Larry Ellison is using his bags to purchase lies and silence.<p>No economy can be in true equilibrium when the consumers send profits to be spent in unforeseen and unrelated ways like this. Every purchase carries potentially immense future costs that are almost completely opaque.<p>Free market maximalists need to confront this fact before praying at the altar of complete deregulation, and every consumer should pay more attention to who they are buying from.
Sorry what regulation in particular are you thinking about here? There’s no logical anti-trust angle I can think of.<p>I mean of course I think the outcome here is bad, but I’m struggling to think of a kind of regulation that could have prevented it that isn’t completely insane.
What's free market about total state regulatory capture, calling the President when your bids get rejected, or setting up wars and domestic police actions to enrich yourself with contracts using taxpayer funds?<p>There are legitimate criticisms of a pure free market, but this is "state capitalism" not a free market.<p>The Trump administration is absolutely not pro free market. They're putting fingers on the scale all over the place, taking Federal positions in private companies, taking literal bribes for regulatory favors, influencing the selection of executives and board members, and using the power of the state to attack privately owned companies for platforming speech they don't like (like this 60 Minutes segment, made by a private company). Trump/MAGA looks a lot more like the CCP than anything else.<p>Of course if you pay attention to the discourse, MAGA and national conservatism are an explicit repudiation of Reagan/Clinton "neoliberalism" and "libertarian conservatism." They explicitly support a large administrative state that centrally plans the economy and culture, just one they run and use to push right wing and nationalist agendas.<p>I remember saying back during the Bush years: if the right is forced to choose between liberty and cultural conservatism, they will throw out liberty.
I think you're missing the implied cause and effect here. Lighthanded regulations allow for ridiculous amounts of wealth to be acquired in the U.S. Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, etc. are so unfathomably rich (and therefore powerful), they can now trivially bend government to their will.
Thanks for sharing. The way things are here, this will soon be censored - sorry, I meant flagged - here as well.
Bryan Cantrill, "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison"
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728</a><p>The specific lines about Ellison and a lawnmower start at 38:28 in the linked video; the entire Oracle rant starts at about 34:00.
The timing of this might lead one to believe Paramount’s hostile takeover bid for Warner Brothers Discovery is a consideration in their editorial decisions. They and their competitor (Netflix) need regulatory approval for such a merger and the administration has already inserted itself into the deal.
It goes deeper. The Ellisons want to replace Murdoch as the state media for Republican administrations.
Hard to imagine that's the a core part of it, and pretty naturally in America the clear ongoing and unprecedented (in modern times anyway) corruption on that front is the focus. But it probably doesn't hurt that she appears to just be a really big fan of that particular dictator and torture prison specifically. Earlier this year her site "the Free Press" was all over them [0]:<p>>"The hottest campaign stop is this Salvadoran supermax: House Republican Riley Moore went to the super maximum security prison in El Salvador to take some photos in front of the inmates. “I just toured the CECOT prison in El Salvador,” he writes, with pictures of him giving a thumbs-up, shirtless inmates standing at attention behind him. Moore gave a double thumbs-up in front of the men, densely packed in their cold metal bunk. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem took the same tour recently, posting a fun video in front of caged, tatted men."<p>>"After Bukele left the White House, he thirstily tweeted, “I miss you already, President T.” Trump returned the favor, learning to say MAGA in Spanish: “¡America grande, otra vez!”"<p>Etc. And she's been very positive on Bukele personally as well. Might be multiple reasons she'd gleefully want to spike such a story even if the commands of her owners take precedent.<p>Edit: whew, this one sure triggered the technofeudalists and Baristans! From 3 to -3 for her own publication's and her statements.<p>----<p>0: <a href="https://archive.md/dcPkJ" rel="nofollow">https://archive.md/dcPkJ</a>
I have a feeling this will get DMCA-ed off of Internet Archive in an attempt to suppress it. Here's the infohash of the archive.org torrent download for future reference, this should allow the file to be retrieved in any torrent client as long as someone in the world is seeding it still.<p>8105370ed7dba50dc7ec659fd67550569b4dd8a0
Senator Corey Booker’s YouTube channel posted the archived video about 9am EST. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiehEMlNiCI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiehEMlNiCI</a>
here it is, in magnet link form:<p><pre><code> magnet:?xt=urn:btih:734abc77f48d11c78543c52004b6f57db71d6d92&dn=60minutes-cecotsegment&xl=1483256352&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=http://ia601703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=http://ia801703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=https://archive.org/download/
</code></pre>
(exported from my currently-seeding torrent client, then pasted into a separate torrent client, to verify that it works correctly)
I left the high seas many years ago, but I'm down to seed for a cause.<p>What's the best torrent client nowadays?
Qbittorrent, Transmission etc. The Transmission daemon can be installed headless with negligible system load on a vast number of devices, from Raspberry Pi-like and smaller SBCs to Linux/BSD NASes, then operated from remote through the web interface or a phone app.
qbittorrent is still regarded as independent and safe, I think.<p><a href="https://www.qbittorrent.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.qbittorrent.org/</a><p>I’m still using it happily on windows/linux.<p>Don’t forget your vpn!
qBittorrent
I’m of the opinion that would be mullvad.<p>RTings recently updated their reviews and seems to agree:<p><a href="https://www.rtings.com/vpn/reviews/best/privacy" rel="nofollow">https://www.rtings.com/vpn/reviews/best/privacy</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i_BB2uFYYA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i_BB2uFYYA</a>
Hey there <i>seed buddy</i>... I'm about to become the fourth web seed.<p>We're not going anywhere.<p>—Hydra
It's ridiculous that this has to be done.<p>I'm honestly speechless. But thanks for the magnet link.
It will be a second dose of Streisand if they do.
