The legal argument they are making now is literally "we were caught being dishonest, but as long as we make up some new reason that you can't prove is dishonest, we should be able to do it anyway". Essentially, they are arguing that they should continue to get to throw reasons at the wall in perpetuity until they hit on one that John Roberts would agree to. So I guess the new standard in this country is that you can at BEST be totally disingenuous with the court and at worst flat-out lie in your arguments, and you get to reload your save as many times as it takes until it goes your way. Sounds like a real recipe keeping things on the up and up. Just make shit up until your ball lands on Red 36. Thing is, they would have already gotten away with it if Hofeller's daughter hadn't found his laptop after he died that might as well have had folders on it titled "how to rig the census."
Gotta deflect responsibility again. So what if Trump is doing something crappy. So long as we hang on to "Obama did it first." That means we can do whatever we want, right? Nevermind that he didn't, or that even if he did, that wouldn't make it right. We can't defend ourselves, we know we are wrong, we jsut have to keep pointing fingers at other people until they forget that we are wrong.
Here's how absolutely amazing the DOJ's pretzel logic now is on the census because of Trump. They originally used the June 30th deadline to start printing as the reason for getting an expedited hearing before the court, which is rare and they were granted. Because at the time they were confident they would win. However, now that they (at least for the moment) lost, they are now saying they need as much time as possible to find to a new predicate for adding the question, which goes against the ENTIRE REASONING they laid forth in their first argument. So they were either a.) lying then or b.) lying now. There is now option c. Again, they are just making rules up as they go, but there is hardly anything as blatant and duplicitous as this is. They've completely changed their position based on nothing but the circumstances and the fact that they lost. Will the Roberts court CARE about this obvious about-face?? Probably not, but the rest of us should.
Will the Roberts court CARE about this obvious about-face?? Probably not, but the rest of us should.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've posted before about the potential for the Supreme Court to oppose Trump in order to protect their own constitutional position and this issue could be a potential example of that happening. Trump has threatened to go ahead with a citizenship question using an executive order. If he was really stupid enough to do that it could tip Roberts from a general position of weak, if wary, support into general opposition.
Will the Roberts court CARE about this obvious about-face?? Probably not, but the rest of us should.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've posted before about the potential for the Supreme Court to oppose Trump in order to protect their own constitutional position and this issue could be a potential example of that happening. Trump has threatened to go ahead with a citizenship question using an executive order. If he was really stupid enough to do that it could tip Roberts from a general position of weak, if wary, support into general opposition.
I mean, there is no such thing as an Executive Order that can overrule the Supreme Court. It doesn't exist. Once the court rules on something, at BEST they may advise that a law may need to be rewritten or altered to pass their muster. Otherwise, they are THE final say on what happens. This is already a dramatically right-wing court. Is this another one of those things where Trump just threatens to do something that is fundamentally against all precedent and law?? Yeah, probably. But threatening to tear apart the fabric of an entire system of government is bad enough on it's own, and likely a necessary step in ACTUALLY doing it. Again, one would think my predictions of Trump ignoring a Supreme Court ruling would just be a paranoid fantasy, but it's pretty hard to dismiss them as such anymore when he is right on the precipice of doing so.
Will the Roberts court CARE about this obvious about-face?? Probably not, but the rest of us should.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've posted before about the potential for the Supreme Court to oppose Trump in order to protect their own constitutional position and this issue could be a potential example of that happening. Trump has threatened to go ahead with a citizenship question using an executive order. If he was really stupid enough to do that it could tip Roberts from a general position of weak, if wary, support into general opposition.
I mean, there is no such thing as an Executive Order that can overrule the Supreme Court. It doesn't exist. Once the court rules on something, at BEST they may advise that a law may need to be rewritten or altered to pass their muster. Otherwise, they are THE final say on what happens. This is already a dramatically right-wing court. Is this another one of those things where Trump just threatens to do something that is fundamentally against all precedent and law?? Yeah, probably. But threatening to tear apart the fabric of an entire system of government is bad enough on it's own, and likely a necessary step in ACTUALLY doing it. Again, one would think my predictions of Trump ignoring a Supreme Court ruling would just be a paranoid fantasy, but it's pretty hard to dismiss them as such anymore when he is right on the precipice of doing so.
Here is the scary thing.
