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According to all the conservative legal scholars here on SN you can't even vote against a person unless they've been convicted of a crime.

So it's good to know they're finally all admitting that Hilary Clinton is completely innocent!

Baby steps.

There was a massive ICE raid a couple of days ago on the east side of Madison, one which I apparently missed by mere moments. The Madison law enforcement were NOT notified of this, as stated by both Mayor Soglin and Police Chief Koval...though, of course, their primary concern (at least on the air) was "breakdown in communications" rather than "Jesus fuck, WHY are these people conducting damn near paramilitary raids without warning?!"

There is a way to fight illegal immigration. This is not how. Instead of enforcing the laws we have and going after the causes of the problem--this being large businesses like meatpacking plants who bring illegals in as essentially slave labor--they go after the individuals themselves. Not only is this about as useful as locking the barn door after the horse bolts, not only is it a tacit wink and nod to said virtual slavers, but it ends up being open season on these people. Because they're illegal (presumably; we do NOT know everyone targeted in these raids is!), they are not truly human in the eyes of many, and I guaran-fucking-tee you the kind of person who signs up for ICE is even less likely to see them as human beings than the average Joe or Jane on the street.

It's Happening Here.

"Oh, it's JUST the spics," people will say. "They ought not to come here illegally," they say. Well, that last one is true, but they ARE here, and how we deal with them speaks to who and what we are as a nation. There are better ways to handle this. What is being done is possibly the worst way aside from simply rounding up any suspected illegal immigrant and summarily executing him or her...and, frankly, not that far off. What is being done is, again, tacit approval to the big businesses profiting off these peoples' vulnerability in the first place.

One of the reasons I am not a fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt for any reason aside from his economic policy is because he ran internment camps. Or as they are better and more properly called, *concentration camps.* And I don't know how else to describe what ICE is doing in these so-called "detention centers." If you ask me, "detention center" is to concentration camp as "enhanced interrogation methods" is to *torture.* Call it what you want, but if it concentrates "undesireables" it's a concentration camp.

It's Happening Here.

Because people say it can't happen here, when it *is* happening here, they refuse to understand that it is. It's not in their worldview. This is why the euphemism treadmill that, among others, George Carlin called out for its dishonesty and evil is so sinisterly effective: because It Can't Happen Here, when it *does* happen here, people will latch onto anything to believe that it's not happening here.

It's Happening Here.

What's next? Where is this going? Once the infrastructure for concentration camps is in place, once warrant standards are lax and paramilitary action against citizens is legalized, once we have secret courts, once We The People "have a reason" to suspend the Constitution--whose basic clauses apply to EVERYONE, NOT just citizens!--a turnkey fascist state is in place, just waiting for the right crisis to come along, or indeed, to be manufactured.

It's Happening Here. First they came for the illegal immigrants...

U.S. President Donald Trump faced a round of laughter from world leaders Tuesday afternoon at the United Nations General Assembly after boasting that his presidency “has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” This hiccup didn’t bother Fox News, however, which promptly cut out the laughter on Twitter. And Fox News edits like this aren’t so uncommon.

During Trump’s UN speech to the assembly, Fox News uploaded two clips that circumvented the awkward moment. In the first clip, Fox cut off Trump’s speech as soon as he finished saying that the U.S. has accomplished more than any other presidential administration.

Three minutes later, Fox posted a second excerpt for viewers, this time beginning right after the uncomfortable moment had ended. This effectively cut out the entire moment, from world leaders snickering at Trump to the entire assembly bursting out in laughter. For Fox viewers checking their Twitter timelines during the event, it was almost as if the moment had never happened at all.

Fox News roasted on Twitter after editing out world leaders laughing at Trump

A growing number of Republican senators are calling for a delay on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation vote until they have time to hear from a woman accusing the judge of sexual misconduct when they were both in high school.

Christine Blasey Ford, 51, came forward publicly Sunday with a detailed account in The Washington Post of an incident that took place at a party when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17. Ford claims Kavanaugh held her down and tried to remove her clothes while covering her mouth with his hand and leading her to believe that he could "inadvertently kill me."