r/DataHoarder is already on it
Seeding :3
Direct Download link if anyone needs it is <a href="https://archive.org/download/insidececot/60minutesCECOTsegment.mp4" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/download/insidececot/60minutesCECOTsegme...</a>
Here's why Bari Weiss delayed the story:<p>Hi all,<p>I’m writing with specific guidance on what I’d like for us to do to advance the CECOT story. I know you’d all like to see this run as soon as possible; I feel the same way. But if we run the piece as is, we’d be doing our viewers a disservice.<p>Last month many outlets, most notably The New York Times, exposed the horrific conditions at CECOT. Our story presents more of these powerful testimonies—and putting those accounts into the public record is valuable in and of itself. But if we’re going to run another story about a topic that has by now been much-covered we need to advance it. Among the ways to do so: does anyone in the administration or anyone prominent who defended the use of the Alien Enemies Act now regret it in light of what these Venezuelans endured at CECOT? That’s a question I’d like to see asked and answered.<p>- At present, we do not present the administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT. What we have is Karoline Leavitt’s soundbite claiming they are evildoers in America (rapists, murderers, etc.). But isn’t there much more to ask in light of the torture that we are revealing? Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don’t tend to be shy. I realize we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record.<p>- The data we present paints an incongruent picture. Of the 252 Venezuelans sent to CECOT, we say nearly half have no criminal histories. In other words, more than half do have criminal histories. We should spend a beat explaining this. We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in America for violent offenses. But what about charged? My point is that we should include as much as we can possibly know and understand about these individuals.<p>- Secretary Noem’s trip to CECOT. We report that she took pictures and video there with MS-13 gang members, not TdA members, with no comment from her or her staff about what her goal on that trip was, or what she saw there, or if she had or has concerns about the treatment of detainees like the ones in our piece. I also think that the ensuing analysis from the Berkeley students is strange. The pictures are alarming; we should include them. But what does the analysis add?<p>- We need to do a better job of explaining the legal rationale by which the administration detained and deported these 252 Venezuelans to CECOT. It’s not as simple as Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act and being able to deport them immediately. And that isn’t the administration’s argument. The admin has argued in court that detainees are due “judicial review”—and we should explain this, with a voice arguing that Trump is exceeding his authority under the relevant statute, and another arguing that he’s operating within the bounds of his authority. There’s a genuine debate here. If we cut down Kristi Noem analysis we’d have the time.<p>My general view here is that we do our viewers the best service by presenting them with the full context they need to assess the story. In other words, I believe we need to do more reporting here.<p>I am eager and available to help. I tracked down cell numbers for Homan and Miller and sent those along. Please let me know how I can support you.<p>Yours,<p>Bari
The whole thing is poorly-conceived and obviously false but I just have to call this out-<p>> Of the 252 Venezuelans sent to CECOT, we say nearly half have no criminal histories. In other words, more than half do have criminal histories. We should spend a beat explaining this.<p>The story isn't that people found guilty of crimes went to jail, the story is that half weren't even charged with crimes! That's the whole point of the story! We should not be aiming for a balanced diet of criminals and not-criminals in our government-sponsored foreign death camps!<p>The fact that they exist at all is an affront to humanity, but to say "it's OK because a slim majority <i>deserve</i> it"- I just don't know what to say.<p>> We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in America for violent offenses. But what about charged?<p>What about charged? What does charged with a crime have to do with anything? Why bring that up at all? Do we send people to prison because they were charged with a crime? Is Bari Weiss a newborn baby who has never heard about the presumption of innocence?<p>I feel sick.
It’s not just that, it’s that the administration <i>knew</i> they weren’t guilty of any crimes and sent them to be tortured anyway.<p>If you can stomach it, propublica has been covering stories like this since the summer [1].<p>Meanwhile, the MS13 has been cutting sweetheart deals with Bukele [2] and we have been releasing actual gang members for the privilege of sending innocent people to the torture facilities [3, 4], even in the face of reports of USAID being diverted to the gang for a money-for-votes scheme for Bukele [5].<p>[1]<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/venezuelan-men-cecot-interviews-trump" rel="nofollow">https://www.propublica.org/article/venezuelan-men-cecot-inte...</a><p>[2]<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/ambassador-ronald-johnson-nayib-bukele-trump-el-salvador" rel="nofollow">https://www.propublica.org/article/ambassador-ronald-johnson...</a><p>[3]<a href="https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-robert-garcia-demands-trump-administration-come-clean-reported" rel="nofollow">https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ran...</a><p>[4]<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/21/nx-s1-5580555/why-the-state-department-handed-u-s-informants-over-to-el-salvador" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2025/10/21/nx-s1-5580555/why-the-state-d...</a><p>[5]<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/bukele-trump-el-salvador-ms13-gang-vulcan-corruption-investigation" rel="nofollow">https://www.propublica.org/article/bukele-trump-el-salvador-...</a>
Even the people who <i>were</i> convicted of crimes don't deserve this. There's this sick belief in parts of society that criminals (which becomes a permanent state of being) are valid targets for unlimited suffering.<p>People should not be sent to torture camps where they have no hope of every leaving for the rest of their lives for committing crimes.
Her own excuse is either a complete lie or betrays the fact that she doesn’t understand the story. I invite her apologists here to choose which interpretation they prefer.
We do unfortunately send people to long times in jail (sometimes over a decade) before their cases come to trial in the USA. And jails in the USA generally have vastly worse conditions than prisons (as they are "short term" facilities).<p>CECOT is a whole different beast altogether, though :(
It's worth highlighting that continually driving focus onto a few spectacular examples of criminal histories is exactly how this regime has been justifying its actions.
This is an embarrassing response.<p>You don’t hold a story because you want to push the government harder to respond, especially when you have the executive’s official spokesperson giving a reason on the record already.<p>And what does she mean that we should spend a beat explaining that half do have criminal histories? She wants them to give a cookie for that? And why is being charged relevant? You don’t send someone to prison for life for being charged.<p>Lastly she misstates the administrations legal justification for deportation. She doesn’t appear to be an unbiased actor here.<p>The fact she sent that out publicly is a good indication of how prejudiced she will be with editorial content.<p>You had a good run 60 Minutes.
> The pictures are alarming; we should include them. But what does the analysis add?<p>The analysis shows another way in which the government is trying to be secretive about how it's treating people that were within its borders and subject to its laws and protections. I can only hope someone pointed this out because the question suggests a baffling level of ignorance despite the message overall sounding like some reasonable feedback on the story, despite coming far too late in the process to be considered reasonable.
A CYA letter full of illogical rationalization.
Here are the <i>excuses</i> Bari Weiss gave to <i>bury</i> the story.<p>The reporters reached out to the govt for comment. They chose not to respond. If you insist on holding off publishing until you have a comment you’ve just given the government the ability to block the story by endlessly delaying comment.<p>More broadly the problem here is simply that Weiss has no legitimate authority to make calls like this. She’s never worked as a reporter. The 60 Minutes staff have decades of reporting experience. The only reason she has the job is because a billionaire who is trying to curry favor with the administration installed her there. That context hangs over every decision she makes.
Having watched the documentary yesterday, the questions Bari raises are suitable for a follow-up. There is nothing wrong with the piece as it stands.
This seems dishonest, she couldn’t possibly think the administration is going to share more useful information here, and if they did it would have no value. These people were illegally sent to life in prison at a brutal torture camp with no charges or trial, at the expense of US taxpayers. There is no possible excuse or rationale that would make it anything but extremely illegal and unethical, and a betrayal of all of the values our country purports to stand for. It doesn’t matter what crimes someone is accused of or not.
Thanks for posting.<p>For those not familiar: there were five screenings in the prior week that journalists attended to discuss it. She was aware of those and did not attend.<p>When she did look at it, her feedback was minor, and they made adjustments.<p>Then she killed it a day after her delayed feedback, on the weekend it was to air.<p>That context, combined with the response above, is telling.<p>She is at absolute best, entirely unfit and amateur for this role combined with dangerous arrogance.<p>More likely, she is the malevolent puppet of a billionaire ally of the current corrupt administration.
See also: <i>Gleichschaltung</i>.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung</a>
TLDR:<p>Bari thinks the government should be able to quash any story it wants by simply refusing to "present the administration's argument."
Bari wisely points out that if the deportees are being tortured, then there must be a secretly good reason why if they dig a little deeper. Suggests asking Stephen Miller.
