I know this is not tech related but I really wish it would surface to the HN front page. HN is by far the most intelligible and thoughtful comment section for news I've come across. There is a gaping hole in moderated discussions for these topics.
Part of the reason the comments are higher quality is because this site isn't full of political food fights, which drive away such commenters. Putting much politics on the front page would kill the golden goose.
Eh, unlike some of the other conversations, politics is a saturated market. I'm not sure you'd hear anything new here, and it won't stand out in the noise anyway.
Curious though, what would you hope to hear discussed? Geopolitical intrigue? Tech industry angle?
Here's one interesting thing I'll say: The vast majority of this kind of "news" consists of non-events. Think about it when you see the next story. So-and-so will have delivered a form to whats-her-face over in the fleem department and their press office will be releasing comments to the newspapers. None of this stuff means anything if you don't know the context. It's pretty funny.
For myself, I'd like to see a breakdown on why each side feels a specific way -- for example, not everyone who hates Trump loves Hillary, and not everyone who supports Trump really likes the guy, but are focused on specific policies that touch them.
A contractor that I work with has been hit really hard by rapidly increased monthly health care premiums, so he is not in favor of Obama care. On the other hand, my significant other is medically disabled, and the ACA has been a godsend for her. For myself, I'm comfortable with employer provided insurance, don't have family coverage, so that issue doesn't affect me personally either way.
I'd like to hear more specifics issues like this, along with possible solutions that have a good chance of working.
I believe there's a gaping hole because there is little demand.
Rabid radical idiots inflame passions, drive engagement, sharing, etc. Rationalism and thoughtfulness simply can't compete. It's too hard and complicated.
I've seen many websites go this way. Some choose to misrepresent issues to rile up their user base. I've stopped patronizing sites that I contributed to for over a decade as a result.
Always remember the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect:
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
Maybe there needs to be a separate political HN site with the same login so people whom want to engage can do so and others can opt-out? Say: https://political.news.ycombinator.com
Also, any stories deemed mostly political can just be moved there instead of being censored/shutdown with flagged and reserve flagged for truly nonstories and spam.
Heavy moderation is key, whether by the mods or community. Having a whole political channel to moderate isn't worth the resources for YC.
It's an opportunity a startup. Think of what Quora did to Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers. A startup that can deliver a higher-level of discussion but for politics and current events.
You clearly have never read any political comments on this site. Just look at the Chelsea Manning comments for a look at how "intelligible" and "thoughtful" the community is
So, what happens if this investigation under Mueller, who was FBI Director under the Bush (43) and Obama administrations.... ultimately finds that no laws were broken?
Because in a truly impartial investigation, this is a possible outcome.
Will these results be accepted, or are we off for another round of whatever the last 6+ months of daily outrage can be called?
> Mueller was asked to stay on as head of the FBI by President Obama, and served in the post all the way to 2013.
I'm aware. You seem to believe it means something more than Obama didn't have any major scandals to worry about that involved the FBI.
> If you're going to accuse him of partisanship, by all means post some citations.
He is a registered Republican that backed the vast majority of their programs that were later found unconstitutional. He only ever pushed back when it involved Bush trying to get a guy in a hospital bed to sign an order overturning one small portion of it.
There isn't any way to "prove" someone is a partisan to people's satisfaction if the man's career doesn't speak for itself already.
The man's career can say many things. To quote the Wikipedia article on him:
"In May 2011, President Obama asked Director Mueller to continue at the helm of the FBI for two additional years beyond his normal 10-year term, which was expiring on September 4, 2011."
and
"Director Mueller, along with Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, threatened to resign from office in March 2004 if the White House overruled a Department of Justice finding that domestic wiretapping without a court warrant was unconstitutional. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft denied his consent to attempts by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales to waive the Justice Department ruling and permit the domestic warrantless eavesdropping program to proceed. On March 12, 2004, President George W. Bush gave his support to changes in the program sufficient to satisfy the concerns of Mueller, Ashcroft and Comey."
and
"After leaving the FBI in 2013, Mueller served a one-year term as consulting professor and the Arthur and Frank Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University where he focused on issues related to cyber-security. He gave a speech and Q&A on March 8, 2017 at Anderson University, where he stated, "For the bureau, one of the most important things is integrity."
The layman who reads such an account of his career would be well-justified in asking how you have reached your conclusion, because the above would indicate that Mueller is recognized as a man of integrity by Presidents from both political parties. So I say again: if you're going to accuse him of partisanship, by all means post some citations.
I'm starting to think there is something to what all those trumpsters have been saying... I simply cannot keep up with the 180 narrative flips going on in the media right now.
It feels like the media is just thrashing right now. One week we are told Trump fired Comey to stop the investigation on his ties to Russia. To be honest, I had a hard time swallowing that a thing like that hinged on 1 person at the FBI. But now if you read all these papers they are saying Trump is in for it because Robert Mueller is named special council in the Trump/Russia investigation. So the investigation goes on, even though last week it wasn't supposed to according to the same sources.
That leads me to the other recent thing regarding the Comey memo. The FBI (Comey) cleared Flynn January 24th but this "memo" says Trump asked Comey in mid-February to let Flynn go. Why would anybody regardless of their intelligence ask for something they've already gotten?
Long story short: I'm having a hard time making any sense of what seems like obvious problems with the reporting. Yet I see no clarifications, redactions, or anybody even trying to clear up the mess that quite frankly feels like targeting. I get why they are targeting Trump after the things Trump said about them. But once everybody stoops to the same level... I don't feel like there is anybody worth listening to.
