Nunes Memo
 

Analysis: https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/sta...94066840002560

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You realize the Right feels exactly the same way.

I think they're both wrong. I think you're forgetting the swing voters, the middle. They're not Left or Right. They could be either on any given day depending on the issue, or they could be neither. They could be a blend of the two. Maybe, like many people I know, they can't even decide who to vote for until they're in front of the lever.

I am in the middle. I've voted D and R. I hate Trump. But I also can't stand most of his critics. I was lukewarm on Obama. But I also hated most of his critics. I hated Bush. And I liked his critics. I liked Bubba, and I hated his critics, too.

Maybe, I just hate political critics.

And maybe that's it. Maybe those of us in the middle are just kind of tired of hearing from everyone who identifies as Left or Right.

My best friend once told me, "If you're holding a sign, you care too much." I believe I forget my own best advice to myself to remain apathetic because, well, I'm never going to get what I want in politics. And life's pretty good, so why argue?

I'm going back to writing silly shit. 'Twas much happier.

Re: Immigration
 

I give up. It's like you can't hold a conversation. Your "not since Trump" and "scan back to the days of Bush" bullshit shows that you believe what you believe. Sebby gonna Seb. If I say, the invective language towards Bush and Trump is based on what they actually said and did while in office, that is meaningless to you for some reason. So, whatever. There's no point trying to get through to you.

TM

Re: Immigration
 

Oh fuck... On this, I do hang my head in shame.

I am sorry. Truly sorry.

Re: Immigration
 

It's not. Statistically, however, when something's 10:1, there's some bias in play. I thought I made that argument clear enough.

I listened to what you said and admitted that it's a policy thing. But when things are so lopsided in one direction, it's statistically impossible for there not to be other causes at work.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

https://media.giphy.com/media/VrSZDlpRaHYje/giphy.gif

TM

Re: Nunes Memo
 

It seems to be a nothingburger.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There certainly are people on the Right who see the Left as their mirror image, but that's some combination of projection and ignorance. There is no "Left" in the way that there is a conservative movement. The people who identify with the "Left" are a distinct minority of people to the left of most Democrats who are under no illusion that they are part of a common movement with other Democrats.

If you're just trying to introduce me to the idea that people on the Right have a different view of the world, thanks but I already get it. I have lived in places like Oklahoma and Wyoming. Most of my extended family lives in states like those.

I don't understand why you are so committed to the idea that Right and Left are somehow parallel and the same. Across multiple dimensions, they care about different things. For example, gun ownership is something that a lot of conservatives see as really, really important. While a lot of people on the left have opposing views, they just don't care about the issue in the same way. Correspondingly, a lot of people on the left see climate change as a really important issue. The Right doesn't in the same way, except that they like irritating the left. Which is actually another fairly important difference between right and left. Conservatives really like to upset the left. The left generally does not give a shit about upsetting conservatives.

I think they're both wrong. I think you're forgetting the swing voters, the middle. They're not Left or Right. They could be either on any given day depending on the issue, or they could be neither. They could be a blend of the two. Maybe, like many people I know, they can't even decide who to vote for until they're in front of the lever.

Bingo.

That's not quite it, because almost no one identifies as Left.

Yeah, it's not identification with Left or Right that seems to bother you so much as people who care. Although Hitchens cared, and it didn't bother you. So that's not it either.

[eta] FWIW, I disagree with GGG that you're a conservative. You have a commitment to being in the middle, wherever that happens to be, and that leads to you to find conservative things to agree with when you're talking to people on your left.

Re: Nunes Memo
 

Big time. Like, I'm too bored to even yawn.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm glad that the judge decided not to charge him. I'm so sorry for your friend and his daughters.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You're not in the middle. You're an anti-tax voter who pretends to care about other things but not enough to nIt grasp at whatever straw you can find to justify your anti-tax vote.

Jesus. You just said you were lukewarm about Obama who will arguably go down as the most centrist president of our lifetimes.

Re: Immigration
 

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?





Wonking a bit here, but I also agree with TM and GGG that the tax bill sucks.

Re: Immigration
 

That hotel in DC is the historic old post office, so, yeah.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

He didn't get to lay a hand on him anyway, did he? Definitely a no harm no foul situation and completely understandable. That monster hurt three! of his kids.

Re: Immigration
 

Whitewater, right? There were several Bush era convictions but I can't recall any that were related.

Re: Immigration
 

You know, we do often wonder where you are and what you do.


It's nice that we can be unified in our hatred of stupidity. Kumbaya, Namaste, Cheers!

Re: Immigration
 

Sounds about right - so over 20 years. Before that I think you're back to Iran-Contra.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The hearing film, then the press conference, I am so impressed by this family. I mean we were stupid drunk guys in college, then friends in social situations, but never see each other professionally. he is an electrician and handled those statements perfectly. And the daughter(s) were killer.

