Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I agree. I'm 6'1" and have never been over 200 lbs. When I was in my early 20s I tried like a maniac to gain muscle (and I did...a little). I didn't know back then how important nutrition is, but for many people it's really hard to pack on a lot of muscle. You have to constantly eat in a calorie surplus and eat tons of protein. And even then there are significant limitations as to how much muscle you can actually put on.

Every time I hear a woman tell me that she doesn't want to lift weights because she's afraid it will bulk her up it drives me crazy. Unless you are really trying (eating a shit ton), you're not going to bulk up.

Agree on all fronts. There's a woman at my gym who does two classes a day and Olympic lifting at least once a week. She's definitely not overly muscular. She's just hot.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

What?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

What?

You don’t know that meme? It’s an old one.

In case you trust anyone or anything, here’s another hit single: https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/...2%20191217.pdf

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Seems like there are a lot of people who have drafted from mainstream media over to Fox and done OK for themselves: Lou Dobbs, John Roberts, Bill Hemmer, Tucker Carlson, Greta Van Susteren, Howie Kurtz, Bernard Goldberg.

But it's very hard to go the other way. Look at what happened to Megyn Kelly. Once you recalibrate to talk to conservatives, it's hard to talk to a normal audience again.

Was she ever not talking to conservatives?

She’s really way hotter in the flesh. TV does her a bigger disservice than most.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Seems like Flynn is playing for a pardon.

But Sullivan already extended the sentencing date. Now he’s just made the judge work, which is a violation of the first rule of Defendant Club.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You don’t know that meme? It’s an old one.

In case you trust anyone or anything, here’s another hit single: https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/...2%20191217.pdf

I agree with this take about that. It's a scolding, no more.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I agree with this take about that. It's a scolding, no more.

There are no penalties imposed, and so it does fall into the category of a scolding. But what is scary about the order is its citation to the most damning parts of Horowitz's report.

Whatever your feelings about politics at the moment, the behavior cited by this judge and the IG is abusive. He who applies ex parte and shades the facts to get the right to conduct surveillance on a citizen should be removed from his job.

Trump is frequently and properly flagged for normalizing an ends justify the means approach to politics. But when you hear about this sort of stuff going on, and when you consider Clapper bald faced lied to Congress about collection of domestic metadata, its clear that "by whatever means necessary" approach goes far beyond the executive branch.

I've actually heard serious, earnest people - people who follow politics - say that Clapper's lying was okay because he had to lie. The argument was that we need surveillance and what he was doing is more important than the rights of those disregarded in the process. This reminds me of the argument made for Iraq -- Sure, it was predicated on a lie, but we had to plant a flag in the Middle East... get that area under control.

These well intentioned violations never work out well. And the other side gets to use them, too. Improperly getting a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page in 2016 can just as easily become improperly getting a warrant to conduct surveillance on "enemies' of the Administration in 2021, should Trump win another term (which is an even money proposition).

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Improperly getting a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page in 2016 can just as easily become improperly getting a warrant to conduct surveillance on "enemies' of the Administration in 2021, should Trump win another term (which is an even money proposition).

With the important caveat that I haven't read up on the details, didn't the IG conclude that the warrant was properly issued despite the misconduct?

Which is not to say I disagree with you at all here.

It one of the things that bothers me about a common criticize of Obama from the left: he should have prosecuted Bush-era people for war crimes. While I don't doubt that the things Yoo blessed at Cheney's urging (among others, perhaps) are war crimes, but prosecuting your political opponents opens a gigantic can of worms that you can't close once someone with sufficiently few scruples decides to do it for political advantage alone. Does anyone doubt that Hillary would be in jail right now had Obama set that precedent?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

With the important caveat that I haven't read up on the details, didn't the IG conclude that the warrant was properly issued despite the misconduct?

Which is not to say I disagree with you at all here.

