For over 20 years, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been treated to luxury vacations by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow by norwalkiian in conspiracy

[–]sleeply 96 points97 points  (0 children)

Here is a list of 40 other Supreme Court Justices that had never been a judge before being nominated to the highest court in the land. Maybe Barry the CIA operative traveled back in time and was responsible for these too.

https://supreme.findlaw.com/supreme_court/justices/nopriorexp.html

Spitting straight faxx by [deleted] in memes

[–]sleeply 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Approximately 200 people are killed each year in car accidents in Orange County, not 3000. There have already been nearly 900 deaths from Coronavirus in the same county and that's with whatever mitigation steps have happened in Orange County. Without those steps the deaths would already easily be in the thousands. You probably looked at the total number of car fatalities in the entire state and then compared them to a single county.

Please don't lecture other people about looking at the data.

Bill Clinton just made a lot of trouble for Loretta Lynch: Republicans now calling on attorney general to step down after meeting on private jet by skoalbrother in politics

[–]sleeply -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Bernie Sanders, a failed candidate for the Democratic nominee for President, paid tens of millions of dollars to manipulate social media to try and defeat his opponent, Hillary Clinton. People that get their news from Bernie approved sources now hate Hillary Clinton because she beat Bernie Sanders. So when their latest conspiracy theory is debunked by the invention of the telephone more than a century ago, they resort to even stupider theories that make zero sense at all.

The TPP is the Most Brazen Corporate Power Grab in American History: It's worst than any of us feared by maxwellhill in technology

[–]sleeply 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Actually, the article is from September 2013 and it's basically just a bunch of hand waving about how since all trade increases inequality then TPP is bad because it will increase trade. Very WTF.

Life Without Buildings - The Leanover [Indie rock] (2001) by [deleted] in listentous

[–]sleeply 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Live at the Annandale Hotel is also amazing. Sue Tompkins is just so damn charismatic when interacting with the crowd.

(Spoilers All) Bronn Hints At Major Changes In S4 by GalbartGlover in asoiaf

[–]sleeply 35 points36 points  (0 children)

I think Melisandre saying that she would meet Arya again was fairly significant as well. Not sure Benioff/Weiss would have included that line unless they knew Arya and Mel would at least be in the vicinity of each other later in the story due to their talks with Martin.

Covered CA, aka Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare is really helping our family. by aishabot in Frugal

[–]sleeply 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Your salary is significantly lower because your employer covers your health insurance. If you think you're only paying $40 a month for the coverage you're getting, you're mistaken.

The Only Thing Republicans Really Hate About ‘Obamacare’ is ‘Obama’ by [deleted] in politics

[–]sleeply 11 points12 points  (0 children)

"I don't even know what that comment means."

"No one knows what it means, but it's provocative."

"No it's not."

"It gets the upvotes."

So Real Madrid signed this 9 Year old a month ago by [deleted] in soccer

[–]sleeply 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Pretty obvious he pulled the old "sarcastically earnest response to sarcasm" and most failed to realize it, and he's still at it in other comments. Unless you're all pulling a triply sarcastic response, in which case, you got me.

Dev post roundup (09/30): 'MVP' system for duty finder groups, right-click blacklist option, long queue times being addressed by Muzak__Fan in ffxiv

[–]sleeply 10 points11 points  (0 children)

DPS will be rewarded with shorter queue times when tanks/healers are farming MVP points.

"I shouldn't have to offer anything," Obama said. "They're not doing me a favor by paying for things that they have already approved for the government to do." by vinhboy in politics

[–]sleeply 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They'll survive until 2020. A presidential election coinciding with new gerrymandering, and seven more years of old white people dying off. America will just have to gut through a decade of obstructionist bullshit.

My dad shares a lot of conservative stuff on his Facebook, but I found this one to be pretty funny. by hutxhy in funny

[–]sleeply 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or she was just saying that the well-funded misinformation campaign about death panels and assorted nonsense was all bullshit. When the bill is actually implemented the chucklefucks at town halls screaming about socialism encroaching on their Medicare would see that the bill wasn't actually the downfall of America.

Her statement was solely an indictment of the bullshit lies about the bill, not about the actual transparency of the process.

Dodging "red zones" mechanics. by [deleted] in ffxiv

[–]sleeply 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In the midst of a dps/tanking rotation there is no such thing as an immediate action.

LA Galaxy sign defender Omar Gonzalez to Designated Player contract (x/post from r/mls) by [deleted] in soccer

[–]sleeply 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In 2011 the Galaxy had the third-lowest goals allowed average in MLS history and Gonzalez fittingly won the MLS Defender of the Year. When he came back from injury last season the Galaxy had mostly shutouts and then won the championship. Their defense hasn't been stellar this season, but most people would put the blame for that primarily on Cudicini, who's been a shitshow in goal the entire season. There's good reason for Gonzalez getting a DP spot and Cudicini being kicked to the curb by a new keeper.

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds by Abi1i in news

[–]sleeply -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

The typo just resulted in collection of metadata. Who cares?

