Has anyone heard of Patribotics?
It welcomes whistleblowers. Look around the site.
My source says this, "The reporters have a pretty good track record for breaking news, fwiw."
I will reveal my source via pm.
I'm liking the #whiterabbit tag.
I worry about left leaning folks being sucked into conspiracy theories the way the right was with Obama. I don't mean that to be critical of you, lil. It's something I feel I've been seeing for a while, long before this article. I'm interested in your thoughts. Are we, the collective "left," falling into a trap?
Don't mistake my "posting" something for "subscribing" to it. As I've frequently said here and elsewhere, I am certain of nothing, and everything else is judged only in proportion to the available evidence, which itself might be suspicious. We can acquire a facility for living in the world without believing anything. "The only truth we can point to is the ever-changing truth of our own perceptions." (from Marat-Sade, a play by Peter Weiss - Peter Brooks did the movie). We know little and control even less. All dualisms are delusional. Reject the binary. Sorry for the rant.Are we, the collective "left," falling into a trap?
We are all blinded by conditioning of various sorts. We are brought up with a set of myths to which we add more. Everybody, why do you believe what you believe?
Even though I'm tired and burned-out, I'll be the rd95 this time (partly because I need a break every ten minutes now): People subscribe to a certain worldview without actively subscribing: that we, somehow, ought to have 100%, or whatever we have is worth little, if anything at all. It's something we grow up with, much like the childish narcissism that we grow to adore in our young. To say that we were "blinded by conditioning" is to assume we were sighted in the first place. That we were blessed with this perfect vision and somehow, it all went away with time and the obstacles that made us weary. Truth is, we all start with zero. We have nothing and are born into everything. Is there any wonder we couldn't comprehend everything, given how incredibly complex and delicate in detail our world is? As we grow, we don't lose simplicity - merely the perception of simplicity. The world used to be a lot simpler - and a lot grimmer - when I was younger. Is it to say that bullshit is not abundant? No. There's plenty of it wherever you go. It's for this reason that we need something straight to hold onto, something true to our deepest beliefs. It's the reason we believe what we believe: because it holds us onto who we are and who we want to be. We believe what we believe to not lose touch with the world we know. I grew up in the bullshit. The continuous mental sewer was my world for a long time. My world was chaotic, to say the least: whims of a person who relies on no values but others' appreciation; we all know how feeble that is. Why do I believe in what I believe, then? Because it gives me ground I need so damn much. After years of swirling in the tornado, it's nice to stand on something hard and stable for once. I've just been reading something for our Psychology class. It said: we don't change but develop; not simply fumble around aimlessly with our identities and core values, but build upon the ones we've had prior. We acquire experiences that shape our worldview. I think it's a very profound thought. We remain true to ourselves yet gain new parts every moment of our being. I wanted to say "we're inherently biased", but even that assumes there's some sort of an ideal point of view that we best adhere to - or, rather, that this ideal point of view exists in reality. Each of us is both born into and grows into something of their own. We want to remain what we are because it gives us the security of certainty, and the feeling of security is a powerful motivator in whatever we do. It's why changing some people's views is so damn difficult despite how corrosive those views are even to the observer themselves. It's a wise thought to remain flexible of mind. I believe it's no less wise to hold onto something in the world as inherently chaotic as ours.
That anyone's surprised by this (i.e. that the left is falling into conspiracy theory too) just means we've forgotten that we're people first and tribes second. The human element is always the fallible one in a system.
This is the same "journalist"
Of course it's Louise Mensch. Fun fact - she was just another loser aspiring screenwriter on some boards i was on backintheday. We're still a close bunch and Facebook often erupts in a "holy shit Louise Mensch" fracas these days. I mean, the bitch didn't know 3 act structure, let alone international intrigue...
Lawsplainer: IT'S NOT RICO, DAMMIT is a distilled post from lots of RICO screaming. But why is this bullshit? No one has had the time to put together any kind of RICO case. RICO cases are time consuming. Federal cases are time consuming. The Fed's have all the time and resources they need to build airtight cases. They don't do shit until they have tied up all the loose ends. Investigations are still in the preliminary phase at the moment. When they start filing charges it's going to come fast and furious at as many people as they can get in the first sweep. Might it someday be RICO? Maybe? This investigation isn't even a baby yet, still in the womb. The author is a bullshitter.
My understanding of RICO (which is not explicitly called out in this entertaining and informative post) is that RICO claims are intended to lower the burden of proof as it relates to circumstantial evidence as it explicitly applies to efficiently-run and organizationally-convoluted organized crime...for those cases where conviction would be unlikely without the provisions of the RICO act. If you go down the list, the cases where RICO is used as a club but either dismissed or pled out are the cases that aren't mafia or street gangs, while the cases where RICO convictions are made are all mafia and street gangs. This probably leads to the confusion - people who remember Mike Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert certainly don't understand what he did wrong other than be a greedy fuck, and the fact that he got prosecuted under RICO further muddies the waters. Meanwhile, Trump was facing a RICO charge under Trump University but he settled out so it's easy to make that Trump=RICO allegation because people's imaginations are primed.