SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
DNC serves WikiLeaks with lawsuit via Twitter
The Democratic National Committee on Friday officially served its lawsuit to WikiLeaks via Twitter, employing a rare method to serve its suit to the elusive group that has thus far been unresponsive.
As CBS News first reported last month, the DNC filed a motion with a federal court in Manhattan requesting permission to serve its complaint to WikiLeaks on Twitter, a platform the DNC argued the website uses regularly. The DNC filed a lawsuit in April against the Trump campaign, Russian government and WikiLeaks, alleging a massive conspiracy to tilt the 2016 election in Donald Trump's favor.
All of the DNC's attempts to serve the lawsuit via email failed, the DNC said in last month's motion to the judge, which was ultimately approved.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in Ecuador's London embassy for six years, is considering an offer to appear before a U.S. Senate committee to discuss alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, his lawyer said on Thursday.
WikiLeaks published a letter from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday which asked Assange to make himself available to testify in person at a closed hearing as part of its investigation into whether Moscow meddled to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election. "The U.S. Senate Select Committee request confirms their interest in hearing from Mr Assange," lawyer Jennifer Robinson said in a statement.
Julian Assange 'seriously considering' request to meet US Senate committee
Lawyers for Julian Assange say they are "seriously considering" a request from a US Senate committee to interview the WikiLeaks founder as part of its investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
The Senate select committee on intelligence has written to Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living for more than six years.
[...] The chairman of the committee, Richard Burr, wrote: "As you are aware, the Senate select committee on intelligence is conducting a bipartisan inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. As part of that inquiry, the committee requests that you make yourself available for a closed interview with bipartisan committee staff at a mutually agreeable time and location."
The ultimate irony would involve Julian Assange avoiding Metropolitan Police arrest by somehow fleeing to the United States.
See also: Mueller subpoenas Randy Credico, who Roger Stone says was his WikiLeaks back channel
Previously: DNC's Lawsuit Against WikiLeaks is an Attack on Freedom of the Press
Related: Prominent Whistleblowers and Journalists Defend Julian Assange at Online Vigil
Ecuador Reportedly Almost Ready to Hand Julian Assange Over to UK Authorities
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Sunday August 12 2018, @12:59AM (30 children)
Blame the voters too. She did win what counts for the popular vote in the democratic primary.
She was wildly unpopular on a national scale, but a lot of regular-ass voters bought the lie that she was "more electable" in the face of evidence that said the opposite.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GlennC on Sunday August 12 2018, @01:41AM (1 child)
Never mind the most of the "superdelegates" publicly backed Clinton in violation of Party rules.
Face it; the original intent was for Clinton to face only token resistance on her way to the White House.
https://www.npr.org/2015/11/13/455812702/clinton-has-45-to-1-superdelegate-advantage-over-sanders [npr.org]
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/clinton-and-the-dnc-are-not-just-colluding----theyre-changing-the-rules-for-superdelegates_b_9876274.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Sunday August 12 2018, @02:17PM
I mean we can get a lot of depth of what a lie the name "democratic" is with regards to party structure, but there's more than just the stupid-ass present to that, there's also a stupid-ass past to that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @03:51AM
I'm sure a lot of people were for Clinton, because Bernie proposed getting people back to work again.
You can get used to free money, even if it isn't much.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:16AM (18 children)
Did she really? Are you really sure of that?
Let's go back to the Iowa primaries. Six precincts tied. Each of those precincts was decided by a coin toss. And, Clinton won every coin toss. Odd, wasn't it? Iowa, with it's historical "magical" way of determining how "electable" a candidate might be. Of course, there was nothing fishy about those coin tosses if you happen to be a Clinton supporter, or if you're a die-hard partisan. But the rest of us look at that, and question the odds.
In fact, many of us insist that there was nothing legitimate about Clinton's campaign. I'll go even further. There is nothing legitimate about Hillary - full stop. She's as queer as a three dollar bill. I can't define her queerness, but she's queer. (And, in this case, I mean "queer" as it was defined before it applied to gays.)
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:45AM (16 children)
I think you're talking about things related to the Electoral College. The popular vote was simply the total number of votes correct? They don't give the entire precincts votes away to the winner?
If the individual votes are what constitutes the popular, then what is being decided by a coin toss?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aebonyne on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:19AM (1 child)
Iowa has caucuses [wikipedia.org], not primaries. Wikipedia has a description of how it works [wikipedia.org]. The short version is that it sounds like it's a winner-take-all system per precinct and precincts are small enough that ties are not terribly unlikely, especially as in a caucus, only registered voters who manage to show up in person and on time vote, so they tend to have very low turnout.