In light of the allegations, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he does not think the committee should advance Kavanaugh's nomination until Ford is heard out.

"If they push forward without any attempt with hearing what she's had to say, I'm not comfortable voting yes," Flake told Politico on Sunday. "We need to hear from her. And I don't think I'm alone in this."

Republican senators call for delay on Brett Kavanaugh vote until they can hear from accuser

But he hires the best people!

I deliberately stayed away for a few days after my farewell post. I didn't even want to read the stuff I thought might show up in comments. But I finally decided to.

And I mainly wanted to post one more time to say THANK YOU to the many thoughtful and kind replies. I do know that 90+% of the people who post here are good folks mostly. And even though I've disagreed with many, we try to get along. Unfortunately, that 10% of trollish folks are overrepresented in how often they post and the vigor with which they (pretend to) argue.

A few of the trolls actually agreed that I should leave or take a break, which doesn't surprise me, because it will make their lives easier to sow discord here.

Anyhow -- to all the kind folks who posted replies saying that lamented my leaving -- all I'll say for now is that I'm going away for the moment. Maybe I'll check back in in a few months and see whether I want to participate again. But for now, I need to quit SoylentNews.

As for the rest of the replies...

Thanks to all the trollish posters for showing up and proving my points so well. It's good to have exemplars of the behavior so clearly right there under my post.

I'm not going to reply in depth to most of that, other than to say I'll freely admit I didn't behave kindly in the last thread I participated in before I announced I'd be quitting. In fact, I explicitly mentioned in my farewell journal that what frustrates me most is that I don't like the kind of person I become when having to fight against the trolls. I don't like yelling at people. I don't like being nasty. It's not in my nature, but when replying to people who act that way, I sometimes become a jerk too. I don't enjoy that.

But what I have NEVER been in any post on this site is insincere. (Except in occasional sarcastic posts, which I often mark to avoid misunderstanding.) But in that final thread, I was accused of "lying." And while I've been contemplating leaving SN for at least a month now, that sort of accusation is the final straw. Because I truly believe in what I post. I try to be sincere and to take others seriously, even when they act like jerks and post incendiary nonsense. And while someone could accuse me of being in error or misunderstanding something (in which case I'll rethink things, and sometimes I've even replied to posts to say I realized my error and changed my mind), I have never intentionally lied. I have never argued in bad faith. I have never posted merely to provoke.

And those few characteristics, dear folks, are the characteristics of what I called out as "trolls" in my farewell post.

To me, a "troll" is someone who posts more with the intent to provoke a response than to promote rational debate. I think that's a definition in accord with the old definition of "troll" commonly used on forums going back decades. More specifically, the difference between a "flamer" and a "troll" is that the "troll" also tends to post things he/she doesn't believe to provoke replies. In other words, trolls post in "bad faith." But I think the "flaming" and "trolling" often go hand-in-hand, so I don't tend to draw a huge distinction. If you're posting just to get people mad and reply in response, as far as I'm concerned, you're basically a troll.

But there are other related behaviors that are frequently used by trolls, even though by themselves I'd say they don't quite constitute "trollish" behavior. These include "debate tactics" which are designed more to "win" an argument rather than promote civil discussion. Such things might be useful on some sort of forum about debate (and I was on debate teams in the past, so I understand them), but they aren't about pushing the argument forward. They are about "winning."

I personally am more interested in learning the truth about something or coming to a more nuanced understanding of an issue than about "winning" a debate at all costs. But troll-like posters will often do things like deliberately ignore valid points in an argument that they can't dispute, while focusing on irrelevant minutiae to take control of the discussion and make it look like they are winning, even while ignoring the most salient points. They will selectively choose posts to respond to for similar reasons -- rather than actively discussing valid argument points, they'll attack posts that are less fleshed-out (while ignoring crucial points made in other posts), again to make it look like they are "winning." They'll also cherry pick data they often know is misleading or incomplete, but promote it as "the whole truth," again to "win" rather than to get at a broader perspective of what's true. Lastly, they get aggressive and combine ad hominem with other similar strategies to dismiss the other side and make them sound stupid (or provoke a response that makes them sound irrational).

