Concerning the media's fixation on 'trolls', i've always taken that as a big sign on how much of a bubble the media is in.
I think the biggest indicator was when the Hillary campaign officially went after Pepe, some frog image on the internet.
I very much doubt the vast vast majority of Americans know what the hell that was about, and it kind of proved to me that largely the media's world lives in the internet/social-media bubble and so it was like one internet bubble trolling another internet bubble and being obsessed with each other.
I honestly believe alot of the more astute political operatives in the Clinton/Obama era have gone.
This high-minded narrative about trolling is crap. Trolling is nothing but a ready-made escape hatch for responsibility. No, trolls are not "upfront" about it, because the reveal of the so-called trolling is always retroactive. And here is how it works:
Someone on the internet is itching to say something they know they shouldn't, or, at the very least, that they know would be generally socially unacceptable. They want to say it, but they want complete immunity for what was said. So, they post, the responses come in, and, inevitably, they eventually say "lol take a joke snowflake", even though 90% of the time, the original thought couldn't possibly be construed as comedy. Trolling is NOTHING but a backdoor exit for people who don't want to take responsibility for what they say if they get too much blowback.
the aim of trolling is to get people to respond to it, if you don't care then its powerless.
And I believe the aim of trolling is to say things you couldn't get away with without using "getting a rise" as a pre-text.
The weird thing is, if Hillary Clinton had won the election, I probably wouldn't be here at all. What I know is that I wouldn't feel the need to rub it in anyone's face the way Trump's online brigade (and lets specifically use Youtube and other forums on the internet as examples) does on a daily basis, claiming everything is "for the lulz". Again, Trump's general support among the Alt-right on the internet is deeply cynical, a never-ending cycle of looking for cultural and tribal vindication. We don't see it here because of moderators.
Its interesting to talk about Hillary Clinton in relation to trolling.
Because her campaign were the ones that actually created an organization and paid people to troll.
When the Internet’s legions of Hillary hecklers steal away to chat rooms and Facebook pages to vent grievances about Clinton, express revulsion toward Clinton and launch attacks on Clinton, they now may find themselves in a surprising place – confronted by a multimillion dollar super PAC working with Clinton.
Hillary Clinton's well-heeled backers have opened a new frontier in digital campaigning, one that seems to have been inspired by some of the Internet's worst instincts. Correct the Record, a super PAC coordinating with Clinton's campaign, is spending some $1 million to find and confront social media users who post unflattering messages about the Democratic front-runner.
In effect, the effort aims to spend a large sum of money to increase the amount of trolling that already exists online.
Some experts on digital campaigns think the idea of launching a paid army of “former reporters, bloggers, public affairs specialists, designers” and others to produce online counterattacks is unlikely to prove successful. Others, however, say Clinton has little choice but to try, given the ubiquity of online assaults and the difficulty of squelching even provably untrue narratives once they have taken hold.
Trump may not have paid people to troll or he may have. The Russians paid thousands of trolls and hacked the election in his favor. He encouraged this on camera saying Russia if you are listening come hack my opponent and he claimed to love WikiLeaks.
Any prohillary superpac that supposedly was going to happen or whatever didn't have the same effect.
Hillary Clinton's well-heeled backers have opened a new frontier in digital campaigning, one that seems to have been inspired by some of the Internet's worst instincts. Correct the Record, a super PAC coordinating with Clinton's campaign, is spending some $1 million to find and confront social media users who post unflattering messages about the Democratic front-runner.
Depending on how this is done, I don't view this as trolling.
Responding to a blatant lie or misconception and then following it up with a positive response about Clinton wouldn't be considered trolling in my opinion. It is more of a counter so anyone viewing the post would be able to get both side of the argument.
In effect, the effort aims to spend a large sum of money to increase the amount of trolling that already exists online.
Without offering proof of how this PAC is responding to the first message, this is only the authors opinion on the tactic and should have been omitted from the story unless the writer could have found either proof of trolling by the PAC or it being quoted by someone more predominant.
Just because a journalist sticks their own biases in a story (which is unethical, but many do it anyway) doesn't make it true. This also allows other news outlets to run the story citing the article and sharing their own opinion, not on the PAC but on Clinton trolling social media users and should it be done.
That said, if proof is shown that this PAC has trolled people on social media (instigating and not countering for example), instead of sticking to the facts and positive spins as the article states, then I'll be scorning them with you.
That being said given her campaigns history, I doubted their conduct was ever going to be all roses since it was strictly political gain ie. It also was against Bernie Sanders and spread talking points.
