And people think I'm reactionary... Turkey is absolutely right and this is just Metropolitan Police freaking out and arresting anyone near the scenes of disturbance.

I see a lot of correlation and zero causation.

Mass arrests are questionably legal and probably a civil rights violation. We don't need to normalize this behavior.

Law and order NY mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump surrogate and cybersecurity advisor, thought it perfectly fine to break the law to defend the NYPD.

Eric Adams, co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, said he was particularly outraged that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Safir  released details from Mr. Dorismond's criminal record from 1987, when he was a juvenile and the case file was sealed by the court.

Trump surrogate, transition helper and mass surveillance magnate Peter Thiel thought it perfectly fine to use his company's apparatuses to launch a smear campaign against journalists who hurt their industry.

Palantir gained notoriety in 2011 after the hacking collective LulzSec dumped thousands of hacked emails from HBGary Federal, a firm collaborating with Palantir to pitch clients, revealing plans to use Palantir’s data analysis tools on a project to spy on labor unions, journalists, and activist groups on behalf of business interests. The proposal detailed a variety of surveillance techniques, including a PowerPoint presentation calling for the use of malware to steal data from target computers.

Palantir and HBGary Federal denied that the plans were acted upon and said they were merely part of an ongoing discussion, though the hacked emails revealed that the chief executive and board of Palantir signed off on the proposal.

I'm not a fool. I don't need to see Trump personally cheering on arrests to see the impact he has and will have on policing.

To be fair on this one, the media did objectively lie during his President-elect status. They fucking said he had a piss fetish with Russians. I'd be anal about the media too if they were running off with stories like that.

I mean, it's not like the media didn't invite that anger and skepticism towards themselves. But it's also sort of a pot/kettle scenario.

So please explain the perspective distortion in the gigapixel image
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/

wow casper, you're an art person, you should know this stuff

*$25,000. I'm pretty sure there weren't any deaths.

I'd be careful about cheering on this news. Reminds me of something from a few months ago

Quote from: Kupo & the Two G-strings on January 17, 2017, 10:06:08 PM

I sure am hyped for Mario Adventure DX

YouTube

i think you mean Mario 2006

What are you talking about? There's no such thing. That never happened.

Baccano!

No tropes, solid animation, great English voice acting (and not just the same Funimation crew), only one season, a story driven by really fuck and unique characters, and a good mix of humor and drama.

YouTube

Edit: nvm, you chose Cowboy Bebop.

Seconded. Baccano is GOAT. Only thing is that it can be confusing at first with everything that goes on.

Flee should watch this if Bebop doesn't work out.

Quote

But the whistleblower said that after Ellard learned who he was, "I was denied an assignment within the NSA inspector general's office of investigations because of my whistleblowing."

I'm not a fan of speculation amidst anonymous sources and ongoing investigation, and this just sounds really odd. I'm failing to see how this means the IG's office wouldn't be considered a "safe, legal, responsible" channel for whistleblowing. So the guy didn't get a job there; maybe he wasn't qualified, or there was some sort of conflict of interest clause? And even if the claim is factual, Snowden's leak was still morally dubious and ill-conceived now that he's living out a self-imposed exile/imprisonment in America's biggest intelligence rival instead of, say, being denied a certain job somewhere. Yeah, fuck a watchdog IG being petty against whistleblowers, but he's out of a job and the process is progressing.

This article goes a little bit more in-depth. Guess I kind of screwed up by not including it in the OP:

The closely held but unclassified finding against Ellard is not public. It was reached by following new whistleblower protections set forth by President Obama in an executive order, Presidential Policy Directive 19. (A President Trump could, in theory, eliminate the order.) Following PPD-19 procedures, a first-ever External Review Panel (ERP) composed of three of the most experienced watchdogs in the US government was convened to examine the issue. The trio -- IG’s of the Justice Department, Treasury, and CIA – overturned an earlier finding of the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG), which investigated Ellard but was unable to substantiate his alleged retaliation.
“The finding against Ellard is extraordinary and unprecedented,” notes Stephen Aftergood, Director of the Secrecy Program at the Federation of American Scientists. “This is the first real test drive for a new process of protecting intelligence whistleblowers. Until now, they’ve been at the mercy of their own agencies, and dependent on the whims of their superiors. This process is supposed to provide them security and a procedural foothold.”
“The case, which is still in progress, offers hopeful signs that the new framework may be working,” Aftergood added.
POGO learned of the decision against Ellard from sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The information was later confirmed by government officials. POGO has been told that mention of the finding will appear in a semiannual report (SAR) of the Intelligence Community IG (ICIG) that should be released in the near future. It makes brief mention of the case without citing Ellard by name.

So we should be getting specifics in a public report sooner or later.

