Bernie/Biden task force presents suggestions

[Eacaraxe]

No, the republicans didn't do what they said they would do...

Yeah if you think that's just about COVID you haven't been paying attention. Republicans have been playing "starve the beast" for decades while playing corporate protectionist and favoritist games, exactly as they promised. You can claim they lied about what the outcome of those policies would be until you're blue in the face, but at the end of the day they said what they were going to do and they followed through.

And Democrats did fuck-all to stop them. Democrats voted for it, while whinging about Republicans and promising otherwise. Hell, the lions' share of it throughout the '90s, which was the genesis of each and every problem the US finds itself faced against today, was the Democrats' idea.

End of story.

Public hospitals are already tax payer funded and protecting the hospitals and the people within from enemies foreign and domestic is part of the requirements set forth by the constitution as a duty of the federal government.

Mayhaps the HITECH Act should have had actual oversight of fund distribution and regulatory standards for best infosec practices, rather than being a $40 billion pork mountain for the health care industry and tech sector that included a backdoor to HIPAA, then. EHR vendors were the parties balls-deep in Poochie rather than doing their damn jobs providing secure records systems, and EHR vendors should be the parties to clean up their act and shoulder the fiscal responsibility.

 

[Avnger]

3. Imagine defending CISA in a world in which Edward Snowden exists.

Why should taxpayers be held fiscally liable for the failure of EHR vendors to secure their systems as contractually obliged? Taxpayers have been the ones footing private corporations' bills to contract with private corporations to implement EHR systems in the first place. As far as I'm concerned this is another case of "privatize profit, socialize risk and cost".

Mayhaps the HITECH Act should have had actual oversight of fund distribution and regulatory standards for best infosec practices, rather than being a $40 billion pork mountain for the health care industry and tech sector that included a backdoor to HIPAA, then. EHR vendors were the parties balls-deep in Poochie rather than doing their damn jobs providing secure records systems, and EHR vendors should be the parties to clean up their act and shoulder the fiscal responsibility.

It would have been easier to just say "Democrats bad" than diving so deep into a topic you clearly know nothing about just to use it as a rhetorical cudgel in your anti-liberal rants. If I didn't know from previous posts that you both don't actually care about the issue and would ignore anything that doesn't further your entrenched beliefs (aside: Do you actually believe in anything or do you truly just live to be against things as your posts indicate?), I'd write a full post with details and links, but what's the point?

And when I say "clearly know nothing about", I don't just mean in the usual "making rhetorical arguments without any evidence" way but in the "Trump proposes fighting hurricanes with nuclear weapons" manner.

 

[SupahEwok]

If I didn't know from previous posts that you both don't actually care about the issue and would ignore anything that doesn't further your entrenched beliefs (aside: Do you actually believe in anything or do you truly just live to be against things as your posts indicate?), I'd write a full post with details and links, but what's the point?

I don't believe that to be an accurate statement. Approximately 80% of posts you write are dismissive put-downs against people and institutions you disagree with, containing minimum to no discussion value. Probability dictates that the odds of you writing such a post as you've proposed are worryingly bad. Admittedly, not quite as bad as the odds that you'll hold Scratch and Sniff Joe to the same moral standard as Grab 'Em by the Pussy Donald.

 

[Worgen]

It would have been easier to just say "Democrats bad" than diving so deep into a topic you clearly know nothing about just to use it as a rhetorical cudgel in your anti-liberal rants. If I didn't know from previous posts that you both don't actually care about the issue and would ignore anything that doesn't further your entrenched beliefs (aside: Do you actually believe in anything or do you truly just live to be against things as your posts indicate?), I'd write a full post with details and links, but what's the point?

And when I say "clearly know nothing about", I don't just mean in the usual "making rhetorical arguments without any evidence" way but in the "Trump proposes fighting hurricanes with nuclear weapons" manner.