Trump admitted, in that NBC interview, that disliking the Russia investigation was at least part of his motivation to fire Comey.
That doesn't mean that firing him was actually sufficient to stop the investigation. To stop the FBI's investigation, Trump would have to nominate a strong ally as the next FBI director, and Congress would have to confirm them. Getting Congress to confirm a partisan nominee would be tricky to start with, and much harder with the media furor.
Separately from (but complementary to) the FBI investigation, there's the question of a special prosecutor, which can be appointed either by Congress (making them part of the legislative branch and independent from the executive branch), or by the Justice Department (which is nominally under the president's authority, but only in the sense that Trump could fire Rosenstein and cause an even bigger shitstorm). The latter is what just happened.
January 24th is when the FBI interviewed Flynn. On the same day, anonymous sources told the press that they had found "no evidence of impropriety" in the phone calls - but that's different from the FBI formally closing the investigation. Among other things, it leaked much later (around February 16) that Flynn had falsely told his interviewers that he hadn't discussed sanctions in those calls, whereas the recordings showed that he had. This potentially opened the door to charges of lying to law enforcement. The second round of leaks said that the FBI believed he was trying to be "truthful" and wasn't intentionally lying, so was unlikely to be charged, but again, that's different from formally closing an investigation. Even now, the broader investigation into Trump-Russia ties continues, and Flynn remains a part of that investigation.
This line again. I'll believe it when I see it. So far I think he's played everything very well, and that started with his choice of opponent.
>It's really something truly amazing to see "both sides are equally bad" given that we have a traitor for a President, a GOP and Congress that is happy to look the other way as much as possible.
You sound like a republican in 2009. For heaven's sake just listen to yourself for a moment.
> So far I think he's played everything very well, and that started with his choice of opponent.
Huh? Did you just claim that DJT "picked" HRC as his opponent somehow? And then further imply that it's somehow evidence of him playing 4-dimensional chess?
>You sound like a republican in 2009. For heaven's sake just listen to yourself for a moment.
I don't know what that means. Obama literally did nothing within a mile of what Trump is being accused of (with evidence, no less). People that say what you just said are loudly advertising "I'm not paying any real attention to the news".
Session lied about meeting Kislyak. He committed perjury over it. The Russian agent accused of being behind the plot to compromise the 2016 election. And then months later, Trump meets with them, in the White House, gets bamboozled by them and reveals top secret intel to them.
How the fuck can you, in good faith, actually act like Obama did anything of that caliber?
>Huh? Did you just claim that DJT "picked" HRC as his opponent somehow? And then further imply that it's somehow evidence of him playing 4-dimensional chess?
Yep. He had another presidential bid in 2008. He knew he couldn't beat Obama or before that, the Romney machine. This time around he saw a frail felon on the opposite side, and primary competitors that were at best feckless, and at worst dolts.
>I don't know what that means. Obama literally did nothing within a mile of what Trump is being accused of (with evidence, no less). People that say what you just said are loudly advertising "I'm not paying any real attention to the news".
OBO plays clean until the ref isn't looking. Just wait about 60 days--I suspect we're going to see some serious shit, especially related to aggressive "unmasking."
Until then, I'll agree to disagree with you. When the facts are revealed, either you or I will have to update our priors.
Crossing into personal incivility isn't allowed on HN, regardless of how certain you feel about something. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't.
How exactly was that "personal incivility" - it was a legitimate question as to whether or not english was his first language. I'm not sure how else you could confuse the context of "let him go".
As to the rest - every question he asked has been answered, in detail, on the site in question as well as countless others. If you need to ban me, go ahead, but I don't think that was anything approaching a personal attack.
Insinuating that someone hasn't read an article is a trope of internet rudeness that the HN guidelines specifically ask you not to do here (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Going on about it at length, telling the other user how bad a reader they are, etc., and so on, is that much ruder.
I would completely agree if it weren't for the fact that OP came from The_Donald over on reddit. Sorry if I'm skeptical that his post was anything but a troll. I find it hard to believe someone that frequents that site is as uninformed about the subject as his post would lead one to believe.
Wow! You are making a lot of accusations about somebody you don't even know. You also clearly didn't understand what I wrote before deciding how you were going to respond.
I'm not conservative... but I'm inclined to lean to their side if the way you're acting is my alternative.
Which is why you frequent The_Donald and breitbart...
I understood, I've seen it many times. Feigned ignorance in an attempt to troll. In any case, I'm a conservative leaning independent, so please do lean that direction. Just be a real conservative who cares about our constitution and having our president act... presidential.
Just FWIW, in case you're feeling besieged: yep, you're completely right about the patent being rude as well as misunderstanding your post. I too disagree with your post, though; I tried to come up with a more accurate rebuttal in a different reply.
Trump DID fire Comey to stop an investigation. Turns out that you can actually have multiple investigations ongoing, including ones done by Congress that Trump can't just fire away.
>I simply cannot keep up with the 180 narrative flips going on in the media right now.
It's almost like the real world is a complicated place where there are many different versions of a story
Its Mueller, not Comey, who is a staunch Republican who was appointed by Bush. And then offered to fall on his sword for Bush during various domestic wiretapping scandals.
Personally, I wouldn't trust anyone that partisan to investigate Republicans. Honestly, I fully expect him to come back with a handful of middlemen + Flynn and nothing touches any elected Republicans. Not because its true, but because its his marching orders.
