FBI/DOJ/Obama corruption: Worse than Watergate? We shall see

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techstepgenr8tion
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19 Jan 2018, 3:19 pm

I think it can be dangerous if we overrate the power of a particular body for the fact that things aren't working well and we can't see it - ie. it might hold a particular kind of influence but it also might be as feeble and in-fighting as anything else. What the deep state argument reminds me a lot of though is what I remember reading in John Ralston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards - ie. that there's a particular administrative or middle-management class who, throughout history, has been hoping to leech power either from kings as their courts or as growing bureaucracies under central governments and that by and large it's a rent-seeking endeavor.

True, it's an important variable to keep in mind but I really don't know that it has an iron grip on policy past what seems to be it's most likely manifestation of steering presidential foreign policy. I think most of our domestic problems are of our own making and have less to do with anything top-down.


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19 Jan 2018, 5:35 pm

Darmok,how can you be a Trekkie and a Trumpeter ?He goes against everything Starfleet stands for.


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Darmok
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19 Jan 2018, 6:39 pm

Misslizard wrote:
Darmok,how can you be a Trekkie and a Trumpeter ?He goes against everything Starfleet stands for.

Sometimes it takes a Ferengi captain to clear out all the stupid space hippies running the ship.

Image


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Misslizard
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19 Jan 2018, 6:50 pm

I know how the Ferengi treat their women.As for the laws of acquisition,well Trump is obviously Ferengi,he's had surgery to hide the fact.
Still I am disappointed in you.Crying Gorn tears right now.


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Mikah
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19 Jan 2018, 7:54 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
I believe Mikah positively identifies as alt-right.


In the technical sense. As in conservative but not a Conservative, right-wing but not a Tory, or a Republican or a Thatcherite etc. The media have done their absolute best to destroy the term by making it solely about the Richard Spencer gang (dismissively referred to as the alt-Reich by the rest of the alt-right). Whether they have successfully destroyed the term or not, it doesn't really matter, it's just a name. I'm probably best described as a reactionary or a neo-reactionary or something along those lines, something less specific and open to media abuse.


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Darmok
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19 Jan 2018, 8:21 pm

We've been cleverly diverted from the issue at hand. Back to the topic:

Rep. Gaetz: People "Will Go To Jail" Over FISA Memo, Democrats "Afraid" To Release Info

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz told Fox News Channel's 'Hannity' on Thursday night that he believes "there are people who will go to jail" over the contents of a classified memo on FISA abuse prepared by the DOJ. It is rumored (by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes) to demonstrate that the Steele Dossier was used as a pretext to get a FISA warrant to spy on members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

Fox News contributor Sara Carter reported Thursday that the memo shows “extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse.”

"I think that this will not end just with firings. I believe there are people who will go to jail," Gaetz told host Sean Hannity. "I was very persuaded by the evidence, and it also became clear to me why Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham felt it so important to refer this matter for criminal prosecution."


https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video ... _info.html


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Misslizard
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19 Jan 2018, 8:26 pm

Does Trump support the arts Darmok?
Without art and poetry humanity is nothing.
You obviously enjoy the written word in all its beauty,yet I think the man you endorse would care nothing for poets.


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techstepgenr8tion
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19 Jan 2018, 8:33 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
There are plenty of other users who express alt-right or far-right ideas regularly. You'll find them in any thread about social justice, immigration, or the American political situation.


I was just thinking about this a bit more.

My only quibble with the labels here is that alt-right has actually coalesced into a pretty narrow category at this point. To hear the alt-right talk about itself in its own terms you don't have to go much farther than Tara McCarthy's podcasts and you'll usually hear them stated clearly by guys like Greg Johnson, Vox Day, Richard Spencer, and Brett Stevens. The core premises seem to be a) carve North America up into a series of ethnostates and b) a lot of them seem to be particularly big on the 'heroes journey' or romantic Nietzchian archetypes. They tend to like binding white identity with pagan practices (of those four though Vox claims to still be Judao-Christian, Greg is more out-and-proud pagan), and a lot of these guys have a particular reverence for Julius Evola as a spiritual leader and seem to often circle around that particular strain of rather austere Hinduism that constitutes the Western Traditionalist school of occultism/esotericism in that it bails the myth of progress with the decay of the Kali Yuga.

