US Politics Thread 2021-24

[u crank]

Jack Smith’s October Surprise

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opini...se/ar-AA1rDZyw

Jack Smith has failed in his quest to try Donald Trump before the 2024 election. So instead, the Special Counsel has bent ordinary procedure to get in one last shot, just weeks before voters go to the polls

The larger, if less obvious, headline is that Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice – so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects. At this point, there’s simply no defending Smith’s conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis.

Smith’s conduct here violates core DOJ principle and policy. The Justice Manual – DOJ’s internal bible, essentially – contains a section titled “Actions That May Have An Impact on the Election.” Now: does Smith’s filing qualify? May it have an impact on the election? Of course. So what does the rule tell us? “Federal prosecutors… may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.”

“To me if it [an election] were 90 days off, and you think it has a significant chance of impacting an election, unless there’s a reason you need to take that action now, you don’t do it.”

Sally Yates – former Deputy Attorney General

[AVGWarhawk]

The Oct surprise...FEMA out of funds for hurricane relief. The funds were spent on immigration. NC folks affected by the hurricane are offered a one time payment of $750.00 each.

Harris. You can kiss NC, a swing state, goodbye.


Like the Teamsters, Firefighters Union do not endorse either candidate. However, I read the Teamsters are 65% voting for Trump. I'm thinking the Firefighters are of the same percentage.

Harris, since when did Teamsters/Unions not endorse a Democratic candidate? Been a very long time. Best of luck.


Good vibes and joyful campaigning.

Harris. This type of campaigning has worn out its welcome. Time to start offering up more then good vibes and what Trump has already offered in policy.

Tim Walz:

Knucklehead. Deer in the headlights. Vance outclassed Walz all night at the debate.

[Jimbuna]

Paul Krugman: Why 'Trump is promising to rescue us from dire threats that exist only in his mind'

In economist Paul Krugman's latest column forThe New York Times, he submits that when it comes to Hurricane Helene disaster relief, Donald "Trump is promising to rescue us from dire threats that exist only in his mind."

Krugman first notes that the GOP nominee "has been trying to exploit the natural disaster for political gain, claiming he heard that the federal government — [President Joe] Biden — and North Carolina’s Democratic governor are 'going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.'"

But before highlighting the "disaster relief issue," Krugman highlights the fact that Trump, and his running mate JD Vance — who has literally confessed to creating a story — often lie about other issues, like immigration.

This, in Trump's mind, must mean that it's "time to conjure a new fake source of fear and outrage," Krugman continues.

Krugman suggests that Trump's "insinuation that Biden is denying aid to politically unfriendly disaster areas" is partly "projection," as the ex-president "was found to have done something akin to that when he was in the White House." The other part, the Times columnist submits is "it involves condemning Biden and [Vice President Kamala] Harris for not immediately visiting the stricken areas."

Biden and Harris, though, were just acting responsibly. In the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, a high-profile political visitor with a huge security detail is the last thing you want — I mean, politicians aren’t much help rescuing stranded residents and repairing roads, while accommodating their visit would divert personnel and equipment away from the urgent task of saving lives and restoring essential services. Former FEMA officials expressed skepticism about Trump’s visit to Valdosta, Ga., soon after the storm passed, not only because he used the visit to politicize a tragedy, but because such a visit 'does eat up resources on the ground.'

The former president's "trash-talking of America" may have worked "politically" at one point, Krugman writes, but "at this point his fear-mongering over crime and the economy seems to be losing traction."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...913be7b1&ei=26

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Paul Krugman: Why 'Trump is promising to rescue us from dire threats that exist only in his mind'

Paul Krugman should stick to being an economist.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Paul Krugman should stick to being an economist.

The thought did cross my mind

[August]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Paul Krugman should stick to being an economist.

He wasn't very good at that either.

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

The Oct surprise...FEMA out of funds for hurricane relief. The funds were spent on immigration. NC folks affected by the hurricane are offered a one time payment of $750.00 each.

Harris. You can kiss NC, a swing state, goodbye.

Even from overseas it was very easy to prove this as an outright lie.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Even from overseas it was very easy to prove this as an outright lie.

Heard the same from the AfD, like funds for victims of the floods being spent for 'Asylanten'. BS.

[Jimbuna]

What? You can't believe US news sources are as bad as those in Europe surely

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Even from overseas it was very easy to prove this as an outright lie.