Trump signs a executive order to have the question on the census and they immediately put it in and start printing and shipping out the forms. What will happen? How will this administration be punished for breaking this law?
Oh and regardless of what gets filled out, expect this administration to make up numbers like them saying New York is around 12 million people, dropping a good 7-8 million of "illegals" from the tally, to keep with Trump's tweets.
That's the real question to all of this. We've already discovered that if the Executive branch just buckles down and says "screw you" that Congress has no actual authority. They will openly flaunt subpoenas and refuse to cooperate with anything. This was never a question before, the question being what tangible way do the Congress and Judiciary have of actually enforcing oversight or checks and balances. Who is going to send law enforcment to the White House to arrest people?? This entire thing only worked up to now because the rules were recognized as what they were. Shit, even Nixon at long last had the grace to resign rather than think he could openly defy the Supreme Court and get away with it, but that was 45 years ago when his own party (while still very much behind him until the last possible moment) wasn't a syncophantic cult of personality.
The Republicans have simply figured out that 1.) the rules of how this all functions are optional 2.) no one has any actual authority to stop them 3.) it's been true for at least a decade that their ideology is dying, and that there is no path to victory long-term on it's own. The only way to maintain power was to start killing representative democracy, making it die a death by a thousand cuts. I no longer believe the party believes in it anymore in any way, shape or form.
It is a good thing Nike saved us all from that evil, racist Betsy Ross flag. It is definitely a shame that Barack Obama thought it was worth displaying at his second inauguration for all to see. I guess it wasn't racist in 2013, though.
Because nothing says patriotism more than slapping the national colors on your dirty stinking feet.
Seriously, the reasoning for this was spurious, but the conclusion was right in spite of that. I know the not-really-Betsy Ross flag isn't the official flag anymore, but this is all just more of the Republican double-think at work: "Disrespecting the flag is patriotic, respecting the flag is traitorous."
The legal argument they are making now is literally "we were caught being dishonest, but as long as we make up some new reason that you can't prove is dishonest, we should be able to do it anyway". Essentially, they are arguing that they should continue to get to throw reasons at the wall in perpetuity until they hit on one that John Roberts would agree to. So I guess the new standard in this country is that you can at BEST be totally disingenuous with the court and at worst flat-out lie in your arguments, and you get to reload your save as many times as it takes until it goes your way. Sounds like a real recipe keeping things on the up and up. Just make shit up until your ball lands on Red 36. Thing is, they would have already gotten away with it if Hofeller's daughter hadn't found his laptop after he died that might as well have had folders on it titled "how to rig the census."
That's how the Roberts court works - when ruling for Conservative causes (5-4 of course) they have no problem making wide changes to the law (no federal court can hear any gerrymandering cases ever)
When ruling against Conservatives they make it as narrow as possible (you lied about the reason you wanted the question on the census, maybe come back later with another reason and no paper trail).
We've looked at issues around prisons a few times. Although there are other potential objectives, one of the big debates is where prisons should sit on the revenge vs rehabilitation axis. The US system emphasizes revenge very strongly. The UK system does that to a somewhat lesser extent, but is still pretty weak on rehabilitation. I thought this article about the Norwegian system was interesting from the perspective that their system is very much biased towards rehabilitation - the punishment aspect is intended to be solely about deprivation of freedom, not prison conditions or treatment of inmates.
This difference in emphasis requires far higher costs per prisoner, but that can be manageable if the numbers of prisoners are low. Incarceration rates in different countries are compared here. That shows the US has a rate of 655 per 100,000 compared to 139 in England & Wales and 63 in Norway. The investment in prison helps drive lower reoffending rates - over 75% of prisoners in the US are rearrested within 5 years of leaving prison, compared to around 25% in Norway.
I don't think it's just the differences in prison populations that would make changing the US system difficult. The levels of social inequality would also be likely to be a big constraint - Norway is a far more equal society, so good social conditions and educational opportunities in prisons don't stand out from the general conditions of the poorer population in the way they would in the US. However, it would still be interesting to try experiments in the US to see if it would be possible to get the same reductions in reoffending there.
The Epstein indictment is mostly purely focused on him and a couple of unnamed employees. Unless SDNY is willing to strike a deal with him (which I don't think they are) it may not be as explosive as anticipated. What we do know is that Labor Secretary Alex Acosta let Epstein skate on behavior nearly identical to what he is accused of now, and needs to resign from that post immediately.