I recommend everyone bookmark the archive.org link or download via the magnet link since HN is disappearing these.<p>Also, any recommendations for a news site that doesn't suppress news? Asking for a friend.
It looks like mods manually removed flags for this one (it was flagged).
> Also, any recommendations for a news site that does suppress news? Asking for a friend.<p>HN?
> <i>Also, any recommendations for a news site that doesn't suppress news</i><p>No such thing.
Lemmy.zip
Fascinating how this got leaked. A TV station in Canada accidentally ran the original episode version, implying that this was pulled super late and the episode was completely in the can.
>Here is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her ‘60 Minutes’ colleagues in full:<p><a href="https://x.com/grynbaum/status/2002943084322287815" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/grynbaum/status/2002943084322287815</a>
Here's the magnet URL to the torrent, can't hurt:<p><pre><code> magnet:?xt=urn:btih:734abc77f48d11c78543c52004b6f57db71d6d92&dn=60minutes-cecotsegment&xl=1483256352&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=http://ia601703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=http://ia801703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=https://archive.org/download/</code></pre>
<<a href="https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/watch-the-60-minutes-cecot-segment" rel="nofollow">https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/watch-the-60-minutes-cecot...</a>><p>This is disgraceful [0], whatever your opinion on illegal immigration.<p>[0] deporting non-citizens to 3rd-party countries/prisons
Even calling it "deportation" is far too charitable towards what they've done. Deportation involves sending them back to their home countries or, if that's unsafe, to another country. These people were rendered to a prison where they're meant to spend the rest of their lives, without any of the due process even a foreigner who had committed a crime would normally be accorded in the United States under our constitution.
Great point and I'll add, by "would normally be accorded" you of course mean "is legally entitled to by our nation's foundational document."
Just to clarify - a prison without due process is more accurately called a "concentration camp".<p>"Prison" is for people convicted of crimes.
> <i>[0] deporting non-citizens to 3rd-party countries/prisons</i><p>See perhaps United States Declaration of Independence:<p>> <i>"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:"</i><p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievances_of_the_United_States_Declaration_of_Independence#Grievance_19" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievances_of_the_United_State...</a>
In this case there wasn't even any trial, here or abroad. Just sent to the torture gulag with zero process whatsoever. So its even worse than that.
Ah, but you see, they're not <i>us</i>. They're <i>them</i>.
This is why we need archive.org.
Funny how it leaked out by sending it off to their Canadian distributor
Sadly, that's the kind of mistake that only happens once.
Just another data point in the 'fascists are incompetent' trend. It's pretty lucky that one bug in the human firmware is moderated by another.
Using the torrent, you should be able to pull it down in a few minutes.
I'm reminded of the Letter on Justice and Open Debate[1] that Bari Weiss signed only a few years ago, now she's spiking stories like this one on CECOT for showing the current administration in a negative light.<p>I also wonder if this story will get the type of leeway to stay on HN to collect the 200+ upvotes and 300+ comments of that previous example or if it will be flagged off the front page within minutes like so many other similar stories.<p>EDIT: No idea how long this post actually lasted, but checking in an hour later to see this has been flagged completely off the first 10 pages of HN despite getting close to that 200 point total.<p>[1] - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23759283">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23759283</a>
Weiss got her <i>start</i> screaming about how various college professors should be fired. There has never once been a moment in her career where she seriously cared about open debate.
Indeed. Weiss came up as conservative troll and engagement farmer, and was hired as such by Ellison.
Or journalistic principles.
[dead]
She was hired following the acquisition of Paramount to do things exactly like this. She's not a journalist.
A similar post with comments linking to this thread just got marked as a duplicate, taking it off the front page.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46361571">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46361571</a>
You can't understand technology without understanding the people behind it. I always wonder about all these non-bot people who support her: is it that they're in on the grift and everyone understands that she's just there as a wink-wink-totaly-not state censor, or do they genuinely fall for her schtick? Is there something else? I never quite get it.<p>A once-reasonable friend of mine genuinely thinks RJK is just some dude who tries his best, and doesn't consider him a crazy anti-vaxxer. Crazy
>is it that they're in on the grift and everyone understands that she's just there as a wink-wink-totaly-not state censor, or do they genuinely fall for her schtick?<p>It's both. That's one of the things that's difficult to suss out and therefore have a plan to engage. There's plausible deniability on both ends of that spectrum. Even in the high positions in the administration, there's a smattering of True Believers in amongst the grifters.
> just some dude who tries his best, and doesn't consider him a crazy anti-vaxxer<p>As much as it would be comforting for all dudes who’re trying their best to pretend otherwise, the two are <i>not</i> mutually exclusive. (No opinion on whether RFK Jr is in the intersection—I’m not in the US and couldn’t affect his actions if I tried.)
Everyone who signed that letter was either a dupe or a fraud.
Ironically, this might end up being more widely watched now (Streisand). I’ve seen multiple people on my Facebook link to different sources hosting the video. People who never would’ve heard about the story are now watching it through the lens of Trump and CBS trying to kill the story.
This, and Larry Ellison buying all news outlets in America. Things should be happening quickly enough so that it's obvious where this is all going, right?<p>Whoever writes the next "Inglorious Basterds" should have a lot of fun parodying Larry...
Corruption is not merely something someone in power enacts in their choices; it is a rot that eats out the society from the inside.<p>As individuals realize that nakedly appeasing the autocrat wins favor, they voluntarily corrupt themselves and others in hopes of advantage.<p>More and more of the society enters the grip of this force and weakens until the truly valuable things—its resources, minds, institutions—are annihilated, stolen, and displaced by a hierarchy of criminals or warlords. This is how nations sink. It’s the story of many in Africa, South America, Russia—and now it is our own.
Expanded and unbleakified:<p>Corruption is not just the immoral acts of an elite few; it is a parasite that hollows out society from within.<p>When the mainstream realizes that sycophancy toward the autocrat is rewarded, some willingly sacrifice their principles for short-term benefits, burrowing into the system like worms in an apple.<p>Yet, parasites cannot survive without a compliant host. To kill the infestation, we must cut off the food source: our passiveness. This begins with everyday refusals—denying the petty bribe, rejecting the convenient lie, and defending the honest colleague. By maintaining high ethical standards in our own spheres of influence, we starve the corrupt hierarchy of the dead matter it needs to grow.<p>We must also make the terrain uninhabitable for them. These organisms thrive in the dark, protected by silence. Therefore, we must actively expose them: documenting abuses, funding media samaritans, and organizing locally to demand transparency. When integrity becomes the standard again, the host becomes hostile to the parasite, isolating the invaders rather than letting them multiply.<p>Without this resistance however, the society weakens until its greatest assets—its resources, minds, and institutions—are cannibalized by a regime of criminals. This is how nations collapse. We have seen this story in Africa, South America, and Russia. This plague is now upon us. But history is not destiny. We possess the power to stop it. We only need the will to use it.