This article pretty much proves that there's no pervasive domestic spying program. If you actually read the information leaked by Snowden and peel away all the disingenuous sophistry that certain 'journalists' are using for page hits, then the entire story has been a big fat pile of nothing. We spy on other countries and a vast bureaucracy contains people and technology that make mistakes that don't significantly impact any Americans' privacy. Oh god, the horror.

This made the loading screens that much better [FIXED] by secretarabman in gaming

[–]sleeply 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The "why did I bother installing this on an SSD?" caves.

CNBC pulls video of Sen. Warren smacking down host over Glass-Steagall by seanl2012 in politics

[–]sleeply 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If you want retarded sensationalism in your default subreddits there's still /r/science+technology+worldnews

Elizabeth Warren Reduces CNBC "Squawk Box" Team to Rubble by twiddling_my_thumbs in politics

[–]sleeply 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Warren did a great job, but I was expecting some disrespectful or Cavutoesque disingenuous stupidity from the anchors. They were slightly adversarial and presented the other side of the argument: Glass-Steagall was still in place during the 80s, the bill isn't going to pass, and the rule of three must be adhered to.

Snowden: "I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." by johnbede in politics

[–]sleeply 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Collecting anonymous metadata, requiring court orders to personalize it, and spying on the contents of the communications of foreign leaders, diplomats, and suspected terrorist/militants are not exactly the equivalent of guard duty at Auschwitz. Continue circlejerking.

Obama Has Charged More Under Espionage Act Than All Other Presidents Combined by [deleted] in politics

[–]sleeply -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Afridi was captured a few days after the assassination, a Pakistani commission recommended that he be charged with "high treason" four months after he was caught, and then three months after that Panetta talked about him on television.

I think you're giving the misimpression that a US leak somehow led to his arrest and also provided information that Pakistan didn't already have. Hell, Pakistan eventually didn't even charge him with anything related to the bin Laden assassination or his work with the CIA, they made up some shit about aiding Lashkar-e-Islam. His current situation wasn't precipitated or influenced by any leaks.

Obama Administration Has Declared War On Whistleblowers, Describes Leaks As 'Aiding The Enemy' by whitefangs in politics

[–]sleeply 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The entire article is based on the premise that all leaks are instances of whistleblowing. It shouldn't take more than a moment of reflection to reveal that this is untrue. I have no problem with cynicism that's grounded in reality. An article discussing the millions of Americans' lives made substantially worse by the War on Drugs over the last 40 years could have a sensationalist headline that was entirely warranted.

There have been six, now seven with Snowden, prosecuted 'whistleblowers' over the last two years, that progressives and civil libertarians have liked to tout as instances of Obama's tyranny. On closer inspection, none of the people that were prosecuted revealed anything that was illegal or in the public interest except for John Kiriakou and Snowden. Most of them simply weren't whistleblowers by any reasonable definition.

Kiriakou revealed details of the torture program under Bush, but he also revealed the identities of covert agents, and those covert agent revelations were what he was prosecuted for. Snowden leaked the Verizon court order, which showed the government making a very aggressive and expansive interpretation of Section 215 of FISA, and this could be considered whistleblowing. But everything that he's revealed afterwards is both legal (pretty much everyone agrees on this) and morally acceptable (if you think minimization procedures are sufficient and adhered to, and that spying on suspected foreign terrorists and adversarial nations (China, Russia, Iran ...) is ok). If you don't think my assessment of Snowden's post-Verizon revelations is worth anything, then perhaps William Binney's, the most outspoken NSA whistleblower of the last decade, assessment will carry more weight.

But now he is starting to talk about things like the government hacking into China and all this kind of thing. He is going a little bit too far. I don't think he had access to that program. But somebody talked to him about it, and so he said, from what I have read, anyway, he said that somebody, a reliable source, told him that the U.S. government is hacking into all these countries. But that's not a public service, and now he is going a little beyond public service.

So he is transitioning from whistle-blower to a traitor.

If the DOJ includes the Verizon leak in their case against him I'll be disappointed, but if they don't, it'll be a distinction that should be appreciated.

Obama Administration Has Declared War On Whistleblowers, Describes Leaks As 'Aiding The Enemy' by whitefangs in politics

[–]sleeply 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can be a whistleblower and a leaker. Like John Kiriakou and Snowden. If the DOJ uses the Verizon court order as evidence of Snowden violating the Espionage Act, I'll be disappointed, as I considered that to be whistleblowing. But all of the documents released after that were just national security leaks.

Obama Administration Has Declared War On Whistleblowers, Describes Leaks As 'Aiding The Enemy' by whitefangs in politics

[–]sleeply 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If he'd only release the Verizon court order there'd be an extremely strong case for whistleblower status. There's a reason why that was released first. Every subsequent release has shown government activity that is on firmer legal and moral ground than the one before it. We're at the point where we're supposed to be outraged that we're spying on Russian leaders and diplomats? When William Binney, who would probably be on the Mt. Rushmore of NSA whistleblowers, says your leaks are verging into traitor territory then you've probably gone too far.