I don't think it's just the differences in prison populations that would make changing the US system difficult. The levels of social inequality would also be likely to be a big constraint - Norway is a far more equal society, so good social conditions and educational opportunities in prisons don't stand out from the general conditions of the poorer population in the way they would in the US. However, it would still be interesting to try experiments in the US to see if it would be possible to get the same reductions in reoffending there.
There are already plenty of educational opportunities for people who are getting out of prison which could help them stay out of prison in the future. The problem we have in the United States, which is not a problem other countries have, are the corporations which run for-profit prisons and the politicians they essentially own. Their business model, their bottom line, requires beds to be full which means they make money only when more people are thrown in jail and kept in jail.
Barr has recused himself from the Epstein case. Why? He claims because he worked at a law firm that represents Epstein. His deputy also worked at the same pedophile protecting law firm and of course Trump's labor secretary both worked at the firm and arranged the sweetheart plea deal for Epstein the first time that allowed him to apparently continue sexually abusing children for decades.
Hmm. So Barr's recusal, well you have to assume it's a trick. After all there's potential exposure for Trump with this. It's unlike Barr to not want to personally control the fallout and direct the narrative. After all, Barr didn't recuse himself from Mueller probe despite his public comments and his unsolicited memo attacking the investigation. His opinion that Republican Presidents are above the law is problematic.
Barr has shown he doesn't do things that are moral or "the right thing to do" without an angle.
Cy Vance in New York and Alex Acosta are both complicit in what Epstein did. Their white glove approach to him was arguably criminal in and of itself. They should both be ran out of public life. This guy was so secure in his belief he was immune from consequence he left a veritable trail of LABELED child pornography around his residence, and this is after he'd already had legal trouble. Also, this case never gets done (and the prosecutors flat-out said so) without the journalistic work of Julie K. Brown.
Trump has been resurrecting a lot of people who should never be given another opportunity and who should not be taken seriously. Of course that applies to him too - should not be given 50 chances after so many bankruptcies, scandals and lies. Anyway, here's a few people he's brought back that should never be back:
John Bolton was completely revealed as a nut and liar with Iraq war justification lies and years of loony fox news work.
Barr's coverups for Iran-Contra should have ended his career.
Alex Acosta's sweetheart deal for Epstein should have been his career's end.
Ben Carson's an idiot, said plenty of dumb things and his standing around in the debates after they called his name a bunch of times was ridiculous. He's been shown to be incompetent repeatedly.
Dinesh D'Souza is a criminal conspiracy propagandist that Trump pardoned and somehow is being taken seriously again.
Trump pardoned the Bundy ranchers who led a rebellion against the US government and led an armed occupation of federal buildings.
Trump pardoned a Navy seal who murdered a prisoner by cutting his throat when he was in custody and then posed with pictures of the corpse.
- Accusations that Clinton was an Epstein-affiliated pedo
- Accusations that Trump was an Epstein-affiliated pedo
Which is everything I hate about politics summarized. An unfair, selective, ideological argument on one side and an unfair, selective, ideological argument on the other. For the most part barring a few exceptions neither one will apply their own standards of skepticism to themselves.
The evidence will come out, and speak for itself.
That all being said, we really need to do something about powerful people getting away with awful things in plain sight.
- Accusations that Clinton was an Epstein-affiliated pedo
- Accusations that Trump was an Epstein-affiliated pedo
Which is everything I hate about politics summarized. An unfair, selective, ideological argument on one side and an unfair, selective, ideological argument on the other. For the most part barring a few exceptions neither one will apply their own standards of skepticism to themselves.
The evidence will come out, and speak for itself.
That all being said, we really need to do something about powerful people getting away with awful things in plain sight.
Pretty sure the truth is Epstein is the pedo. I fear Barr and Trump will see the hysteria around this and try and manufacture a narrative that is not the truth. It's clear that "billionaire pedo" is a big deal story and sells well to the conspiracy minded because imagine who else is involved. But let's just focus on the guy who probably did it.