> As individuals realize that nakedly appeasing the autocrat wins favor, they voluntarily corrupt themselves and others in hopes of advantage.<p>When I pointed out that this is the work culture in most American corporations, I was told that is a feature, not a bug, because US government and most big tech at the time preached values in line with average white middle-class Californian. Now that this is no longer the case, the mindset of appeasing the leader is suddenly a problem.<p>The whole situation was preventable, but everyone was too high on ZIRP to notice. We could've used the good times to establish good cultural values, but we didn't. Freedom of speech and other foundations of democracy were already rotting long ago but nobody cared. We could've used the good times to allow better dialogue between different political fractions, but we didn't. At some point democrats honestly believed they would simply never lose power again, making it seem pointless to talk to republicans. Now that the money dried out, people suddenly start asking questions and talking about "muh big values".<p>I have zero empathy.
I’m curious which specific problematic values do you think were being adhered to and preached in the past, that was comparable to what’s happening in CECOT, and wasn’t opposed?
> When I pointed out that this is the work culture in most American corporations, I was told that is a feature, not a bug, because US government and most big tech at the time preached values in line with average white middle-class Californian.<p>It is a bit analogous to many of us worrying about Google and others getting so much power. The arguments were quickly dismissed with: "But these folks are responsible, don't be paranoid". The problem with this kind of thinking is, once the power balance changes, you find yourself in a situation you'd never put yourself now. You cannot make Google unlearn what they know about you. You cannot unsend the photos you privately shared on Messenger and force Meta to untrain their facial recognition models. Now all these things you considered a convenience given to you for free can be used against you, and the extend and direction of the abuse is correlated with who is in power.
If you had a corrupt state like that, one in which the bureaucracy, the media, and the institutions were controlled by a uniparty, what would it look like if they were challenged?<p>How thoroughly would they unite to destroy that challenger? Would you perhaps see apocalyptic and apoplectic stories published across the media, in sync with the press conferences of the political class?<p>Would they try to get people like you riled up and angry, and saying exactly the kind of things you’re saying here?
An all-powerful uniparty can do things like this:<p><pre><code> - deport or jail you without due process
- ignore the law in service of its own ends
- punish its enemies, pardon its allies
- ignore the constitution
- install loyalists in centers of power, oust dissenters
- suppress media which challenges its hold on power
- commit crimes
- enrich its friends
- declare its "plenary authority" to do the above
</code></pre>
Brother, you are looking for the deep state under every rock and it is out in the sunshine, smiling at you.
They would start to pardon criminals that conducted acts they like and fire the people that investigated those crimes.
They would try to bring everybody to jail that oppose or upset them or have opposed them.<p>They win when challengers become too rare because others are afraid of the consequences to oppose.<p>What the Trump administration did regarding the Capitol storming on January 6th tells you everything you need to know. They strive for power and nothing else.
This should NOT be flagged.
As a companion piece, here is ProPublica's recent report trying to determine who exactly was sent to this torture camp: <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/venezuelan-immigrants-trump-deported-cecot" rel="nofollow">https://projects.propublica.org/venezuelan-immigrants-trump-...</a>
For context, this report was suppressed by CBS News' new leadership, most likely to appease the US government.
Too bad the only people that will watch this are people who already understand the terror of what is happening. It might have helped a little if it had aired. My MAGA dad still watches 60 Minutes (no idea why, habit?) This <i>might</i> have penetrated his TDS-addled skull if it had aired. But the takeover of CBS by Trump and Ellison (and his 1980's-college-villain son) with Weiss is complete, and vile.
In any media, people only see what they want. There's a psychological term for this, Motivated Reasoning.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning</a><p>If you want to break this you have to know the person and ask key questions afterwards. Their distortion field is held together by beliefs and principles, not empirical analysis.<p>For instance, for my father, the question "how is this treating people responsibly? How can we expect the behavior of those guards to be held accountable?" would pierce this ... but really you have to know how the person doing motivated reasoning thinks.
His Dad will be smart enough to know these questions are trying to set him up. Maybe try having a real conversation and not trying to change his mind. After all, there is a good chance you will be that Dad in the future (no matter how hard you tell yourself you won't be). Tell me how I now.
I'm almost 50. I won't be. I have friends who are becoming grandparents now, still no interest.<p>I have half a century of talking with my father. If you think this is my first strategy as opposed to one that took years of therapy and personal struggle, I dunno what to tell you.<p>There's a wide body of social and psychological research on this stuff including multiple university departments (communication, psychology, sociology, management, teaching, etc) because "simply talking to people" doesn't actually work.
Real conversations cannot involve one or more persons trying to change another's mind?
So does this apply to every single person all the time?
Nothing does.<p>It's about successful communication of authorial intent.<p>60 Minutes is not trying to say "Justice Served!" and shake pom-poms here. But, someone could read it that way, and it would be unintended.
I wasn’t aware that CBS’s Ellison is Oracle Ellison’s son.<p>TIL<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison</a>
Maybe suggest he watch? Maybe he's interested in what CBS's leadership refused to tell him.<p>Streisand Effect and all.
Something I hadn't heard yet about CECOT: <a href="https://www.lemkininstitute.com/single-post/mass-grave-complex-mgc-identification-and-analysis-of-grave-site-candidates-gsc-1-2-at-cecot" rel="nofollow">https://www.lemkininstitute.com/single-post/mass-grave-compl...</a>
I found this quite interesting, but I don't understand how the articles claims we can see flesh.<p>And the author's Substack has 2 videos of Trump kissing and patting Bill Clinton's groin area (through pants). They are likely AI because I couldn't find anything online about how they're real besides the original photo. And if they were real, why is no one talking about it? He claims for one of the videos that it's real. So it kind of reduced the author's trustworthiness a bit.
It's worth noting that the founders of the Lemkin Institute have, between them, held multiple leadership roles in reputable academic departments devoted to the study of genocide, and have also both been on the ground during or shortly after genocides or other crimes against humanity as part of international teams tasked with figuring out what happened and how to hold perpetrators accountable. These are not some lightweight bloggers.<p>The US government, in particular Kristi Noem, Donald Trump, and Marco Rubio, are, by the logic of the legal power they themselves invoked, war criminals who rightly belong in the Hague.
Additional context:<p>> The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the men sent to El Salvador were overwhelmingly violent criminals; Pro Publica reported that the administration knew at least 197 of the men had not been convicted of crimes in the United States, and six had been convicted of violent offenses.<p><a href="https://www.404media.co/archivists-posted-the-60-minutes-cecot-segment-bari-weiss-killed/" rel="nofollow">https://www.404media.co/archivists-posted-the-60-minutes-cec...</a>
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This is an interesting question because it goes to show you just how hard it is to know how or why the government is using its power to deprive people of life, liberty, or property.<p>I wonder if we could set up a system where the government has an opportunity to share its evidence and the public gets an opportunity to scrutinize it on a case-by-case basis so they can fully understand whether their government is acting appropriately.<p>Just a random little thought I had...
does it matter? they were Venezuelans and they were sent to El Salvador. I know that some folks just lump all Latinos into one bucket but Venezuela and El Salvador are, in fact, not the same country.