Re: Nunes Memo
 

Nothing burger for which it was offered. But it's also a public confirmation that the FBI found enough in its surveillance of Page for Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, to continue that surveillance. That's pretty darn close to an admission of collusion.

The only reason it's not is that Page could have been doing spying independent of his work for Trump.

Re: Nunes Memo
 

An out of control two-car Trolley is speeding toward Devin Nunes. You have the ability to pull a lever and send it toward Donald Trump. Do you try to unhook the second car and hit them both?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This could also apply to the Right. There's a lunatic fringe. But then there are the other 80% of people on the right who are on a continuum. Some quite conservative, some not so much.

The hard Left and hard Right are equally deluded and frivolous.

I have an immediate revulsion to anyone calling fouls, for anything. I even hated it when I was a kid playing basketball. It's a lizard brain thing.

I hated doing plaintiff's work and have a suspicion of law enforcement for this reason. My inclination is to let things work themselves out. I'd rather see people take up arms in revolution, or do it non-violently (whatever works) than go through the political or legal processes.

Sure they do. I even identify as Left. My social policies and support for a universal wage (even just out of practical necessity) and environmental regulations exile me from the Right tent.

It's people who seek redress through the systems. I'm of the opinion that taking direct negative action against something, including sabotaging, subverting, and refusing to participate in the system that's screwing you is preferable to working within it.

Neither party gives me in excess of 60% of what I want:

1. Pro-choice
2. Anti-religious liberty
3. Pro-environmental conservation
4. Pro-justice reform (incl. drug war)
5. Anti-govt redistribution schemes
6. Pro-direct redistribution (universal wage)
7. Anti-non-essential regulation (Pilots? Yes. Banks? Less.)
8. Pro-shrinking govt (it's too involved)
9. Moderate on taxes
10. Absolutist on free speech
11. End license leveraging schemes (lawyers, CPAs, almost all licenses save those involving dangerous work [pilots, docs, etc.])
12. Moderate on gun control
13. Anti-interventionist (Bush Doctrine)

I'll never find an adequate politician.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It is literally true that there are similarities between the Left and the Right. But when the asymmetries are so important to understanding what is happening in this country, your emotional commitment to ignoring them -- to downplaying the importance of the far right and exaggerating the importance of the far left -- is remarkable. By your own description here, the lunatic fringe of the Right is 20%. Have you not noticed that this lunatic fringe punches far above its weight getting its way, both within the GOP and in the country. Many of them have an awful lot of money, which is key, but also there is a culture in the GOP that tolerates extremism but not moderation. On the other side, none of this is true. There are no leftie Koch brothers. The Democratic Party is fundamentally prepared to compromise, which always means moving to the center. Democrats and the left make their own mistakes and have their own pathologies.

Your both-sidesism is a form of myopia.

Basketball sucks when people play rough and dirty because nothing's getting called. To play and to watch.

Why?

Those things don't make you Left. Sorry.

Why?

Well, sure -- that list is incoherent. Most of the items make sense on their own, but they do not cohere in any meaningful way that I can see.

Re: Sebby being recockulous again
 

Since the Bush Doctrine generally refers to the view that the use of pre-emptive force is justified by a major power, including unilateral action where no casus belli against a state exists, it's going to be real hard to find an anti-interventionist who ascribes to the Bush Doctrine.

Just the idea that you're associating a President who got us into two wars of choice with anti-interventionism is kind of asstounding.

Re: Sebby being recockulous again
 

I meant I was against the Bush Doctrine. I put it in parentheses because I’m generally anti-intervention, but particularly anti-Bush Doctrine.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

In 10th grade Thurgreed grew out his afro, it was like a foot and a half out. And if you touched his hair he called a foul. Your hand couldn't go anywhere near him without almost touching it, so you couldn't guard him. Once we were playing outside and he called a foul on a gust of wind.

We were all glad to see him going bald start of 12th grade.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I used to play pick-up against a bunch of guys on the school's (national-championship-winning) hockey team. Boy was I careful not to foul them too hard.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Do your stories at The Moth ever contain humor?

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I was trying to remember if hair touching was a foul. When I was early college there were a couple of guys with really big afros. I can't remember how to guard them. Then I tried to raise the question in a board-centric way.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I agree Ds are willing to compromise and Rs are not.

I prefer working outside the system because the system is sclerotic, and designed to preserve the current status quo (all established systems do this, of course). If the system is built to fuck you, or is regularly fucking you, you don’t benefit from fighting within it. You need to disrupt it. Or destroy it.

All great and important change is created by challenging, sabotaging, or subverting systems. What’s tech but a giant system disruption?