Trump just said he "feels bad" for Acosta because of the blistering criticism he is getting because of how he let Epstein off the hook years ago. Any President with a SHRED of decency or morals would demand Acosta resign or fire him. The Secretary of Labor actually oversees areas of the federal government that deal with human trafficking. He is completey unfit for his job, and (once again) this goes for Cy Vance (a Democrat) as well. But Trump has the power to immediately put his foot down on this, and instead is defending Acosta. And Barr has now UNRECUSED himself even though Barr's father had direct link to Epstein. Something is seriously rotten about all of this, and if Bill Clinton goes down with all these other rats, so be it. But we KNOW from Trump's own statements he was WELL aware that Epstein was into young girls. We know Epstein himself wanted to structure his modeling agency like Trump's. We know Trump had no problem walking in on nude underage girls in dressing room. I'm not saying anything one way or another, but one can do the math in their own heads.
It's not surprising that Epstein happens to know (or previously has known) both Trump and Clinton. In general, the wealthy and powerful know each other--sometimes because they're part of the same teams and the same schemes, but generally just because that comes with the territory of being a powerful businessperson or a powerful politician. In pretty much any field, the bigshots know each other, and the reasons aren't always sinister. Hell, Trump was once friends with the Clintons himself, and that certainly doesn't mean they're on the same side anymore.
I'd actually be more suspicious of Trump and/or Clinton for knowing Epstein if Epstein's crimes were financial rather than sexual.
So this one kind of blew my mind today, and almost nothing phases me anymore. I know there is ill intent towards people like me by megacorporations and i'm okay with that. But this is something else.
Facebook actually lets you use their site to call for and advocate violence now. No, that's not me engaging in hyperbole. No, that's not me making some assumptions about their policy. It's literally verbatim.
When you first read it, it almost sounds defensible. Keyword being "almost". Okay, so you can only call for violence against people like gang members, pedos, etc. At least, that's what they make it sounds like. I still wouldn't be okay with it even then but alright, I kinda sorta get it.
But what do they actually mean by "dangerous individuals"? Surprise surprise, it's conservatives again.
It's just painful at this point having to listen to the debates about the morality of "giving bad people a platform" when we are so far on the other side of that question we are giving a platform for people to commit high severity violence against the so called bad people undeserving of a platform.
I agree that making exceptions of violence is wrong, however, a statement like "person X should receive the death penalty after what they did" would be a bannable offense if they did. A definition of what is "high-severity" also needs to be established. I personally think any threat of violence is inappropriate.
I disagree that the list of people banned were conservatives. There is nothing conservative about their views. Those people like using the words "right-leaning" "conservative" "republican backing" to hide behind the "I am being prosecuted for my political beliefs," but besides attacking left leaning politicians, what ideas and values do they actually share with people like a John McCain or a Mark Rubio?
@WarChiefZeke: I think the truly dangerous thing about this is the wording of the document. It says that the prohibition against advocating violence doesn't apply to "dangerous individuals," and their definition of that group is ludicrously extensive:
wherein criminal/predator status has been established by media reports, market knowledge or news events, etc.
Why is this a problem? Because literally ANYTHING posted online can be claimed to be a "media report." The word "media" doesn't refer just to traditional newspapers; anyone can create media and make it publicly available. "Market knowledge" could mean almost any source of information, and is even broader than "media reports."
Then, after two incredibly vague sources of information, it ends with "etc." If that "etc." came after something specific, then it would just allow a little extra wiggle room, but when "etc." comes after "pretty much anything," it means "literally anything."
That's not a methodology. That's a cover. It lets them make pretty much any exceptions they want, picking and choosing their targets.
It's not obvious to me that folks like Alex Jones were banned strictly for their conservative ideology. Jones would definitely qualify as an extremist--it ain't just liberals who see him that way. Louis Farrakhan has also been banned and I don't think he's generally considered a conservative. I dislike the immense power being wielded by these companies, but from what I can tell, Facebook is banning people solely so people will stop criticizing Facebook for not banning these people. Judging by Zuckerberg's distinct lack of partisan comments in the past, I'm pretty sure the motive is PR; not politics.
I think that's why their rules are so vague about exceptions. Like YouTube, it's against Facebook's financial best interests to ban anyone, because every page can host ads and therefore contribute to Facebook's profits. The only reason anyone has gotten banned at all is because public pressure has been intense enough to tip their hand.
The net result? Public outcry alone determines who gets to keep access to the platform, and god knows how fickle and how over-reactive public outcry can be.