If you want to participate in a debate club, those strategies can sometimes help -- until you get called out by the other side for behaving that way, in which case you'll lose in a debate that's being judged. Unfortunately, in the real world, we can't have rational judges on the sidelines judging these things and calling out bad behavior. Instead, people who "win" arguments are often the most persistent and those who adopt the strategies I mentioned.

Mr. Buzzard in his response to my previous journal rightly points out that this is part of natural human behavior. Lots of people want to "win," and they will adopt strategies to do so. But my point is that the majority of those who read posts probably don't care about who "wins" a debate -- they want to actually understand what is correct, which side has better evidence, etc. "Winning" an argument should not be the goal of rational discourse.

And trolling in the stricter sense -- i.e., true bad-faith argumentation -- makes all this worse. The only people who seem to enjoy that, as I noted, are those who are in for the "lulz." They take some sort of bizarre glee in provoking others into pointless (and often incendiary) debates. I don't think that's actual a trait endemic to the majority of people in their "human nature," but it's common enough that it can ruin good discussion in a lot of groups.

Anyhow, I don't know how to fix this on a forum. And I'm not at all arguing for some sort of draconian moderation system. What I feel like is once a forum gets taken over by this sort of crap, I'm no longer interested in participating. And I agree with some of the other replies that this appears to be the "new normal" on the internet. Yes, trolls were always there, back into the heyday of Usenet and before.

But rational (and civilized) discourse is losing its place in general, even in places where it used to be taken for granted.

As to Mr. Buzzard's point that it is "human nature," there are lots of things we don't accept in civilized society that are "human nature." Human nature would say it's okay for a strong man to club a woman senseless and drag her back to his cave and rape her. We don't generally think that's acceptable in civilized society. Human nature would say it's okay to steal another's food (or any goods) if you have a chance and want them. Again, we generally don't think that's acceptable in civilized society. Human nature might even say it's okay to attack or even kill someone who annoys you enough. Again, we don't accept that's productive for civilization.

The long-term view of civilization in the past thousand years has been a gradual decrease in things like murder rate, violent crime, and more generally a behavior of respect toward others. These things are against "human nature," but they help us all get along better. More importantly, they help society as a whole get along better.

It may be human nature to want to "win" arguments. It may be human nature of trolls to enjoy discord. But it's not good etiquette. It's not promoting rational discussion. It's not furthering our collective knowledge or making our society better (on SN or beyond).

And when I say "etiquette" I'm not talking about Emily Post and using the right fork at dinner. I'm talking about assuming good faith in other posts. I'm talking about NOT posting in bad faith. I'm also talking about things like avoiding name-calling or other needlessly inflammatory rhetoric. I'm talking about acknowledging when you're wrong (or at least quitting the debate), rather than cherry-picking bullshit points to keep debate going and make it look like you're winning when you can't actually respond to the most salient evidence. These last things often come from a sort of "jock" mentality -- you want to win, and you may not know as much as someone else about a topic or understand it as well, so you resort to other strategies that subvert rational discourse but make it look like you're more dominant in the discussion.

There are places where civil discourse still happens. I've been to many academic conferences where there is formal discussion after talks. And I don't think I've ever witnessed a "troll" in that environment. Yes, discussion can sometimes become heated -- but that's different from arguing in bad faith.

It *is* possible to ignore what some might call an the innate human urge to win arguments at all costs. It is possible to behave in a more civil and rational manner in order to promote better, more informative discussion that benefits us all (rather than just providing satisfaction for those who want to "win" debates or entertainment for those in it for the lulz).

If there are a large enough number of rational folks on a discussion forum, I suppose we could all collectively mod all such "bad behavior" posts into oblivion. But there doesn't seem to be enough here who agree with me to overcome the tide of BS. Moreover, we have a number of participants here who behave in erratic ways -- sometimes posting reasonable and informative stuff, and other times acting like jerks and trolls. Those last ones are the most difficult, because they end up being rewarded by the system. They log in, accumulate karma, get bonuses, and then feel free to post crap intermittently which drags down discussion significantly.