WASHINGTON -- A super PAC backing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is going negative, circulating an email that yokes her chief rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to some of the more controversial remarks made by Jeremy Corbyn, the United Kingdom's new Labour Party leader, including his praise for the late Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leader who provided discounted fuel to Vermont in a deal supported by Sanders.
Clinton's camp has long said it has no plans to attack Sanders. But the super PAC, called Correct the Record, departed from its defense of Clinton's record as a former secretary of state in an email Monday that compares Sanders with Corbyn. Correct the Record, led by Clinton ally David Brock, also has sent trackers after Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.
The Democratic candidates have refrained from criticizing each other directly. Sanders has obliquely knocked Clinton for not stating her position on the Keystone XL pipeline, and hasn't made an issue of her use of a private email server and account while at the State Department. Clinton, in turn, almost never mentions Sanders' name and has focused on her Republican rivals.
Monday's Correct the Record email strays from that pattern. The email, sent to a Huffington Post reporter in response to an article about Corbyn and Sanders without any agreement that it would be off the record, was meant to flag Corbyn's "most extreme comments." Among those was the suggestion that the assassination of Osama bin Laden was "a tragedy," since there was no attempt to arrest the former al Qaeda leader and put him on trial. The email also cites Corbyn's comment that he'd invite his "friends" from Hezbollah to come to the U.K. to discuss peace in the Middle East and an editorial in which he said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's "attempt to encircle Russia is one of the big threats of our time."
The email uses those comments to pivot to "similarities" between Corbyn and Sanders, who have engaged in a mild cross-Atlantic love-fest of late, given that they are both insurgent populists challenging their political parties' establishments. Corbyn has said he is following Sanders' campaign "with great interest," and Sanders said he was "delighted" that the Labour Party elected Corbyn as its leader. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-jeremy-corbyn_us_55f73339e4b00e2cd5e79e11
Also when the organization admits that it 'went after people' specifically on social media, that's kind of red alarms to me.
Having a political and million dollar funded organization tasked to go after you for ones political comments on twitter/facebook etc. is crossing a line to me, Actually i kind of think it should be illegal.
It would be scary if the Government had an agency tasked for the same thing although honestly i wouldn't be surprised if the CIA did stuff like this.
Trump had thousands of paid Russian trolls helping his campaign and Russian hackers, agents of a foreign government, hacked his opponent and swung the election in his favor.
He encouraged this on camera saying Russia if you are listening come hack my opponent and he claimed to love WikiLeaks.
Disinformation spread on social media was designed to raise doubts about the U.S. election and the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat.
"This Russian propaganda on steroids was designed to poison the national conversation in America," Warner said Thursday during a Senate hearing on Russian election hacking. The Russian government used "thousands of paid internet trolls" and bots to spread disinformation on social media.
I voted in the municipal election, but my "cherry blossom" didn´t get enough votes.
I feel genuinely
Still, I think I´d try again..
Gee, and it feels too bad that the Mr. President Mauno Koivisto passed away this morning, and the current Mr. President said that with him the age-old winter war generations´d pass away too... this is my feeling about such matters over mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNGVgzKHwxU
eh, I am from Ontario where everything said there is mild bashing compared to what the Liberals get away with against their political rivals every election and every election voters fall for the crap. So maybe I an just use to this tactic and it doesn't phase me as much, but I see nothing wrong with what the PAC did. It's up to the reader to determine if Sanders relationship with Corbyn would be an issue or not. They are just explaining who Corbyn is, what he has said in the past and what type of relationship he has with Sanders.
And once again it depends on how the PAC "goes after you." If they are just using that money to "correct people's perception" on things they are sharing and posting, then in my opinion all the better. It is how discussions get started, it helps filter out any rumours or fake news and allows the original poster to be able to call out any spin that they use.
If they are degrading themselves into trolling behaviour, well that is money wasted as they won't change anyone's mind except maybe view Clinton more in a negative light.
If they are using that money to track down and expose a posters intimate secrets, well that is crossing the line and yes, should be illegal.
Or even worse, if degrades into a police state such as what is happening in China and the money is used to arrest people dissenting from the government then that'd be a scary situation.
So yes, it is a slippery slope that may need to be monitored if this tactic is used in the future, but given how unsuccessful it was in securing a win for Clinton, I doubt it would be.
This talk about Clinton is pretty meaningless at the moment. She lost and will certainly not be nominated again. End of story.
If you voted for Trump because you saw Clinton as the greater evil, I don't get really get you but ok. But now Trump is President and demonstrates complete disregard for the truth as well as democratic instituation and traditions. He threatens opponents on Twitter for god's sake. He openly encouraged violent behaviour in his supporters.