A definition of what is "high-severity" also needs to be established.
Further down on Facebook's page that I linked, they define mid-severity violence as anything that leads to serious bodily injury. I can only assume "high severity" means attempted murder or murder by this context, although they don't directly define it.
And yeah, I also agree none of them traditionally fit under the label of "conservative". They have a different set of politics all their own, some farther right and some farther left.
But regardless, the creation of a policy which allows messages of direct violence, and to organize it, in compliance with the rules, against targets approved by that very company, is incredibly dangerous. What are they even thinking.
I realize this is a different environment and not all of the same principles apply, but the moderating team doesn't make those kind of exceptions for the specific reason that it's subject to abuse. If you add "unless they deserve it" to the end of a rule, the rule loses all meaning.
There's a reason the legal system doesn't designate anyone an "acceptable target" for a given crime. Whether it's the laws of a nation or the rules of a forum, the whole point is to protect everyone in the community.
Big Brother isn't necessarily right or left of center. The same justifications the right uses for their abuses of power can equally be abused by the left. The tyranny of a 52-48 or a 51-49 (or in Trump's case a 49-51) 'majority' holding all the cards is a recipe for total disaster. Even a 60-40 majority doesn't give license to trample the minority. This is one of the drawbacks of democracy that the founders attempted to mitigate. I wish they had totally abolished parties altogether but for all of their attempts at forestalling potential pitfalls, they weren't diviners...
The tyranny of a 52-48 or a 51-49 (or in Trump's case a 49-51) 'majority' holding all the cards is a recipe for total disaster. Even a 60-40 majority doesn't give license to trample the minority. This is one of the drawbacks of democracy that the founders attempted to mitigate. I wish they had totally abolished parties altogether but for all of their attempts at forestalling potential pitfalls, they weren't diviners...
Well the left's definitely been tyrannied despite getting millions more votes from actual people here's some of what we've had to put up with:
- Supreme Court seat stolen leading to multiple terrible 5-4 decisions including:
a) upholding gerrymandering while saying broadly that gerrymandering can never be litigated in federal court paving the way for rigged elections where politicians pick their voters. None of the other decisions are this broad and leave open the door for more tyranny of the Republican minority.
b) Supreme Court denied the census question but left the door open to ruling in Republicans favor if the justice department just changes their story. The court will approve the question if they just said "we want to hurt voters" like they did and approved gerrymandering.
- we got a terrible tax bill leading to massive transfer of wealth to the 1% and corporations leading to stock buybacks and that's it. This tax scam was targeted to hurt Democratic states by raising their taxes. As a result of the bill, the rich got richer and the debt is exploding.
Also as part of that Republicans removed the 'tax' for Obamacare in order to take advantage of another terrible Supreme Court decision that said basically that the affordable Care act is a tax. Now that the Republican tax bill removed that tax, several Republican states are trying to toss out the entire law and of course the justice department and the administration are not even defending it. So destruction of health insurance is ongoing.
That'd just a couple major things. None of it with compromise or input from anyone but Republicans. Not a hint. Just tyranny and taxation without heeding our representation by a completely lawless administration.
Comments
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've posted before about the potential for the Supreme Court to oppose Trump in order to protect their own constitutional position and this issue could be a potential example of that happening. Trump has threatened to go ahead with a citizenship question using an executive order. If he was really stupid enough to do that it could tip Roberts from a general position of weak, if wary, support into general opposition.
I mean, there is no such thing as an Executive Order that can overrule the Supreme Court. It doesn't exist. Once the court rules on something, at BEST they may advise that a law may need to be rewritten or altered to pass their muster. Otherwise, they are THE final say on what happens. This is already a dramatically right-wing court. Is this another one of those things where Trump just threatens to do something that is fundamentally against all precedent and law?? Yeah, probably. But threatening to tear apart the fabric of an entire system of government is bad enough on it's own, and likely a necessary step in ACTUALLY doing it. Again, one would think my predictions of Trump ignoring a Supreme Court ruling would just be a paranoid fantasy, but it's pretty hard to dismiss them as such anymore when he is right on the precipice of doing so.
Here is the scary thing.
Trump signs a executive order to have the question on the census and they immediately put it in and start printing and shipping out the forms. What will happen? How will this administration be punished for breaking this law?
