The Next President is...

[jazzdude]

We're dancing around what needs to happen, basically that political persuasion should likely become a protected class on online social platforms that advertise themselves as open to all.  If one is specifically and advertised as for one particular religious, ethnic or political persuasion then it could legally discriminate IMHO, but not others that are advertised for all.
Eventually IMHO this is going to come to a head as Woke Capital is going to want to exclude the deplorables to crush them further:
https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/11/big-corporate-uses-capitol-riots-to-push-communist-style-social-credit-system-on-americans/
As to good ol' American entrepreneurial spirit concur but when monopolies and cartels have been allowed to form, colluding to destroy rivals and start-ups ref Parler being attacked on all sides and now going dark, it is time for the government to step in.  Funny how things seem to be just peachy now that conservatives and nationalists are on a certain end of the whip.
Will agree to disagree with you and I respect your reasoned responses, I just don't agree with them and interpret the behavior of large tech companies of late as anti-democratic.  It's possible they are legal in the sense that it will be interpreted that way by agreeable justices and gov officials, if the party says it's 4 fingers even if 5 are extended then it's 4.  No matter what, they will get what they want and do whatever they want, they see themselves as morally superior and therefore any means available are justified.
Next frontier looks to be business services to cut off political / cultural opponents:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/01/11/payment-processor-stripe-blacklists-trump-campaign/
A total system of alternative services, technology, products and businesses must be made to meet the needs of those who are not down with the Wokeness.

Also respect (and appreciate) your replies, and I think makes for good discussion that really needs to happen in Congress.

But you're right, we have been dancing around some points.

True net neutrality (and not what the Trump administration pushed) is essential: ISPs need to be considered common infrastructure just like phone companies or electric companies, because if they are not, they can definitely cut off individuals with no recourse. But conservatives have been fighting that tooth and nail, because it would make ISPs less profitable, much more regulated, and bring more government oversight.

Money is another issue like you raise up. Sure, cash is king, but we've moved to a largely digital currency, and rely on commercial vendors to facilitate the electronic movement of money. Should electronic money transfers be nationalized? Or should there be a government service to guarantee access to electronic payments in a cashless environment so companies can't cut off people from buying/selling goods and services? It's a good question, and needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, the GOP would likely fight it since it hurts the banking industry (lost revenue from transfer fees)

"Good ol' American entrepreneurial spirit" was a bit tongue in cheek. What some conservatives are learning is that the free market can be very brutal if your interests don't align with what businesses or market interests are.

Who stops monopolies from forming? Typically, the government, but conservatives have been pushing to deregulate and allow the free market to reign in the name of smaller government, without considering there's a price to pay for allowing the market to set what is acceptable.

I'm not throwing spears at conservatives save for one- sometimes people (both conservative and liberal) don't critically think about their values and the potential ramifications of putting those values into practice, especially when it relies on others behaving how we want them to behave. Some values are just parroted from their parties stance with an oversimplification explanation that ignores real issues with the stance.

And you're right, the debate on what a platform's responsibility is not settled, and you and I have different opinions on that responsibility. My viewpoint may be a bit skewed because I gave up on most social media (not BaseOps, obviously), so maybe I'm biased in believing a person can live a happy life without checking the Facebook or twitter feed, and keep in contact with friends and family through other means. But we need to continue taking a hard look at this problem, debating potential options, and eventually putting it into law (and not just executive order or executive agency policy).

[N730]

I like Tulsi's stated positions on many issues, which are moderate and for the most part sensible.  However, something isn't quite right.  On Rogan and other podcasts she spends almost all her time railing against the left and virtually no time discussing/defending her political positions.  My cynical side thinks that she is a "democrat" in order to stand apart from the crowd.  Once her awareness grows beyond the IDW, she'll reposition herself as a republican and drop some of the more progressive positions she claims to have but never discusses.  If true, it is deceptive, although I may still be in alignment with much of her platform. 

Agreed. She's trying to position herself for a fox news gig. She went from actively working against gay marriage, to speaking for Bernie Sanders at the DNC, to suddenly spending every outlet she gets to talk about her newly found conservative positions and rail against Democrats.

Add to this her being outright strangely defensive of Assad and I can't figure her out. Plus there is the whole growing up in the cult thing (an offshoot of Hare Krishna called the Science of Identity Foundation) and being married to a guy who's still heavily involved.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Baseops Network mobile app

[pawnman]

49 minutes ago, N730 said:

Agreed. She's trying to position herself for a fox news gig. She went from actively working against gay marriage, to speaking for Bernie Sanders at the DNC, to suddenly spending every outlet she gets to talk about her newly found conservative positions and rail against Democrats.