Hmm maybe walk us through this. If they were convicted of crimes in other countries, is the idea here that they have escaped their punishment? Like thats a significant concern? Seems like a lot of prison breaks!<p>Or is it that perhaps they were convicted but not punished enough (for us), so we have to correct that?<p>Or something else? If they were <i>convicted</i> of a crime in another country, it suggests that justice has been doled out already, right?
Watch the video or read this report from Human Rights Watch [1].<p>> The Trump administration claimed that the majority of Venezuelans sent to CECOT were members of the Venezuelan organized crime group Tren de Aragua.<p>> Only [3.1% of the 226/252 Venezuelan prisoners in CECOT] had been convicted of a violent or potentially violent offense.<p>> Human Rights Watch reviewed documents in 58 of the 130 documented cases of people held in CECOT, and all indicated that they did not have criminal records in Venezuela or other countries in Latin America.<p>CECOT was already found to violate the UN’s minimum treatment of prisoners rights (aka “The Nelson Mandela Rules”) [2] by a report of the US.<p>Trump’s administration blatantly violates human rights.<p>Finally, here is a report investigating why the US can use the El Salavador prison [3].<p>> It has been clear from the beginning what Trump wants from El Salvador: an ally who would accept, and even imprison, deportees. Less clear has been what Bukele might want from the United States. In striking the deal with the Salvadoran president, Trump has effectively undercut the Vulcan investigation and shielded Bukele from further scrutiny, current and former U.S. officials said.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/11/12/you-have-arrived-in-hell/torture-and-other-abuses-against-venezuelans-in-el" rel="nofollow">https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/11/12/you-have-arrived-in-he...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Ne...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/bukele-trump-el-salvador-ms13-gang-vulcan-corruption-investigation" rel="nofollow">https://www.propublica.org/article/bukele-trump-el-salvador-...</a>
People in the US now have to use VPN’s to get access to domestic news from a foreign country. I think it’s fair to say that the wheels have come off democracy and things are badly broken.
Things are bad, but the worst part isn’t hidden/missing principled reporting, it’s that a significant number of people don’t care to attend to it where it exists, domestically or internationally. And a majority of US voters cast their ballot for this outcome, so in a sense it’s democracy working as intended, however horrifying any problems or outcomes.
There was a PBS doc about it too, CBS is just comprised
It's fair to say that, but first please verify your age to access these sites if you're located in the UK
I believe information wants to be free, and should be free, even when I don't unanimously agree with the information, so I will start by re-sharing the torrent magnet link for the video, which I am also seeding right now, and will continue to do so until at least a full month passes with zero activity:<p><pre><code> magnet:?xt=urn:btih:734abc77f48d11c78543c52004b6f57db71d6d92&dn=60minutes-cecotsegment&xl=1483256352&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=http://ia601703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=http://ia801703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=https://archive.org/download/
</code></pre>
That said, there seems to be lots of conspiracy-adjacent talk in here. Has anyone considered the impact of the previous Trump lawsuit against CBS over the Kamala Harris edits, or the Trump-BBC lawsuit, whereby CBS made a business risk decision to avoid a story that might have some individual aspects of questionable factual accuracy that could come back to bite CBS in a courtroom, like how BBC's selective edits of Trump came back to bite them? Paramount/CBS settled Trump's lawsuit over the Kamala Harris "60 Minutes" edit for $16 million in July. BBC is getting sued for $10 billion. It's not economically irrational for an organization that has already settled lawsuits for selective presentation of political information in the past to be more worried about $10b lawsuits than $16m lawsuits.
Archive links are all good in the comments, but let's make the submission url one of the story links with context:<p><i>CBS defends pulling 60 Minutes segment about Trump deportations</i><p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrnv3keeneo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrnv3keeneo</a><p>or<p><i>‘60 Minutes’ Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It ‘Political.’</i><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/business/60-minutes-trump-bari-weiss.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/business/60-minutes-trump...</a>
There are other links here as well: <a href="https://www.404media.co/archivists-posted-the-60-minutes-cecot-segment-bari-weiss-killed/" rel="nofollow">https://www.404media.co/archivists-posted-the-60-minutes-cec...</a>
How long before Hackernews takes this one down?
It's wiped from the front page already
I typically `flag` a dozen hn posts, daily, within the first five pages (12of150 ~8%). Usually it's because the linked article <i>has nothing to do with hacking</i>, like this one.<p>But for this thread, despite qualifying within that 8%, I have chosen to upvote. My reasoning is that this policy of deportation is heinous — representing a failed regime's last gasps for relevancy — which will affect USA's reputation, economy, safety, R&D, and technical innovation.<p>We absolutely need immigration reform, but <i>not like this</i>.<p>—Shamefully Embarassed American
You should probably revisit the guidelines, as your flagging policy doesn’t align with HN guidelines:<p>> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a>
You conveniently left out the section that actually addresses politics:<p>> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.<p>Your post was intentionally disingenuous, and we really don’t need more of that around here.
The story here isn't about immigration, it's about government censorship pressure on US media companies. Which I think fits that guideline.
> unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon
Thank you for those guidelines.<p>>anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity<p>So, porn, then? Surely there must be limits.<p>----<p>From those same guidelines:<p>>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime
There's a lot from @dang about how the site goal is optimizing for curiosity and what that means in practice.<p><a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...</a>
The qualifier "most" is <i>very</i> important there. Certainly opinions can differ as to what should fall under "most" and what shouldn't. But citing that line to justify flagging a politics-related story isn't a good argument.
There's also some other relevance to tech here, given the role of the Ellisons in all this. It's quite possible the decision to pull the episode came from them. Paramount is trying steal Warner Bros out from under Netflix and is working the Trump admin hard to prevent the deal, even supposedly by telling Trump he can decide who gets hired/fired from CNN.<p>Andreessen was directly involved in the rise of Bari Weiss too.
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I hate to attack HN and especially any particular moderator. But I agree in the abstract that this is an unacceptable performance. When you have Larry Ellison's son appoint a political figure over a news organization and start axing things, that's Tech news-worthy.<p>And once <i>any</i> degree of censorship is involved by mainstream media the burden of open-ness goes up 10x in my opinion. At least I personally hadn't seen this article until today, and then the one I saw disappeared from the front page. I'm sorry but this story is more important than source code for photoshop 1.0 or whatever currently has the top slot.<p>I say this not because I think "Oh other people need to know this" I say this because I think "<i>I</i> need to know this" stuff and I almost didn't. I'm sure there are many well-read people on here, but for me this site is my main/only(?) news source.<p>Personally I'd recommend a post-mortem into this (exactly how many flags, by who?, is political news susceptible to getting falsely flagged and if so is there a way to rework that system? Perhaps let individual users disable "political news" on their own accounts? Can people "kill" a story by baiting a bunch of stupid comments on it to get its discussion number too high?)<p>I understand HN wasn't started as an attempt to make some free press democratized web 2.0 news. But in the current news climate where there president is personally doing shit like getting Jimmy Kimmel axed I think HN has had a greater role thrust upon it than mere startup news.<p>[I can't imagine it would be considered, but implicit in this frustration is a willingness to volunteer my own time to contribute toward fixing this issue as an engineer - be it gathering/analyzing the data or whatever form]
It's a bummer, but discussions about the intersections of politics and tech are especially important when many prominent figures in SV are inserting themselves directly into politics or are funding inherently political projects. It's clear, for many of them, their values are misaligned with many core democratic values and sometimes even human rights.<p>Musk and DOGE killed an estimated 600,000 people, mostly kids under 5, and the death hasn't abated yet. Tech workers helped him do it.<p>If you'd rather not be the kind of useful idiot who helps a megalomaniacal tech billionaire rack up the body count of an early 20th century despot, politics are unfortunately unavoidable.