Centralization breaks the internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:41AM
The simplest explanation for this post is that its a bot. Its otherwise difficult to understand the lack of reading comprehension.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:03AM (13 children)
aebonyne follows my thinking (although I'm not sure he agrees with it). Iowa has a special status in the election cycle, in that they set the tone, or the trend, for voters around the country. Iowa is the "most watched", in large part because they start the voting season off. Call it a caucus or a primary, they are first, and many people take their lead from Iowa's results.
Half a dozen of those precincts in the caucus were decided by coin tosses, and they all went to Hillary.
Had Bernie won in Iowa, instead of Hillary, voting around the entire country *could have* been very, very different. 50/50 odds for a coin toss, right? Unless you're flipping a double headed coin.
Please note that there is no way to prove how things *might have* gone. What's done is done, and we can only speculate what the alternative results may have been. But the fact is, Hillary took the first round of voting with coin tosses, not by votes. And, I personally think it very suspicious that she won all six tosses - bing, bang, boom.
It all ties in with the corruption that was later exposed by the DNC. And, all of it put together may help to explain why I despise the DNC more than I despise the Republicans. The GOP fought their renegade candidate pretty hard, until it became obvious the voters were siding with Trump. At which point, the GOP finally threw their support behind Trump. The DNC, on the other hand, knew that the vote was rigged, and they were never going to throw support to Bernie. Their support remained squarely behind Hillary, DESPITE the voter's wishes.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:40PM (8 children)
Which still has nothing to do with the outcome of the popular vote that the person was talking about.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:03PM (7 children)
Please, scroll on down to hemocyanin's response, posted after your own response. His link explains much that you have apparently overlooked. The DNC's campaign was dirty from start to finish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:15PM (6 children)
That is still about delegates, not the popular vote (which is just adding up all the votes). Not sure why this is difficult for some people...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:38PM (5 children)
Popular vote, you say. And, then you dismiss the fact that Bernie had the popular vote. How does that work? Bernie led Hillary, time and time again with the vote, but Hillary got the delegates, and the "super" delegates were all hers anyway.
If the Democratic party had respected the popular vote, they would have run Bernie against our Orange Ape. And - BERNIE MAY HAVE WON!!
Once again, we can't know that. We can only speculate how that race would have gone. But, we don't need to speculate that the DNC stacked the deck in Hillary's favor, until the deck collapsed like every house of cards eventually does.
So, where do you want to go now? You want to reiterate that Trump didn't win the popular vote? Well - neither did Hillary. Do we go back and nullify the election, and ask Bernie to take the office? Will that assuage your angst?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @06:33PM (1 child)
I didn't dismiss the fact bernie had the popular vote anywhere. Im just pointing out people keep talking about delegates instead of the popular vote. That is all. Literally nothing else. You just want any excuse to push some sort of talking point. Wow.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday August 13 2018, @12:28AM
What everyone knows is that there are delegates and super-delegates. Super-delegates are the usual band of corporate/lobyist/pharma/insurance/wallStreet/MIC scum. A Super Delegate's single vote was worth something like 10,000 votes from peons like us. It's gross. The two parties have subsumed the electoral process but the Democrats like to play that they're a private party and get to do _whatever_ while at the same time using the public election resources -- my money, your money. It's like robbery so they can pick whoever they want in a cigar smoke filled back room and do it on the backs of all taxpayers. https://medium.com/theyoungturks/dnc-we-can-legally-choose-candidate-over-cigars-in-back-room-e3026730e252 [medium.com]
What is extra ironic, the Republican primary was far more democratic -- their super delegates have to vote the way the people did. https://www.bustle.com/articles/141611-does-the-gop-have-superdelegates-the-republican-partys-nomination-rules-are-different-this-year [bustle.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by aebonyne on Sunday August 12 2018, @06:39PM (2 children)
Here's the results of the Democratic primary [wikipedia.org]. The popular vote is listed as 16,914,722 for Clinton and 13,206,428 for Sanders. By those numbers, Clinton won the popular vote by 3.7 million votes or 12 percentage points. That's not even a close race. Clinton's delegate count possibly being slightly higher than expected by her proportion of the popular vote due to rules details is irrelevant to the final result.
Centralization breaks the internet.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday August 13 2018, @12:50AM (1 child)
Let me tell you why those numbers are crap. They don't include ALL the states.
