Trump Rolls Back Online Privacy in Regulatory Shell Game

[TheWarrior]

Good luck with that Mr Trump. Obama caught Bin Laden and his administration brought the US economy out of a recession. Trump is nothing more than an ill tempered mouthpiece who is riding on Obama's coat tails as far as I'm concerned.

No, he just notified his friends the Russian's that he was bombing an airfield with missiles he partly owns in a most pathetic attack that didn't even damage the runways. He's fleecing this country, and only individual pride is preventing his remaining supporters from admitting their terrible mistake.

 

[highfigh]

Remember, I'm Canadian and we Canucks tend to get our news through fake news outlets such as CNN.

If you haven't lived here and are younger than about 40, you're just an observer. That's not to say getting an outside opinion isn't a good thing, but you haven't lived with what we have and seeing it from the outside is nice, but you can't possibly know what we're dealing with on a personal level.

Are you saying CNN is unbiased?

 

[rojo]

If you haven't lived here and are younger than about 40, you're just an observer. That's not to say getting an outside opinion isn't a good thing, but you haven't lived with what we have and seeing it from the outside is nice, but you can't possibly know what we're dealing with on a personal level.

Are you saying CNN is unbiased?

Amen on the CNN observation! CNN used to perform actual journalism years ago until they started inviting the merchants of doubt to give the impression of a balanced viewpoint.

 

[highfigh]

@highfigh I think I understand your position now. Earlier in the thread it seemed that you supported the rollback of the privacy regulations simply because it was Obama who ordered the regulations in the first place. Was I mistaken? Are you instead saying you're suspicious of the consequences of the regulations, that maybe there were unrelated riders attached increasing taxes on the rich or drowning puppies or some other hidden treachery?

You were way off on that. I really don't care which party writes and passes legislation if it's good legislation and helps the country. The ACA doesn't do that. I saw a quote from Obama that because of Obamacare (that's what HE called it- tell me that's not at least a bit arrogant), over 120,000 people who previously weren't, are now insured. That's .037%. The quote would have to be missing a comma and some zeros if it's not correct because all of the bluster and BS are a lot to go through if it only added 120K people to the ranks of the insured. If I could find an unbiased link about the numbers, I would post it. If they added 1.2M people, it's still not worth it if all of the division is accounted for.

This is the best they could come up with?

As long as I'm unable to dissuade you from ranting about the ACA in this online privacy thread, let me just suggest that the real problem with the ACA is that it does nothing to address health care affordability. I've always thought that efforts directed toward insurance companies to address exorbitant health care costs were about as useful as starting a war in Iraq in response to 9/11. It's a noisy and distracting effort directed at the wrong target.

Health care providers understand there's an inelastic demand for their services regardless of the cost, so they can get away with charging $100 for Tylenol or $3000 for two hours in the recovery room after surgery. And as long as insurance companies continue to sign blank checks to cover the claims, the cost of insurance will stay high. We need an advocate to negotiate the costs down to more reasonable levels before universal coverage can happen.

I wrote a letter to Bob Corker explaining this view a few weeks ago, but he didn't bother to respond. I also suggested that maybe if hospitals and clinics could post prices for their procedures in a common format similar to nutritional info on food, that patients would be free to bargain hunt for non-emergent services, saving their insurance providers money, which could in turn lower premiums for everyone. I don't think it's unreasonable to comparison shop within the region who charges the lowest fee for an endoscopy, or to know before you receive the bill how much to expect to pay for surgery to remove gall stones, and whether the cost is significantly less in the hospital in the next county. And maybe if the prices were made more public, then the free market could do a better job at controlling health care costs.

The problem with your comment about blank checks- they don't pay what's on the bill, they negotiate a settlement. I suspect that the rest is paid to their execs, the board of directors and go into their fancy new headquarters.

You may have done calisthenic exercises in grade school- I remember seeing videos from Communist countries of the people doing this every morning. Imagine how much more healthy Americans would be if we all did this. Instead, people pay to join a health club and show off their groovy workout duds or spend hundreds on videos and pills that will end up not working and sitting in a basket of broken dreams when they give up.

I don't think the industry will ever be a participant of the free market- competition will lead to collusion and we'll still be screwed.

As I have said before, this should have been handled long ago.

 

[highfigh]

No, he just notified his friends the Russian's that he was bombing an airfield with missiles he partly owns in a most pathetic attack that didn't even damage the runways. He's fleecing this country, and only individual pride is preventing his remaining supporters from admitting their terrible mistake.

You seem to be parroting the news report I read from some mouthpiece online- Airfields can be repaired fairly quickly, as he said. While this was far from a crippling attack, it has seen some bi-partisan support in Congress.

Look at your IRA or mutual funds- I would bet that companies like Honeywell, Raytheon, General Dynamics and others are in the portfolio. If so, I guess it's time to hate yourself, too.

 

[Irvrobinson]

If some group is truly being victimized and oppressed, it should stop unless they instigated the problems, IMO.

I just re-read your post, and noticed this remark. What does this mean? Is this a muslims-bring-it-on-themselves remark (or whatever group you think you're talking about)?

 

[3db]

If you haven't lived here and are younger than about 40, you're just an observer. That's not to say getting an outside opinion isn't a good thing, but you haven't lived with what we have and seeing it from the outside is nice, but you can't possibly know what we're dealing with on a personal level.

Are you saying CNN is unbiased?

Aww man.. I'm quoting Trump with the "fake news" and eluding to the fact that CNN and BBC news was banished from Presidential press conferences. I thought you would have caught that.

