WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder • Hacker News Board

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#201

Post by cwisecarver » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #186

harshreality wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law In light of that, if you don't believe parties have a duty to be fair to all primary contenders, then I'm at a loss. How do you expect to avoid cronyism and corruption when "private" political parties are outed working to bias primaries and you say that's okay?

what does "fair" mean? A party's purpose is to advance a set of ideas. So, absolutely, the party leadership can choose not to be fair to a primary candidate that does not support those ideas. As an example, if Sanders is a socialist and wants to advance socialist ideas, he can form his own party and have it be on the ballot. And that party should be free to reject primary candidates who are not socialists, no? otherw…

You do realize that the DNC not being "fair" might have affected who won the most votes, right?

That's the entire point.

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#202

Post by Bartweiss » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

dmschulman wrote: post #128

SmellTheGlove wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how much money goes into an election, this level of collusion should piss you off at least a little if you supported Bernie Sanders, right? It's not an outright fix, but if the deck was stacked, any donations to candidates other than Hillary Clinton were sort of like pissing into the ocean. Maybe a little less satisfying than that. I agree that it was personally motivated. I just don't care. I want to know if o…

It's not collusion, the decisions are all being made within the party. It's wrong and unfortunate the way Sanders was treated by the DNC (I supported and donate to Sanders), but it's the DNC's call to operate however they want to operate.

It's not really, though. Or at least, what the DNC did wasn't just operating how they chose.

The DNC portrayed itself as a candidate-agnostic intermediary that wanted to see a Democrat win the election. They fundraised, did press coverage, and organized events using that claim. They were repeatedly accused of being biased, and they denied the accusations then publicly mocked the accusers for spinning crazy conspiracies.

So no, the DNC didn't 'rig' the primary, they didn't have the power. But everyone who donated to the DNC has a right to be angry. The DNC is free to operate as they choose, but they lied about how they operate, and took money under those false pretenses. We aren't expected to accept that behavior from companies or charities, and I don't want to accept it from political groups either.

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#203

Post by ja30278 » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 4:39 PM UTC

ComteDeLaFere wrote: post #192

patrickaljord wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it weird that all these critiques from liberals come just when Wikileaks released info that the DNC primaries were rigged. Before that, it was pretty much all praise. Now, it turns out one of their informant may have been the victim of political assassination and you focus on the fact that they released a conversation of a dad and his daughter, which is of course a blunder but still, compared to the other pote…

I'm not sure this is accurate. In fact, conventional wisdom says that Assange is pursuing this as revenge against HRC, who has historically been a major opponent of his. If he isn't pursuing revenge against her, then why isn't he going after the RNC?

I feel compelled to point out that your question has 2 assumptions: - that the RNC is equally corrupt as the DNC - that Assange has (or could obtain) evidence of that corruption.

If either of these assumptions is incorrect, then your question is meaningless.

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#204

Post by Bartweiss » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #159

Bartweiss wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The DNC isn't even a government, wasn't the whole point of WikiLeaks to hold governments and their leaders accountable? I agree that this was personally motivated, but that's a pretty laughable claim. A major political institution was attempting to manipulate an election for the US Presidency, but it's outside Wikileaks' purview because the DNC isn't technically part of the government? Vetting and bias are topics w…

Manipulate an election? What? Firstly, Clinton straight out won more votes then Sanders, secondly, it's absolutely legitimate for leadership of a political party to try to influence who that party nominates as its candidate. It's an organization. Sanders could have run for president as a socialist and nothing was stopping him from doing so.

Hang on, I think you're misunderstanding my objection.

Clinton won a majority, so the primary wasn't "stolen". She probably would have won without any DNC intervention, so it wasn't "rigged", either. And the DNC is under no duty to be objective, so it wasn't malfeasance in that sense.

My complaint is specifically that the DNC denied attempting to skew things to Hillary, and collected money while pretending to be neutral. Sanders repeatedly accused the DNC of favoring Hillary and attacking him, and DNC staffers said that the claims were untrue and absurd.

Priebus and the RNC openly opposed Trump, as was their right. Donors to the RNC knew that they were effectively donating to Cruz and Rubio, and against Trump. The DNC insisted they weren't opposing Sanders, and then did so behind the backs of voters and donors.

So no, I'm not mad that a party committee tried to influence a primary. I'm mad that they did so while swearing up and down they weren't, and mocking the Sanders campaign for claiming otherwise.

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#205

Post by vasilipupkin » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

cwisecarver wrote: post #201

vasilipupkin wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what does "fair" mean? A party's purpose is to advance a set of ideas. So, absolutely, the party leadership can choose not to be fair to a primary candidate that does not support those ideas. As an example, if Sanders is a socialist and wants to advance socialist ideas, he can form his own party and have it be on the ballot. And that party should be free to reject primary candidates who are not socialists, no? otherw…

You do realize that the DNC not being "fair" might have affected who won the most votes, right? That's the entire point.

in what way? do primary voters not support Hillary Clinton more than they support Sanders? Was it not up to them to decide ? were they in any way prevented from deciding ?

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#206

Post by ComteDeLaFere » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

ja30278 wrote: post #203

ComteDeLaFere wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is accurate. In fact, conventional wisdom says that Assange is pursuing this as revenge against HRC, who has historically been a major opponent of his. If he isn't pursuing revenge against her, then why isn't he going after the RNC?

I feel compelled to point out that your question has 2 assumptions: - that the RNC is equally corrupt as the DNC - that Assange has (or could obtain) evidence of that corruption. If either of these assumptions is incorrect, then your question is meaningless.

Based on your two points, I'm kind of leaning toward the question having some meaning.

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#207

Post by fyhhvvfddhv » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

dvcc wrote: post #2

WikiLeaks is becoming a political mess with Assange leading the charge. The philosophy that all information should be public is just absurd. There is a reason that the whistle-blowers prior passed their information to reporters, it allowed for certain pieces of information to be redacted. Sending out the name of every woman voter in Turkey does not benefit anyone. Leaking the private conversation of a man and his dau…

Somebody is just pissed off coz now everybody knows the DNC is just as corrupt as the GOP. Democracy my ass

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#208

Post by tzs » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 5:49 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #109

Of course you'll be called a "conspiracy theorist" for speculating about this case in any way deviating from the official narrative. But the circumstances are extremely suspicious. The DNC voter expansion data director was found shot dead, assassination style, two bullets in the back, in one of the safest neighborhoods of DC. Nothing was taken off his person. No forensic evidence was left behind. Yet the police deeme…

> in one of the safest neighborhoods of DC

That neighborhood already had 7 killing this year (although that was down from 15 for the same period last year). It had 126 robberies in which a gun was used (up from 113). 195 robberies without a gun (up from 181).

> Nothing was taken off his person. No forensic evidence was left behind. Yet the police deemed it a "robbery gone wrong." How can anyone believe this was a robbery gone wrong?

Because it is common for robberies gone wrong to go the way this one did. Most robbers who use a gun have no intention of actually shooting their victim. Their intent is to intimidate the victim so that the victim will not fight back. Rich fought back and got shot. (And getting shot in the back is not unreasonable in those circumstance...if the victim at some point decides to try to get away instead of continuing fighting, the robber might easily fire a couple shots before they consciously realize the fight is over).

When a robbery goes bad like that, and the robber has shot someone, it is often the last thing on their mind to finish the robbery by taking items off the body (or in this case, the wounded, but still conscious victim...Rich died later, at the hospital). They wanted a simple robbery, which would not draw much attention. Now they've got possibly a homicide, and that will draw much more attention than a simple robbery. Every second lingering at the scene is a second that someone attracted by the gunshots might be aiming a camera in their direction, getting a photo of them at the scene.

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#209

Post by tzs » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

pmyjavec wrote: post #177

tstactplsignore wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because Assange is just offering this reward to create this news story in order to harm Hillary Clinton as much as possible as part of his personal vendetta against her. I respect Manning and Snowden immensely, but Assange now is clearly playing a personal game which happens to be extremely dangerous for the rest of us.

The guy has practically sacrificed his life and you think he is going to offer $20,000 just to hurt Hillary Clinton? He is a smart guy and I'm sure if his intention was to get revenge on her he might be able to come up with something a little more creative no?

He has actually said that he has a personal problem with Clinton, because she wants him indicted over the Manning leaks, and because she supported intervention in Libya to stop the crackdown on Arab Spring protestors.

See summary here, which contains a link to the full video interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-...

Re: WikiLeaks offers $20,000 for information on former DNC staffer's murder

#210

Post by elevensies » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

tstactplsignore wrote: post #170

Someone1234 wrote: post #108

Very strong anti-Wikileaks vibe in this thread. But, why? Someone was murdered (irrespective of if they're a Wikileaks source or not) and Wikileaks is putting money on the table to help get it solved and bringing greater attention to it. In my book trying to help solve murders is a Good Thing™. I have to say I am surprised, in 2016, how well the Red Scare still works in the US. You say Russia is behind something and…

It's because Assange is just offering this reward to create this news story in order to harm Hillary Clinton as much as possible as part of his personal vendetta against her. I respect Manning and Snowden immensely, but Assange now is clearly playing a personal game which happens to be extremely dangerous for the rest of us.

My guess is Assange thinks that Hillary Clinton wants to torture him. For him it is victory or death, he has nothing to lose.