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Why all those articles on HN are "flagged"? And by WHOM?<p>I've been watching this 60min piece, and there's nothing wrong with is. It's journalism well done.<p>Do Trumpist minions have their ways on HN?
It's almost assuredly paid actors, the kind who brigade every single comment section no matter how piddly the outlet anytime there's a peep of pro-Palestinian, pro-abortion or whatever the culture-war generals are focusing their troops on.<p>Tbh HN does a _lot_ better dealing with this than pretty much anywhere. Yes HN has the flagging feature so of course it will get abused but as evidenced by this article sitting now at the top of HN, it gets addressed by moderator intervention, regularly.
>> I've been watching this 60min piece, and there's nothing wrong with is<p>It's not even that good of a story IMO; leading to full-on Streisand effect when it's easier than ever to find things on the interwebs, and double-impossible to suppress them. About all this has done is prevented the 60 minutes demo from viewing a story they would have immediately forgotten, and prompted a far more dangerous to the status quo & resourceful segment to go find & view a show they never watch.
There is a strong ideological lean on HN towards not necessarily the trump ethos, but more toward the technofeudalist ideal, which is currently broadly aligned with trump on many issues. It's also trumpisim in a more sophisticated hat, but it's adherents don't seem to think so.
Everyone here tries way too hard to emulate the Musks of the world as if their political beliefs were the reason those guys initially got so rich and successful.
It's even more craven and intellectually bankrupt than Trumpism, which at least has the simple honesty of "say good thing make good thing happen" and is broadly believed by people too stupid to know better.
and unsurprisingly, this is getting downvoted, despite being extremely accurate
Marc Andreessen is a strong supporter of Trump.
Lets be more accurate: none of the powerful & rich are strong supporters OF trump; they support him strongLY because of the direct pay-offs they personally gain. I think it's important to differentiate between the Andreessens and your core MAGA supporter who I actually believe he is a god, because strategies for defeating them are very different.
> none of the powerful & rich are strong supporters OF trump; they support him strongLY because of the direct pay-offs they personally gain.<p>A distinction without a difference.<p>"I stabbed you in the back because I wanted to steal your watch, not because I disliked you <i>personally</i>."
Nah, I genuinely believe that Andreessen believes much of what Trump believes.
It only takes a few flags to be effective and there are definitely more than a few Trumpists on HN so theoretically yes. Could also be the likely much larger contingent of people who flag all "political" and "non-technical" content by default.<p>Like it or not Hacker News has never been (and will never be) a platform for free and open debate. It's designed around aggressive curation for quality over quantity and that makes it very easy to brigade by design.
> Could also be the likely much larger contingent of people who flag all "political" and "non-technical" content by default.<p>It could, but that'd be odd. We've seen oodles of structurally similar posts hang out on the front page unflagged before. There are even past examples of major posts <i>criticizing the journalistic integrity of 60 Minutes</i>. Only once the material becomes critical of the regime does it become flagged.
I upvoted the story itself, but the endless comments discussing flags on HN are a bigger nuisance than the occasional community-flagged story.<p>I am tempted to go over each such complaint on this page (there must be a couple dozen so far) and reply <i>"Quiet, please! People are reading."</i>
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As an American whose mental health struggled for a while after the election, I now thoroughly curate my media diet so that I only get "just enough" political news. So I understand your desire.<p>However, HN has huge sway over tech culture, for better or worse (probably worse). Many of the wealthiest and most influential fascists in America also run companies that HN users might work at or strive to work at. Probably not because they're fascists, but because they mostly care about the cool tech they use or just want a better job.<p>Applicants and employees of ̶I̶B̶M̶ Palantir, ̶I̶G̶ ̶F̶a̶r̶b̶e̶n̶ Tesla, and ̶K̶o̶d̶a̶k̶ Oracle should know what they're supporting. If they take the job anyway, at least we know whose side they're on.
That won't change anything.<p>Those companies are quickly becoming majority Asians and they don't care at all and never will.<p>And the Americans laid off by Big Tech? I suspect even some of the left-leaning ones will take a job at Palantir just to not lose their house.
I don't know if it's so much about making sure these people know what they're supporting but it's definitely significant that this is one of the few places where you can have a dialogue with the people who work at these companies.
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It's actually a far less effective enforcement scheme than even Obama used both in absolute numbers and in priority.<p>The Trump admin is stuffing the processing queue (which is normally overwhelmed with high-priority cases) with thousands of low-priority cases, which actually has the effect of keeping dangerous people (always been high-priority) in the country <i>longer</i>.<p>Just what you'd expect from a totally braindead manager. Looks great if you're a malicious moron though!
Targeting "innocent" people is the point. It makes sure that nobody wants to come in.<p>>which actually has the effect of keeping dangerous people (always been high-priority) in the country longer.<p>I agree. The processing should be much faster. The detentions are so stupid, just get them on a plane.
> targeting innocent people is the point<p>> the processing should be much faster<p>And what do you call it if you slow down the processing, fill it with innocent people, and also get yourself bogged down in thousands of extremely costly (time, money, and focus) civil rights lawsuits?<p>Answer: a very stupid policy.
Sure, if you can think of better deterrents for migration and better ways to deport more people, then those should be tried as well.<p>Right now I think these measures are extremely effective, especially at deterrence and I do not see what your arguments against this being an effective deterrence really is. One good step from the legislative would be removing the legal basis for the civil rights lawsuits, so they can be thrown out immediately.
> One good step from the legislative would be removing the legal basis for the civil rights lawsuits, so they can be thrown out immediately.<p>You mean the Constitution's 5th Amendment? No thank you, I'll keep that one around.<p>> Sure, if you can think of better deterrents for migration and better ways to deport more people, then those should be tried as well.<p>A little known fact is that the Constitution is actually <i>meant</i> to make life difficult for the government. It is not up to the rest of us to come up with Constitutionally valid alternatives to the administration's preferred course of action. That's <i>their</i> job.
As a European I am not particularly invested in how the US legal system wants to protect non-citizens "rights". I just hope that the EU learns how effective immigration deterrence looks and can make the appropriate legal changes, here in Europe we do not have attachments to centuries old legal concepts, so I think this issue just does not appear here.<p>One idea which should be explored, both in the US and the EU, is that all lawsuits against immigration decisions have to be paid, either ongoing or up front, by the person who would be affected by the immigration enforcement.