Oh and regardless of what gets filled out, expect this administration to make up numbers like them saying New York is around 12 million people, dropping a good 7-8 million of "illegals" from the tally, to keep with Trump's tweets.
The Republicans have simply figured out that 1.) the rules of how this all functions are optional 2.) no one has any actual authority to stop them 3.) it's been true for at least a decade that their ideology is dying, and that there is no path to victory long-term on it's own. The only way to maintain power was to start killing representative democracy, making it die a death by a thousand cuts. I no longer believe the party believes in it anymore in any way, shape or form.
Because nothing says patriotism more than slapping the national colors on your dirty stinking feet.
Seriously, the reasoning for this was spurious, but the conclusion was right in spite of that. I know the not-really-Betsy Ross flag isn't the official flag anymore, but this is all just more of the Republican double-think at work: "Disrespecting the flag is patriotic, respecting the flag is traitorous."
That's how the Roberts court works - when ruling for Conservative causes (5-4 of course) they have no problem making wide changes to the law (no federal court can hear any gerrymandering cases ever)
When ruling against Conservatives they make it as narrow as possible (you lied about the reason you wanted the question on the census, maybe come back later with another reason and no paper trail).
This difference in emphasis requires far higher costs per prisoner, but that can be manageable if the numbers of prisoners are low. Incarceration rates in different countries are compared here. That shows the US has a rate of 655 per 100,000 compared to 139 in England & Wales and 63 in Norway. The investment in prison helps drive lower reoffending rates - over 75% of prisoners in the US are rearrested within 5 years of leaving prison, compared to around 25% in Norway.
I don't think it's just the differences in prison populations that would make changing the US system difficult. The levels of social inequality would also be likely to be a big constraint - Norway is a far more equal society, so good social conditions and educational opportunities in prisons don't stand out from the general conditions of the poorer population in the way they would in the US. However, it would still be interesting to try experiments in the US to see if it would be possible to get the same reductions in reoffending there.
There are already plenty of educational opportunities for people who are getting out of prison which could help them stay out of prison in the future. The problem we have in the United States, which is not a problem other countries have, are the corporations which run for-profit prisons and the politicians they essentially own. Their business model, their bottom line, requires beds to be full which means they make money only when more people are thrown in jail and kept in jail.
Hmm. So Barr's recusal, well you have to assume it's a trick. After all there's potential exposure for Trump with this. It's unlike Barr to not want to personally control the fallout and direct the narrative. After all, Barr didn't recuse himself from Mueller probe despite his public comments and his unsolicited memo attacking the investigation. His opinion that Republican Presidents are above the law is problematic.
Barr has shown he doesn't do things that are moral or "the right thing to do" without an angle.
John Bolton was completely revealed as a nut and liar with Iraq war justification lies and years of loony fox news work.
Barr's coverups for Iran-Contra should have ended his career.
Alex Acosta's sweetheart deal for Epstein should have been his career's end.
Ben Carson's an idiot, said plenty of dumb things and his standing around in the debates after they called his name a bunch of times was ridiculous. He's been shown to be incompetent repeatedly.
Dinesh D'Souza is a criminal conspiracy propagandist that Trump pardoned and somehow is being taken seriously again.
Trump pardoned the Bundy ranchers who led a rebellion against the US government and led an armed occupation of federal buildings.
Trump pardoned a Navy seal who murdered a prisoner by cutting his throat when he was in custody and then posed with pictures of the corpse.
- Accusations that Clinton was an Epstein-affiliated pedo
- Accusations that Trump was an Epstein-affiliated pedo
Which is everything I hate about politics summarized. An unfair, selective, ideological argument on one side and an unfair, selective, ideological argument on the other. For the most part barring a few exceptions neither one will apply their own standards of skepticism to themselves.
The evidence will come out, and speak for itself.
That all being said, we really need to do something about powerful people getting away with awful things in plain sight.
Pretty sure the truth is Epstein is the pedo. I fear Barr and Trump will see the hysteria around this and try and manufacture a narrative that is not the truth. It's clear that "billionaire pedo" is a big deal story and sells well to the conspiracy minded because imagine who else is involved. But let's just focus on the guy who probably did it.
I'd actually be more suspicious of Trump and/or Clinton for knowing Epstein if Epstein's crimes were financial rather than sexual.
