crickets

crickets's Journal

February 22, 2020

Once upon a time

in redneck land (and I can say that because I am from here) there used to be a deep and abiding distrust of the Russian government. It's like somebody flipped a switch one day and all of that disappeared. *poof* It's crazy.

Neo-Nazi Rinaldo Nazzaro running US militant group The Base from Russia
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142423295

eta: I realize we went through glasnost and perestroika and all, but still, the open acceptance of a foreign power - Russia, no less - meddling in our affairs and threatening our national security just blows my mind.

February 10, 2020

I love the message Jaime Harrison is putting out.

He sounds so in tune, so focused on the right things, so ready to help his constituents. I want him to beat Lindsey Graham. I want him to trounce Lindsey right out of office. I don't even live in South Carolina and I am so excited for this to happen for the people who do.

February 8, 2020

Doesn't this go against the National Archives' stated purpose? Is there no law about this?

Turns out there is.

But now the State Department is cutting archivists completely out of the process: Instead, it will start using machine learning algorithms to separate the “historic” from the “temporary.” Going forward, it is not even planning to turn these records over to the National Archives — a clear violation of the Federal Records Act. And so far there has been no public acknowledgment or discussion of this plan.

Doesn't anyone care?

What is driving this mad rush to delete or destroy the historical record, rather than preserve it for future generations? It is not just the Trump administration. For more than a decade Congress has simply been unwilling to pay for such preservation. Since 1985, the volume of archived paper records has more than tripled. The number of data records has gone from fewer than 13 million to more than 21 billion. But the National Archives has fewer employees now than it did then. Adjusted for inflation, it has a smaller budget than it did a decade ago, and Congress has cut that budget every year for the last three years.

Is it any wonder that, according to a new policy announced last year, the National Archives does not plan to maintain any more presidential libraries? At the George W. Bush Library, the last of its kind, approximately 158 million pages of records await review. With the current staff, it is estimated it will take nearly 250 years.

Congress needs to stick a crowbar in the military budget and pull out a few bucks for things like this. It's not the sexiest issue in the world but it does matter.

Rather than throwing it all out or giving up, maybe overhaul the system. (Digitizing is already mentioned earlier in the article; there's a double edged sword: more compact, less reliable long term.) How are other countries dealing with this issue?

February 8, 2020

I see home grown terrorists, walking tragedies waiting to happen.

Some even suggested they would support some version of an armed uprising or violent attacks.

Sounds like a terrorist threat to me. Are we still fighting the war on terror? Did that fall by the wayside somewhere?

February 8, 2020

I first heard about Jaime Harrison when this ad started getting a lot of play:

I am impressed and hoping that he wins, because I think he will do a great job for the state. Lindsey needs to be sent packing, and it looks like Jaime Harrison might actually do that. Good for him & even better for SC.

February 8, 2020

Anyone who can make Boris Johnson sound like the reasonable one

in a conversation has completely gone off the rails.

Also, alienating the UK? WTF, mate.

February 7, 2020

"Let the people decide."

The people decided when we voted for the representatives who were supposed to, ya know, represent us at just such a moment. They chose not to. Senator Alexander and every other Senator who hid behind "let the people decide" abdicated their responsibilities. They deserve every letter like this one.

February 6, 2020

Well, this article is definitely a wake up call.

No wonder Zuckerberg doesn't want Facebook to deal with dishonest political ads or to follow Twitter's lead by banning them altogether. His employees may not be directly involved in making them, but certainly have been helpful in their deployment.

James Barnes, a Facebook employee who was dispatched to work closely with the campaign, told me Parscale’s political inexperience made him open to experimenting with the platform’s new tools.

Data mining, stealth text campaigns, media hit jobs, and an all out war on reality...

But in the Trump era, an important shift has taken place. Instead of trying to reform the press, or critique its coverage, today’s most influential conservatives want to destroy the mainstream media altogether. “Journalistic integrity is dead,” Boyle declared in a 2017 speech at the Heritage Foundation. “There is no such thing anymore. So everything is about weaponization of information.”

It’s a lesson drawn from demagogues around the world: When the press as an institution is weakened, fact-based journalism becomes just one more drop in the daily deluge of content—no more or less credible than partisan propaganda. Relativism is the real goal of Trump’s assault on the press, and the more “enemies of the people” his allies can take out along the way, the better. “A culture war is a war,” Steve Bannon told the Times last year. “There are casualties in war.”

It's all out there, humming along. I am about halfway through the article and need to take a break before finishing it, but my one takeaway from this so far is that the Democratic party candidates, presidential in particular, need to steel themselves to deal with this head on.

February 6, 2020

Of course Bolton refused to give an affadavit. The offer to testify in front of the Senate

was no more than hollow strategising, because he knew he wasn't going to be called. Offering to testify put his name on everyone's lips for days on end, giving him mountains of exposure for which he didn't have to pay a penny. It's been all about the publicity and profit from his book every step of the way.

Bolton, patriotic? No. He is a venal rat.

February 6, 2020

Youtube version of Pelosi Feb 06 weekly press conference

Full presser is here, with great video quality:

She enters at about 00:40 - well worth watching the entire thing. She is amazing.

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Hometown: Georgia
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