WA is a caucus state. The DNC has never released the popular vote numbers from the WA caucus. There was also a primary ballot that was run by the WA SOS, but the DNC ignored that and decided to do a caucus process -- as a result any primary ballot numbers reported by the state of WA are meaningless -- it was an after the caucus straw poll and had no effect on the election, and everyone here knew that. The only numbers the DNC has ever released from the caucuses, are the precinct delegate results. Precinct caucuses are the lowest level -- that's where the individual votes are gathered and delegates to the county convention selected. Those delegates are pledged to vote for a specific candidate. The WA DNC has released the number of delegates from each precinct. Ah you think, we can just calculate the popular vote totals from that number and the number of voters. Wrong.
In my precinct, HRC got 14% of the popular vote and she was alloted 25% of the pledged delegates. The ONLY number WA DNC has ever published was the pledged delegate number. They know the actual vote, every precinct turned in a sheet with the tally, but they have never released it. This kind of rounding error in HRC's favor propagated all the way through the county and state caucuses.
At the end of the process, Bernie got 74 delegates to the national convention, HRC got 27, and 17 were uncommitted (yea right) (118 total). Ignoring uncommitted, the spread between Bernie and HRC was 47 delegates (30 if you presume those "uncommitted" would be voting for HRC). If delegates were apportioned by popular vote, and Bernie had 80-85% of that vote, the loss for Clinton would have been huge. 0.8 * 118=94; 0.2 * 118=24. The spread in this case would have been a whopping 70 delegates. In the end, Bernie probably got about 67% of what he deserved to get out the WA caucus, and Clinton got away with little damage.
So you see, the process from the precincts on up was designed to benefit HRC -- in fact, in previous years, her 14% popular vote in my precinct would not have been enough to get across the viability threshold. They changed that rule for the last election, for obvious reasons.
Anyway, I challenge you to find the CAUCUS (not the irrelevant primary) popular vote totals for WA. Until you can do that, there is no valid number for the popular primary vote because it omits places Bernie was most popular.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:27PM
You seem pretty informed on this. I thought there was a state that decided at the party level to just go with Hillary over Bernie. Was that Colorado? Whats the deal with that?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:41PM (3 children)
I don't normally look to twitter for good information, but this thread outlines how time and again during the primaries, Clinton got more delegates than the popular vote warranted, including states where despite winning the popular vote, Clinton won the delegate count (all due the anti-democratic practice of super-delegates): https://twitter.com/philosophrob/status/905118924311801864 [twitter.com]
Democrats complaining about election rigging is like Jeffry Dahmer complaining about how his steaks are cooked.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:58PM
correction:
this: despite winning the popular vote, Clinton won the delegate count
to this: despite BERNIE winning the popular vote, Clinton won the delegate count
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @06:22PM (1 child)
That thread is pretty nitpicky. Most of the percentages are slightly off, which unsurprising given that some voting inefficiency is inevitable in a districted system instead of a popular vote system. Without seeing a chart of all of the states, it's hard to tell if they're cherry-picking. Obviously Hillary won the primary in both delegates (not counting super-delegates which have never affected a Democratic primary since the current system of having the general population vote in a primary was instituted) and votes, so it's not like this actually helped her win the primary, as much as some news reports may have used it (like the super-delegates) as a way to exaggerate her already substantial lead.
Of course, the Democrats chose to run their primary as a districted system instead of a popular vote system for similar reasons to why the United States originally chose to use the Electoral College: to make sure the election system chooses a candidate with broad support as opposed to strong support in a small number of areas. If Hillary consistently won more delegates than one would expect from her vote percentage, that means that districts that went for Bernie did so by larger margins than districts that went for Hillary. In other words, the results imply that Bernie had a concentrated base of excited supporters while Hillary had supporters everywhere. Which choice is the best for an electoral system is a matter for debate, but in this case Hillary won the popular vote of the primary as well by quite a bit, so it's not really an issue as both choices give the same winner.
(Obviously, the Democrats are in favor of the other choice for the general presidential election because they have trouble appealing to rural areas, but arguing to change the rules to ignore a constituency, even one that is a minority in population, seems like an undemocratic choice as opposed to changing their policies and messaging to actually represent as many people as possible. Bernie was a step in the other direction; Clinton at least had policies trying to help rural areas in her platform, although she clearly failed at messaging.)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 12 2018, @09:03PM
It isn't nitpicky -- you have states where HRC would get say 4% more than she deserved, which means Bernie got 4% LESS than he deserved -- that's an 8% spread. Then of course there are states where Bernie flat out won -- like Wyoming -- but Clinton won the delegate count. https://pics.me.me/dem-caucus-wyoming-18-delegates-bernie-sanders-democrat-56-dem-7732106.png [pics.me.me] Bernie won 56% of the vote to get 39% of the delegates. That's some democracy.