Not an outright lie. It is a one time payment of $750. Issue here is $750 will last less than a week. When is the next payment forthcoming?

[Rockstar]

So U.S. uses backdoors in it's own Internet providers to spy on it's citizens.

China says "don't mind if we do" and backdoors the backdoors.

They sat for months undetected on the U.S. wiretap system for Verizon, AT&T, and more...

Governments who work around encryption and security do not seem to understand they weaken their own systems. This is a great example as is the noise from EU on restricting encryption.

Jokers to the left, jokers to the right.

Government Wiretaps in U.S. Internet Providers Infiltrated by Chinese Hackers
U.S. spying on it's citizens and China taking advantage of that backdoor for months before anyone realizing

https://www.vulnu.com/p/government-w...hinese-hackers

Why it matters: The intrusion could give Chinese intelligence access to court-authorized wiretap requests and vast amounts of internet traffic, undermining U.S. law enforcement and intelligence operations.

Key points:
The attack targeted major U.S. broadband providers, including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies (Source: WSJ)

Hackers may have had access for months to systems used for lawful wiretapping requests
The breach is considered "historically significant and worrisome" by U.S. officials

So, here's the deal: We've got the U.S. government doing its thing, you know, keeping tabs on folks through these court-authorized wiretaps. It’s "for our own good," they say. The same arguments come up when they say they need backdoors into all encryption. “Save the children!” they cry in order to absolutely decimate your privacy.

Then we ask who's watching the watchers, right? Well turns out China is watching the watchers. AND THIS IS WHY WE DON’T LIKE BACKDOORS. - If there is a backdoor, there is no guarantee the “good guys” (quotes doing heavy lifting here) are the ones who use it.
Enter China, stage left… or more like stage dead center in your face, not even trying to hide it.

These government-sponsored hackers apparently thought, "Hey, why do all the hard work ourselves when we can just piggyback on what the U.S. is already doing?" It's like they put a backdoor in the backdoor.
They've gained access to all this great pre-collected intel without having to lift a finger to spy on individual Americans themselves.

We've got the U.S. spying on its citizens (legally, they insist), and then China comes along and says, "Don't mind us, we'll just help ourselves to these wiretaps."
This breach could have been going on for months before anyone noticed. It makes you think, there’s no way this is the only one like it, right?

The WSJ article speculates on the initial point of compromise involving Internet edge devices like some Cisco network devices. I’ve reported on the FBI’s concern of China’s compromise of edge devices and laying in wait before.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Even from overseas it was very easy to prove this as an outright lie.

What an arrogant uninformed stupid statement. Please do enlighten us about this outright lie you see from your high horse in Europe.

Originally Posted by Catfish

Heard the same from the AfD, like funds for victims of the floods being spent for 'Asylanten'. BS.

Your worthless socialist neo nazi parties are in a league of their own and your problem so go cry about in the German politics thread. Nobody here in the U.S. cares.

You two should know it was Mayorkas from the Biden administration who said FEMA was running out of money because much of it is spent on SSP migrant assistance & housing,

https://www.fema.gov/grants/shelter-services-program

https://apnews.com/article/hurricane...6830410cf2c1cb

You should also know nobody in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina or Florida is waiting on FEMA to do anything. Recovery operations started a long time ago and hasn’t stopped in all of those states. It is the State’s responsibility to fund organize and get the job done. FEMA public assistance is reimbursing and assisting state and local agencies.

[vienna]

Re: The Trump lie that FEMA has run out of funds because the relief funds are being diverted to assisting immigrants...

The FEMA funds are still intact and still being distributed to aid the hurricane flood victims; Trump, as usual, is talking out of his sizable ass and lying, as usual, because he is becoming increasingly desperate as he sees his possibility of getting back into the legal sanctuary of the Oval Office slipping away; Trump's derangement and dementia grows by the day and I think the voters are taking notice...