Again, I'm not claiming I have a solution, other than self-restraint. Just like you don't just kill someone and steal their car because you want decided right now that you'd really like to have it, I believe you shouldn't post trollish crap on a forum just because you think it's entertaining or want to win an argument at all costs. Yes, I am comparing murder to troll-like behavior, in that I think both ultimately work against civilized society. And chipping away at civilized discourse with the latter is one further step on the way to dragging down society with it.

Some may not agree with this final conclusion. But given the effects that troll-like behavior is starting to have within our society and government, I think it's a harbinger of really bad stuff to come. So while I don't know how to fix the moderation system here or figure out a way to promote rational discourse without using draconian methods, I'm not going to take time to support a forum that clearly has a large number of people who value such trollish nonsense.

Take from that what you will, but that's how I feel. The only way to really change is to do better, to model good behavior, to call out the bad. I believe humans can do better collectively, but right now we're losing our way against the trolls.

Again, thanks to all who said kind things about my previous posts here.

Cheers to all.

Following his conviction on eight criminal counts in a federal court in Virginia last month, President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort faced a new trial on another full docket of charges. On Friday morning, we learned that the second trial would be short-circuited. Instead of facing a jury to evaluate whether he had laundered money or committed bank fraud or filed false reports on his lobbying, the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III announced that it had reached a plea agreement with Manafort. In addition to the original eight charges, Manafort admitted to another two, sparing him from another trial.

One of the two charges to which Manafort admitted guilt on Friday was a sweeping conspiracy charge, incorporating a slew of the numerous counts that he faced at one point. The other charge is a conspiracy charge related to obstruction of justice.

Paul Manafort becomes the fifth Trump campaign team member to plead guilty to criminal charges

In a bombshell development, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is cooperating with the special counsel as part of the plea deal in his federal criminal trial.

Manafort Plea Deal Includes Cooperation With Prosecutors

I'll enable comments. What the heck -- have at it, guys!

I'm leaving. This will likely be my final post. I admired this experiment, and I wanted to support it (as I have by subscribing). I once thought the Slash moderation system was the answer to fixing the internet. I thought Slashdot failed just because of the ads and flamebait stories posted by editors.

I no longer think that's true. There seem to be a lot of folks here who are here for the lulz, posting crap just to provoke discussion. I'm a proponent of rational discourse, and that's simply not possible here with the large number of prominent, persistent trolls.

I'm sure a bunch of them may post here and claim they aren't trolls. I don't care -- have at it guys. Some may debate the meaning of "troll." Again, I don't care. You know what you are -- and whether it fits your particular definition of troll, you are not promoting rational discourse.

I realized last week that I truly can't remember the last time I actually LEARNED something from a comment here. I've certainly tried my best to promote informative posts when I can. I've tried to avoid nasty arguments that devolve into name-calling, but I realize that my patience has grown thin. I don't like the person I've become in responding to asinine comments. And I'm not getting anything out of this site that's positive for me. Unlike the old Slashdot, where I'd actually learn something occasionally from the comments section.

So I'm done. Cheers to the Mighty Buzzard for his technical expertise, but he is also a primary reason I'm leaving, along with a bunch of other trollish posters whom it is unnecessary to name individually. Everyone knows the main ones. And just to be clear, I include not only the conservative nutcases but people like Aristarchus in that mix -- whom I like for his erudition, but who also behaves like a troll in his submissions. But I don't blame him for being driven mad over the millennia after arguing with the loonies here. Point being, this has nothing to do with hating conservatism or whatever -- it has to do with the loss of rational discourse (or perhaps it was always non-existent here and I just hoped it might get better).

I no longer have hope for this experiment. So I have better things to do.

Cheers to all.

President Trump, who just five months ago said he wanted “to get out” of Syria and bring U.S. troops home soon, has agreed to a new strategy that indefinitely extends the military effort there and launches a major diplomatic push to achieve American objectives, according to senior State Department officials.

Trump agrees to an indefinite military effort and new diplomatic push in Syria, U.S. officials say

If you are defrauding the American people by disguising your own orders as the President's you are a criminal! If you want to be part of the 'resistance' stand and be counted like a man!

