice with the Wilmer folk. The “getting debate questions ahead of time” happened during the primaries.
Adam L Silverman
@Rathskeller: Here you go:
https://newrepublic.com/article/116253/edward-snowden-glenn-greenwald-julian-assange-what-they-believe
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I was more partial to the later theory, I’ve been edging more towards the former in the past week or so.
Mnemosyne
Reposting from earlier today, but this is a great essay about sticking together that we all need to take to heart:
Now Is When We Become Fire Ants
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Did you do this?
debbie
Anyone who doesn’t have buyer’s remorse by February 1 is an effing idiot.
Yarrow
If people aren’t paying attention, I hope they wake up. This administration will be all about punishing anyone they deem as an enemy. Whatever it takes to destroy that person or organization or institution is what they will do. Legal or illegal means. And if it’s illegal now they’ll deny that it is but work to change the law so it isn’t.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m almost tempted to watch that awful show tomorrow just to see if he has a full-on meltdown. Almost. If there’s anything worth watching the Internet will save it for me
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Rathskeller: Glen must need the money…
Anne Laurie
@Rathskeller:
Remember that warning against “gazing too long into the abyss”?
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: me too.
Lurking Canadian
Well, Clinton did do her best to prevent Trump from being elected, just like Putin did his best to prevent Clinton from being elected. No difference, really.
Trentrunner
@debbie: The sheer unprecedented breadth of the epistemological up-is-downness we’re about to encounter should give everyone pause.
Watch me do it:
And the media will both-sides it, and Trump will win a second term.
lamh36
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Been following that mess on twitter too. As someone said…
Yarrow
I really hate them all so much. They make my skin crawl. All of them. Who can even stand to be in the same room as these people? Don’t they feel they need a shower? With the door firmly locked because if any of those people were near who knows what would happen.
Baud
@Trentrunner:
It’s really question of how quickly people will learn not to take the Democratic Party for granted. It may we’ll take two Trump terms.
Yarrow
@Trentrunner: Agree in general, but the economy one is the one that will be hardest for them to pretend didn’t happen on their watch. It always is. Even if they blame Obama, it’ll be on their watch that people lose their jobs, lose their savings. Voters in general don’t like that. Of course there’s that pesky will there be elections thing.
lamh36
So anyone else excited for the Sherlock Series 4 premiere tonight?
lollipopguild
@Baud: Trump will declare himself God Emperor and ban all elections.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: the economy will go gangbusters for a while.
Baud
@lollipopguild: Jesus Christ. That’s ridiculous. Voter suppression is a real threat, but stop with the banning elections crap.
We’re making it so that Trump will be deemed a success if there isn’t a thermonuclear war in the next four years.
Zinsky
This Sean Spicer guy is a super-aggressive jerk asshole. I saw him interviewed on CBS and he was even more smug and obnoxious than the Trumpenfuhrer himself, if that’s possible. Good God, this is going to be a horrible four years…..
Baud
@efgoldman: I’ll be disappointed if Bill didn’t do it.
rb
@Rathskeller:
I think I see your problem.
Emma
Can we please stop visualizing how the enemy will defeat us every time? With this sort of outlook, Princess Leia would have committed suicide before the rescue party arrived.
James Powell
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Or maybe he’s just an asshole.
randy khan
@lamh36:
I am excited about it – if my wife and I can stay awake after a very long day.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe. A trade war with China or the destruction of NATO might upend things. Trump is such a wildcard, who knows what might happen.
Question: Will the Trump team delete all of President Obama’s tweets on the POTUS Twitter feed?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: No, kind of surprised anyone managed to; there are cameras all over that place. Now I regret not getting out to the park in the morning.
Raven Onthill
@Rathskeller: I think he mostly doesn’t trust US intelligence agencies, big time. Hard to say he’s wrong in that, but he’s pushing it to extremes.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Probably, but they got to expense it to MSNBC.
Raven Onthill
They’re going to jail her (and possibly Sanders as well.) If he does, I think it will be the second time in US history that a President has jailed his campaign opponent.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: There will be elections, but they’re not guaranteed to be free and fair.
Mike in NC
@lollipopguild: There will be some sort of Reichstag Fire false flag operation where Team Trump will stage a terrorist incident and declare an unlimited State of Emergency. Resumption of regular elections TBD.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Technically, the last one wasn’t free or fair given what we know about voter suppression.
rikyrah
” We need to talk about punishing Clinton.”