As for your post, though:

The whistleblower, in a brief email to The Associated Press, said that after he raised his concerns, his name was disclosed to Ellard in violation of rules intended to protect government employees who want to report misconduct.

This is a major violation of trust, considering the government claims to be whistleblower-friendly while using a broad interpretation of the Espionage Act to effectively prohibit a sufficient not-guilty defense in court. It's a different culture today than the one that ultimately let Daniel Ellsberg off the hook.

And now, I've never worked for the NSA in any capacity, but it's to my understanding that contractors move up the ladder by taking on assignments. Ellard used information that he wasn't supposed to have in order to effectively sabotage the whistleblower's career.

These kinds of actions do not paint the USG workplace in a positive light. I understand that they operate in shades of gray out of necessity, but oversensitivity to internal criticism and breaking their own rules are not conducive to worker morale or the effectiveness of an organization. And a justified perception of the system being untrustworthy and biased probably encourages whistleblowers to go public.

Also:

And even if the claim is factual, Snowden's leak was still morally dubious and ill-conceived

I'd say that lying under oath to Congress and violating the Fourth Amendment with unchallengeable legal theories in secret courts fits those descriptions decently well. Leaking to the press and destroying the encrypted physical evidence was probably a more reliable way of making changes happen, too.

uh, uh
let's go
get down
rubber duck double double up
guess what

NSA Inspector General George Ellard was promoted by himself and Edward Snowden's detractors as the safe, legal, responsible channel that Snowden was supposed to go through instead of leaking documents to the press.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/1ee704978c1e44a1b80db2e1bfbf109a/nsa-watchdog-leave-whistleblower-case

NSA watchdog on leave in whistleblower case   
By DEB RIECHMANN 
Dec. 19, 2016 5:07 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Allegations of retaliation against a whistleblower at the National Security Agency have left its top watchdog fighting for his job, according to an intelligence official and another individual familiar with the case.

The case could offer some credence to Edward Snowden's claim that he could not have reported the government's domestic surveillance program without facing reprisals.

George Ellard, the NSA's inspector general, was placed on administrative leave after he refused to give the whistleblower a certain job assignment. The Project on Government Oversight, an advocacy group, first reported last week that Adm. Mike Rogers, director of NSA, had placed Ellard on leave and recommended that he be terminated. Ellard is appealing that decision.  Ellard received attention in 2014 for remarks at Georgetown University Law Center criticizing Snowden, the former NSA contractor who had leaked secret documents about the surveillance program. Snowden says he went public because he feared retaliation from his superiors if he had raised his concerns with them. Ellard said at Georgetown that Snowden could have safely come to him.

Ellard's case is the first to move completely through a process created by President Barack Obama in 2012 to ensure that intelligence employees can effectively report waste, fraud and abuse while protecting classified information. The directive prohibits agencies from retaliating against them or taking away security clearances or an employee's access to classified information.

The case stemmed from a whistleblower's claims of financial misconduct by NSA officials involving a conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

The whistleblower, in a brief email to The Associated Press, said that after he raised his concerns, his name was disclosed to Ellard in violation of rules intended to protect government employees who want to report misconduct.

The whistleblower said his email response had been cleared by the NSA. The agency declined to comment independently on the case. Ellard's attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

It's not clear who revealed the whistleblower's identity to Ellard. But the whistleblower said that after Ellard learned who he was, "I was denied an assignment within the NSA inspector general's office of investigations because of my whistleblowing." He sent the email to the AP on condition of anonymity because the case is still active.

Rogers' decision to recommend Ellard's dismissal followed an eight-month investigation by a panel of inspectors general at the CIA, Treasury and Justice Department, according to an intelligence official, who was not authorized to disclose details about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. The trio was empaneled in October 2015 and issued its decision in May.

The Justice and Defense departments declined to comment on the decision.

Louis Clark, director of the Government Accountability Project, said he was happy that the process set up by Obama's directive was finally being used, but expressed disappointment that it has taken so long for it to happen. "It was so slow because the intelligence agencies are extremely hostile to whistleblowing," he said.

The fate of Obama's directive is uncertain. It will be up to Donald Trump, after he becomes president, to decide whether to continue it. Trump has said he doesn't trust the intelligence agencies, but it's not clear if that would make him more or less likely to protect whistleblowers.

Timothy Edgar, Obama's first director of privacy and civil liberties for the White House national security staff, says there is cause for serious concern about the future of whistleblowers.

"What we're left with, I think, is probably primarily the integrity and bravery of people in the bureaucracy, who, despite those obstacles are willing to say 'no' if they are involved in activities that they think are serious violations of the Constitution," Edgar said.
___

Associated Press writer Eileen Sullivan contributed to this story.

hacked election

Let me stop you right there

Russia possibly interfered with intrusions into the DNC and John Podesta's emails, but whoever it was did not manipulate vote tallies or anything else that would qualify as "hacking the election."