It one of the things that bothers me about a common criticize of Obama from the left: he should have prosecuted Bush-era people for war crimes. While I don't doubt that the things Yoo blessed at Cheney's urging (among others, perhaps) are war crimes, but prosecuting your political opponents opens a gigantic can of worms that you can't close once someone with sufficiently few scruples decides to do it for political advantage alone. Does anyone doubt that Hillary would be in jail right now had Obama set that precedent?

The IG found that the agents made loads of errors and withheld information which would have caused the court to question whether the warrant was properly issued. But the IG stopped short of saying the warrant was improperly issued. So did the judge.

On the other point, I agree with you.

But regarding Hillary, she's a bit different. She didn't do anything illegal. The server was scrubbed, but no one has ever proved she directed her lawyers to take that action. And while maybe it could be argued that the deletion was a crime, or that the use of the private server was a crime, these aren't the kinds of "crimes" anyone should or likely would prosecute.

Yoo didn't really do anything illegal either. He gave a contorted opinion justifying torture. But it was just an opinion. The people who followed it? That's a different story, perhaps. Cheney, OTOH, flat out lied to Congress about WMD. That guy committed a crime. And I have a hard time giving that behavior a pass because, while I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing for the country, a ton of lives were lost for no good reason, and trillions were wasted.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The IG found that the agents made loads of errors and withheld information which would have caused the court to question whether the warrant was properly issued. But the IG stopped short of saying the warrant was improperly issued. So did the judge.

Horowitz did a proctological exam in order to make Trump happy. I have little doubt that you could do the same sort of deep dive on most warrants, FISA or otherwise and come up with similar problems, and that's because most courts most of the time don't look at warrant applications very closely and grant them, and most law enforcement know and expect this and are kind of sloppy in their applications because it almost never matters. This will continue, because pretty much everyone is OK with the idea that law enforcement will get their warrants.

But regarding Hillary, she's a bit different. She didn't do anything illegal. The server was scrubbed, but no one has ever proved she directed her lawyers to take that action. And while maybe it could be argued that the deletion was a crime, or that the use of the private server was a crime, these aren't the kinds of "crimes" anyone should or likely would prosecute.

I laugh at your fear-mongering about how we should be concerned that in the future, a Trump FBI will manufacture an investigation of Democrats. It happened in 2016, with a Democrat in the White House. And lest you forget, the head of the FBI sent a letter about Hillary -- after she did not commit a crime -- in late October that arguably cost her the election.

Yoo didn't really do anything illegal either. He gave a contorted opinion justifying torture. But it was just an opinion. The people who followed it? That's a different story, perhaps. Cheney, OTOH, flat out lied to Congress about WMD. That guy committed a crime. And I have a hard time giving that behavior a pass because, while I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing for the country, a ton of lives were lost for no good reason, and trillions were wasted.

How about the people who tortured? Obama's failure to go after them sent the message that torture isn't really a crime.

If a Democrat wins next year, she sure as hell should prosecute Trump officials who used their office to commit crimes.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Horowitz did a proctological exam in order to make Trump happy. I have little doubt that you could do the same sort of deep dive on most warrants, FISA or otherwise and come up with similar problems, and that's because most courts most of the time don't look at warrant applications very closely and grant them, and most law enforcement know and expect this and are kind of sloppy in their applications because it almost never matters. This will continue, because pretty much everyone is OK with the idea that law enforcement will get their warrants.

That's quite generous. Here's the less generous take: https://theintercept.com/2019/12/12/...the-u-s-media/

Somewhere between those two views I think lies reality.

I haven't challenged a fed warrant in ages, but I recall judges not being so kind when they found that the application had a good bit of spin in it. (They know the feds are puffing and BSing a bit, but when they find there's too much of that in an application, I recall they get kinda pissed, for good reason.)

I laugh at your fear-mongering about how we should be concerned that in the future, a Trump FBI will manufacture an investigation of Democrats. It happened in 2016, with a Democrat in the White House. And lest you forget, the head of the FBI sent a letter about Hillary in late October that arguably cost her the election.