That's why I stopped responding to him. Well, that and it was getting really hard to not say something that would get me a warning/ban.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I don't believe that to be an accurate statement. Approximately 80% of posts you write are dismissive put-downs against people and institutions you disagree with, containing minimum to no discussion value. Probability dictates that the odds of you writing such a post as you've proposed are worryingly bad. Admittedly, not quite as bad as the odds that you'll hold Scratch and Sniff Joe to the same moral standard as Grab 'Em by the Pussy Donald.

Ask him who developed the software toolkit used to target and attack hospitals' EHR systems between 2016-2017 (the time of the attacks originally cited), if he knows so much about it.

 

[Avnger]

I don't believe that to be an accurate statement. Approximately 80% of posts you write are dismissive put-downs against people and institutions you disagree with, containing minimum to no discussion value. Probability dictates that the odds of you writing such a post as you've proposed are worryingly bad. Admittedly, not quite as bad as the odds that you'll hold Scratch and Sniff Joe to the same moral standard as Grab 'Em by the Pussy Donald.

I mean you're right with your first point. I don't often write expansive heavily researched posts for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there are users on this forum who are much, much better at it than I am (Silvanus, Lil Devil, Agema, and several others) and usually end up covering largely what I would have said anyway. Secondly, I simply don't have the patience for dealing with (what I consider) bullshit. It's a personal failing of mine, but accusatory and insulting language come much easier to me than paragraphs of rhetoric, and my initial response to many posts is "Is this person <intelligence-based insulting adjective>?" I've learned that it's often better to not post at all or focus on a single particular point that can be proven incorrect to avoid my worst impulses and the inevitable resulting moderator action against me.

For your second point, I do hold Biden to the same moral standard as Trump. Biden is, largely, a bad person, yet Trump is on an entirely different scale.

1a. Biden has a deeply worrying "handsy" approach to women. He's also been accused by a single woman of sexual assault (though her story is not exactly the most believable and has changed several times in its telling).
1b. Trump has 26 accusations of sexual assault, has bragged about sexually assaulting women on mic, has a history of purposely walking unannounced into underage girls changing rooms during beauty pageants, and has a history with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

2a. Biden has a noticeable case of what I tend to call "Old Person Racism." In the 80s/90s he worked on crime bills in Congress that resulted in extremely disproportionate impacts to minorities and was on the wrong side of other similar issues (busing iirc). He also has a tendency to occasionally say unnecessarily and stupidly racist things (the "You're not black if you don't vote for me" thing comes immediately to mind).
2b. Trump is an "active racist." Wikipedia has an entire page on it, so I'll leave the link as it details things much better than I would. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump#Presidency

If you'd like, I could continue these comparisons. Feel free to name a category.

Ask him who developed the software toolkit used to target and attack hospitals' EHR systems between 2016-2017 (the time of the attacks originally cited), if he knows so much about it.

Depends on which toolkit we're talking about. 2016-2017 were record years for ransomware attacks. Though you're likely talking about the US government created ones, in which case I have to ask so what? No shit the NSA et al are going to try and develop attacks for every software system; that's literally the reason for their existence.

You've also very blatantly ignored what I was calling out to go on a tangent, but that's kind of expected.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Depends on which toolkit we're talking about. 2016-2017 were record years for ransomware attacks. Though you're likely talking about the US government created ones, in which case I have to ask so what? No shit the NSA et al are going to try and develop attacks for every software system; that's literally the reason for their existence.

"So what"? The NSA sat on EternalBlue for five years, and only disclosed the vulnerability to Microsoft after it had been in the wild a year and been the basis for multiple large-scale attacks. It's an infosec and intelligence agency that apparently provides neither infosec nor intelligence, and somehow its toolkit just keeps falling into hostile actors' hands despite supposedly being the most informationally secure and operationally competent agency on the planet. "So what", my ass.

You've also very blatantly ignored what I was calling out to go on a tangent, but that's kind of expected.

Okay, which part do you take issue with?

 

[Agema]

"So what"? The NSA sat on EternalBlue for five years, and only disclosed the vulnerability to Microsoft after it had been in the wild a year and been the basis for multiple large-scale attacks. It's an infosec and intelligence agency that apparently provides neither infosec nor intelligence, and somehow its toolkit just keeps falling into hostile actors' hands despite supposedly being the most informationally secure and operationally competent agency on the planet. "So what", my ass.