Add to this her being outright strangely defensive of Assad and I can't figure her out. Plus there is the whole growing up in the cult thing (an offshoot of Hare Krishna called the Science of Identity Foundation) and being married to a guy who's still heavily involved.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Baseops Network mobile app
 

I think people have mistaken "Let's not get into yet another war like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya with Syria" for a defense of Assad.  She's said repeatedly he's a bad person and we need to bring diplomatic pressure to bear.  Her stance is, and always has been, we have no national interest in changing the regime in Syria just because Assad is a bad person.

[Swamp Yankee]

1 hour ago, pawnman said:

I think people have mistaken "Let's not get into yet another war like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya with Syria" for a defense of Assad.  She's said repeatedly he's a bad person and we need to bring diplomatic pressure to bear.  Her stance is, and always has been, we have no national interest in changing the regime in Syria just because Assad is a bad person.

Tulsi said with regard to whether Assad is a war criminal - March 2019:

“I think that the evidence needs to be gathered, and as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such,” Gabbard told CNN host Dana Bash during a town hall event in Austin, Texas.

Previously, the DoD, US intelligence community, and UN determined that Assad was responsible for the April 2017 chemical weapon attack on his own people.  So she does not believe our own intelligence analysis?  Why not?  She doesn't address that from what I could find.  Seems weird.  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Swamp Yankee

[FLEA]

7 minutes ago, Swamp Yankee said:

Tulsi said with regard to whether Assad is a war criminal - March 2019:

“I think that the evidence needs to be gathered, and as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such,” Gabbard told CNN host Dana Bash during a town hall event in Austin, Texas.

Previously, the DoD, US intelligence community, and UN determined that Assad was responsible for the April 2017 chemical weapon attack on his own people.  So she does not believe our own intelligence analysis?  Why not?  She doesn't address that from what I could find.  Seems weird.  

 

 

 

Well those same intelligence agencies said there were WMDs in Iraq. 

Don't believe everything national intelligence says. They do a decent job most of the time but they have been wrong a lot. 

I'm not saying they were wrong in this instance but I havent personally reviewed the analysis and I doubt Tulsi had either when she made that comment. You will save lives as a military commander if you always approach intelligence you recieve with scrutiny and skepticism. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by FLEA

[Swamp Yankee]

Just now, FLEA said:

Well those same intelligence agencies said there were WMDs in Iraq. 

Don't believe everything national intelligence says. They do a decent job most of the time but they have been wrong a lot. 

Fair enough.  But we're talking about a fairly broad consensus with regard to Assad rather than irresponsibly focusing on the statements of a single previously-discredited source as was done regarding WMD.  

[Pooter]

14 hours ago, Prozac said:

For all the folks complaining that Trump has been muzzled, ya know, there’s a way for him to get his message out:

When’s the last time this podium was used? Seemed to work fine for every president preceding Trump. Sorry, but I always thought Twitter was an inappropriate place for presidential messaging anyway. Let’s see the man show his face and explain himself. 

Yeah but if he had an actual press conference he might have to answer super duper unfair questions from the lame stream media. Questions like:

why did you incite an insurrection?

why do you continue to deny the results of an election virtually all republicans acknowledge was legitimate?

why did you try to pressure the Vice President into doing something he has no constitutional power to do?

 

I suspect this is why you're seeing mainly pre-recorded messages from the president at this point. Yet, somehow he manages to botch those too. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by Pooter

[pawnman]

16 hours ago, Swamp Yankee said:

Tulsi said with regard to whether Assad is a war criminal - March 2019:

“I think that the evidence needs to be gathered, and as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such,” Gabbard told CNN host Dana Bash during a town hall event in Austin, Texas.

Previously, the DoD, US intelligence community, and UN determined that Assad was responsible for the April 2017 chemical weapon attack on his own people.  So she does not believe our own intelligence analysis?  Why not?  She doesn't address that from what I could find.  Seems weird.  

So for a community that often derides leadership for acting without evidence, preaches innocent until proven guilty, etc...you're upset that she called for gathering evidence and actually having a trial for war crimes?

[slc]

7 hours ago, Pooter said:

Yeah but if he had an actual press conference he might have to answer super duper unfair questions from the lame stream media. Questions like:

why did you incite an insurrection?

why do you continue to deny the results of an election virtually all republicans acknowledge was legitimate?

why did you try to pressure the Vice President into doing something he has no constitutional power to do?

 

I suspect this is why you're seeing mainly pre-recorded messages from the president at this point. Yet, somehow he manages to botch those too. 

Will be interesting to see how often our incoming president utilizes the above forum

[Swamp Yankee]

30 minutes ago, pawnman said:

So for a community that often derides leadership for acting without evidence, preaches innocent until proven guilty, etc...you're upset that she called for gathering evidence and actually having a trial for war crimes?

There is evidence; widely acknowledged evidence (DoD, US intelligence, UN, UK).  Tulsi's statement suggested that such evidence either didn't exist or was just a wisp of rumor.   If the only source was the New York Times or the Epoch Times, she might have a point.  But that isn't the case here. 