Quote from: Kupo & the Two G-strings on January 12, 2017, 11:08:00 PM

BREATH OF THE WILD MARCH 3, 2017 AS A LAUNCH TITLE

ALSO

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

old dude apparently confirmed for King of Hyrule

He looked almost exactly like the King of Red Lions in the first gameplay reveal.

but now we know for sure

Trade deals is something I can agree with. I still don't "like" him because I don't have jello morality. Most of his policies are still abominable.

Namely, his proposed "Drain the swamp" policies

You say that, and yet:

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely things I legitimately dislike about on Trump, such as ... his business conflicts of interest

That's a tacit acknowledgement that he's not, in fact, 'draining the swamp.' Ethics be damned. He's doing the exact opposite of """""draining the swamp""""" Don't normalize this because you like the name of it. He is not fulfilling his promise in any observable capacity.

but when the media chimps out over every frivolous Tweet and even goes so far as to use literal fanfiction in their desperate attempts to discredit his presidency, it makes it a lot easier to gloss over Trump's flaws because the MSM has become so cancerous.

Not really. No! Stop using this bullshit false equivalency. The media's actions does not make Trump any less abhorrent whatsoever. It's possible for them *both* to be awful. It's not a tug of war, so stop treating it like one.

There's a number of reasons to take the dossier with some skepticism:

Among them, dispute over whether or not Trump was actually shown the document:

President-elect Donald Trump was not told about unverified reports that Russia has compromising information on him during last week's intelligence briefing, according to a senior intelligence official with knowledge of preparations for the briefing.

A summary of the unverified reports was prepared as background material for the briefing, but not discussed during the meeting, the official said.

There's a "he said, she said" nature to the claims, too:

The appendix summarized opposition research memos prepared mainly by a retired British intelligence operative for a Washington political and corporate research firm. The firm was paid for its work first by Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals and later by supporters of Mrs. Clinton. The Times has checked on a number of the details included in the memos but has been unable to substantiate them.

The former British intelligence officer who gathered the material about Mr. Trump is considered a competent and reliable operative with extensive experience in Russia, American officials said. But he passed on what he heard from Russian informants and others, and what they told him has not yet been vetted by American intelligence.

In particular, Cohen has denied ever going to Prague, and the FBI did not find evidence to the contrary:

Among the allegations, contained in a set of confidential memos written by the former official, are that Mr. Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, met with Kremlin officials and discussed how to arrange cash payments to hackers working under Moscow’s direction against the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. The FBI has found no evidence that he traveled to the Czech Republic, where the meeting allegedly took place in August of last year, officials said.

Mr. Cohen, in an interview, denied any such meeting. He said in an interview Tuesday evening that he had never been contacted by the FBI or any other U.S. agency on these issues. He said Mr. Trump has also not contacted him about them. Mr. Cohen said he previously knew about the allegations because he had been contacted about them by journalists.

And as the Guardian points out:

Despite glowing references from US and foreign officials who have worked with the source, there are some errors in the reports. One describes the Moscow suburb of Barvikha as “reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates”, but although it is a very expensive neighbourhood, there are no restrictions on who can own property there. The document also misspells the name of a Russian banking corporation.

I haven't bothered to read the dossier, but to my understanding it's littered with many errors like the one above.

It's telling that the dossier was shopped around to various outlets for months, but most of them thought it didn't add up:

Back in October, a political operative and former employee of the British intelligence agency MI6 was being paid by Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump (before that, he was paid by anti-Trump Republicans). He tried to convince countless media outlets to publish a long memo he had written filled with explosive accusations about Trump’s treason, business corruption and sexual escapades, with the overarching theme that Trump was in servitude to Moscow because they were blackmailing and bribing him.

Despite how many had it, no media outlets published it. That was because these were anonymous claims unaccompanied by any evidence at all, and even in this more permissive new media environment, nobody was willing to be journalistically associated with it. As the New York Times’ Executive Editor Dean Baquet put it last night, he would not publish these “totally unsubstantiated” allegations because “we, like others, investigated the allegations and haven’t corroborated them, and we felt we’re not in the business of publishing things we can’t stand by.”

The closest this operative got to success was convincing Mother Jones’s David Corn to publish an October 31 article reporting that “a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country” claims that “he provided the [FBI] with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump.”

This ridiculous story doesn't bode well for the resistance...

The Atlantic, that I quoted earlier in this thread:

But the danger is demonstrated with Trump’s “FAKE NEWS” rebuttal. When serious and conscientious outlets publish information for whose veracity they cannot vouch, they make it easy for critics of the press to brand all reporting with which they disagree as simply “fake news.”