I think there are a lot of view points emerging that range from center to right which are neither neoconservative nor alt-right and similarly there are a lot of people who are avowedly center-left (Jonathan Haidt, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Sargon of Akkad, etc.) and people who are often cited to be leftists or call themselves progressives (Steven Pinker, Bret Weinstein, Brendan O'Niell) who end up sounding right of center to people in particular ways because they're free-speech advocates and also consider identity politics as pernicious enough to be self-defeating.

From that perspective though I think people want to be careful not to equate 'view I disagree with' to 'right of center' or 'alt-right' automatically because if they do that they won't really have much of a clue what's going on or actually getting discussed from where.


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techstepgenr8tion
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19 Jan 2018, 10:28 pm

Bipartisan activity from yesterday in congress regarding FISA 702.


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20 Jan 2018, 3:07 am

Rep. Jody Hice‏ @CongressmanHice

Earlier this morning, I examined the classified, four-page memo from @HouseIntelComm regarding the FBI, DOJ, and the so-called #RussianCollusion. To put it simply, “WOW.” I joined the call to #ReleaseTheMemo. Americans deserve truth and transparency.


https://twitter.com/CongressmanHice/sta ... 0262354944


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Mikah
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20 Jan 2018, 12:42 pm

A nice infographic.

Image


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21 Jan 2018, 2:18 am

The_Walrus wrote:
I believe Mikah positively identifies as alt-right. It's also a fair description of Darmok. rvacountrysinger has indicated that he considers himself to be far-right, although that may have been for rhetorical effect. There are plenty of other users who express alt-right or far-right ideas regularly. You'll find them in any thread about social justice, immigration, or the American political situation.


Aren't you forgetting someone?
:cry:
I'd hate to have to troll my way into the recognition I justly deserve.
Well actually I'd relish it, but...


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Darmok
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21 Jan 2018, 3:04 am

Raptor wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
I believe Mikah positively identifies as alt-right. It's also a fair description of Darmok.


Aren't you forgetting someone?
:cry:
I'd hate to have to troll my way into the recognition I justly deserve.
Well actually I'd relish it, but...

I didn't see this until just now.

So moderate libertarians are now alt-right? :lol: 8)

(Hey Raptor, can you send me my membership card please?)


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RetroGamer87
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21 Jan 2018, 3:49 am

Misslizard wrote:
I know how the Ferengi treat their women.As for the laws of acquisition,well Trump is obviously Ferengi,he's had surgery to hide the fact.
Still I am disappointed in you.Crying Gorn tears right now.

There's no way Trump is a Ferengi. Have you seen his tiny lobes?


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Raptor
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21 Jan 2018, 4:01 am

Darmok wrote:
Raptor wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
I believe Mikah positively identifies as alt-right. It's also a fair description of Darmok.


Aren't you forgetting someone?
:cry:
I'd hate to have to troll my way into the recognition I justly deserve.
Well actually I'd relish it, but...

I didn't see this until just now.

So moderate libertarians are now alt-right? :lol: 8)

(Hey Raptor, can you send me my membership card please?)


Remember that anything right of far left is considered "right-wing" or "alt right" by many of our progressives here. It doesn't bother me one iota to have them see me as alt right, facist, nazi, or whatever. Coming form them they are compliments.


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Misslizard
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21 Jan 2018, 8:52 am

RetroGamer87 wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
I know how the Ferengi treat their women.As for the laws of acquisition,well Trump is obviously Ferengi,he's had surgery to hide the fact.
Still I am disappointed in you.Crying Gorn tears right now.

There's no way Trump is a Ferengi. Have you seen his tiny lobes?

Lol.He thinks they are long and beautiful.


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