Even if you feel Clinton would have been worse, this does not mean anyone either Democrat or Republican should just sit down and applaud this behaviour. He needs to go - hell, if he goes the Presidentship is passed down to another Republican anyway.
Given this it is perfectly fine in my opinion to talk about the appalling opinions of Trump supporters. Maybe because the US never had a dictatorship, people feel that any opinion strongly held by about 30% of the population has to be respected. But almost any oppressive regime had at least the same percentage of strong approvers, from Pinochet to Stalin.
Violence against Trump supporters is wrong. Forbidding them to speak their mind is wrong (but neither are media or universities required to provide them with a forum). Calling them out for their behaviour using terms as strong as necessary is not wrong.
And as with so many of these historical figures, in 40-50 years people will wonder how anyone could have supported him.
Hillary's involvement in actions and policies that destabilized the Middle-East and got thousands of innocent ethnic people killed is on a slightly different scale then twitter posts. It would be honestly hard to argue she had a better moral standing then virtually any of the candidates.
Justifying going after Trump supporters because one believes Trump is Hitler is not a convincing argument to me and honestly comes across as a need to justify ones stereotyping of a voter base.
Health Insurers Seek Double-Digit Rate Increases For 2018 Due To Rising Medical Costs, Marketplace Uncertainty Health insurers in Connecticut are seeking double-digit rate increases for 2018 in response to rising medical and drug costs and uncertainty in the marketplace, the state Insurance Department said Monday.
FBI PROBE INTO CLINTON EMAILS PROMPTED OFFER OF CASH, CITIZENSHIP FOR CONFESSION, RUSSIAN HACKER CLAIMS
A Russian citizen accused of being a hacker by both Russia and the U.S. has claimed U.S. officials offered to cut him a deal if he admitted to interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
Nikulin was detained in the Czech Republic for allegedly hacking the servers of major sites LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring between 2012 and 2013. While awaiting trial, he claims in an undated letter reportedly given to U.S. Russian-language news site Nastoyashchoe Vremya by Nikulin's lawyer, Martin Sadilek, that the FBI visited him at least a couple of times, offering to drop the charges and grant him U.S. citizenship as well as cash and an apartment in the U.S. if the Russian national confessed to participating in the 2016 hacks of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta's emails in July.
While the U.S. has not publicly acknowledged any connection between Nikulin and the Russian election hacking controversy, Nikulin's arrest did attract the attention of Moscow. Nikulin is accused by Russia of hacking into and stealing from online WebMoney accounts. The Moscow-based online money transfer system claims 31 million users around the world and Nikulin is charged with stealing $3,450 in 2009, according to the state-owned Tass Russian News Agency. Moscow has also filed an extradition request. -http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-investigation-clinton-emails-russia-hack-607538
If the FBI wanted Nikulin to confess to attacking the U.S., why would they offer him citizenship and an apartment in the same country? That offer doesn't make sense.
FBI: We are proud to announce that one of the Russian hackers has confessed to trying to sabotage the 2016 election!
Public: Wow! What are you gonna do with him? Prosecute him?
FBI: No. We have already rewarded his behavior with a citizenship, a good home, and lots of money.
Even if this supposed plan worked, it would just make the FBI look bad. Why would the FBI willingly embarrass itself?
This is not even to bring up the question of why the FBI would give compromising information ("we need your help to prove a point back home") to some random foreigner they cannot trust.
Or why the FBI would do this, when making offers to foreign collaborators is a job for the CIA.
Smells fishy to me as well. The sad thing is this guy might not be lying. He may have been approached by somebody who claimed to be FBI. There are all kinds of scenarios where this dude could have been useful to somebody. Hackers are the new spies apparently. The next James Bond movie may just feature some nerdy dude smoking cigarettes and typing on a computer for two hours...
Thats the problem with the current sensationalism we are in, So much is exaggerated, lies, and some of it is true but there's just no way for us to tell nowadays.
I used to give some credence to News reports from 'anonymous sources' but i treat even those without much credibility anymore.
And things we think are too far out there, sometimes turn out to be true (like the lengths intelligence agencies go to enable their own spying on the general populace).
I liked it better when earth-shattering news was actually rare so you would think there must be something true about it, rather then the daily dose we get now.
Rex Tillerson has signed two Climate agreements over the Arctic.