If Edward Snowden tells us anything, it's that the US intelligence services are a lot less secure than we might like to think.

But then, who is? It's not like the UK services haven't fluffed up. And Russia's once-mighty services are looking pretty ropy: it's embarrassing to get two of your agents unmasked on international news for an assassination op, together with schoolboy errors (their consecutive passport numbers) which allowed even amateur internet denizens to identify about another 300 likely spies because their fake passports were also consecutive.

 

[Eacaraxe]

If Edward Snowden tells us anything, it's that the US intelligence services are a lot less secure than we might like to think.

"Secure" isn't exactly the term I'd use, but yeah.

 

[Seanchaidh]

If Edward Snowden tells us anything, it's that the US intelligence services are a lot less secure than we might like to think.

Praying you are correct. US 'intelligence' agencies are the enemy.

 

[Silvanus]

This is a "but Trump!" free zone, thanks. We're talking about Democratic policy positions, versus Democratic rhetoric, past behavior, and predictability of future behavior.

As long as we're discussing party platforms and the strategies the Democrats should take in an election, then we're necessarily talking about the other options in that election as well. You cannot divorce an electoral candidate's platform from the election.

Biden voted for a year-long freeze in social security spending increases in 1984 (except to cover new recipients). A supremely shitty thing to do, and pretty much the worst thing he's done with regards to social security. He also voted in favour of increasing benefits in 1973, & voted against cuts in 2003. His record is mixed, with a fair bit of shitty stuff in there.

So, say we judge him purely on record and not on his platform, and even then if we assume his actions will solely reflect the worst things he's ever done in his career, what do we come to? The increase between 1984-5 & 1985-6 was approximately 2.9 billion (adjusted for inflation). There were approximately 300,000 new recipients yearly between 1980 & 1985, and freeze exempted payments for new recipients. With some back-of-an-envelope maths, that number of new recipients would seem to me to account for almost 280 million.

So Biden's effective proposed 1984, if we adjust for inflation, may have come to about 2.9 billion - 280 million. The cut didn't come to pass, so this is (unavoidably) based on various assumptions, but the figures are there. It would have come to about 2.6 - 2.7 billion.

In an election, are we to look at this in isolation? Or are we to compare it with the only other option: an 800 billion cut over 10 years?

If your only intention is to point and say, "Biden wanted to freeze social security, what a dickhead", then go ahead: that's entirely true, and he is a dickhead. But we're in a thread talking about an election.

 

[Silvanus]

[Pt2, Split due to character limit]

Yes, policy positions and actions very much are. They're just not the same demographic Democrats appeal to with platforms.

Which is my point. Allow me to make myself beyond clear: the Democratic platform is a deliberately-constructed series of lies and straw-man positions to extract votes from stupid people. Clear enough?

Clarity was never the issue. You really should get over the condescending idea that just need to explain it to the proles. I understand you perfectly; this is a dispute, not a lesson.

You mean this?

If you genuinely believe that the self-sabotage within the UK Labour party fully explains its historically enormous defeat, then I'm really not surprised you have that prime real estate in Montana you mentioned earlier. I imagine you paid a fair bit for it.

Hope in one hand, shit in the other. See which gets filled first.

Uh-huh. In this case, of course, the people "hoping" are Sanders and AOC, people with a much more astute understanding of how to actually accomplish anything than you or I. Please tell me more about how the historied 13-year Senator and 16-year Representative is naively hopeful about how to get things done, but the random forum-poster knows better.

No shit. So why are Democrats relying exclusively on disproven metrics to fuel disproven electoral strategy, with the same discredited strategists and policy elites behind the helm, hiding behind a provable bad-faith platform while simultaneously tacking right to appeal to demos that don't exist?

At the end of the day, we're not talking about hypotheticals, we're talking about history. You haven't been "presented with" anything, because you're refusing to look.

I can't really answer a question based on such enormously leading premises. Besides which, the question veers off into the usual rhetoric and away from the specific point under discussion: History doesn't provide evidence that "low info moderates" are locked-in Democratic voters.