Why did you remove the quotes around the word "innocent" that implied sarcasm? You can't quote things and modify the contents.
In our country, someone who hasn't been convicted or otherwise adjudicated of a crime is called <i>innocent</i>. There are thousands of innocent people being deported.<p>Perhaps these people committed crimes or administrative violations, perhaps not, but until they've been determined as such, they're correctly called <i>innocent</i> with no quotes.<p>GP is speaking specifically about <i>that</i> subset of people when they use the word innocent.
>In our country, someone who hasn't been convicted or otherwise adjudicated of a crime is called innocent.<p>Total nonsense. This only applies to the state. Individuals are totally free to believe that a person not convicted of a crime or even proclaimed innocent by the state, is in fact not innocent.<p>If your legalistic fiction of innocence was correct, then individuals would have to believe that the law is the infallible representation of morality, which is an abhorrent claim. What I meant by the quotes around innocent is that the state has not yet deemed them criminal, but I disagree with the state on that assessment.
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What part of your statement justifies the US sending unconvicted, non violent, non-El Salvadorians to CECOT?
If you're interested in the ancient Maya, El Salvador doesn't come close to Guatemala or Mexico (followed by Belize and Honduras). These are also wonderful places to visit, IMHO.
We can pretty much eliminate rape and sexual assault in the US by locking up every single man.
The oligarchy is in full effect. This is exactly how it works, ie you scratch my back I scratch yours. Ellison kills this CBS report, he gets approval on buying WBS, or more to the point NetFlix doesn't. Same with Musk, Middle East dictators and all the others lining up for favors from Trump. Also he and his family is enriched in various ways by all the pardons he hands out.<p>It's nauseating, but this is where Republicans live these days. The midterms can't come soon enough.
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Evidence of bad reporting at one news agency is not evidence of bad reporting at a completely different news agency. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate bad reporting, and vague insinuations don’t count.
No
60 Minutes suddenly drops in quality when reporting on Trump? They had a fine reputation before this incident and paying Trump $16 million.<p>Whats the BBC got to do with CBS?
It’s saved so over 15,000 lives and protected the human rights of millions of Salvadorans. Truly a great accomplishment.<p>I’m excited to see what positive coverage CBS has of this great development in human rights in El Salvador.
CECOT is terrible, and the fact that the US sent them to give a message is criminal.<p>But the overarching culprit here is the Venezuelan regime. These people ran away from Venezuela in search for a new life; Just today a girl was sentenced to 10 years in prison just for printing a shirt of Chavez's statue falling. last week a 17 year old was sentenced to 10 years in jail just because he protested after the elections were stolen from them...<p>The only solution is to taken down the regime
We are not the world police
The US govt seems to be working on that.
Two wrongs don't make a right. The US was wrong to instigate Russia by violating Baker's verbal promise to not move NATO "one inch east" (and then playing the "nanny nanny boo boo, we were crossing our fingers / didn't sign it on paper, so it doesn't count" card). That did destabilize the pre-existing balance of regional power the region and pose an existential threat to Russia's security interests.<p>Russia responding by choosing to "take down the regime" in Ukraine by invading a sovereign nation was also wrong. There was justification, there was reason, but that doesn't make it right.<p>The US is playing the role of Russia when it comes to Venezuela. The US has real reasons to be unhappy with what's going on, even if it's not quite at the same level of the US' geopolitical adversaries positioning nuclear weapons just a few hundred miles from the US capitol. The US having justification and reason to support discontent with Venezuela is not license to invade Venezuela. This was also true for Libya, for Iraq, for Vietnam, for every victim of US imperial aggression.<p>The US has to stop. The US is not the world's policeman, and the US had no legitimate right to declare itself such.<p>Want to do something about black market drug smuggling? Try destroying the black market. Take the Portugal approach.
The "existential threat to Russia's security interests" is a bit of a Russian propaganda thing. No one was out to attack Russia. They have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Ukraine was peaceful, hadn't joined NATO and wasn't formally planning to.<p>I think it's more the "Russian Empire grew by about 50 sq km per day over 400 years" thing and they are behaving now as in the past. Times change though. Empires are a bit nineteenth century.
This comes down to realism versus wishful thinking. In the real world, force is used to resolve geopolitical problems - as we’re seeing in Venezuela now and saw previously in Iraq, Serbia, Grenada and countless other countries with US. The alternative is pretending that every country can act however it wants without repercussions. Ukraine deliberately instigated conflict with hope that Russia does not react militarily instead of playing both sides like Kazakhstan, etc.<p>On no one was out to attack Russia - that's probably true today but Ukraine and broader Eastern Europe realignment is more of 50-100 years project and nobody knows what happens in 20-30 years. US is on a brink of invading Venezuela and blockade is already borderline act of war (that was casus belly for US declaring war on Germany in WW1) so it's not like NATO/US are some peaceful paradise.<p>And on “not formally planning to”: Ukraine literally wrote its intention to join NATO into its constitution. That doesn’t get more formal than that.
A citizen of the west saying what you just said is analogous to a Soviet citizen saying:<p>The "existential threat to the USA's security interests" is a bit of an American propaganda thing. No one was out to attack the USA. They have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Cuba was peaceful, hadn't joined the Warsaw Pact and wasn't formally planning to.<p>regarding the Cuban missile crisis. The only difference is that Cuba was more than twice the distance to DC that NATO nuclear warheads are from Moscow and nuclear missiles travelled much slower in the 1960s than they do today. You are welcome to have your perspective, just remember that your perspective is shaped by a media landscape that is just as partisan, just as biased, and just as shaped by propaganda as Russian perspectives are.<p>Further, consider that NATO's 2008 Bucharest declaration stated Ukraine <i>would</i> become a member. It's not like Russian concerns about Ukraine NATO membership came to them in a fever dream, these were concerns rooted in real, credible, public diplomatic discussions.<p>It is frustrating that Western audiences accept framings about US security interests that they dismiss as propaganda when applied to adversaries. It's a double standard that betrays a lack of principled willingness to apply "defense" philosophy equally and impartially. If your application of principles isn't impartial, that's not principled reasoning, that's just cheer-leading for your own team.<p>Of course, this isn't to deny that Russia was still wrong to invade Ukraine, or that the Russian military's actions are most accurately described as an invasion. Like I said before, two wrongs do not make a right. It doesn't matter whether Russia or the US refers to their military activity as "special military operations" rather than an invasion, it doesn't matter whether or not they have cited legitimate security interests before starting the invasion, invading another sovereign country, "firing the first shot", is a clear violation of the non-aggression principle.<p>As this relates back to the original discussion, I'd further add that even if you don't care about principled consistency whatsoever, the US/NATO (essentially the same thing, NATO without US troops and ISR capabilities is mostly bureaucrats disseminating .pptx files in Brussels) track record on regime change (Iraq, Libya, etc.) doesn't inspire confidence that "taking down" the Venezuelan government would even be likely to produce good outcomes. Principled reasoning, consequentialist reasoning: the logical conclusion is the same: the US should not invade Venezuela for regime change.