Reaffirming our commitment to the well-being of the inhabitants of the Arctic, to sustainable development and to the protection of the Arctic environment,
Recognizing the rights of Arctic indigenous peoples and the unique role of the Permanent Participants within the Arctic Council, as well as the commitment to consult and cooperate in good faith with Arctic indigenous peoples and to support their meaningful engagement in Arctic Council activities,
Acknowledging the contributions of local authorities, and the interests of all Arctic residents and communities in the work of the Arctic Council,
Further recognizing that activities taking place outside the Arctic region, including activities occurring in Arctic States, are the main contributors to climate change effects and pollution in the Arctic, and underlining the need for action at all levels,
Noting with concern that the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of the global average, resulting in widespread social, environmental, and economic impacts in the Arctic and worldwide, and the pressing and increasing need for mitigation and adaptation actions and to strengthen resilience,
This talk about Clinton is pretty meaningless at the moment. She lost and will certainly not be nominated again. End of story.
If you voted for Trump because you saw Clinton as the greater evil, I don't get really get you but ok. But now Trump is President and demonstrates complete disregard for the truth as well as democratic instituation and traditions. He threatens opponents on Twitter for god's sake. He openly encouraged violent behaviour in his supporters.
Even if you feel Clinton would have been worse, this does not mean anyone either Democrat or Republican should just sit down and applaud this behaviour. He needs to go - hell, if he goes the Presidentship is passed down to another Republican anyway.
Given this it is perfectly fine in my opinion to talk about the appalling opinions of Trump supporters. Maybe because the US never had a dictatorship, people feel that any opinion strongly held by about 30% of the population has to be respected. But almost any oppressive regime had at least the same percentage of strong approvers, from Pinochet to Stalin.
Violence against Trump supporters is wrong. Forbidding them to speak their mind is wrong (but neither are media or universities required to provide them with a forum). Calling them out for their behaviour using terms as strong as necessary is not wrong.
And as with so many of these historical figures, in 40-50 years people will wonder how anyone could have supported him.
Agreed no reason to mention Clinton again. It just doesn't matter.
As you mentioned Trump is the President and his policies are what matters. And the party with the strings of government is the Republican party.
Former first lady Michelle Obama expressed concern Friday over the Trump administration's decision to gut school meal nutritional requirements.
"You have to stop and think, 'Why don't you want our kids to have good food at school? What is wrong with you, and why is that a partisan issue?" Obama said at the annual summit of the Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit that works with the private and public sectors to fight childhood obesity. "Why would that be political?"
Obama's comments come a little over a week after Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue signed a proclamation that removes protections for the upcoming school year in three key areas: whole grains, salt and milk.
"Moms, think about this," she said. "I don't care what state you live in. Take me out of the equation; like me, don't like me, but think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap."
American kids really really didn't like Michelle Obama's food changes in school. While im sure the intention was genuine, the only outcome was that kids threw away the food en-masse.
In fact i do remember it was a social media sensation, didn't kids and mothers post tons of pictures of the food which looked un-palatable?
edit: Seems like this was actually advocated by School Nutrition Association, Another nothing-burger that's being politicized.
Obama Foundation reminiscent of Clinton Foundation Barack Obama’s presidential foundation is barely two years old, but he is taking it down the same controversial — and by some accounts illegal — post-presidency path of his predecessor Bill Clinton, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.
The transformation moved the Clinton non-profit from its declared exempt purpose in 1998 “to design, construct and initially endow a presidential archival deposit,” to the vastly expanded 2004 description of “dual missions of constructing and endowing the Clinton Presidential Center and park in Little Rock, Arkansas, and continuing the work of his presidency to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence.” http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/07/obamas-non-profit-on-same-dubious-path-first-blazed-by-clinton-foundation/
Huh, didn't realize the Clinton Foundation actually started as simply wishing to build a Presidential Library. Its certainly come very far from its original humble beginnings.
I hope Obama is not going to tread down the same global-spanning path as his controversial predecessor. Certainly is going to raise eyebrows since Obama's million-dollar paid speeches is already very eerily reminiscent of what the Clinton's have been doing.
American kids really really didn't like Michelle Obama's food changes in school. While im sure the intention was genuine, the only outcome was that kids threw away the food en-masse.
In fact i do remember it was a social media sensation, didn't kids and mothers post tons of pictures of the food which looked un-palatable?
edit: Seems like this was actually advocated by School Nutrition Association, Another nothing-burger that's being politicized.
Michelle Obama didn't do anything to anyone's lunches at any time. It's one of the greatest fallacies on the American Right and shows that our Civics classes are failing miserably, at least among a certain part of the population. The First Lady of the United States has absolutely no authority or power to do such a thing. She ADVOCATED for healthy eating and exercise (a subject that wasn't remotely controversial until she started doing so). It was actual legislation. She SUPPORTED it. The American Right has been acting for 6 or 7 years that she somehow did so by Executive Fiat. Absolute nonsense. The Department of Agriculture is the one who made these choices.