 

[shadyJ]

I will just add that while CNN is trash news, they are not fake news. They really do some journalism. Their stories have to be reliably sourced or else they are faced with libel suites, in other words CNN needs good primary sources for their stories. They will also bother to issue retractions if they find out that they have reported something incorrect. Their editorial focus is often on trashy stories, but I would expect the reporting itself to be solid. Many conservative 'news' outlets do not burden themselves with petty things like primary sources or facts or retractions. These days the phrase 'conservative news' is just a byword for 'scamming old people'.

 

[lovinthehd]

You seem to be parroting the news report I read from some mouthpiece online- Airfields can be repaired fairly quickly, as he said. While this was far from a crippling attack, it has seen some bi-partisan support in Congress.

Look at your IRA or mutual funds- I would bet that companies like Honeywell, Raytheon, General Dynamics and others are in the portfolio. If so, I guess it's time to hate yourself, too.

Curious, what aren't "mouthpiece" news sources, i.e. the ones that you utilize?

 

[Swerd]

I have a number of observations and questions.

Trump made a big deal about chemical weapons (i.e. nerve gas) killing innocent civilians, especially babies. Apparently killing as many as 500,000 Syrian civilians with high explosives is alright, even though those are also chemical weapons.

Trump previously was only concerned with preventing Muslim immigrants from coming to the USA because they might be ISIS terrorists. Now he has attacked a Syrian airbase, because Syrian warplanes attacked Syrian rebels. ISIS is included among the various forces in Syria fighting the Assad regime. I do not understand that at all. Can't that be seen as helping ISIS?

As previously agreed, the US military notified the Russians in advance of the missile attack. Nothing is said about whether the Russians passed that advance notice to their Syrian hosts. It would be naïve to assume they didn’t.

There is much silly debate over why the cruise missiles “failed” to damage runways at the air base. Apparently, buildings, headquarters, refueling facilities, etc. were targeted at that one Syrian airbase, but not runways. It has been well known since WWII that cratered runways are easily repaired and using bombs on this accomplishes little. I don’t know if this is now a standard US military airbase attack method or not. It all depends on what else is planned for the same time.

Claims that there is bipartisan support in Congress are of course “trumped up”. Congress was out of town on a two week long spring break. It neither approved nor disapproved the attack. I doubt if Trump consulted with Congressional leaders in advance.

I could go on, but it seems clear that attacking one single air base in Syria is little more than a gesture or demonstration meant for Russian, North Korean, and Chinese eyes, not to mention US public opinion.

 

[3db]

Swerd, you raise good points. We will never know the truth from any administration including Obama. However, Trump is still a douche bag any way you look at it. The problem with the Middle East is its instability and if the US Aministration supports one faction, that faction may turn back against the US. Afghanistan is the perfect example. The US has put itself in a no win situation. I see no easy way out of this.

 

[3db]

I will just add that while CNN is trash news, they are not fake news. They really do some journalism. Their stories have to be reliably sourced or else they are faced with libel suites, in other words CNN needs good primary sources for their stories. They will also bother to issue retractions if they find out that they have reported something incorrect. Their editorial focus is often on trashy stories, but I would expect the reporting itself to be solid. Many conservative 'news' outlets do not burden themselves with petty things like primary sources or facts or retractions. These days the phrase 'conservative news' is just a byword for 'scamming old people'.

CNN, Fox, etc are there to do one thing. That's to make money and raise subscriber base. News is just a by-product.

 

[Swerd]

… However, Trump is still a douche bag any way you look at it.

Yes, he's a feminine hygiene product – and the bag it came in.

 

[highfigh]

Curious, what aren't "mouthpiece" news sources, i.e. the ones that you utilize?

Good point. I sometimes watch BBC news, just to get an outside view because watching US-based is like neighborhood gossip with ads.

 

[Irvrobinson]

CNN, Fox, etc are there to do one thing. That's to make money and raise subscriber base. News is just a by-product.

You could say the same thing about any company, that what they produce is just a byproduct of trying to make money. Without companies trying to make a profit we'd be back to the middle ages.

 

[rojo]

Good point. I sometimes watch BBC news, just to get an outside view because watching US-based is like neighborhood gossip with ads.

There are a few news shows I think are worth catching. PBS News Hour and HBO's VICE News Tonight are a couple I try to watch whenever I'm not being force fed cartoons by my daughter. I also listen to and highly enjoy BBC World Service, as well as NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Here & Now, and so on -- although I tend to switch off during Steve Inskeep's anthropological journeys to rural America. I also subscribe to a couple of newsletters for emailed news. theSkimm is an easily digestible daily service for general news, and Right Richter lets me keep informed on the alt right's shenanigans without having to suffer through actually visiting alt right outlets. *shrug*

 

[3db]

You could say the same thing about any company, that what they produce is just a byproduct of trying to make money. Without companies trying to make a profit we'd be back to the middle ages.

Whats your point Irv? News directly influences political decisions which effects people down the road. Products, not so much. The comparison is weak IHO.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Whats your point Irv? News directly influences political decisions which effects people down the road. Products, not so much. The comparison is weak IHO.

Uh, my point is that you're being a cynic.

 

[3db]

Uh, my point is that you're being a cynic.

Maybe a little but I'm not far from the truth.

 

[Audiot]

Maybe a little but I'm not far from the truth.

I'd disagree. There is a big difference just between Fox and CNN, never mind NPR, CBC, the NYT, BBC or even Al Jazeera and other legitimate media that strive for objectivity. To suggest they are all the same is a false equivalence. Fox makes no pretenses about its biases except to vainly proclaim they are "fair and balanced."

The only people being fooled are the people who believe that the outlets of Bannon, O'Reilly and Hannity are equally as credible as NPR or PBS.....or CNN. There are ample accurate news sources. We should not conflate the ones that are not credible with those that are. Such a view is in opposition to reality.