If the Trump dossier does prove to be full of inaccuracies, it will resurface in debate every time a credible and supported allegation about Trump emerges. Carefully vetted stories will be rejected by partisans who will haul up the haste to post a damaging dossier as proof that no reporting can really be trusted.

The Intercept:

Most important of all, the legitimate and effective tactics for opposing Trump are being utterly drowned by these irrational, desperate, ad hoc crusades that have no cogent strategy and make his opponents appear increasingly devoid of reason and gravity. Right now, Trump’s opponents are behaving as media critic Adam Johnson described: as ideological jelly fish, floating around aimlessly and lost, desperately latching on to whatever barge randomly passes by.

There are solutions to Trump. They involve reasoned strategizing and patient focus on issues people actually care about. Whatever those solutions are, venerating the intelligence community, begging for its intervention, and equating their dark and dirty assertions as Truth are most certainly not among them. Doing that cannot possibly achieve any good, and is already doing much harm.

The report is fishy for various reasons--among them, an anonymous former intel agent wrote a report about stuff other anonymous people told him; the IC did not vet the claims; the report was shopped around to various outlets, including Mother Jones; and a number of the claims are outlandish, if not blatantly false:


Do I think BuzzFeed should have published this report? I don't know yet. But folks should be extremely wary of believing things they want to be true.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/fake-news-buzzfeed-cnn-fall-trump-piss-story-4chan-prank/

That was unreadable. It's the kind of unhinged, atrocious """""journalism""""" that gives one a heavily distorted picture of reality.

I don't yet know how much I agree with this piece, but these paragraphs near the bottom sum up my reasons for disliking what you posted:

But the danger is demonstrated with Trump’s “FAKE NEWS” rebuttal. When serious and conscientious outlets publish information for whose veracity they cannot vouch, they make it easy for critics of the press to brand all reporting with which they disagree as simply “fake news.”

If the Trump dossier does prove to be full of inaccuracies, it will resurface in debate every time a credible and supported allegation about Trump emerges. Carefully vetted stories will be rejected by partisans who will haul up the haste to post a damaging dossier as proof that no reporting can really be trusted.

*too

Adding to this:

Why Corporations Are Helping Donald Trump Lie About Jobs

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
JAN. 2, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump would like everybody to believe that his election is energizing the economy by forcing businesses to create thousands of jobs in the United States. And companies like Sprint seem perfectly happy to go along with this fiction because they know they can profit handsomely by cozying up to Mr. Trump.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said Sprint’s top executive had told him the company would add 5,000 jobs “because of what’s happening and the spirit and the hope.” But it turns out that the jobs are part of a previous commitment by Sprint’s parent company, SoftBank, whose chief executive said at Trump Tower in December that it would invest $50 billion and create 50,000 jobs in the United States. And even that promise was part of a $100 billion technology fund that SoftBank announced in October, before the election. In sum, Mr. Trump’s statement was hot air, just like his tweet in which he thanked himself for an increase in a consumer confidence index last month.

It’s easy to see why SoftBank and Sprint might want to help Mr. Trump take credit for creating jobs. SoftBank’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, wants the Department of Justice’s antitrust division and the Federal Communications Commission to allow a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile. In 2014 regulators appointed by President Obama made clear to Mr. Son that they would not approve such a transaction because it would cut the number of national wireless companies to three, from four, greatly reducing competition in a concentrated industry. Mr. Son sees a new opening for his deal in Mr. Trump, who has surrounded himself with people who have sided with large telecommunications companies in regulatory debates and have argued against tough antitrust enforcement.

This is crony capitalism, with potentially devastating consequences. If Mr. Trump appoints people to the antitrust division and the F.C.C. who are willing to wave through a Sprint/T-Mobile merger, he will do lasting damage to the economy that far outweighs any benefit from 5,000 jobs, jobs that might have been created even without the merger. Individuals and businesses will find wireless service costs a lot more when they have only Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile/Sprint to choose from.

In addition, a combined Sprint and T-Mobile would inevitably cut thousands of jobs as executives merge the companies’ networks, stores, billing systems, customer service departments and so on. That has happened time and again after big telecom deals. When AT&T was acquiring BellSouth in 2006, executives said they expected to cut 10,000 jobs after the deal closed in December of that year. Since then AT&T has also acquired DirecTV. At the end of September, AT&T employed 273,000 people around the world, down from 309,000 in 2007.

It has become abundantly clear that Mr. Trump is easily distracted by shiny objects, especially if they reflect back on him. He’s more interested in boasting about how he personally saved a thousand jobs at Carrier, say, than in policy details that could make a difference in the lives of tens of millions of workers. Never mind that Carrier is only keeping about 800 jobs and that its chief executive said that the company would get rid of some of those anyway through automation. This should greatly worry Americans, especially people who are counting on Mr. Trump to revive the economy and help the middle class.