I don't care if kids really wanted candy and to eat crap. It's not healthy. They'll get used to a healthier diet once their sugar and other unhealthy addictions lessen.
Childhood obesity is out of control. Other countries that don't push unhealthy foods on their kids don't have as much of an issue as we do in the USA because taking care of children's health is not controversial there.
I will give the GOP the benefit of the doubt and assume they don't want to kill our kids with unhealthy food. So then why give them unhealthy food? Is it to give corporate donors a couple more bucks? What about the future hospital bills, and behavioral issues like ADHD and other problems and diseases? Doesn't matter as long as there are a few short term dollars so the CEO can show positive growth for a fiscal quarter or two
They are kids. The reason they have that and other unhealthy crap in school and they're addicted to it is due to decisions by adults. The adults that set up this system can change that.
This is a no brainer who doesn't want to combat obesity and other preventable health issues.
So the government nanny is going to do what? Check every kid's lunch bag? What @vanatos was saying is that if kids don't like the food, they won't eat it. It's not like you can force a child to eat something.
So the government nanny is going to do what? Check every kid's lunch bag? What @vanatos was saying is that if kids don't like the food, they won't eat it. It's not like you can force a child to eat something.
obviously not. You can bring whatever you want. This is what school cafeterias offer. Instead of unhealthy food that has led to the childhood obseity epidemic and problems like childhood diabetes, there should be rules that kids would get healthier choices. Because the free market is failing there with companies preferring to offer addictive unhealthy food.
When Laura Bush was the First Lady, her initiative was literacy. I defy you to find a single liberal quoted as saying "how dare that elitist Laura Bush try to get my kid to read more." Because that would be absurd.
Before Michelle Obama took on exercise and healthy eating as her initiative, what conservative parent was saying "I think my kid needs to exercise less and eat more unhealthy food"?? Yet, that is exactly what happened. Now, no parent would try instill that motto in their kids under normal circumstances. Michelle Obama was doing nothing more than promoting the age-old idea of "be active and eat your vegetables". Which has been a universal staple of parenting for all of modern history. And one needs to ask themselves exactly WHAT it was about Michelle Obama that made something not the least bit controversial into some sort of scandal.
As far as I know, the reasons the Trump administration are against it is because Michelle Obama supported it and because their donors in the food industry could make a couple more bucks selling unhealthy food.
I'd like to think they aren't against it just to hurt kids and encourage unhealthiness in our nation. But I could be wrong.
Comments
I think the biggest indicator was when the Hillary campaign officially went after Pepe, some frog image on the internet.
I very much doubt the vast vast majority of Americans know what the hell that was about, and it kind of proved to me that largely the media's world lives in the internet/social-media bubble and so it was like one internet bubble trolling another internet bubble and being obsessed with each other.
I honestly believe alot of the more astute political operatives in the Clinton/Obama era have gone.
Someone on the internet is itching to say something they know they shouldn't, or, at the very least, that they know would be generally socially unacceptable. They want to say it, but they want complete immunity for what was said. So, they post, the responses come in, and, inevitably, they eventually say "lol take a joke snowflake", even though 90% of the time, the original thought couldn't possibly be construed as comedy. Trolling is NOTHING but a backdoor exit for people who don't want to take responsibility for what they say if they get too much blowback.
The weird thing is, if Hillary Clinton had won the election, I probably wouldn't be here at all. What I know is that I wouldn't feel the need to rub it in anyone's face the way Trump's online brigade (and lets specifically use Youtube and other forums on the internet as examples) does on a daily basis, claiming everything is "for the lulz". Again, Trump's general support among the Alt-right on the internet is deeply cynical, a never-ending cycle of looking for cultural and tribal vindication. We don't see it here because of moderators.
Because her campaign were the ones that actually created an organization and paid people to troll.
When the Internet’s legions of Hillary hecklers steal away to chat rooms and Facebook pages to vent grievances about Clinton, express revulsion toward Clinton and launch attacks on Clinton, they now may find themselves in a surprising place – confronted by a multimillion dollar super PAC working with Clinton.
Hillary Clinton's well-heeled backers have opened a new frontier in digital campaigning, one that seems to have been inspired by some of the Internet's worst instincts. Correct the Record, a super PAC coordinating with Clinton's campaign, is spending some $1 million to find and confront social media users who post unflattering messages about the Democratic front-runner.
In effect, the effort aims to spend a large sum of money to increase the amount of trolling that already exists online.
