Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What's Going on at the FBI?

lawfaremedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 189 posts

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#31

Post by greatgib »

kennysoona wrote: post #12
arunabha wrote: post #8

It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.

> but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. As well as a stress test against half the voting population that thinks an authoritarian president is peachy and somehow patriotic.

Also, you can't rule out the corruption-like part of the situation.

When you have billions to communicate, and people like Musk have a full global network to brain wash his ideas, obviously a lot of people might be wrongly convinced that they elected the president that defend freedom and efficiency of the institutions to improve their life.

Not realizing that Trump, Musk, are just selfish bastards defending these ideas but only for themselves.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#32

Post by TeMPOraL »

kragen wrote: post #22
arunabha wrote: post #8

It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.

I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. Organizations are ongoing processes, constantly in flux, not structures erected in the past. Like a river, you can never step in the same organization twice. Like ghosts and money, they only exist in people's minds; they consist of belief in them, hyperstitiously. The democracy the FBI is sworn to protect has turned on it. What is left for it to protect? The laws handed d…

> You can count on the FBI to protect itself, but never believe that what it is protecting is democracy.

Except the only thing that what makes them different from organized crime is also the shared belief in laws that form and direct them.

> will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws?

If they don't, i.e. if they start to openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not, the whole thing will unravel. Laws won't mean anything anymore, and then suddenly the president is just a random dude, the FBI is just a bunch of thugs with guns and suits, and USA is just words on a map.

You don't want to go there.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#33

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

thih9 wrote: post #20

I’m not from the US and news like this change my perception of that country - it seems unstable; just like I’m not considering a Wordpress blog, I’d think twice before any long term plans that involve the US. The comparison to the Wordpress drama works surprisingly well for me, complete with vendettas and an overzealous leader, just on an even larger scale and affecting more people.

imagine being energy dependent on a regime that bullies you from Washington, and being asked to increase security spending to 5% of GDP by purchasing US weapons systems. while being told by the same regime they might take over Greenland or the Panama canal.

when putting US foreign policy into perspective over the past 30 (or more depending where you are) years, then aligning with China suddenly looks a lot less awful all of a sudden.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#34

Post by okthrowman283 »

kennysoona wrote: post #12
arunabha wrote: post #8

It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.

> but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. As well as a stress test against half the voting population that thinks an authoritarian president is peachy and somehow patriotic.

[dead]

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#35

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

trhway wrote: post #29
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't lie to Congress, and he got a preemptive pardon because Trump is vindictive and would 100% have ordered the DOJ to go after Fauci in any way possible.

https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114270/documents/... "Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH, told Congress in May that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."" which we know is a blatant lie - see NIH EcoHealth Alliance Wuhan grants (which even had the "Human Subje…

Fauci's statement was correct: the NIH does not fund gain-of-function research, according to the definition that has been drawn up to regulate such research.

You seem to think that any manipulation of a virus is "gain-of-function." The technical term that regulators use of "gain of function of concern." There's a specific definition of that term that was drawn up in the 2010s, and that's what NIH applies.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#36

Post by phinnaeus »

whatever1 wrote: post #21
kennysoona wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. As well as a stress test against half the voting population that thinks an authoritarian president is peachy and somehow patriotic.

Half of the voting population were so fed up with the economy that they went with the nuclear option. It’s just that most of them have not read history and none of them have lived through war or fascism to understand what they are signing up for. They will all learn their lesson.

I have strong doubts they will learn anything, if they were capable of that you could expect them to have learned it already.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#37

Post by throwawaythekey »

babyshake wrote: post #25
throwawaythekey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.

If you are elected on a platform of a coup (illegal reform), it doesn't make what you do any more legal. Some of what Trump is doing is not illegal, but some of it appears to be illegal.

[flagged]

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#38

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

rapsey wrote: post #28
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it a coup is that Trump is acting completely illegally. He was elected president, not dictator. He does not have the legal authority to create a new government department, DOGE, to appoint Musk as its head without Senate advice and consent, and to give it full power over all other agencies.

[flagged]

Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution is crystal clear on this subject.

DOGE and Musk's appointment are blatantly illegal.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#39

Post by Juliate »

thih9 wrote: post #20

I’m not from the US and news like this change my perception of that country - it seems unstable; just like I’m not considering a Wordpress blog, I’d think twice before any long term plans that involve the US. The comparison to the Wordpress drama works surprisingly well for me, complete with vendettas and an overzealous leader, just on an even larger scale and affecting more people.

That.

The impact on commercial, technical, cultural influence of the USA is incredible.

How could we have any insurance that these (personal and professional) US-based infra/tools companies (even AWS, Microsoft, Apple) could be even operating as expected, and in good faith, now that some petulant, inconsequential mixed-business-political leader is able to trigger that level of damage on a whim?

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#40

Post by Juliate »

throwawaythekey wrote: post #37
babyshake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are elected on a platform of a coup (illegal reform), it doesn't make what you do any more legal. Some of what Trump is doing is not illegal, but some of it appears to be illegal.

[flagged]

Hu… no, it is not « normal ». It displays a wild disconnect from the duties of the position (to protect the Constitution, among which).
Post reply on HN