The piece suggests America is currently under a "two-track presidency." If President Trump wants to do something the people in his administration think is good, they go along with it. If he wants to do something they think is bad, they find ways around it. This is in keeping with what the Bob Woodward book excerpt revealed: Senior officials are taking things off Trump's desk to keep him from seeing them.

Nobody who’s part of the real resistance should be celebrating this. If you work in this administration and carry out any part of Trump's agenda, you are enabling him, not undermining him. If we have a president so incompetent that his most trusted advisors have to play peekaboo to preserve national security, then those people should be working to get him out of office, not just spare us from his cruelest impulses.

...

If they really believe there's a need to subvert the president to protect the country, they should be getting this person out of the White House. But they're too cowardly and afraid of the possible implications.

No, anonymous Trump official, you're not 'part of the resistance.' You're a coward

Aaaaaargh. This is going to be news to precisely no one who knows a woman or is one, but I'm gonna say it again anyway: womens' clothing SUCKS.

First, and biggest problem: they all assume that if you're a given size in one measurement, the rest of you matches up too. This couldn't be further from the truth. According to a standard size chart, I have the waist of a 12, the hips of a 14 or 16, and the bust of a 16. This makes finding anything with a proper fit basically impossible. You *have* to go with the larger measurements, which means 1) high-rise and mid-rise jeans are too big around the middle and 2) there is simply no way I can wear a dress or other one-piece clothing item without alterations.

Second: why the bloody hell do sizes *differ* from manufacturer to manufacturer?! In some brands I'm a 12 waist, in some a 10, in one a 14 (wtf), and of course everything else varies as well. This varies brand by brand, even if you're shopping in the same store. If you wonder why we take eleventy hojillion items to the dressing room and spend so much time trying stuff on, THIS is why.

Third: pockets. Full stop. Yes, this is getting better, but it's hard to find pants that have the number and size pockets mens' pants do. I know, I know, we're supposed to splash out several hundred dollars on some ruinously expensive branded handbag. Screw that. I don't have the money, and even if I did it wouldn't be spent on a handbag. And good grief are they ugly, with their diamond patterns or repeated monograms or whatever. No, my messenger bag does fine for all my carry-stuff-around needs, and you can't fit a laptop in a $400 Gucci handbag. I may be femme but I'm not stupid, or lipstick for that matter.

In my opinion, the lack of pockets is something more cynical and sinister than just a ploy to get women to buy handbags: it's a deliberate removal of our agency. And false pockets, the ones that are just sewn-on seams with no actual depth, can DIAF.

Fourth: Quality and price. Mens' clothing seems a lot more substantial and I wear what pieces of it I can for that reason. It's also cheaper, aside from suits and formalwear. I can get a men's size L t-shirt (flaps on me like a tent but the M won't fit my chest...) for something like $5 at Shopko. I have *never* seen a womens' shirt for that price outside a very low-end thrift store, and the equivalents are smaller, thinner, made of less-durable materials, and MORE expensive.

Fifth: too much of our clothing is basically candy wrappers. What I mean by this is it exists mostly to imply what's under it, either by showing a lot of skin or, less greasily, indicating by color or pattern that "the person wearing this is demure, defenseless, meek, quiet, and perfectly happy to be basically an object." I really think sometimes that all the pink and floral pattern stuff is some sort of salve to mens' fragile egos, or at the very least a way of firmly separating the two sexes by clothing and letting all concerned know who stands where in the power dynamic.

Now yes, I'm aware 2/3 of the time men are not looking at our clothes specifically. And yes, I am very much aware most of this stuff is done to compete with *other women,* which is another game I flat-out refuse to play. It still pisses me off, and many a time I've been standing in the changing room thinking to myself "Madokami have mercy, WHAT does a girl need to do to get something functional, well-fitting, and decently-priced that *doesn't* tell the world I'm a simpering moron with no aims in life other than to lasso a guy?!"

There's way too much politics surrounding clothing, is what this boils down to. Politics, and something a level or two under it, also. I'm very aware that by not "playing the game" I'm shut out of many social interactions, and for interviews I do the "pretend to be perfectly normal" game with light makeup and the "appropriate" clothes, but what a crock. Do men worry about this stuff? It doesn't seem like it.