Also, Trump may be harkening back to something he did when he was in office: in order to secure funds for his failed border wall project, he raided FEMA disaster funds and diverted cash earmarked for disaster relief " to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexico"; it seems he has 'forgotten' (conveniently) his own foray into depleting the nation's ability to respond to potential disasters (from 2019):


Trump admin pulling millions from FEMA disaster relief to send to southern border --

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...order-n1046691


As a side note; it might interest some of those who maintain Trump is such a hardnose when it comes to immigration that he very quietly and clandestinely arranged a deal with the Mexican government (you know, the one that was going to pay for the "wall"); when the Trump closed the border, he faced the hard fact that Mexico would very most likely not take having large numbers of immigrants unable to cross into the US massing on their side of the border; in that scenario, if push came to shove, Mexico would have very likely just stood aside and let the immigrants rush the border and let the US authorities deal with the mess; Trump (or, more likely, his advisors) realized something had to be done to avert such an embarrassment; an agreement was reached with the Mexican government to slip some funds to the Mexican authorities (wonder who Trump plundered for that money) and made an exception to the border crossing freeze for Mexican citizens who wanted to enter the US seeking 'asylum'; so, the upshot was the US paid the Mexicans to hold the border while allowing an unrestricted flow of Mexican citizens to enter the US...


I'm also posting this link from the BBC (mainly because it annoys many of the posters in this thread that foreign news is often more informative and factual then US news):


Misinformation swirls around hurricane response effort --

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd1q9q9gl9o


Within the above article, the BBC actually links to an official FEMA page set up to debunk the various, and often ridiculous, claims and rumors about Hurricane Helene relief efforts:


Hurricane Helene: Rumor Response --

https://www.fema.gov/disaster/curren...rumor-response




<O>

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by vienna

Re: The Trump lie that FEMA has run out of funds because the relief funds are being diverted to assisting immigrants...

The FEMA funds are still intact and still being distributed to aid the hurricane flood victims; Trump, as usual, is talking out of his sizable ass and lying, as usual, because he is becoming increasingly desperate as he sees his possibility of getting back into the legal sanctuary of the Oval Office slipping away; Trump's derangement and dementia grows by the day and I think the voters are taking notice...

Also, Trump may be harkening back to something he did when he was in office: in order to secure funds for his failed border wall project, he raided FEMA disaster funds and diverted cash earmarked for disaster relief " to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexico"; it seems he has 'forgotten' (conveniently) his own foray into depleting the nation's ability to respond to potential disasters (from 2019):


Trump admin pulling millions from FEMA disaster relief to send to southern border --

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...order-n1046691


As a side note; it might interest some of those who maintain Trump is such a hardnose when it comes to immigration that he very quietly and clandestinely arranged a deal with the Mexican government (you know, the one that was going to pay for the "wall"); when the Trump closed the border, he faced the hard fact that Mexico would very most likely not take having large numbers of immigrants unable to cross into the US massing on their side of the border; in that scenario, if push came to shove, Mexico would have very likely just stood aside and let the immigrants rush the border and let the US authorities deal with the mess; Trump (or, more likely, his advisors) realized something had to be done to avert such an embarrassment; an agreement was reached with the Mexican government to slip some funds to the Mexican authorities (wonder who Trump plundered for that money) and made an exception to the border crossing freeze for Mexican citizens who wanted to enter the US seeking 'asylum'; so, the upshot was the US paid the Mexicans to hold the border while allowing an unrestricted flow of Mexican citizens to enter the US...


I'm also posting this link from the BBC (mainly because it annoys many of the posters in this thread that foreign news is often more informative and factual then US news):


Misinformation swirls around hurricane response effort --

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd1q9q9gl9o


Within the above article, the BBC actually links to an official FEMA page set up to debunk the various, and often ridiculous, claims and rumors about Hurricane Helene relief efforts:


Hurricane Helene: Rumor Response --

https://www.fema.gov/disaster/curren...rumor-response




<O>

Alejandro Mayorkas is an idiot. No wait, he is directly involved with FEMA and stated FEMA is low on funding. With that said and no major storms all year, where did the money go? But that none of my business.

Now, it's up to Congress to approve more funds. But that will not happen until Congress reconvene in a week or so. Hurricane Milton on the horizon, funding better come quickly. I worked every major hurricane with FEMA since Katrina. Transportation aspect. I have seen it all. Funding will come. But current response is very slow. However, the region FEMA is responding has many challenges transporters have not dealt with.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by vienna

Re: The Trump lie that FEMA has run out of funds because the relief funds are being diverted to assisting immigrants...

“The Trump lie”

Jesus H Christ what planet you on? Mayorkas the guy in charge of FEMA is the one that publicly stated FEMA may run out of money before this hurricane season is over. FEMA’s own data tells where the money was distributed
here: https://www.fema.gov/grants/shelter-services-program Over half of the annual budget went towards the benefit of non-citizen migrants.