I wish these muthaphuckas would try it.
SiubhanDuinne
I might very well be missing something, but from what I gathered at the time, HRC was told that a primary debate with Wilmer in Flint, Michigan might include a couple of questions about the water situation in fucking Flint, Michigan.
FFS. They crucified Donna Brazile and fired her (I think) as a CNN pundit because she shared this totally unexpected and completely unpredictable topic with the candidate. How stupid was this then and is this now? Spicer can fuck himself inside out with the rustiest fucking farm implement to be found this side of the Mississippi.
Baud
@rikyrah: Thank you. Me too.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I should also note, that while I had an occasional toke in college(who didn’t, it was the early 80’s), I’ve not consumed that substance in over 30 years.
Betty Cracker
@lamh36: Me!
Trentrunner
@Emma: You know that was a pretend, made-up story, right? :)
This is reality. We need to be prepared.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: No, I had better things to do, like snuggling with a warm Cocker Spaniel.
Yarrow
@Raven Onthill: I’ve been thinking they’ll try to accuse President Obama of something. They have all the houses of Congress and the Presidency. I’m not sure what they can charge him with, but it really doesn’t matter because the point is to tie him up financially and legally to keep him from doing other stuff.
I also worry for Michelle and the two girls. They could easily get to him by hurting them.
rikyrah
A-List’s Trump Snub Hits Him Where It Hurts
Ultimately, denying Trump and Trumpism the cultural approval they crave is an important statement.
Joy-Ann Reid
12.31.16 11:01 PM ET
Republicans are putting on their “smug faces” and scoffing at the raft of celebrity performers, Rockettes and now even a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, who are refusing to raise their microphones, kick up their bare-legged heels or otherwise perform for Donald Trump at his inaugural.
Bristol Palin, despite her own tenuous grasp on celebrity status, took to her blog to snipe at the refuseniks as ”sissies”.
But make no mistake, this disdain drips with envy (and Bristol would be snapping selfies with those A-listers in a heartbeat if they’d have her.) Republicans and conservatives know full well that denying Trump the celebrity and cultural imprimatur he so desperately craves matters, and not just because of the awkward headlines after each new rejection.
America is, in many ways, as much an idea as it is a country. And Americans have long marketed that idea around the world through our popular culture. From jazz, the blues, country and rock to Hollywood movies, culture has in many ways been our greatest export (or our most obnoxious one, depending on your point of view). In decades past, “The Western” defined the image of a cowboy nation; something both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush revived to their domestic political benefit and to the world’s chagrin. The Hollywood of Frank Capra’s era, when Reagan became a minor star, sold the world an image of American pith and patriotism in many ways as defining as the moon landing or the A-bomb.
…………………………………
Obama, though, has taken celebrity association to another level. He has been a darling of Hollywood, the music industry and popular culture from the time he declared for president in 2007, when Oprah herself anointed him “The One” and a year later, pop singer/rapper Will-I-Am turned his iconic “Yes We Can” speech into a remixed Youtube hit. Michelle Obama, like Jackie O before her, has become the toast of the fashion world, and a patron of the arts, from Broadway to great American music which she brought into the White House in all its multicultural glory.
As the entertainment world has gone from a bipartisan sphere to an overwhelmingly liberal one, Republicans and conservatives have come to view it with disdain. The Obamas in particular drive the right to distraction. Calling Obama a “celebrity” was considered a real, live epithet during the 2008 campaign, when a bitter John McCain saw his own political star status eclipsed. It infuriates Republicans that this elegant black family is celebrated while, for example, the Palins are ridiculed as rubes and bumpkins (though that could have something to do with the latter’s penchant for street brawls).
Conservatives rail at Hollywood movies that make them feel alienated by presenting capitalists, corporations and moral traditionalists as the villains, and sexual libertines, iconoclasts and the godless (or godlike, in the form of superheroes, witches and warlocks) as the heroes.
They lash out at popular music that they feel coarsens the culture and steers their kids away from Christian dogma. One wonders at the angst in far-right households as their white teenaged children blast hip-hop music on their expensive devices and in their nice cars. It’s a fear of cultural contagion that has driven parents crazy since the sock-hop kids of the 1950s discovered the gyrations of black rock-and-roll.