(...and you were arguing very recently that this was only really relevant post-2016 due to the shift in demographics, so I'm not sure why you're now appealing to history rather than hypotheticals).

You going to argue cable news viewers aren't politically polarized?

Not exclusively towards the Democrats, they're not, obviously. And not all of them.

 

[Agema]

Praying you are correct. US 'intelligence' agencies are the enemy.

They can be. But if they weren't doing their job in certain ways, you'd be getting a lot more negative experiences of plenty of other enemies.

 

[Eacaraxe]

As long as we're discussing party platforms and the strategies the Democrats should take in an election, then we're necessarily talking about the other options in that election as well. You cannot divorce an electoral candidate's platform from the election.

Considering the news coming out of the DNC platform committee today -- having soundly rejected support for M4A, marijuana legalization, and BDS, among others despite those being majority-held positions within the party -- you really sure you want to double down on this statement right now?

Biden voted for a year-long freeze in social security spending increases in 1984...

That's nice. Funny you want to direct the conversation to social security as opposed to...

...Garn-St. German, DIDMCA, ERTA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and his authorship of the bankruptcy bill...

...NAFTA...

...the Telecoms Act and DMCA...

...the crime bill and Sentencing Act of '87...

...or Iraq, Afghanistan, FISA, and the PATRIOT Act.

I mean those are just the bum votes I can name off the top of my head. I can probably find more which make him a complete non-starter based on past behavior.

If you genuinely believe that the self-sabotage within the UK Labour party fully explains its historically enormous defeat, then I'm really not surprised you have that prime real estate in Montana you mentioned earlier. I imagine you paid a fair bit for it.

No, I'm pointing out you're grossly oversimplifying and misapplying all blame to the party's left flank in a scenario in which a party's right flank is just as culpable if not much more so. I consider the scenario somewhat akin to the 1972 US presidential election, wherein for the first time in history people other than rich, straight, white, older men got a say in the platform and nominee, to which the vestiges of the ancien regime threw a tantrum, took their ball, went home, and set the party ablaze on their way out.

Uh-huh. In this case, of course, the people "hoping" are Sanders and AOC, people with a much more astute understanding of how to actually accomplish anything than you or I. Please tell me more about how the historied 13-year Senator and 16-year Representative is naively hopeful about how to get things done, but the random forum-poster knows better.

You mean the guy whose own Congressional caucus freezes him out, and has to work through amendments to get policy through? The one whose attacks were "centered" on his "inability" to pass anything in Congress, and unlikelihood of being able to pass his agenda as President? That guy?

Don't "but Bernie" me. He's not the nominee. Bernie is no longer relevant to conversation about the Presidential election. Biden is the nominee.

And AOC's going to get gerrymandered out of her seat next year, mark my words. Her and Bowman. The only reason they were able to win in the first place was down to last decade's gerrymandering. New York state's had that fix in for six years, let alone after the strike-down of the VRA's redistricting requirements. Democrats aren't going to allow a single district to exist in which a progressive can primary an incumbent.

I can't really answer a question based on such enormously leading premises.

This isn't a thread about Hillary's re-election, is it? I didn't wake up into an alternate dimension this morning in which her campaign didn't lean excessively on her husband's incompetent toadies, didn't defraud state parties of critical funding, didn't ignore swing states until it was too late, didn't offend voters across the country, acted magnanimously towards Bernie and his supporters and didn't alienate them, and thereby went on to beat Trump? The pundits and poll aggregators who were giving Hillary 90%+ odds of winning the Presidency up until about 9pm on election night, and all those polls still showing Hillary leading in swing states she'd need to win, turned out to be correct after all?

Besides which, the question veers off into the usual rhetoric and away from the specific point under discussion: History doesn't provide evidence that "low info moderates" are locked-in Democratic voters.

No, just your deliberate misconstruction of my argument.

Not exclusively towards the Democrats, they're not, obviously. And not all of them.

Quit fucking around and trying to say "both sides". Are cable news viewers politically polarized or not?