That was before Trump was elected. Imagine what pro-Trump agents might think is acceptable in his second term?

How about the people who tortured? Obama's failure to go after them sent the message that torture isn't really a crime.

If you torture because you think its legal because Yoo said it was legal, where's the intent to commit a crime? That's a really tough prosecution. I think Obama did the right thing there.

OTOH, the Holder Doctrine is indefensible. I'm not saying some bankers should have been jailed, but civil suits stripping them of their parachutes should have been initiated.

If a Democrat wins next year, she sure as hell should prosecute Trump officials who used their office to commit crimes.

Depends on the crime. If it's some strict liability statute that arguably should not exist (like 3/4 of our federal statutes), I say refrain from creating any further animosity between the "tribes" in this country. (I also don't want to hear about Trump after he leaves office, and a prosecution of him would keep the fucker in my news feed for the rest of his life.) If it's a clear cut case of someone doing something with easily provable intent, and it's a really serious infraction, I have no problem with prosecutions.

But we should not allow the states or feds to go nuts on Trump when he's out of office. I'm sure he could be charged with an endless litany of things. But I'm also sure that if we wanted to, we could also charge any person with so many business interests with any number of things. It's not a bad thing to have business people seek office and seek to run govt like a business. I don't want to see them dissuaded from doing so because the one business person we did choose a President was a lousy and corrupt business person who investigators and politically ambitious prosecutors found an easy target after he left office.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

For Sebby.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If a Democrat wins next year, she sure as hell should prosecute Trump officials who used their office to commit crimes.

If a Democrat wins next year, she should appoint an attorney general who will proceed in a professional manner, and try to make the criminal prosecutions as apolitical as possible.

But Congress ought to investigate both the Republicans in Congress and the Senate and the members of the administration with all the zeal that has been shown by Republican conspiracy theorists (but a lot more sense). And those investigations should include Trump's DOJ.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

For Sebby.

I'm not finding that terribly persuasive.

"[O]ne of the biggest causes of unemployment in Britain was the decline of coal and other industries in the face of competition from Germany and the United States. Workers’ skills and geographic location ruled out quickly redeploying them elsewhere in the economy. But that transitional episode eventually passed."

Right. But how long did that take? What happened to those displaced during the interregnum?

"The challenge that all new technologies pose is not that they create too few jobs, but rather that too few workers have the skills to fill them."

The advantage of tech to management is eliminating workers. I don't employ robots so I can pay my workers to do something else. I employ robots to remove the cost of my workers. And every business into which my workers may venture as they are displaced will, as they are able to, do the same.

"The sectoral employment transition is easier where the educational system teaches a broad range of skills, rather than encouraging specialization from an early age, and where flexible labor markets have good retraining facilities."

Great, but the market values specialization. It refuses to promote autodidacts or generalists. The algorithm that replaced the HR clerk screens for the exact narrow form of widget maker desired, and nothing more.

"[Businesses] can use technology to substitute capital for labor and keep wages low, or use technology for the good of their workers with a view to longer-term profits. In the latter case, worker wellbeing benefits more from the new technology, not necessarily only through higher wages but also through better working and living conditions."

This point is a good point. Nick Hanauer has been making similar point, borrowing from Henry Ford: "If nobody has any money, who'll buy what we're making?" But again, the rest of the business community isn't terribly interested in that view. It is more interested in siphoning money from the bottom to the top until the system collapses, at which point, in crisis, businesses will change their view.

"A mandatory minimum wage or tax inducement to employers to raise low wages may be necessary. The point of technological innovation, after all, is not to give people reason to resist it."

Right, except those things increase automation. Make workers X more costly and those who are making the robots and writing the algorithms will work X more aggressively to provide options to employers to exploit the market opportunity. In the interim, no new workers will be hired, as employers will instead seek to get more value from their now more costly workforce to offset the wage increase.