Raven Onthill
@Yarrow: And he has family outside of the USA, who are vulnerable. Brrrr.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne: I’m still with you on the fire ants…and the importance, nay the necessity, of sticking together. We’ve never faced a threat at this level on our shores before. It’s time to show our mettle.
Vive la résistance!
Jeffro
@Zinsky:
If there’s any sort of silver lining to be had in these here clouds, it’s that Trump has surrounded himself with so many colossal dicks that it just might – might – help wean the media off its both-sides-erism for a while. Not that Trumpkins will care, but the other 73% of the country will.
Jeffro
Btw since we seem to have moved on from the football thread below: CHIEFS WIN #2 SEED! NOT THAT IT MATTERS!! BUT STILL!!!
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
What level of Secret Service protection do Michelle, Malia and Sasha have after January 20th? Same as the President?
Mnemosyne
@Trentrunner:
Be prepared to resist, sure. But there’s no reason to decide before trump is even inaugurated that the situation is hopeless and we should all roll over.
Resistance movements have always found inspiration in fiction, so why deny the impulse now?
Thru the Looking Glass...
@James Powell:
Or he’s an asshole who needs the money…
Who said the two are mutually exclusive?
Ooops… I see someone else already got there…
Emma
@Trentrunner: Prepared is one thing. Read through this thread and others and tell me we don’t have a cottage industry of “this is what they’ll say and they press will let them get away with it and (implied) there’s nothing we can do about it.” I am no wide-eyed optimist. I don’t believe in last-minute rescues or deux ex machinae. But the constant drumbeat of negativity is wearying.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike in NC: Why plan and execute a false flag when you can just put incompetent jackals in charge of everything & wait 234 days like the last Republican president?
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
Go read my fire ant link near the top. You will enjoy it and find it heartening.
Let’s all be fire ants together.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I was shushed when I said that last week. Apparently, I am too naive unlike the other doom and gloom sophisticates in the comments section of Balloon Juice.
JGabriel
Clinton lost the electoral college to Donald Trump, and has to live with that. How much more fucking punishment do you want than that (not that she deserves it in any way)?
schrodingers_cat
@Emma: I agree. That’s why I took an almost 2 day break. May have to continue that.
Jeffro
@Emma:
Same here, so let’s not be not-negative together along with all these other happy warriors!
@Mnemosyne: Fire ants, hmm? I like it!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Maybe Teen Vogue has a blog. They seem to have some balls.
Mike in NC
@Jeffro: Being a “super-aggressive jerk asshole” is the main requirement for landing a gig with Team Trump.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
…and long fingers.
Percysowner
@JGabriel:
If you listened at his rallies, they want to either “lock her up” or execute her for treason. I really worry for her safety and for Obama’s.
rikyrah
@Rathskeller:
He had no problem with state surveillance until the BLACK MAN became President.
Period.
Mike in NC
@Major Major Major Major: Presidential Daily Briefings will become Presidential Quarterly Briefings for the Manhattan Mussolini.
FlipYrWhig
Sean Spicer, 2017:
Nathan Thurm, 1984:
Steeplejack (tablet)
@lamh36:
To say you “attended a party” but “did not party” seems like a pretty fine hair to split. Does Joe have some “U.N. party observer” status that I’ve never heard of? Or did he just stand in a corner and glower at everybody over his drink?
Baud
@FlipYrWhig: Ha!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: My mother’s aunt was an Indian freedom fighter. Only wore home-spun, never wore much jewelry, was imprisoned for fighting for the freedom of her country. She passed away when I was not even 10. I wish I had known her better. I am glad she and others like her fought the good fight and didn’t give up because they faced a brutal regime that dominated pretty much every part of the world before WWII.
Spanky
@efgoldman:
No, but after the party they went to their room where they had clumsy drunken sex that Trump of course recorded. So at least he’s got that on them. (He probably doesn’t need it since they’re such rump-lovers.) (sic)
Jeffro
@Mike in NC:
Wait, whoa, hold up: there are multiple requirements here…nominees don’t have to cover all of them, but they must have two or more in order to qualify:
1) Super-agressive jerk asshole
2) Billionaire
3) Hard Randian
4) Terrist/Mooslim Boogeyman Pants-wetter
5) Token
6) Loves him some oil/coal
7) No experience for job whatsoever…in fact, may never have actually a) worked for anyone or b) studied anything
8) Able to lie with a straight face and/or spin utter bullshit with complete facility
I’m too busy to ‘score’ all of the Man-Baby’s cabinet picks thus far, but my guess is that Rick Perry will score the highest
Steeplejack (tablet)
@lamh36:
I’m starting with the Packers-Lions game, but the cable box is set to remind me when Sherlock starts. Must-see TV!