Some experts on digital campaigns think the idea of launching a paid army of “former reporters, bloggers, public affairs specialists, designers” and others to produce online counterattacks is unlikely to prove successful. Others, however, say Clinton has little choice but to try, given the ubiquity of online assaults and the difficulty of squelching even provably untrue narratives once they have taken hold.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-trolling-20160506-snap-htmlstory.html
Any prohillary superpac that supposedly was going to happen or whatever didn't have the same effect.
Responding to a blatant lie or misconception and then following it up with a positive response about Clinton wouldn't be considered trolling in my opinion. It is more of a counter so anyone viewing the post would be able to get both side of the argument. Without offering proof of how this PAC is responding to the first message, this is only the authors opinion on the tactic and should have been omitted from the story unless the writer could have found either proof of trolling by the PAC or it being quoted by someone more predominant.
Just because a journalist sticks their own biases in a story (which is unethical, but many do it anyway) doesn't make it true. This also allows other news outlets to run the story citing the article and sharing their own opinion, not on the PAC but on Clinton trolling social media users and should it be done.
That said, if proof is shown that this PAC has trolled people on social media (instigating and not countering for example), instead of sticking to the facts and positive spins as the article states, then I'll be scorning them with you.
That being said given her campaigns history, I doubted their conduct was ever going to be all roses since it was strictly political gain ie. It also was against Bernie Sanders and spread talking points.
WASHINGTON -- A super PAC backing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is going negative, circulating an email that yokes her chief rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to some of the more controversial remarks made by Jeremy Corbyn, the United Kingdom's new Labour Party leader, including his praise for the late Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leader who provided discounted fuel to Vermont in a deal supported by Sanders.
Clinton's camp has long said it has no plans to attack Sanders. But the super PAC, called Correct the Record, departed from its defense of Clinton's record as a former secretary of state in an email Monday that compares Sanders with Corbyn. Correct the Record, led by Clinton ally David Brock, also has sent trackers after Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.
The Democratic candidates have refrained from criticizing each other directly. Sanders has obliquely knocked Clinton for not stating her position on the Keystone XL pipeline, and hasn't made an issue of her use of a private email server and account while at the State Department. Clinton, in turn, almost never mentions Sanders' name and has focused on her Republican rivals.
Monday's Correct the Record email strays from that pattern. The email, sent to a Huffington Post reporter in response to an article about Corbyn and Sanders without any agreement that it would be off the record, was meant to flag Corbyn's "most extreme comments." Among those was the suggestion that the assassination of Osama bin Laden was "a tragedy," since there was no attempt to arrest the former al Qaeda leader and put him on trial. The email also cites Corbyn's comment that he'd invite his "friends" from Hezbollah to come to the U.K. to discuss peace in the Middle East and an editorial in which he said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's "attempt to encircle Russia is one of the big threats of our time."
The email uses those comments to pivot to "similarities" between Corbyn and Sanders, who have engaged in a mild cross-Atlantic love-fest of late, given that they are both insurgent populists challenging their political parties' establishments. Corbyn has said he is following Sanders' campaign "with great interest," and Sanders said he was "delighted" that the Labour Party elected Corbyn as its leader.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-jeremy-corbyn_us_55f73339e4b00e2cd5e79e11
Also when the organization admits that it 'went after people' specifically on social media, that's kind of red alarms to me.
Having a political and million dollar funded organization tasked to go after you for ones political comments on twitter/facebook etc. is crossing a line to me, Actually i kind of think it should be illegal.
It would be scary if the Government had an agency tasked for the same thing although honestly i wouldn't be surprised if the CIA did stuff like this.
He encouraged this on camera saying Russia if you are listening come hack my opponent and he claimed to love WikiLeaks.
Senator: Russia used 'thousands' of internet trolls during US election
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3186639/security/senator-russia-used-thousands-of-internet-trolls-during-us-election.html
Disinformation spread on social media was designed to raise doubts about the U.S. election and the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat.
"This Russian propaganda on steroids was designed to poison the national conversation in America," Warner said Thursday during a Senate hearing on Russian election hacking. The Russian government used "thousands of paid internet trolls" and bots to spread disinformation on social media.
I voted in the municipal election, but my "cherry blossom" didn´t get enough votes.
I feel genuinely
Still, I think I´d try again..
Gee, and it feels too bad that the Mr. President Mauno Koivisto passed away this morning,
and the current Mr. President said that with him the age-old winter war generations´d pass away too...
this is my feeling about such matters over mind:
For reference: http://www.animefreak.tv/watch/basilisk-english-dubbed-online-free
And once again it depends on how the PAC "goes after you." If they are just using that money to "correct people's perception" on things they are sharing and posting, then in my opinion all the better. It is how discussions get started, it helps filter out any rumours or fake news and allows the original poster to be able to call out any spin that they use.