Grieving your issues within the redress procedures of a society won’t change that society quickly and in any significant fashion. If you’re being screwed unfairly under the current governing structures, the only real redress is to seek to avoid, destroy, or render ineffectual those structures.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm not really sure what you mean by working outside the current status quo. Because of where I live and what I do, I am surrounded by people extolling "disruption" 24/7 and the word no longer means anything. How do you think the political status quo should be "disrupted"? And don't even talk about destruction, or rendering politics "ineffectual." You don't really mean it, and you don't want to live in Somalia. Those are just empty buzzwords.

eta: Also, not also "disruption" is good. Mitch McConnell disrupted traditional norms by refusing to give Obama's pick for the Supreme Court a vote. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is disrupting the traditional role of the press secretary by lying from the White House podium. Trump is disrupting the traditional role of DOJ by attacking it. I'm guessing that you don't like these changes, even though they are disruptive.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

"Disruption." You are devolving into one of those hacks who gives motivational speeches as a thinly disguised marketing scheme to sell his motivational books, and who energetically, engagingly, and meaninglessly strings together a bunch of the latest buzzwords to the frequent applause of the morons who have gathered in some convention center in order to get inspired to get their lives on track, and maybe buy a really great book from an engaging motivational speaker.

My college roommate's brother was an electrical engineering major set to graduate with honors, but became more and more involved in homeless advocacy and anarchism, and eventually dropped out of school with one semester to go to work full time at food shelves, soup kitchens, etc. But he found these organizations to be too bureaucratic and tied to The System, so he and his little band of anarchist followers would break into one of the many crack houses not far from campus, and he would hack into the electrical and water systems and create underground homeless shelters, in which he himself also lived. He was working outside the system. I have my doubts that you are also working outside the system in the same or similar sort of way, but I guess I don't know.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Good News!!! The stock market has been disrupted!!!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The stock market has entered The Pit of Misery! Dilly Dilly!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I was asked today to help set up a "bake off" for a Cannabis company doing an IPO and have been giggling ever sense.

Don't worry, the market can go higher.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Your area is a bright spot - the kinda "wild west" status quo I think we all ought to enjoy.

Why would rendering politics ineffectual put us in Somalia? Politics is already largely ineffectual and the world is doing fine.

If you were looking to amass the greatest level of power on this planet, would you choose to control the ten biggest nations, or the twenty biggest multinational corporations? (Trick Question: If you controlled the top twenty corporations, you'd control a majority percentage of each of the top ten nations.)

I disagree. I think bad disruption of the kind you describe will cause a whiplash effect. When people realize how much this damages the core of society, they'll demand a return to norms.

However, this may split the country in two. There will be those of us who demand some adherence to objective facts. And there will be the idiots who wish to craft their own realities.

And Huckabee isn't doing anything unique. She's just doing it less cleverly then many predecessors, without plausible deniability.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm not working outside it at all. I'm suggesting others who are being fucked by it do so.

If you can't get redress within the system because the system is designed to avoid giving it to you (meaning you're oppressed, as countless people are), how the hell are you going to effect change you desire through the system?

Consider the financial crisis. I believe we would have been much better served by giving the poor free money to juice the economy at the same time we gave it to the banks, or diverting some of the $$$ given to banks to the poor, who'd more quickly spend it in the real economy.

That, of course, was not going to happen. Our system could not allow that. Instead, the money was given to banks. There are, of course, economic arguments for this. But it's also a value decision. We were fine with the moral hazard of giving banks a mulligan, not so charitable to the little guy who was collateral damage in the crisis.

So if you're the little guy, and you were fucked in 2008, what was your recourse within the system? Nothing. You could take 99 weeks of charity, food stamps if you were really fucked.

But what if all the little guys said, "Let's take our cut of the bailout by developing a national movement of people who refuse to pay their debts?" Suppose eight or ten million households decided, for just a month or two, to forego making payments to the banks? Pundits would call that reckless and un-American. They'd be wrong, of course, as that would be a true tea party of sorts. And though it would be reckless, it would only be reckless in regard to the system it was challenging. If the goal was to upend that system, it would be something else - modestly effective.

Of course, "prisoner's dilemma" all but renders this sort of mass action impossible. But if people were organized to get beyond that, there are endless ways mass actions could check the system from outside the system. Perhaps in a future where people are becoming more and more connected, this may be possible.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

We have one political party that broadly agreed with you and one who had to be "bought off" with stuff that didn't help, including a smaller than needed stimulus.

You're thinking of Occupy.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You desperately need a trip to San Francisco to discover just how annoying these people can be. Really, the Californians on this board are a breath of fresh air compared to the disruptor crowd.

Though, thinking of your role here on this board, maybe you'd get along with them.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Crafting one's own reality indeed. Like many people in tech, you are using the word "disruption" to pretend that you are saying something when you're not. If you ever figure out how "politics" should be "disrupted," please post about it here.

You are just so infatuated with this kind of vacuous both-sidesism. "Huckabee isn't doing anything unique." Mind-boggling.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I’m thinking of testing the enforcement mechanisms, like, say, Uber.

Idk what litigation you’ve done, but there are few more compelling levers than having a client which is judgment proof. All leverage, all power of enforcement over your client, disappears.

If the New Oppression is inequality, and one wishes to resolve it, what better way than to prove the limitation of enforcement of property, and in particular creditor, rights?