[Swamp Yankee]

32 minutes ago, slc said:

Will be interesting to see how often our incoming president utilizes the above forum

Agreed.  It will be a bellwether.  His time in the Obama administration as a conventional politician suggests he will conduct press conferences as a matter of course.  His time campaigning when he went into hiding for quite some time until the debates suggests otherwise.  

[Swamp Yankee]

1 hour ago, slc said:

Will be interesting to see how often our incoming president utilizes the above forum

Clearly Trump avoided press conferences because he couldn't come up with credible responses in real time.  On Twitter he could make outlandish claims without being challenged.  And his base ate it up due to confirmation bias.  

I should add that I'm referring to solo press conferences in which the President takes the podium alone.  In his first three years, Obama did 25.  Trump did 9. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by Swamp Yankee

[jazzdude]

His time campaigning when he went into hiding for quite some time until the debates suggests otherwise.  

It's a legitimate strategy, especially if you think your opponent is going to dig themselves in a hole.

All things being equal, if you're objective is to win a vote, the fewer times you are compared, the better your odds (though name recognition can skew the voting). Just like a bye round in a tournament. It's why you see late entrants into primaries, and bigger names don't formally announce their intent until a few debates have past: the fewer times your views are challenged and debated, the fewer chances you have to lose, and the better your odds are off winning. Especially if they actively monitor the earlier debates and take the most popular opinions from the other (not yet) competitors to fine tune their platform, while the competitors who declared their intent to run tear each other apart.

ETA: you see both parties do this. It's likely also a reason why Trump stopped doing press conferences, or didn't want to debate. Every time Trump speaks publicly, the could be risking alienating moderate Republican voters. They might not vote for Biden, but they may just not vote. So if you don't have a official public opinion or position, there's nothing to debate against. And tweets could be argued to be an "in the moment" our off the cuff response that doesn't reflect the official position on a matter. (Like the whole mollygate debacle at Laughlin, though those IPs lost that argument, while many on the outside said it's just informal/joking talk between friends)

[Swamp Yankee]

45 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

 

 

It's a legitimate strategy, especially if you think your opponent is going to dig themselves in a hole.

All things being equal, if you're objective is to win a vote, the fewer times you are compared, the better your odds (though name recognition can skew the voting). Just like a bye round in a tournament. It's why you see late entrants into primaries, and bigger names don't formally announce their intent until a few debates have past: the fewer times your views are challenged and debated, the fewer chances you have to lose, and the better your odds are off winning. Especially if they actively monitor the earlier debates and take the most popular opinions from the other (not yet) competitors to fine tune their platform, while the competitors who declared their intent to run tear each other apart.

ETA: you see both parties do this. It's likely also a reason why Trump stopped doing press conferences, or didn't want to debate. Every time Trump speaks publicly, the could be risking alienating moderate Republican voters. They might not vote for Biden, but they may just not vote. So if you don't have a official public opinion or position, there's nothing to debate against. And tweets could be argued to be an "in the moment" our off the cuff response that doesn't reflect the official position on a matter. (Like the whole mollygate debacle at Laughlin, though those IPs lost that argument, while many on the outside said it's just informal/joking talk between friends)

 

Point taken.  If Biden was employing a strategy to let Trump talk himself into a hole (it worked) then I expect press conferences per usual pre-Trump.   

[jazzdude]

Shifting gears, it's pretty ridiculous that Democrats in Congress are pushing for Pence to invoke the 25th amendment in a bid to remove Trump.

I think that would set a dangerous precedent for using the 25th amendment when opinions are different, and not the president being incapacitated. I guess you could argue Trump is mentally ill, but maybe he's just an idiot or a dick.

Congress has it's own process for removing a president, so how about using that?

[pawnman]

6 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

Shifting gears, it's pretty ridiculous that Democrats in Congress are pushing for Pence to invoke the 25th amendment in a bid to remove Trump.

I think that would set a dangerous precedent for using the 25th amendment when opinions are different, and not the president being incapacitated. I guess you could argue Trump is mentally ill, but maybe he's just an idiot or a dick.

Congress has it's own process for removing a president, so how about using that?

Or just wait a week.  

Crazy, I know.

[FLEA]

3 hours ago, Swamp Yankee said:

Clearly Trump avoided press conferences because he couldn't come up with credible responses in real time.  On Twitter he could make outlandish claims without being challenged.  And his base ate it up due to confirmation bias.  

I should add that I'm referring to solo press conferences in which the President takes the podium alone.  In his first three years, Obama did 25.  Trump did 9. 

Trump went to Twitter because he was able to remove layers of filters from what his actual message was. He was a step ahead as a politician in that regard. The media of course derided his decision to use Twitter because it of course gave the media less importance. 