I admit to bias in that I don't see aggressive dictatorships and peaceful democracies as equivalent. The Cuban missiles were a problem because of that in a way that Ukraine being democratic isn't.<p>Ironically the Russian Federation is probably creating much more of an existential threat against itself by invading Ukraine. Before it was doing fine, now a good part of the globe opposes it and the economic sanctions and loss or Russian lives may cause it some issues.
The NATO thing is justification that even Russia has not applied consistently. Putin is on record saying that Ukraine is part of the Russian sphere of influence, which means, according to him, they get to install their crony of choice. If NATO was their real concern, they could withdraw <i>now</i> in exchange for promises not to join NATO, but they <i>also</i> refuse to give up territory they've occupied or to allow any security guarantees from the west, all but setting up the next stage of their invasion.<p>> The US has to stop. The US is not the world's policeman, and the US had no legitimate right to declare itself such.<p>The US has the largest military on the planet, and the (relative) peace of the last 80 years is largely based on a credible threat of our willingness to use it. That power can be used for good; at the moment, we are simply not choosing to do so.
Was dropping two atomic bombs on civilian populations good?
Was the US's role in the Korean war good?
Was the US's intervention in the Chinese civil war good?
Was the US's massacre of Puerto Rican freedom fighters, nationalists, and independence-seeking rebels during the Jayuya uprising good?
Was the US's invasion of Vietnam good?
Was the US's covert military operations in Laos using the paramilitary arm of the CIA good?
Was the US's overthrow of the legitimately elected leader of Iran to install a US puppet good?
Was the US's actions to destabilize a laundry list of Latin American countries to seize control of raw materials and commodity production and place it under American corporations good?
Was the US's invasion of the Dominican Republic to quell mass democratic uprisings against a military coup that seized control from a democratically elected leader good?
Were the US secret bombing campaigns against Laos and Cambodia good?
Was the US invasion of Grenada good?
Were the US's attacks against Iranian-owned offshore oil drilling platforms good?
Was the US occupation of Panama good?
Was the US invasion of Iraq good?
Was the US bombing of Serbia good?
Was the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan good?
How about the drone strikes against civilian weddings - good?
How about illegal humans-rights-violating extrajudicial rendition, detention, and torture programs, good?<p>Is this all "peace"? Is intentional mass murder of civilians "good" when we do it? Is Trump the first president to abuse US military capabilities in the last 80 years, or are you being selective and partisan in your recollection of one of the world's most prolific purveyors of incomprehensible violence against civilians, interference in the democratic processes of other nations, and violators of human rights in the last century?<p>We're getting far off track from the important point here though, which is that the US should not invade Venezuela, just as Russia should not have invaded Ukraine (the latter being a point of comparison for the former, not the subject of the conversation).
The answer to your question "are these last 80 years really peaceful?" is yes, in context. Look at the horror of the world wars, or the preceding ~1000 years of barbarity and wide-scale religious wars. The US does not always use its power wisely, but the alternative is to cede that power to someone else: nature abhors a power vacuum.<p>Modern anti-vaccine nuts have spent so long living without measles that they've forgotten the good that vaccines do and take their good health for granted. Anti-US-power nuts have lived in a world largely without large-scale conflicts, held in place by our NATO allies and the credible threat of force, and you've forgotten what a world without that stabilizing effect looks like. Spoiler: it looks like the 30 year war but with nukes.
But Putin himself didn't see that promise as binding and relevant. He publicly stated that Ukraines relationship with NATO was solely a thing between NATO and Ukraine and none of Russias business. Only later had this always been different.
What's next?
Let's revive the treaty of Westphalia?<p>Plus, any treaty takes bits of the sovereignty of a nation and limits the will of the voter. See how the US never ratified UNCLOS. But a pinky swear by Baker should limit the US forever?
The idea that those seasoned soviet diplomats got somehow hoodwinked is also a bit silly.
Are we only accepting the public declarations of Russian leadership as credible when we like and agree with them, or are we being selective and ignoring the things they say that don't match the boogeyman in our head?<p><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/lavrov-offers-written-non-aggression-guarantees-to-eu-nato/ar-AA1S9PuF" rel="nofollow">https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/lavrov-offers-...</a><p>Notice how they offer to put it in writing, to reduce the room for ambiguity and misunderstanding that the west disingenuously exploited when doing diplomacy with Gorbachev?<p>We're getting far off track from the important point here though, which is that the US should not invade Venezuela, just as Russia should not have invaded Ukraine (the latter being a point of comparison for the former, not the subject of the conversation).
> But the overarching culprit here is the Venezuelan regime.<p>If you truly believed this why not also try to help the regime's victims rather than persecute them more?
Bari Weiss had editorial comments that forced a delay. If you want to read her comments, look for them:<p><a href="https://x.com/thesimonetti/status/2003142908854313225" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/thesimonetti/status/2003142908854313225</a><p>They seem reasonable. The person doing this 60 minute segment has also pushed false stories in the past, which make her concern more relevant.
Reasonable? They ALL boil down to "we need to get official comments, rationale and explanations from the administration". They refused to comment on the story, so you wait because if they CHOOSE not to participate you don't get to publish? That's never been how reporting works. Her comments about a lack of detail regarding the criminal records & charges? The administration is the party that refuses to share this! They are not even forthcoming with WHO EXACTLY has been deported.<p>Bari Weiss bending over backwards to accomodate an administration that has never shown any sort of honesty or humanity is exactly why she was rewarded so handsomely. "They seem reasonable" is not even remotely close, when comparing "evidence-based truth" reporting with the president's "I speak the truth".
They aren’t reasonable.<p>If you wait for the administration to comment on a story before you publish it you’re effectively giving them the right to veto it. You ask, give them a deadline. If they don’t respond or say no comment (as they did in this case) then you publish.<p>> The person doing this 60 minute segment has also pushed false stories in the past<p>You’re going to need to elaborate on that. If it were true why wouldn’t Weiss just fire them?
The arguments are nonsense. A summary is Weiss wants to make a case for the administration, which already has the largest platform in the world. If the administration wants to make a case for itself, it has (and has had) ample time to do so. As it stands, there is already a lengthy paper trail of arguments the administration has made in court. These arguments should take precedence over throwaway statements an admin rep might make to a news program.<p>Briefly, on a couple of them:<p>- "We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in America for violent offenses. But what about charged?" In the US, those people are known as "innocent," whether or not Weiss likes that fact.<p>- Holding a story until the administration is willing to go on record is exactly the same as giving the administration a veto over a story. We would not have adversarial journalism under these circumstances.<p>- "The admin has argued in court that detainees are due "judicial review" —and we should explain this" These men were sent for indefinite detention to a concentration camp outside the US borders, and then the administration argued in court that it could not affect any change in their status. This argument from Weiss is transparently false.
> The person doing this 60 minute segment has also pushed false stories<p>[citation needed]
Bari Weiss is not a stupid person. She knows she can’t just openly say “I killed this because it’s critical to Trump”; she has to come up with some plausible fig leaf, which is what you’re posting here.