If they are degrading themselves into trolling behaviour, well that is money wasted as they won't change anyone's mind except maybe view Clinton more in a negative light.
If they are using that money to track down and expose a posters intimate secrets, well that is crossing the line and yes, should be illegal.
Or even worse, if degrades into a police state such as what is happening in China and the money is used to arrest people dissenting from the government then that'd be a scary situation.
So yes, it is a slippery slope that may need to be monitored if this tactic is used in the future, but given how unsuccessful it was in securing a win for Clinton, I doubt it would be.
If you voted for Trump because you saw Clinton as the greater evil, I don't get really get you but ok. But now Trump is President and demonstrates complete disregard for the truth as well as democratic instituation and traditions. He threatens opponents on Twitter for god's sake. He openly encouraged violent behaviour in his supporters.
Even if you feel Clinton would have been worse, this does not mean anyone either Democrat or Republican should just sit down and applaud this behaviour. He needs to go - hell, if he goes the Presidentship is passed down to another Republican anyway.
Given this it is perfectly fine in my opinion to talk about the appalling opinions of Trump supporters. Maybe because the US never had a dictatorship, people feel that any opinion strongly held by about 30% of the population has to be respected. But almost any oppressive regime had at least the same percentage of strong approvers, from Pinochet to Stalin.
Violence against Trump supporters is wrong. Forbidding them to speak their mind is wrong (but neither are media or universities required to provide them with a forum). Calling them out for their behaviour using terms as strong as necessary is not wrong.
And as with so many of these historical figures, in 40-50 years people will wonder how anyone could have supported him.
It would be honestly hard to argue she had a better moral standing then virtually any of the candidates.
Justifying going after Trump supporters because one believes Trump is Hitler is not a convincing argument to me and honestly comes across as a need to justify ones stereotyping of a voter base.
Health Insurers Seek Double-Digit Rate Increases For 2018 Due To Rising Medical Costs, Marketplace Uncertainty
Health insurers in Connecticut are seeking double-digit rate increases for 2018 in response to rising medical and drug costs and uncertainty in the marketplace, the state Insurance Department said Monday.
For small group insurance – employers with 50 or fewer workers – average rate requests are up 3.6 percent to 31.6 percent.
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-health-insurance-increases-20170508-story.html
2018 looks like a bloodbath for Obamacare, glad i got out of running my own business when i did.
A Russian citizen accused of being a hacker by both Russia and the U.S. has claimed U.S. officials offered to cut him a deal if he admitted to interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
Nikulin was detained in the Czech Republic for allegedly hacking the servers of major sites LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring between 2012 and 2013. While awaiting trial, he claims in an undated letter reportedly given to U.S. Russian-language news site Nastoyashchoe Vremya by Nikulin's lawyer, Martin Sadilek, that the FBI visited him at least a couple of times, offering to drop the charges and grant him U.S. citizenship as well as cash and an apartment in the U.S. if the Russian national confessed to participating in the 2016 hacks of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta's emails in July.
While the U.S. has not publicly acknowledged any connection between Nikulin and the Russian election hacking controversy, Nikulin's arrest did attract the attention of Moscow. Nikulin is accused by Russia of hacking into and stealing from online WebMoney accounts. The Moscow-based online money transfer system claims 31 million users around the world and Nikulin is charged with stealing $3,450 in 2009, according to the state-owned Tass Russian News Agency. Moscow has also filed an extradition request.
-http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-investigation-clinton-emails-russia-hack-607538
Ouch, thats an awkward story for the FBI.
If the FBI wanted Nikulin to confess to attacking the U.S., why would they offer him citizenship and an apartment in the same country? That offer doesn't make sense.
FBI: We are proud to announce that one of the Russian hackers has confessed to trying to sabotage the 2016 election!
Public: Wow! What are you gonna do with him? Prosecute him?
FBI: No. We have already rewarded his behavior with a citizenship, a good home, and lots of money.
Even if this supposed plan worked, it would just make the FBI look bad. Why would the FBI willingly embarrass itself?
This is not even to bring up the question of why the FBI would give compromising information ("we need your help to prove a point back home") to some random foreigner they cannot trust.
Or why the FBI would do this, when making offers to foreign collaborators is a job for the CIA.
I used to give some credence to News reports from 'anonymous sources' but i treat even those without much credibility anymore.
And things we think are too far out there, sometimes turn out to be true (like the lengths intelligence agencies go to enable their own spying on the general populace).