Miss Bianca
@Raven Onthill: Sorry, those of the community who are determined to clutch their pearls into powder, but…seriously. What grounds could the Drumpenfuehrer et al. *possibly* have to “jail” HRC? Even they can’t make up *that* much shit. The rule of law may be tenuous as shit in These Here United States right now, but it still applies. She hasn’t committed any crimes – any actual crimes, that is, as opposed to media-generated, “casting a shadow” crimes.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: You’re the puppet!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: While we shrink in fear from Joe Scarborough.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: That’s just factually not true.
You can say a lot of things about GG during the Obama admin, but you can’t erase his criticism and opposition of GWB prior to Obama.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Me lamh!!!
ME
ME
ME
Enhanced Voting Techniques
ROFL, they are starting to get desperate if this is the best they can do.
What the weird part is they cant’ say “yes, we find this Russian stuff disturbing too, but Trump was elected fairly” after all Trump is president now and can throw Putin under the bus with ease. I think it has to be Trump is that pathetic for praise he can’t let Putin go.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: @Corner Stone: Corner Stone is correct. He even had a nice little gig of going on the teevee and saying “you libtards are such hypocrites, not caring about surveillance now that Obama is president!”
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Agreed. Greenwald is a sanctimonious self-aggrandizing poseur in virtually every way BUT that one.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: I would be, ‘cept that I don’t have cable and I’m only thru’ Season 2! But I’ll be excited *for* you and lamh!
rikyrah
I watched Meet the Patels on PBS’ Independent Lens.
It was about an Indian- American, first generation born here, and his dating travails. Had dated a White girl for 2 years, never told his parents about her. Broke up with her. His parents wanted him to marry an Indian girl, so they went about it…in India, and in America.
Ads in Indian newspapers.
Resumes of candidates
Marital convention
The Indian Wedding Season Circuit
It was quite interesting.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: The whole Indian American comic schtick of making fun of their parents’ accents is something I don’t find even remotely funny.
ETA: Most Indian men are scared shitless of their mommies. True story.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Mnemosyne: I also put up a post pointing to it. Good stuff.
SiubhanDuinne
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s amazing, innit? It’s like they don’t believe they won the election honestly!
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack (tablet):
FTFY.
Feathers
@Miss Bianca: It’s not on cable! Free PBS over the air. I ditched the cable, but bought an antenna for over the air. Mainly watch PBS and figure skating, along with my one network show, Elementary, which would ordinarily air Sunday at 10, but I notice they are taking a break while Sherlock is on Masterpiece.
It will also be watchable for at least a while on your local PBS station’s website.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Ogle also works.
Pogonip
@Yarrow: Well, that’s what Anne was saying, it’s routine. Until someone’s caught and then our moral and intellectual betters are shocked, shocked.
Steve in the ATL
@Rathskeller: why the fuck are you watching Tucker Carlson? Nothing good can come of that.
Ella in New Mexico
@Rathskeller:
@Mnemosyne:
I’m thinking it’s the Snowden/NSA story angle. He’s twisting himself into a fucking pretzel to do it, too, because how DO you square the good stuff we learned from Snowden with the fact that Russia is still not our friend, even though it lets him live there?
In any case, what’s even more disturbing than Greenwald’s pretense of holding everyone accountable is to read the commentary under his posts.
Full blown, balls to the wall cray-cray. Pizza-gate John Podesta is a sexual pervert crazy. Trump supporters flocking to what they once thought was a liberal site cray cray…
Major Major Major Major
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’ve still never actually seen anything that falls into this category. I certainly didn’t see anything the IT community wasn’t already aware of (as far as domestic surveillance is concerned).
EDIT: Just to clarify, the only stuff he had any business being a whistleblower about would have been warrantless domestic surveillance of citizens.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@rikyrah:
I saw part of that; it was very good. I’ve got the DVR set to record it later this week so I can watch the whole thing.