Facebook actually lets you use their site to call for and advocate violence now. No, that's not me engaging in hyperbole. No, that's not me making some assumptions about their policy. It's literally verbatim.
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/credible_violence
When you first read it, it almost sounds defensible. Keyword being "almost". Okay, so you can only call for violence against people like gang members, pedos, etc. At least, that's what they make it sounds like. I still wouldn't be okay with it even then but alright, I kinda sorta get it.
But what do they actually mean by "dangerous individuals"? Surprise surprise, it's conservatives again.
https://www.apnews.com/7825d0df3fda4799a78da92b9e969cdc
"It added that when it bans someone under this policy, the company also prohibits anyone else from praising or supporting them."
Just unreal, man. I mean, is this even legal? To allow users to "call for high severity violence"?
At what point do we do something about these tech giants?
I disagree that the list of people banned were conservatives. There is nothing conservative about their views. Those people like using the words "right-leaning" "conservative" "republican backing" to hide behind the "I am being prosecuted for my political beliefs," but besides attacking left leaning politicians, what ideas and values do they actually share with people like a John McCain or a Mark Rubio?
Then, after two incredibly vague sources of information, it ends with "etc." If that "etc." came after something specific, then it would just allow a little extra wiggle room, but when "etc." comes after "pretty much anything," it means "literally anything."
That's not a methodology. That's a cover. It lets them make pretty much any exceptions they want, picking and choosing their targets.
It's not obvious to me that folks like Alex Jones were banned strictly for their conservative ideology. Jones would definitely qualify as an extremist--it ain't just liberals who see him that way. Louis Farrakhan has also been banned and I don't think he's generally considered a conservative. I dislike the immense power being wielded by these companies, but from what I can tell, Facebook is banning people solely so people will stop criticizing Facebook for not banning these people. Judging by Zuckerberg's distinct lack of partisan comments in the past, I'm pretty sure the motive is PR; not politics.
I think that's why their rules are so vague about exceptions. Like YouTube, it's against Facebook's financial best interests to ban anyone, because every page can host ads and therefore contribute to Facebook's profits. The only reason anyone has gotten banned at all is because public pressure has been intense enough to tip their hand.
The net result? Public outcry alone determines who gets to keep access to the platform, and god knows how fickle and how over-reactive public outcry can be.
Further down on Facebook's page that I linked, they define mid-severity violence as anything that leads to serious bodily injury. I can only assume "high severity" means attempted murder or murder by this context, although they don't directly define it.
And yeah, I also agree none of them traditionally fit under the label of "conservative". They have a different set of politics all their own, some farther right and some farther left.
But regardless, the creation of a policy which allows messages of direct violence, and to organize it, in compliance with the rules, against targets approved by that very company, is incredibly dangerous. What are they even thinking.
There's a reason the legal system doesn't designate anyone an "acceptable target" for a given crime. Whether it's the laws of a nation or the rules of a forum, the whole point is to protect everyone in the community.
Well the left's definitely been tyrannied despite getting millions more votes from actual people here's some of what we've had to put up with:
- Supreme Court seat stolen leading to multiple terrible 5-4 decisions including:
a) upholding gerrymandering while saying broadly that gerrymandering can never be litigated in federal court paving the way for rigged elections where politicians pick their voters. None of the other decisions are this broad and leave open the door for more tyranny of the Republican minority.
b) Supreme Court denied the census question but left the door open to ruling in Republicans favor if the justice department just changes their story. The court will approve the question if they just said "we want to hurt voters" like they did and approved gerrymandering.
- we got a terrible tax bill leading to massive transfer of wealth to the 1% and corporations leading to stock buybacks and that's it. This tax scam was targeted to hurt Democratic states by raising their taxes. As a result of the bill, the rich got richer and the debt is exploding.
Also as part of that Republicans removed the 'tax' for Obamacare in order to take advantage of another terrible Supreme Court decision that said basically that the affordable Care act is a tax. Now that the Republican tax bill removed that tax, several Republican states are trying to toss out the entire law and of course the justice department and the administration are not even defending it. So destruction of health insurance is ongoing.
That'd just a couple major things. None of it with compromise or input from anyone but Republicans. Not a hint. Just tyranny and taxation without heeding our representation by a completely lawless administration.