I liked it better when earth-shattering news was actually rare so you would think there must be something true about it, rather then the daily dose we get now.
Reaffirming our commitment to the well-being of the inhabitants of the Arctic, to sustainable development and to the protection of the Arctic environment,
Recognizing the rights of Arctic indigenous peoples and the unique role of the Permanent Participants within the Arctic Council, as well as the commitment to consult and cooperate in good faith with Arctic indigenous peoples and to support their meaningful engagement in Arctic Council activities,
Acknowledging the contributions of local authorities, and the interests of all Arctic residents and communities in the work of the Arctic Council,
Further recognizing that activities taking place outside the Arctic region, including activities occurring in Arctic States, are the main contributors to climate change effects and pollution in the Arctic, and underlining the need for action at all levels,
Noting with concern that the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of the global average, resulting in widespread social, environmental, and economic impacts in the Arctic and worldwide, and the pressing and increasing need for mitigation and adaptation actions and to strengthen resilience,
Noting the entry into force of the Paris Agreement on climate change and its implementation, and reiterating the need for global action to reduce both long-lived greenhouse gases and short-lived climate pollutants.
https://oaarchive.arctic-council.org/bitstream/handle/11374/1910/EDOCS-4072-v5-ACMMUS10_FAIRBANKS_2017_Fairbanks_Declaration-2017.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
As you mentioned Trump is the President and his policies are what matters. And the party with the strings of government is the Republican party.
"You have to stop and think, 'Why don't you want our kids to have good food at school? What is wrong with you, and why is that a partisan issue?" Obama said at the annual summit of the Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit that works with the private and public sectors to fight childhood obesity. "Why would that be political?"
Obama's comments come a little over a week after Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue signed a proclamation that removes protections for the upcoming school year in three key areas: whole grains, salt and milk.
"Moms, think about this," she said. "I don't care what state you live in. Take me out of the equation; like me, don't like me, but think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap."
While im sure the intention was genuine, the only outcome was that kids threw away the food en-masse.
In fact i do remember it was a social media sensation, didn't kids and mothers post tons of pictures of the food which looked un-palatable?
edit: Seems like this was actually advocated by School Nutrition Association, Another nothing-burger that's being politicized.
Barack Obama’s presidential foundation is barely two years old, but he is taking it down the same controversial — and by some accounts illegal — post-presidency path of his predecessor Bill Clinton, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.
The transformation moved the Clinton non-profit from its declared exempt purpose in 1998 “to design, construct and initially endow a presidential archival deposit,” to the vastly expanded 2004 description of “dual missions of constructing and endowing the Clinton Presidential Center and park in Little Rock, Arkansas, and continuing the work of his presidency to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence.”
http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/07/obamas-non-profit-on-same-dubious-path-first-blazed-by-clinton-foundation/
Huh, didn't realize the Clinton Foundation actually started as simply wishing to build a Presidential Library.
Its certainly come very far from its original humble beginnings.
I hope Obama is not going to tread down the same global-spanning path as his controversial predecessor.
Certainly is going to raise eyebrows since Obama's million-dollar paid speeches is already very eerily reminiscent of what the Clinton's have been doing.
Childhood obesity is out of control. Other countries that don't push unhealthy foods on their kids don't have as much of an issue as we do in the USA because taking care of children's health is not controversial there.
I will give the GOP the benefit of the doubt and assume they don't want to kill our kids with unhealthy food. So then why give them unhealthy food? Is it to give corporate donors a couple more bucks? What about the future hospital bills, and behavioral issues like ADHD and other problems and diseases? Doesn't matter as long as there are a few short term dollars so the CEO can show positive growth for a fiscal quarter or two
They are kids. The reason they have that and other unhealthy crap in school and they're addicted to it is due to decisions by adults. The adults that set up this system can change that.
This is a no brainer who doesn't want to combat obesity and other preventable health issues.
Before Michelle Obama took on exercise and healthy eating as her initiative, what conservative parent was saying "I think my kid needs to exercise less and eat more unhealthy food"?? Yet, that is exactly what happened. Now, no parent would try instill that motto in their kids under normal circumstances. Michelle Obama was doing nothing more than promoting the age-old idea of "be active and eat your vegetables". Which has been a universal staple of parenting for all of modern history. And one needs to ask themselves exactly WHAT it was about Michelle Obama that made something not the least bit controversial into some sort of scandal.
I'd like to think they aren't against it just to hurt kids and encourage unhealthiness in our nation. But I could be wrong.
It boils down to what you think is healthy for you and your kids really isnt and it has to do with a compromised FDA back in the late 70s, early 80s.