General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 343

It's just a round-up of the articles and coverage.

 

This is honestly exactly the kind of rebuttal I was looking for. I hadn't seen this so thanks for the reference. Let me address each one individually.

Not being a lawyer my opinion is pretty irrelevant on the topic, but it's hard for me to to view the posting of the video as online harassment and stark invasion of privacy. It's newsworthy I imagine, but I don't see how something being newsworthy and something being sexual harassment are mutually exclusive.

Again, not a lawyer or legal scholar. This information does make the $140 million figure seem steep. The common refrain is that this will get lowered in appeal.

Whataboutism fallacy

I do not agree with this, Gawker should not have been barred from appealing.

They should not be punished for what is protected speech in a court of law.

I imagine, like Jason said, media companies are hit with countless lawsuits on a regular basis and have teams of lawyers to handle them. This happens every day all over the country.

If you want to have a discussion on frivolous lawsuits we can and I am sure we would agree on a lot of the key points. Combating lawsuits is the cost of doing business for many companies. Some of the lawsuits, I imagine, are justified. I believe that the Gawker lawsuit is one of them.

Not sure what this has to do with what we are talking about. If Politico and the Daily Mail can prove that they didn't commit libel then I am sure they are protected. If they did in fact lie, is a lawsuit not justified?

I don't know the specifics of the individual reporters being sued but my opinion on whether or not they should be protected under Gawker's defense depends on what the nature of their employment with Gawker is. As a general statement, Gawker should be free to pay for the legal defense of whoever they choose (just as Thiel can pay for Hogan's defense).

The specifics of why they were barred however, I am ignorant to. I would need to look into it more.

If the publication in question broke laws and invaded someone's privacy than yes, the person in question (celebrity or not) should absolutely sue. Whether or not the publication can afford the consequences of the lawsuit is the defendant or the judge's problem.

Hopefully the ones that tell the truth and don't engage in public sexual harassment?

 

The headline is off-base, I agree. The point he is making is that the majority of the schedules are missing and the ones that were provided are incomplete and redacted in parts, therefore the proportion of people with private interests (based on the subset) she met with that are also donors is concerning to me and to others that believe the State Dept shouldn't be influenced by the private sector. You're right that more investigation would yield clearer results, but the needed information lies in Clinton's court. But instead of transparency, incomplete schedules were given only after AP sued.

Of course, many of these people would have had previous relationships with Clinton so it makes sense that they would meet with her AND donate to the Clinton Foundation. I still think it looks shady, given both the AP's findings with the subset it looked at and the withholding of information that could possibly clear this all up.

 

Yeah but I would say the headline and the tweet make it pretty clear what their conclusions are

 

I don't believe all of any politician's schedules become public information for a number of years. If I remember right it's because of security and intelligence risks, and even then it's almost always redacted to some degree. If AP is able to get the full schedule, and compare it to past SOS schedules, and is able to find something that's not right, I think they should report it accurately. But they didn't, and that's what I think is shoddy work:

Instead of throwing around such language, the AP should be in the business of using its data to inform readers whether those “perceptions” are substantive or baseless. Plus, what really “fuels perceptions” is a ham-handed tweet from a major media outlet.

Sidebar: I'm unsure I actually believe that the State Dept. shouldn't be influenced by the private sector, as they do work for those of us in the private sector. Now, how that influence is wielded matters. But the private sector not having any "influence" (and maybe I'm using the word influence differently than you here) by a blanket statement I think sounds too insular and leads to decision making in a vacuum.

 

From the floor to first class, Britain’s railways are a disgrace | Owen Jones

 

There isn't an easy fix for this and I'm uncertain as to how we can stop something like this, without indirectly messing up lawsuits that help spread democratic impulses within our country. Perhaps getting rid of elected judges, taking money out of the justice system, and reforming lawsuits in a manner comparable to anti-trust laws. In that way, there is a degree of specificity that lends itself to benefiting citizens, rather than the upper class.

 

The point is, yes, outlets deal with this stuff everyday. Thiel's strategy, however, is to fund suit after suit until an outlet is hemmorhaging legal fees. At that point, it doesn't actually matter what your defense is, if you are right or wrong, if it is baseless, etc. This is what your blind faith in the legal system ignores.

 

Why accurate reporting is important: This ass clown will make shit up anyway.

 

As someone from a third world country, this had me laughing.

 

Well this entire thing has been disappointing. And I'm obviously too preachy on the facebook.

 

I also got "very liberal" ... and I also get Trump ads all the time on there.

I click them so it costs him money for badly targeting me. It's fun. The very liberal dude from Oregon. Definitely a good spend.

 

Damn.

 

Here comes my daily barrage of tweets/stories of things I've been reading.

A principal concern among backers of Mr. Sanders, whose condemnation of the campaign finance system was a pillar of his presidential bid, is that the group can draw from the same pool of “dark money” that Mr. Sanders condemned for lacking transparency.

The announcement of the group, which will be livestreamed Wednesday night, also comes as the majority of its staff resigned after the appointment last Monday of Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders’s former campaign manager, to lead the organization.

Several people familiar with the organization said eight core staff members have stepped down. The group’s entire organizing department quit this week, along with people working in digital and data positions.

 

The AP’s defense of its bad Clinton Foundation story is also bad

Neither of those stories has a bearing on the legitimacy of this particular story, the result of a very legitimate line of inquiry: did Clinton do special favors for Clinton Foundation donors?

But having looked into it, the reporters do not seem to have found any special favors. That in and of itself is an interesting conclusion. There has been a lot of discussion around potential conflicts of interest related to the Clinton Foundation, so the absence of any clear evidence of actual misconduct is a useful contribution to our understanding.

The story the AP wrote — full of arbitrary math, sensationalistic tweets, and strange insinuations — is not.

I still agree. AP's report was at best half finished, I expect better from anyone with the AP initials.

 

I got Very Liberal but also Socialist and "Proletariat" lol

 

My Boyfriend Dressed Himself For A Week And It Went Horribly

I don't know why I found this as funny as I did.

 

nice stock photos.

 

University to 2020 Class: Don't Expect 'Safe Spaces' or 'Trigger Warnings' Here

 

Jen’s thoughts on Thursday: I gave Taylor a key to our apartment so he could get this full-body shot of Andrew on our way home on Thursday. Great job, Taylor! Here we have some navy shorts paired with a Grateful Dead shirt that Andrew bought at a concert last month. A great outfit for a bike ride.

andrew is chill af

 

How edgy

 

This is fucking stupid. It is both condescending and a reaction, it seems to me, to students having more of a say in campus life.

 

Yeah, I don't get what the point is at all.

 

A lot of students have been successful in holding school administrations accountable and having a say in potentially traumatic material. But, as universities have become more corporate, they feel the need to assert more authoritarian control, which obviously is fused with the general atmosphere of white supremacist patriarchy.