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Considering the news coming out of the DNC platform committee today -- having soundly rejected support for M4A, marijuana legalization, and BDS, among others despite those being majority-held positions within the party -- you really sure you want to double down on this statement right now?


That's nice. Funny you want to direct the conversation to social security as opposed to...

...Garn-St. German, DIDMCA, ERTA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and his authorship of the bankruptcy bill...

...NAFTA...

...the Telecoms Act and DMCA...

...the crime bill and Sentencing Act of '87...

...or Iraq, Afghanistan, FISA, and the PATRIOT Act.

I mean those are just the bum votes I can name off the top of my head. I can probably find more which make him a complete non-starter based on past behavior.


No, I'm pointing out you're grossly oversimplifying and misapplying all blame to the party's left flank in a scenario in which a party's right flank is just as culpable if not much more so. I consider the scenario somewhat akin to the 1972 US presidential election, wherein for the first time in history people other than rich, straight, white, older men got a say in the platform and nominee, to which the vestiges of the ancien regime threw a tantrum, took their ball, went home, and set the party ablaze on their way out.


You mean the guy whose own Congressional caucus freezes him out, and has to work through amendments to get policy through? The one whose attacks were "centered" on his "inability" to pass anything in Congress, and unlikelihood of being able to pass his agenda as President? That guy?

Don't "but Bernie" me. He's not the nominee. Bernie is no longer relevant to conversation about the Presidential election. Biden is the nominee.

And AOC's going to get gerrymandered out of her seat next year, mark my words. Her and Bowman. The only reason they were able to win in the first place was down to last decade's gerrymandering. New York state's had that fix in for six years, let alone after the strike-down of the VRA's redistricting requirements. Democrats aren't going to allow a single district to exist in which a progressive can primary an incumbent.


This isn't a thread about Hillary's re-election, is it? I didn't wake up into an alternate dimension this morning in which her campaign didn't lean excessively on her husband's incompetent toadies, didn't defraud state parties of critical funding, didn't ignore swing states until it was too late, didn't offend voters across the country, acted magnanimously towards Bernie and his supporters and didn't alienate them, and thereby went on to beat Trump? The pundits and poll aggregators who were giving Hillary 90%+ odds of winning the Presidency up until about 9pm on election night, and all those polls still showing Hillary leading in swing states she'd need to win, turned out to be correct after all?


No, just your deliberate misconstruction of my argument.


Quit fucking around and trying to say "both sides". Are cable news viewers politically polarized or not?

Escaraxe, you seem to have a very different perspective on things compared to others in your political group. I'm curious why that is.

 

[SupahEwok]

Escaraxe, you seem to have a very different perspective on things compared to others in your political group. I'm curious why that is.

You may want to clarify what you're referring to as his "political group": leftists or socialists.

 

[Silvanus]

Considering the news coming out of the DNC platform committee today -- having soundly rejected support for M4A, marijuana legalization, and BDS, among others despite those being majority-held positions within the party -- you really sure you want to double down on this statement right now?

On the statement that if we're talking about platforms and electoral strategies, we cannot divorce that from the election? Well, yes; that's not in any way counteracted by whatever nonsense the DNC has come out with. It doesn't even address it.

That's nice. Funny you want to direct the conversation to social security as opposed to...

...Garn-St. German, DIDMCA, ERTA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and his authorship of the bankruptcy bill...

...NAFTA...

...the Telecoms Act and DMCA...

...the crime bill and Sentencing Act of '87...

...or Iraq, Afghanistan, FISA, and the PATRIOT Act.

I mean those are just the bum votes I can name off the top of my head. I can probably find more which make him a complete non-starter based on past behavior.

I referred towards social security because that's the topic that's often cited on this forum as evidence of Biden being equivalent to Trump.

If you don't want to talk about the election, then I have to ask why you're sitting here listing a bunch of shitty things Biden has done? Entirely divorced from the question of whether we should vote for him, are you just trying to convince me he's a shitty politician whose record doesn't match his rhetoric?