Miss Bianca
@Feathers: nice! Still think I’ll watch Season 3 before heading on to Season 4, however. ; )
After all, a certain person still has to explain just *how* he managed to fake his own death and fool his particular friend, altho’ I have my theories…
Sherparick
@Trentrunner: Yep. All except the economy part. If he & gang tank the economy Trump won’t get reelected without some serious vote suppression. It would help if the the Democrats could win the Governorships of Florida, Michigan,& Wisconsin, while keeping Virginia & Pennsylvania. You are also right that this administration will viciously attack it’s perceived enemies, which starts with the 53 percent of the American people who did vote for this con man. Unfortunately, 40 percent want him because they want to viciously attack the rest of the country, even if it destroys the country.
tpherald
See that? Very slick work by Spicer there. They just fed the perfect catnip to the press: “Both sides do it!”
Steeplejack (tablet)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ha! Noted.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
I was reminded this week that every child from every culture makes fun of their parents at some point. My BFF blanched when I reminded her how she and her sisters would make fun of their mom while she was scolding them. No parent likes to think that their own kids will secretly mock them the way they mocked their parents, but they will …
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major:
That is an amazingly broad brush. And “IT community” ? Please to define? And why would the “public” aka “citizens” necessarily consider what the “IT community” was already aware of as significant or not?
fuckwit
I’ve been thinking about this a lot (and a lot more than I should).
The problem here is: force is always necessary to govern. Your institutions have to have force– either of the guns/military/police type, or moral authoritative force, or political organization force– in order to be effective. And they also have to be on the side of democracy, which means, they themselves need to be bound by other forces, ideally equal ones to balance them out. That’s the genius of the Constitution.
The problem we have now is: all our institutions have failed (and some have been very deliberatly killed). The media since deregulation is now bankrupt and useless. The internet corporations are deliberately and intentionally neutral: you can tweet or FB-post or Google anything. The police and the “justice” system has been the enemy of minority communities forever, and the people farthest on the right (Snack Team Six) view them as the enemy also, and of course we in the educated and disappearing middle class know damn well that they don’t jail banksters, and never will. Religion? You have to be joking. The catholic church protects pedophiles, hassles people about birth control, and denies women health care; the right-wing churches are firmly in the anti-democratic authoritarian camp. Our voting systems are eminently hackable (go to https://verifiedvoting.org sometime; I spent a lot of time there about 10 years ago, this is not news to me and it shouldn’t be news to anyone else either). The lawmaking machinery has been taken over by the right wing a long time ago: the Senate is dysfunctional, the House is gerrymandered up the ass, and the majority of the Statehouses belong to authoritarians. The schools? Hahaha, that’s even more ridiculous; other than in those “elite” liberal enclaves, our education system has been standardized-tested into uselessness, and school boards have long been cowering before the lawsuit-wielding power of fundamentalist churches. And the courts gave us Citizens United and hamstrung the VRA and ACA.
Where are the institutions that will protect us? Where are the institutions that will protect us from bigotry, ensure fairness (through force!), bring us all up to a level of education where we can understand the complexity and subtlety of the problems we face in this world and in the future?
If one person’s vote is equal to another person’s vote, than one person’s education and information access has to be equal to another person’s as well, as does everyone’s right to vote (without intimidation, suppression) and be counted (without hacking). All of these have failed at this moment.
I don’t like to be pessimistic but I think we are looking at a decades-long effort, and I think it will get a lot worse before it gets any better. That’s not an excuse to be apathetic or depressed. I’m not very optimistic only because I have no idea how this can be fixed. I remain at least somewhat optimistic that eventually, somehow, we’ll find a way out, and implement that, and then we’ll be OK. I just don’t see it happening soon.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Reminder to Sherlock viewers: no spoilers!
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Yes, but not as well as squint.
Joe Scarborough and SQUINT were invented as synonyms. There’s a reason Charlie Pierce references Joe and Mika as “Squint and the Meatpuppet.”
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: because it’s not private information. Infosec people are (mostly) civilians, they have blogs and give interviews. Every single super secret bombshell revelation I saw reported from the Snowden dumps was something I already knew about and I wasn’t even in that corner of the industry at the time. Snowden’s information was utterly useless for the discussion we say we want to have about domestic surveillance since none of it was new.