[FLEA]

3 hours ago, Swamp Yankee said:

There is evidence; widely acknowledged evidence (DoD, US intelligence, UN, UK).  Tulsi's statement suggested that such evidence either didn't exist or was just a wisp of rumor.   If the only source was the New York Times or the Epoch Times, she might have a point.  But that isn't the case here. 

Dude very few people have seen that evidence and Tulsi likely never saw it when she discussed it. Weve all seen intel reports and seen how wildly off base they can be. She was an Army officer she probably remembers that too. She provided a voice of caution. Obama was a warhawk who campaigned on peace, then turned around and entered us into other conflicts most Americans never heard of and deepened out stakes in the two existing conflicts he inherited. That didn't sit well with a lot of Democrats who thought of themselves as the party of peace. The same intel community reported with consensus WMDs were in Iraq. It is considered one of the greatest national intelligence failures of all time and is widely discussed in intel academia. I'm not going to hold a grudge against anyone who said "wait a minute, let's make sure we got our shit straight this time before entering another cluster fuck." 

[jazzdude]

Or just wait a week.  
Crazy, I know.

That's an option too.

However, impeachment, if successful, would end Trump's ability to hold a federal office in the future, as well as be a formal condemnation from Congress on his actions.

So those are the only reasons I can think of to do it this late in his term. Outside pure politics.

[FLEA]

Well, in a move absolutely noone could have predicted... Angela Merkel sides with Trump regarding Twitter ban. 

https://amp.thenationalnews.com/world/germany-s-angela-merkel-leads-european-fears-of-problematic-twitter-ban-on-trump-1.1144394

[slackline]

29 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

That's an option too.

However, impeachment, if successful, would end Trump's ability to hold a federal office in the future, as well as be a formal condemnation from Congress on his actions.

So those are the only reasons I can think of to do it this late in his term. Outside pure politics.

To me, screw politics.  His actions, at the very least for the last 6ish months, have been beyond the pale. Time to show everyone else that wants to blatantly lie that there are repercussions.  It would also serve to hedge all the extremists on the D side since a precedent will have been set.  Impeach or 25th amendment works for me.  

[jazzdude]

To me, screw politics.  His actions, at the very least for the last 6ish months, have been beyond the pale. Time to show everyone else that wants to blatantly lie that there are repercussions.  It would also serve to hedge all the extremists on the D side since a precedent will have been set.  Impeach or 25th amendment works for me.  

I agree with your sentiment, to include he should be impeached.

But I still believe there are Dems that actually don't care about Trump's actions, only that he is a political enemy, and to not let a crises go to waste for political gain.

Put another way, is doing the right action for the wrong reasons ethical?

[slackline]

Just now, jazzdude said:

I agree with your sentiment, to include he should be impeached.

But I still believe there are Dems that actually don't care about Trump's actions, only that he is a political enemy, and to not let a crises go to waste for political gain.

Put another way, is doing the right action for the wrong reasons ethical?

That's a great question!  I think when the right thing is done for the wrong reasons and the negative fallout is outweighed by the positive outcome, you still have the one leg to stand on of "doing the right thing". Rarely, if ever, do politicians (R or D) do the right thing for the right reasons.  Almost always done because it's "conveniently aligned" with their ulterior motives.

Not married to that position though.

[Swamp Yankee]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

Dude very few people have seen that evidence and Tulsi likely never saw it when she discussed it. Weve all seen intel reports and seen how wildly off base they can be. She was an Army officer she probably remembers that too. She provided a voice of caution. Obama was a warhawk who campaigned on peace, then turned around and entered us into other conflicts most Americans never heard of and deepened out stakes in the two existing conflicts he inherited. That didn't sit well with a lot of Democrats who thought of themselves as the party of peace. The same intel community reported with consensus WMDs were in Iraq. It is considered one of the greatest national intelligence failures of all time and is widely discussed in intel academia. I'm not going to hold a grudge against anyone who said "wait a minute, let's make sure we got our shit straight this time before entering another cluster ." 

Absolutely there is a very high standard of proof before a conviction or launching sorties.  Again, the issue here is that Tulsi's statements aren't hedging.  She's acting as if there is no/minimal evidence.  Not true.  

Edited January 12, 2021 by Swamp Yankee

[Swamp Yankee]

48 minutes ago, FLEA said:

Well, in a move absolutely noone could have predicted... Angela Merkel sides with Trump regarding Twitter ban. 

https://amp.thenationalnews.com/world/germany-s-angela-merkel-leads-european-fears-of-problematic-twitter-ban-on-trump-1.1144394

Too bad Trump missed a chance to rub Angela's shoulders like W did.  Then again, she is way above the Jeffrey Epstein-approved age range.  

Edited January 12, 2021 by Swamp Yankee