Because... I'm not disputing that, and never have been. My argument is surrounding electoral choices. And how if you take the balance of his shoddy record, it doesn't come close to matching the sheer monstrousness of the only other option in that choice.

No, I'm pointing out you're grossly oversimplifying and misapplying all blame to the party's left flank in a scenario in which a party's right flank is just as culpable if not much more so. I consider the scenario somewhat akin to the 1972 US presidential election, wherein for the first time in history people other than rich, straight, white, older men got a say in the platform and nominee, to which the vestiges of the ancien regime threw a tantrum, took their ball, went home, and set the party ablaze on their way out.

If you think I'm "applying all blame to the party's left flank", you're not actually paying attention to what I'm arguing. That's not even close to my position.

The party made a strategic miscalculation. It wasn't the sole factor in their loss, and throughout the campaign I'd say the economic right-wing within the Labour Party acted generally worse than the "left-flank", though Corbyn's personal supporters did exhibit an unpleasant unwillingness to look at themselves.

But I am on the left flank, for crying out loud. Are we really at the point where even trying to analyse the strategic and demographic reasons for failure is seen as evidence of betrayal and disloyalty?!

You mean the guy whose own Congressional caucus freezes him out, and has to work through amendments to get policy through? The one whose attacks were "centered" on his "inability" to pass anything in Congress, and unlikelihood of being able to pass his agenda as President? That guy?

Don't "but Bernie" me. He's not the nominee. Bernie is no longer relevant to conversation about the Presidential election. Biden is the nominee.

And AOC's going to get gerrymandered out of her seat next year, mark my words. Her and Bowman. The only reason they were able to win in the first place was down to last decade's gerrymandering. New York state's had that fix in for six years, let alone after the strike-down of the VRA's redistricting requirements. Democrats aren't going to allow a single district to exist in which a progressive can primary an incumbent.

Yes, that guy. He's trying to actually accomplish something through the only system through which anything can currently be accomplished; I'd say that decades of actual political experience have given him some appreciation for the fact that it's a more effective method than encouraging people to write-in "revolution" on their ballots.

This isn't a thread about Hillary's re-election, is it? I didn't wake up into an alternate dimension this morning in which her campaign didn't lean excessively on her husband's incompetent toadies, didn't defraud state parties of critical funding, didn't ignore swing states until it was too late, didn't offend voters across the country, acted magnanimously towards Bernie and his supporters and didn't alienate them, and thereby went on to beat Trump? The pundits and poll aggregators who were giving Hillary 90%+ odds of winning the Presidency up until about 9pm on election night, and all those polls still showing Hillary leading in swing states she'd need to win, turned out to be correct after all?

Nope! And you didn't wake up in an alternate dimension in which the 2016 election validates all of your own conclusions through selective description, either.

Quit fucking around and trying to say "both sides". Are cable news viewers politically polarized or not?

The closest thing I can come to a single-word answer is "generally".

But necessary context isn't "fucking around". A much more solid and demonstrable statement would be; "cable news viewers are not locked-in Democrats". Most of everything since then has been a protracted tangent from that original false assumption.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

You may want to clarify what you're referring to as his "political group": leftists or socialists.

Socialists.

 

[Worgen]

Socialists.

Really, I was sure you were talking about *redacted*

 

[Agema]

The party made a strategic miscalculation. It wasn't the sole factor in their loss, and throughout the campaign I'd say the economic right-wing within the Labour Party acted generally worse than the "left-flank", though Corbyn's personal supporters did exhibit an unpleasant unwillingness to look at themselves.

Or look at their party leader, who was manifestly not up to the task. Almost a bit like all his opponents in the party were right when they pointed this out back in 2015.

I'm not saying all the schisms and shittiness they engaged in subsequently were fair or justified, but the biggest problem with the 2017 election conspiracy is that it provided the perfect excuse for lots of his supporters to pretend he wasn't catastrophically flawed.

But it's the same sort of thing. People not prepared to really stare reality in the face because it's harsh, uncompromising, and depressing. It's easier to think of betrayals, and disloyalty, and any reason under the sun why it's "unfair" rather than they just didn't have what it took.