My own personal experience in the WA caucus was a real eyeopener -- while Bernie won WA, the HRCbots did everything possible to make the win worth less than its true value because they understood that spread is what is vitally important and with only a little extra thumb on the scale, democracy is irrelevant. Ultimately, the DNC rigged it so that where Bernie would win, he would either lose or not get the full benefit of his win, and where HRC won, she almost always got a little extra to boot.
That's not nitpicking -- that's pointing out how rigged it was. Bernie would have needed a super-majority in order to get the benefit of a mere simple majority.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:47PM
Crooked Hillary got VERY LUCKY with the coins. And it worked out tremendously for me -- I had so much fun running against her. But I would have beaten Bernie overwhelmingly. I'd love to run against Bernie, even if he’s in a wheelchair. Can you imagine, we're doing the Debates. And there I am, 6 foot 3. Debating a wheelchair guy. I could win without saying one word. Without a word. Who is going to run against me in 2020? Crooked Hillary? Pocahontas? High Crime Nancy Pelosi? Cancer Brain McCain? Oprah? Trust me, I have dirt on Oprah like you wouldn't believe.
I'll tell you, I got very lucky too. At the Cleveland convention. The Never Trumpers wanted to change the rules. So they could make their guy the nominee. And totally ignore the will of the American people, of the voters in the Primasies -- you know, just like the Democrat Party does all the time. Well, the chair made that one a voice vote. Where you say "aye" or "nay." And the Never Trumpers lost by a decibel. It's not a lot. Not a lot at all. They lost, I won. And the rest is history!!!!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:45AM (6 children)
How does that Russian Koolaid taste? Do you really like having the orange raciest in charge?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:06AM (4 children)
Oh, you're one of those idiots trying to deflect valid criticism with whataboutism.
What about this: in all the bad things Trump is doing, he's facing strong opposition, rendering him mostly harmless. The terrible environmental policies of his EPA cronies will be undone. His silly ban on Muslims entering the country already has. Just about anything he breaks can be fixed later. He's the lesser of two evils, and way more entertaining to boot. He turned the position of "most powerful man on Earth" into a reality TV show, which is fucking befitting for what your country has become.
But so far he hasn't started more wars and he even deescalated in the Korea conflict. I'm mostly critical of the USA due to their imperialistic foreign policy and constant destruction of real democracies and open societies if it befits their goals. All major conflicts of the 20th century had the USA meddling in them and most of them were started because of US intervention. US foreign policy killed countless millions and made life miserable for countless more and Hillary would have continued this tradition. She would not have faced any opposition because it's considered a matter of course in the US to fuck up the rest of the world to make a quick buck. Oh so exceptional you are...
It's ironic that the pychopatic, racist orange baboon now at the helm turns out to be an envoy of relative peace. But it's a welcome change. I'll root for Trump again next election, he's the president you deserve.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Sunday August 12 2018, @02:22PM (3 children)
Mostly harmless?
I can't actually think of a bone-headed and/or evil idea of his that he hasn't been allowed to implement besides the stupid wall.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Sunday August 12 2018, @03:46PM (2 children)
One of the biggest things that Trump has done this presidency is stop the US funding of Syrian rebels and white helmets allowing the situation to deescalate. There are some pros and cons that people will care about depending on their political affiliation
Pros
Assad wasn't actually that bad. Look at the stats for women education, religious freedom, violence, as far as dictators go he was doing pretty well.
Assad as a strongman kept the region in check
Assad destabilized allowed ISIS and other "bad" groups to really take hold, this is bad for us
Cons
Israel doesn't like him
Can't make money selling weapons if the world isn't at war.
I think keeping the US from getting bogged down in another Syrian state more than it already was would have been a huge mistake, somehow managing to avoid that is one of the best things he has done.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday August 13 2018, @05:21PM (1 child)
Do you mean "*Letting* the US get bogged down..." would have been a huge mistake?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday August 13 2018, @05:35PM
That last sentence of mine was a complete mess.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:14AM
Presuming that your question isn't merely rhetorical (which it surely is) - relatively few people "like" the Orange Monkeyman. But, many people are very sure that he was the lesser of the two evils offered.
You may continue with your meaningless rhetoric now.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday August 12 2018, @03:35PM
The whole Democratic primary seemed pretty fucked to me. Hillary should have done well with older voters who want a more safe conservative bet, Sanders should have done well with young voters who aren't smart enough to think for themselves and want the world handed to them on a plate. In Louisiana Sanders did better than Hillary on the paper ballots, but somehow got so many more electronic votes that it helped her carry the state. There is no way paper can be +1 Sanders and electronic +7 Hillary. There was fraud in the primary in favor of Clinton.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam