It may be fine that you don't understand or like the explanations, but saying "I really don't understand X" and then punishing anybody who tries to explain it isn't much of a way to have a reasonable public discourse. (This wasn't directed at you, just at the community at large. I've seen several of these comment questions and they never end well. Might be time for a politics pause for a day or two)

Discussion is good. Saying you don't understand because you don't agree with answers is like saying you don't understand why a homosexaul is homosexual.

Last time I checked, that's called "bigotry"

You can't make an assessment about whether you agree if you don't understand - the latter must must happen before the former can come to pass. It would either be the case that you don't understand because the explanation is complex or it contains logical fallacies...the latter applies to your statement above.

> is like saying you don't understand why a homosexaul is homosexual.

It's fine to say you don't understand why a homosexual is homosexual - however it's not fine to impose restrictions, punishment, violence or torment for what goes on between consenting adults. You're allowed to find it odd or not to your taste, but you're expected to live and let live.

> Last time I checked, that's called "bigotry"

Bigotry is intolerance stemming from a preconceived opinion that isn't based on reason or experience. And I'd agree that the liberal/progressive side can exhibit such intolerance - I've been on the receiving end despite considering myself progressive. But if we're going talk about the old classics like racism, homophobia, and sexism -- the conservative side knows the art better than any.

Lincoln, a Republican, abolished slavery. And Roosevelt, a Democrat, interned Japanese Americans.

That situation was far more nuanced than the idea that millions of people with opposing viewpoints across the entirety of the country suddenly agreed with each other to switch parties.

As for the southern strategy, there is the viewpoint that getting people to vote for you doesn't automatically mean you accept and enforce their ideologies. They just become "useful idiots" for your cause. Although, I disagree with the premise of the strategy because it would have the side effect of fostering racial divide. But I have the advantage of hindsight in that matter.

The people (southern whites) that committed violence against blacks who were democrats back then, are very, very likely to be Republican these days.

My bad.

I am not going to explain this further, as you are borderline trolling.

I think that the GP is being unfair, though. Complaining about arguments specifically on the topic of politics? That's the essence of politics - conflict and how to deal with it. If people didn't disagree on a topic, it wouldn't be political. Outside of political topics, I'd say the bulk of explanations offered on HN are upvoted or at lest left neutral.

The fact that their solution to their own failure to get people in place is to make things worse by releasing a blanket gag order is another self-inflicted PR wound. If the "gag order" is in place after they have media people in place, or if it lasts more than a month or so, then I'd be worried.

It's also freezing the distribution of grants and any new business of EPA for a week, if not longer. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...

This is while Trump attempts to appoint Scott Pruitt to the head of the EPA. He's a noted opponent of the EPA who frequently litigates against it on behalf of the fossil fuel lobby, denies man-made climate change, and would like to dismantle the agency's power altogether. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/politics/scott-pruitt-...

  but is so far behind on staffing the posts at EPA 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmations_of_Barack_Obam...

To your latter point regarding the fired ambassadors, it's the most scandalous thing since 2008, when Obama did the exact same thing - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/12/obama-gives-poli...

A changing of the guard in these roles is (as the article I posted pointed out) the norm.

However, In the current case, no one knows who the replacement is, or when he/she will be taking on the role, thus leaving us officially without an ambassador for the foreseeable future, and also resulting in the longest gap in 70 odd years that we have not had an official ambassador.

A transition team who knows these things would have done that - the Trump team, though, since he was not actually expecting a transition, had no idea how to run one. And accepted all the resignations.

This is the same reason the commander of the D.C. National Guard was dismissed at noon on the same day.

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

  The incoming president then says, no, no, please stay on until we have your replacement set up.

Unless I'm misremembering, that wasn't the case. Obama was appointing ambassadors regularly for a few months.

But wasn't it the Parks agency that tweeted about the crowd size, not the EPA?

And is the current administration simply going to shut down or fire everyone who shows any form of push back towards the regime? Isn't that what they do in places like, oh say, North Korea?

I can't think of many instances where Executive Branch employees used official outlets to undermine a sitting President's policies in the past. Can you?

Don't all new presidents appoint a fresh new batch of ambassadors ? I assumed it was always done that way ...

Are there cases of cross-presidency ambassadors ?

   This admin, for whatever reasons, is months behind the normal schedual.

Please describe your process for properly vetting, nominating, debating, and confirming all (or most) ambassadorships in 4+ days, since you see that as "normal practice". Extra credit: name any three administrations that have done so.

I would hope that the Secretary of State would have some say in ambassadorships, in which case the process would also be constrained until the SecState nominee is confirmed.

The Trump team immediately accepted all the ambassadors resignations, which is what is unusual.

2. December 3, 2008. That's when that article was published about giving notice and starting to find replacements. Same as every other president does.

3. Serious question. Are you paid to do what you are doing right now? I have a really hard time understanding why you would post that link which is specifically framed to spread misinformation as it is about a completely different point in the presidency. Seriously, this is your country. Why would you intentionally attempt to misinform your fellow citizens?

EDIT: I expect a response. You said Obama did the "exact same thing". Which is an outright falsehood and posted an link that is from a different period to intentionally misinform people. In some countries what you just did would be considered a crime.

To my surprise, jquery is pretty much correct about it being the same thing as Obama did. This[1] is the best summary of the situation I can find:

1) Obama (and all new incoming presidents before him) did ask for the resignations of all non-career, politically appointed ambassadors.

2) Obama (and Bush) did grant extensions to some ambassadors. However, this was a (very) small number. Exactly how many it applied to is unclear, but to quote the the article I linked above:

in the past two inter-party transitions (Clinton-Bush, Bush-Obama) only about 10 political ambassadors have gotten extensions.

Basically, I'd judge that the reporting of The Independent article linked above is misleadingly critical of Trump.

I also think that jquery's point below about Obama literally auctioned off the posts is incomplete. Most ambassadorships are given as rewards (by both US parties). Most countries do the same: ambassadorships to friendly countries are political rewards and the countries actually want someone who is close to the leader of the country they represent. I don't think the moral case against that is entirely clear, but I can see arguments both ways.

[1] https://diplopundit.net/2017/01/06/foreign-service-tradition...

So, yes, some posts may be left without an immediate replacement, but it's not cause for panic if the alternative is immediately filling the posts with unqualified campaign donors.

EDIT: These are undisputed facts in response to a hostile question accusing me of being a paid actor (ridiculous, my account is 8 years old) posting things that would be a "crime" in other countries. People down-voting this should check the irony considering they're upset at the President for censorship.

That's a shady rhetorical technique, and I suspect you're arguing in bad faith. That's worth some downvotes.

My interpretation was that GP meant that Obama did the same thing (firing existing politically appointed ambassadors) and then in addition filled the positions with people who had donated to his campaign (hence not the "exact same thing", but worse).

I really don't know the facts here, but my cursory reading of the Wapo article does seem to suggest that Obama did essentially the same thing in 2008. Or am I missing something?

Ironically, you are incorrect and have strangely doubled down on it in some sort of pyrrhic victory dance of failure.

Give your fellow HNers the benefit of the doubt.

Good thing Mr. Trump would never do that kind of thing, like with the Department of Education or something.

I can't tell you how many times both online and in real life that people have made that assumption about me when I've criticized Obama, Clinton or other Democrats, or vice-versa when I've criticized Trump. I can assure you that I detest Donald Trump too.

I do have a significant D bias. Obama was by no means a perfect president - I mean, my God, I have a long list - but Trump, as far as I can see, doesn't even know what "President" means. There are loads of Republicans who I think would have done a fine job. I liked Romney, I think Kasich would have done OK, etc.

That said, an ambassadorship is normally given as a sop, isn't it? It doesn't alarm me in the slightest that Obama may have "literally auctioned off" ambassadorships - because I don't see the harm done and, as I say, I was under the impression that this was business as usual.

But you have to see that calling out possible corruption in the Obama administration (which, as I said, doesn't appear to have harmed us in any way that I know of) in the present context is ... well, it looks like carrying water for what appears to be shaping up to be quite literally the most corrupt administration America has ever suffered.

Why would you intentionally attempt to misinform your fellow citizens?

As someone who may be influenced by this discussion I am way more interested in why you think his point about nominating donors is not significant enough to discuss. Isn't that a sort of misinformation by non-acknowledgment?

"For decades, the National Park Service provided official crowd estimates for gatherings on the National Mall but no longer does.

The policy changed after the Million Man March in 1995, a gathering of black men meant to show renewed commitment to family and solidarity. The park service estimated 400,000 people attended the march, making it one of the largest demonstrations in history in Washington.

But organizers believed they reached their goal of 1 million participants and threatened legal action. No lawsuit was filed, but the dispute was enough to get the park service out of the head-counting business."

Ref: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/21/national-park-service-t...

Sounds like the Boston police department needs to order more Stingrays!

:(

I, for one, am happy that I live in a country where I don't have to worry about being prosecuted for making HN comments.

Can we please not do this here?

It is a very interesting question how to fight this fact, and we need to discuss it, not silence any discussion of it.

  Are you paid to do what you are doing right now?

The number of true believers in various viewpoints, willing to lie in order to sway the audience vastly overwhelms the amount any organization's payroll could handle.

jquery, as many conservative and liberal commenters before him, believes that a lie to persuade someone for his noble cause is justified by its outcome. I disagree with this tactic vehemently, but it is used by many earnest believers.

I used to be on board and would have defended the mindset that asking the question is an accusation in and of itself. But now, over in /r/france, we have this stuff going on:

https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/5pv83r/inside_the_p...

At this point, I think it's sometimes fair to ask that question. There is no doubt that HN does have paid shills; if you turn showdead on, you'll often see some of the more egregious ones. The question is about the subtle ones.

Of course, that's what the current administration wants: For nobody to be certain of anything. Nerdwriter made an excellent video about it a couple of weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geEVwslL-YY

Hm. When was the last time a government wanted its citizens not to be sure of what's true, what's false and each others' affiliations...

I think it prevents real change from happening. Questioning why things are they way they are. Should some of the fundamental just be changed/replaced? What country do we want to live in? Do we want people worrying about going bankrupt because they got sick or went to school? Do we want to worry about drinking lead poisoned water? etc etc.

Sorry, I went way off topic. Trump apparently also want to defund PBS/NPR. I see a clear pattern here. None of these ideas will save substantial money and will erode democracy. Who else is going to educate the busy citizen about world events? CNN/Fox?

http://fair.org/extra/psyops-in-the-newsroom/

Note that this is not a closed system where there is no private news/tv.

Also, look at DW (Deutsche Welle) and BBC. Whatever your opinion, these still provide much better information than whatever you can get in the US (well, you can actually get BBC/DW).

I would love to hear a better approach.

How about letting the media stand on it's own legs? Why should NPR be special? Even their name is a dishonest appeal to authority. It's not random that they have show titles like "Talk of the Nation".

As far as I know, NYT does not receive public funding, but I think this window is instructive on how the "elite" media views themselves:

http://i.imgur.com/VUdcIou.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIMxvS-WEAER49I.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CINJUoqUwAEkSip.jpg

Fortunately most of them are going down in flames and it's only going to get better as people have access to more unfiltered information.

What would you consider to be the "conservative" equivalent of the following?:

- To The Contrary

- Latino USA

- Frontline (political topics)

- Democracy Now!

- Charlie Rose

- Tavis Smiley

- John Lewis - Get in the Way

Amazons best seller list has a book about the truth deciders at the top right now.

One thing I never do is to completely shut down the app and take it offline while I scour through the code to ensure everything is ok. Not unless there is a glaring problem or security hole that is already evident.

It is ironic that the person giving the orders to restrict his subordinates from tweeting can still continue tweeting his stream of consciousness stuff carte blanche...

Kind've, kind've not. If you're a government agency and you employ a new staffer outside of PR, you're not expecting them to tweet stream-of-consciousness. Trump, on the other hand, was largely elected because he did do this and it's expected of him.

I'm first in line to criticise the primitive Electoral College, the cancerous state of US gerrymandering, and the vapidity of the two-party tribal system, but voter turnout was high. Bush and Gore each got 50M votes in the 2000 election. Obama/McCain was 70M/60M (also: McCain's loss was much greater than Trump's). Clinton/Trump was 65M/62M. Unless Trump's numbers were rapaciously Russian-ified, he still put in a solid showing with voluntary voters.

Trump's appeal was his unorthodox, un-polished dog-whistle politics, and his faithful lapped up his 'tell-it-like-it-is' approach, even if the 'like-it-is' part was fabricated out of whole cloth.

Also I don't think it's particularly ironic that the President of the United States gets certain privileges which his subordinates don't.

That part of the "shutdown" was rolled back once the issues were understood, but in the interim those kinds of Twitter feeds were pointing people to their Facebook page for up-to-date information. I guess we're lucky that no one included Facebook in the shutdown order and even luckier that there was no relevant emergency while the social media policy was being clarified.

The only reason that you'd do something this public is to make it a spectacle and give people the impression that you're doing important busy work at all levels; or to try to assert/show dominance.

With the aim of installing Orwellian-style thought control practices† at every level, affecting every last publicity statement, blog post, and tweet. You forgot that part.

† Based on what his press secretary (and other lackeys) attempted to have us believe about the size of the inaugural day crowds (and the millions of people who voted fraudulently in the past election) -- in addition to things Trump himself has said about climate change, and a whole bunch of other issues -- that's not hyperbole; that's quite literally what's happening.

It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different.

There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such publicly known and immediately fact-checkable things as crowd sizes on inaugural day.

I don't see what's Orwellian about it.

This morning the press secretary asked you -- yes, you -- to not see anything wrong with the fact that President still believes that "millions of people voted illegally" in the last election. And that he has "studies and evidence" on which he bases that belief.

You don't see anything Orwellian about that?

If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes" is one of the same sources that thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide, then you have nothing to say.

I'm not going to say I agree there were illegal votes, but I am holding out for better evidence.

In the case of Clinton losing the election, the predictions which were based on statistical evidence did not match the actual outcome. Even so, an unlikely outcome is understood as a possibility within the domain of predictive statistical modeling and the wholesale dismissal of the utility of statistical modeling is anti-science at best.

On the other hand, asserting voter fraud without providing a single shred of evidence (regardless of claims to have said evidence) is quite different from evidence-based statistical modeling. So people who "thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide" could actually have quite a bit to say about alleging voter fraud without producing evidence. For example, such people could say that Clinton won the popular vote by a margin of nearly 3 million votes.

To turn your statement on its head, it is in fact the people who allege voter fraud without evidence who have nothing to say.

EDIT: spelling, reduce number of single-sentence paragraphs

  predictions which were based on statistical evidence

There are polls which are designed to gauge opinion, and there are polls which are designed to steer opinion.

  evidence-based statistical modeling

So if you met someone on a street corner who pointed at the sky, and told you "Hey look, it's orange with pink polka-dots" -- would you think to yourself, "Hmm, I'm tempted to be skeptical -- but then again, when I asked this guy for the time the other day, he gave a correct enough answer. So maybe he's right this time, too."

If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes"...

So are you suggesting that the "millions" claim stands until disproven? Is that really how you see things?

No one thought Trump would win. Even in the states he lost in, he lost be lesser margins than was predicted. Hiliary seemed to be inevitable---after all she is an actual politiclan, with real experience. The democractic machine is behind her, isn't it? She has the force of history behind her driving her to be the first female president. How can she lose?

Then she lost rather dramatically. I looked at the election results and saw a sea of red from coast to coast, with Hilary doing well in high population areas but losing majority everywhere else.

Such is the path to resentment, secession and violent revolution.

As a matter of fact, much to most of our food comes from California.

>Such is the path to resentment, secession and violent revolution.

Why is ignoring the majority of the people, who produce 2/3 of the GDP, not considered a path to resentment, secession, and violent revolution?

That is, why should we in the sane, tolerant, productive, non-fascist majority not just declare independence from a government which plainly has no intention of listening to our voices or interests, which rigs elections against us year after year, and which considers itself the only legitimate Americans?

Why should only the loser minority get to revolt?

Nope. It's 11% by value.[1]

The breadbasket of America is still keeping its namesake, then Texas produces the most beef.

[1]http://beef2live.com/story-states-produce-food-value-0-10725...

But you understand the part about the "sea of red" mostly reflecting the (much) lower population density (and hence, greater land area per voter) in pro-Trump states, right? And that if you actually looked at map that expanded or contract each precinct according to population size -- that that map would be nearly evenly split between red and blue, right? Such that'd you'd hardly be able to tell which side (red or blue) had the greater share.

Right?

Then she lost rather dramatically.

Actually in historical terms, she lost the electoral vote rather narrowly (specifically in the bottom quartile of loss margins, throughout U.S. history).

Yet somehow you settled on the belief that she lost "dramatically." How so, exactly?

The idea that no outlet which was incorrect in predicting election results can be used as a credible source for post-election reporting is preposterous. Where do you get your news, if you abandon sources the instant that they make an incorrect prediction? Do you ignore meteorologists because they were wrong about that big thunderstorm that one time?

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-12-14/trump...

You: "Statistics is bullshit."

You: "The coin is not imbalanced nor is the process gamed in any way."

The point with the election polling wasn't statistics. I don't have a source, but I read on HN and Hillary's emails that much of the mistake was a misassessment of the voter base due to bias. I'm questioning the likelihood that the news sources that were biased then will be unbiased now.

> So are you suggesting that the "millions" claim stands until disproven? Is that really how you see things? Check my last statement...I'm agnostic until better information shows itself.

There is a Harvard rebuttal to that study, but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position.

The inauguration was the most-watched in history (person + tv + live-streaming), yet the "reality" I'm seeing in California is that Obama's was far more popular. Who is bending reality? It depends on the reality you're already pre-disposed to believe.

This rebuttal, you mean?

"This paper documents how low-level measurement error for survey questions generally agreed to be highly reliable can lead to large prediction errors in large sample surveys, such as the CCES. The example for this analysis is Richman, Chattha, and Earnest (2014), which presents a biased estimate of the rate at which non-citizens voted in recent elections. The results, we show, are completely accounted for by very low frequency measurement error; further, the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is zero."

...but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position.

Do you realize what you're saying, here? "The study has since been revealed to have been basically bullshit. But that doesn't change the fact it supports the President's position."

It depends on the reality you're already pre-disposed to believe.

If you're already that relativist about about basic events in recent history that were attended by hundreds of thousands in person -- and witnessed on television many many hundreds of millions, worldwide -- as to basically say, "How can ya really know? It all depends on what you're pre-disposed to believe" -- then I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you, pal.

Do you see a difference between someone having...

(1) an "opinion" about something that happened in the recent, knowable past -- but which flies in the face of all available evidence; and which, when challenged, you're unable to offer any evidence for -- like for example claiming that "The Kansas City Royals won the World Series last year", or "The Russians were the first to land on the moon", when everyone knows they didn't); and

(2) an "opinion" (i.e. a hunch) about what might happen in some future event -- who might win a football game, or an election, say?

Or do you think these are basically equivalent?

Hell, twitter and facebook themselves have become quite orwelian lately, banning wrongthought.

And yet, based on the blatant counterfactuals the President's lieutenants have offered in regard to crowd sizes and fraudulent voters -- and various things that Trump himself has said, since the start of his campaign -- that's precisely what we're up against.

If this was the goal then banning them from social media would be counter productive.

social media policies is sci-fi way of saying "people saying things" though.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-usda-idUSKBN1582...

http://observer.com/2016/09/wikileaks-guccifer-2-0-obama-sol...

Any organisation will want to control its message, and having your officials use a channel that's 140 characters maximum leads to only being able to talk about issues in the most flimsy of ways.

Personally, I think there should be less Twitter and more published in-depth reports.

What the EPA reports may be factual, but the presentation of facts, when they are spoken of, and how often, are all political practices.

Is it important for the EPA to tweet daily "hey guys, you know climate change is caused by humans?". No, we know it is and don't deny it is. What's controversial is: how do we reign in the problem, what are we willing to give up to do so, and how do we coordinate with our allies and competitors ?

The EPA's tweets may not be helpful in getting Chinese support, or encouraging a positive practical debate on how 3rd world nations can both improve their economies with limited technology and still be part of the climate change solution----or even if such a thing is necessary in the short term.

Democratic countries have representatives, not bosses. This includes for the civil service.

Your direct report, is your boss regardless of if you are in civil service or not---often your 'boss' is not an elected official, but part of the bureaucracy.

Your bosses direct report is also your boss (transitive law), and so on till you hit the pinnacle of the executive branch---Trump.

I'm not saying he's some kind of mob-leader boss.