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Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

reuters.com

111–120 of 400 posts

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#111
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's in the UK. Such a law would run afoul of the First Amendment in the US.

Do texts that contain bomb-making information really fall under the first amendment in the US?

According to Wikipedia[1] the legal status of the book has been challenged or been brought up by politicians over the years but that it is still readily available from online retailers like Amazon.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchist_Cookbook#Legalit...

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#113
post #46

He named his BBS "TacoLand". He should definitely play up this angle...maybe campaign on a taco cart on every corner. I know people who will vote for him for that alone. This piece is a disaster. It's an excerpt from a soon to be released book, it's light on facts about O'Rourke and is at least equally about Cult of the Dead Cow, it's trying to make things sound more nefarious than they were, and it's playing the gui…

>it's trying to make things sound more nefarious than they were, and it's playing the guilt by association card Are we reading the same article? If anything this article seems like a submarine PR puff piece to me, made to increase the image of Beto by making him seem "cool" and "hip" by associating him with the typically-seen-as-sexy "hacker" scene. This article is very similar to the pro-Beto stuff that was all over…

From the article:

Still, it’s unclear whether the United States is ready for a presidential contender who, as a teenager, stole long-distance phone service for his dial-up modem, wrote a murder fantasy in which the narrator drives over children on the street, and mused about a society without money.

This doesn't read as very pro-Beto to me.

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#114
post #45

I don’t believe this. The GOP is desperate to discredit him because he puts Texas into play a couple years early. This smells like a weak hit job. I’m not sold as Beto as the candidate but this is a weak meme. 2/10 be best.

If /ˈbɛ.toʊ oʊ.rɔːrk/ was R he would be buried on "TacoLand" alone.

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to have any actual policy platform related to the presidential run; at least, the other day when I visited the site I saw only merchandising.

Is he late in this sort of thing? Is it typical for candidates to have their own platforms put forth outside of the incumbent party platforms by this point?

> Is it typical for candidates to have their own platforms put forth outside of the incumbent party platforms by this point?

Most of the top tier (by current polling) 2020 candidates don't have much beside donations and merchandising on their website yet; Harris has some things that are at about the level of a stump speech and Warren has actual issue pages.

Those currently in Congress (e.g., Sanders, Harris, Warren, Gillibrand, Klobuchar) can (and do) signal platform positions concretely through sponsored legislation, even they don't have issues pages on their website.

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#116
post #73

Why are all the articles about Beto about how cool and antiestablishment he is? Just absolutely nothing about what he really intends to do, how he intends to do it, and most importantly, how do we reconcile his conservative voting record with this contrary image he presents?

Because on the questions of what he intends to do and how he intends to do it, he has been maddeningly vague. It's hard to write about what somebody is going to do when they refuse to tell you.

(In his defense, this vagueness can actually be read as strategic. Barack Obama took a similar tack in 2008, and it let people project onto him pretty much any profile they wanted. In politics, specificity can be a career limiter.)

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, good point! As an independent I don't participate in primaries typically.

You should; lack of moderate voices in primaries only helps fringe candidates.

Exactly; this is why we frequently get such lousy candidates winning in the primaries, who then go to the general election for everyone to vote on.

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, good point! As an independent I don't participate in primaries typically.

You should; lack of moderate voices in primaries only helps fringe candidates.

Except when you're not allowed to, which happens a lot if you're registered as an Independent...

> In a closed primary, only voters registered with a given party can vote in that party's primary. States with closed primaries include party affiliation in voter registration so that the state has an official record of what party each voter is registered as.

https://www.fairvote.org/open_and_closed_primaries

The system isn't nearly as open as people seem to think.

Re: Beto O'Rourke's membership in America's oldest hacking group

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, good point! As an independent I don't participate in primaries typically.

You should; lack of moderate voices in primaries only helps fringe candidates.

Not allowed to here in MA AFAIK; have to register with a party to vote in the primaries.
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