ETA: it’s not the government’s job to make the media not suck.
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne: Preach it!
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Gotcha. I never really followed the intricacies of the pundit culture.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: I stopped caring because I felt that everything was hyperbole. Too difficult to suss out reality.
sukabi
@Baud: still of the opinion that drumpf won’t last thru his first term…impeachment And or better opportunities will compel him.
Also the possibility of sudden fatal “illness”….
Just saying he’s not known for making friends and he’s got at least US intelligence agencies extremely worried.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major:
I completely disagree and reject that framing. That’s the same kind of garbage people here like Martin And Capt Nemo kept trying to parse away, disclosure after disclosure.
This just is not an accurate reading of what was coming out at the time. Motives/BS aside. A significant chunk of what came out simply was not public knowledge and not in public discussion.
Mike in NC
@Sherparick: 53% of voters absolutely did NOT vote for Putin’s puppet.
sukabi
@efgoldman: no but he charged them 500 bucks for head.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: weird that I knew about it then!
Another Scott
@efgoldman: Don’t worry.
Donnie will probably be happy to get PDBs as soon as his kids and in-laws can sit in on the briefings. Having more superior genes people in the room is just the right thing to do.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: A different discussion that is essentially meaningless.
If you knew about it all then we should fold all 17 IC agencies up and start have them selling lemonade in the 17 acres basement in Utah to pay the rent.
fuckwit
@Corner Stone: I think you two are in violent agreement.
What Snowden exposed wasn’t new to those of us who 10-15 years ago were outraged about CARNIVORE, OMNIVORE, Total Information Awareness, secret warrants, FISA abuses, and gag orders on telcos and internet companies. Many of us who do cyber security as our jobs or as part of our jobs knew all this shit already, or at least weren’t surprised by it.
But what Snowden accomplished was a PR win: he brought that information to the general public. Which, in a democracy, must first happen in order for any meaningful reform to take place. It wasn’t an intel op. It was a PR op.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven Onthill:
His sister and her husband and children live in Canada, or did last I checked. I cannot imagine that Justin Trudeau is unaware of possible threats to them, and I feel certain he’s taken necessary and appropriate measures to keep them as safe as humanly possible. (Would actually be interested to know what kind of protection they’ve had over the past eight years.) I don’t know about any of his Kenyan relatives.
HRA
@Mnemosyne:
I think I unknowingly for rid of the parent mocking once for some time.
I was looking for my green card which I had mislaid and needed to report my once a year status at the post office. My then 4 children (10, 9, 7 and 6) came to where I was and the eldest said “What are you looking for?” I said “I am looking for my alien card.” They all left the house.
This past summer I found out the rest of the story. It began with “remember the day…” as we were all sitting on my deck after monthly family dinner.
“We all ran to the back of the garage for a meeting. J said “Did you know she was an alien?” None of us knew it. We decided to ask Dad when he came home and to be very good waiting for him.” Their Dad never told me about it.
.
Major Major Major Major
@fuckwit: what you said. Except a hell of a lot of very sensitive things ended up with some very bad people as a result of what Snowden did.
HRA
Eek “unknowingly got” not “unknowingly for”
Baud
@efgoldman: Agree.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Yeah, the only time I see MJ is when I’m traveling and staying in a hotel. Otherwise, I used to rely on Raven for updates, but I think he gave up watching back in early November, say around the 9th of the month or so. But I’m enough aware of Joe and Mika that I kind of get the references.
Corner Stone
@fuckwit: There is a difference between knowing it, and “knowing it”.
If every sad sack yokel in the “IT community” already “knew it all” then what the fuck are we doing anymore?
“The yellow dog barks at midnight.”
“Oh my god! They have all the back door info into the AT&T pipelines!”
.
“Yeah. I already knew that.”
.
“Oh.”
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: i used to walk by the office where they had that back door. Ten years ago. Every day. This wasn’t news.
ETA: unless you’re trying to say there’s a benefit to knowing exactly how something is being done.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone:
Not a day went by during the Snowden ‘revelations’ that us sad yokels weren’t wondering that.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: Whatever. 1000 Fine Hungry Cannibals all knew about it. They were everywhere!
There was a big sign where the guy with a hard hat came out and took a smoke break and discussed his actions with every random Joe Scarborough.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: I frankly don’t care if you believe me. The rest of the world has made it readily apparent they don’t give a shit what civilian tech people say about surveillance, what’s one more.
Inmourning
Fuckwit, I have been down that path too. We can change this. Let us talk about how, and the way forward.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: That’s fine with me, because I do not believe you.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: ?
Enjoy being shocked (shocked!) when everything Schneier says comes true again.
Corner Stone
“Oh, man Frank. Good to see you come out of that AT&T mouse hole again! Bum a smoke?”
“Ah! I guess so. The Mouse only lets us come out a couple times a day to interact with all the civs here in the outdoor mall above us and talk about how the backdoor pipes have been cut by nefarious govt agencies. So I guess I might as well share a smoke while I swap some stories about busting balls, amirite?”
workworkwork
@schrodingers_cat: All men are scared shitless of their mommies, at one level or another.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: you’re an idiot. Have a good night!
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: Yup.
I still find it surprising that so many people took Snowden’s stories at face value when it was reasonably clear that he lied about easily-checkable things from the beginning.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who wonders how long we’re going to continue fighting the last 8 years’ battles and start fighting Donnie and his minions…)
Baud
@Another Scott: Hey, we’re not done fighting NAFTA!
Villago Delenda Est
WSJ Editor Baker should be flayed alive for that comment. The MSM is utterly worthless. “Ethics” might as well be a word in Chinese to them.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: The only person that I am aware of that was willing to come forward on the record, and then was charged, said the major telecom cut rooms were in three layer deep basements, (example).
But I don’t really give a shit what you claim to have “known” 10 years ago, because it is irrelevant to the actual matter/argument at hand. It’s the same kind of cloudy deception to make sure nothing real actually can be examined.
Barry
@Rathskeller: “I had always thought of him as a contrarian asshole, but still fact-based. ”
In the end, ‘contrarian’ seems to lead to both ‘*sshole’ and dishonest.
Lurking Canadian
@Miss Bianca: In my more paranoid moments, I remember that the Patriot Act gives the Executive the power to declare people “terrorists” based on secret (read: no) evidence.
I also remember that Trump is on record with his “belief” that ISIS was founded by Clinton and Obama. That’s when I get a really bad feeling about the 20th.
Mnemosyne
@workworkwork:
Hence the recent election results.
J R in WV
@Villago Delenda Est:
FTFY. You’re welcome.
mai naem mobile
Deb Sopans been really good over the campaign and for fuckface Joe “Dead Intern”Scarborough say anything about Sopan shows what a dickwad he is. Also too, notice hes very weasly how he doesn’t deny what Sopan is actually saying.
Villago Delenda Est
@mai naem mobile: That’s typical intern killer. He’s slime.
Raven Onthill
@SiubhanDuinne: Wikipedia: “Obama has a half-sister with whom he was raised (Maya Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband) and seven half-siblings from his Kenyan father’s family—six of them living.”
So these people are all at risk, and beyond protection.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven Onthill:
Maya is the one who lives in Canada.
burnspbesq
@Miss Bianca:
Preet Bharara has enough integrity and enough balls to tell Sessions and Comey to go 69 each other, but he won’t be the U.S. Attorney for SDNY forever. And the next person to hold that job will be more like Giuliani (hell, it might be Giuliani).
burnspbesq
@Ella in New Mexico:
Just as importantly, if the U.S. criminal justice system ever gets its hands on Snowden, he will have strong incentives to roll over on Greenie and Poitras as co-conspirators or aiders and abetters, and Greenie can’t possibly be so dumb as to not understand that.
Rathskeller
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, very interesting article. My opinion of Snowden certainly plummeted as well.
@Ella in New Mexico:
One thing that always struck me about GG is his perpetual black/white, Manichean take on nearly every issue. Those were useful instincts to have as a litigator, somewhat less useful as a political commentator. Everyone has a mix of good & bad in their character and their actions.
If someone came to my blog with these kinds of attitudes, I don’t think I would ever stop vomiting.
Anne Laurie
@mai naem mobile: I believe Deb is his last name, but he’s another reporter who was doing actual reporting during the campaign. Not the world’s wittiest writer (yet) but — unlike the Media Idiots we joke about — the kind of stenographer who can reproduce chunks of incriminating dialogue swiftly, without a lot of ‘filtration’ or what-they-really-meant bullshit.