Here are a couple of examples of the daily shit that these women go through, even from their racist colleagues. At least in the House, the gloves are off and nobody pretends that there’s some kind of “comity”.
On a somewhat related topic: the only media feed that I have that I don’t manage myself is my Google phone’s news feed. This feed is Google’s take on what I’m interested in, based on search history, reading history, etc. Google, like all of the other algorithms, is easily fooled by carefully calibrated mostly nonsense. For example, I’m constantly getting negative posts about AOC and Ilhan Omar sourced from “news” or “opinion” sites that I’ve never heard of. (“The Hollywood Conservative” was one of them – at least they’re correct in the use of the definite article.) The posts are carefully calibrated to be a spin on facts. Nobody posts that Omar is from Mars, for example — instead it’s a negative take base on another thinly sourced news article, based on another thinly sourced article. And there’s no cursing and no other markers that makes Google think that it’s “fake news” by their milquetoast definition. So, Google figures it’s legit, and pushes it out to me, since I read about AOC and Omar, among others.
I do hate Facebook, but even if Facebook were suddenly shut down, and could no longer do things like pay for puff pieces in Teen Vogue, we’d still have the same problem. I’ll never see a Balloon-Juice or LGM post in my feed, but I’ll see hundreds of anti-squad posts, because these Republicans (or bots or whatever they are) can play Google’s stupid game.
Baud
I used to get those, but after I told Google not to show stories from Fox and a couple of other right wing sites, Google’s AI got the hint.
bemused
I was going to say they are the most willfully stupid people in the country but it’s worse. They know or should know Ilhan Omar was in a refuge camp and they know about the immigrant children in detention camps on our soil are being harmed physically and psychologically but they simply don’t care.
MattF
@Baud: Umm, maybe. Since the cited algorithms are super-duper proprietary, seekret and technical, no one (including the companies that use them) actually understands how they work.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@MattF: Yeah, I turned off Fox and a couple of others, then these smaller sites pop up. I think that’s the strategy – make us and Google play whack-a-mole.
Baud
@MattF: I don’t know about how it works. I just know I get fewer right wing stories on my feed.
Betty Cracker
Ugh, Rutherford. That’s a GOP +20 district, IIRC, so he feels free to let his freak flag fly.
Barbara
@bemused: If she were from Cuba, they would be singing an entirely different tune. I try not to voice sentiments like this, because it is just so ugly, but I really, really hate these people, all of them. The idea that if you were to start a religion that someone like Donald Fucking Trump would be your idea of a deity says everything I need to know about these people.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Betty Cracker: Banks is R+18 in Indiana, same deal.
jimmiraybob
Wait a minute. [scratches head … thinks….]
Mike Lee (R) and Rand Paul (R) are now part of the squad. I assumed there would be higher standards for admission.
Woodrow/asim
I’d also recommend using alt. search engines like DuckDuckGo (and yes, there’s an app for that).
With all the political/historical searching I go, Google mostly thinks I just wanna hear about superheroes and Linux technical issues :)
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
More reports that the Ukraine International flight was downed by a missile.
Bill Arnold
I know it’s not your point, but it is possible to look at google news without logging in, in which case you get the default feed. Private browsing window will do it. I do not look at google news in a browser where I am logged into google.
Aleta
DevinPandyForCongress @DevinPandy
I am proud to be running against Doug Collins in Georgia’s 9th Congressional District.
Preet Bharara @PreetBharara
I happen to be a Democrat and I prosecuted terrorists for living. Sent many to prison for life. I don’t know what Doug Collins has ever done for America except preen and sound stupid.
Michael McFaul @McFaul
Disgusting. As US ambassador to Russia, I became accustomed to addressing disinformation Putin propagated about Americans. I never expected that elected Members of Congress would engage in the same, making grotesque false statements about fellow Americans. Stop this nonsense.
The Minimal Value of Trump’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran
Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/08/the-minimal-value-of-trumps-maximum-pressure-on-iran/
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
Ugh. Is this somehow a Russian thing? Make it look as if Iran did it?
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Bill Arnold:
Yeah, this is the feed on my Android phone that shows me 20-30 “cards” of things I might be interested in. I do find it useful mostly for hobby (non-politics) stuff.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
One of my friends who is a vet works for the VA and does group therapy for PTSD suffers. Apparently a big problem for the guys is they come home messed up in the head from what they experienced and their families (as in including their mothers and wives) turn their back on the guys for being girly men and not just taking it like a real man. Toxic masculinity is a two way street and it’s enforced it on guys as well as something they do.
The way from friend talks, with her stories of doing house calls on vets only to stop them in the process of trying to kill themselves, makes it sound like the VA workers are the only solace these guys get in life now. Apparently it’s brutal on the VA workers and she is dealing with one of her collages killing herself (stuff like the Vet coming into the hospital, thanking his case workers and then shooting himself in the lobby)
But keep that in mind the next time someone like Banks screams about respecting the vets; somewhere in some red state some twenty something is blowing his brains out because he can’t take getting ridiculed for his pain.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
Dumbass Trump just said it, too – that fucker can never keep his mouth shut.
There were a lot of Canadians on the flight – hopefully Canada will help get to the bottom of it, and they’re considered credible by most of the world.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray: Curious what Cherly and company have to say about this.
But it’s not impossible the Iranians are just as incompetent as we are. Saw “Boeing” and started shooting.
Urza
I do occasionally have Balloon Juice pop up in my Google feed. Not as often as it probably should given I visit at least once a day, but it is possible.
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Iranian-Canadians, mostly. It was a cheap way to go Teheran-Toronto, since there are no direct flights on that route.
Cheryl Rofer
The US has released some satellite evidence on the plane downing – the plane’s radar went on, and just after that, two missiles show up. I’ll post a link the next time I see one.
Sadly, it’s plausible. An anti-aircraft group gets itchy, and stuff happens.
Kent
@zhena gogolia: Iran is a pretty locked-down place. What are the chances that some non-government terrorist type group would be able to acquire and deploy advanced weaponry like heat seeking missiles inside Tehran?
I’m always skeptical of this sort of un-sourced speculation. But what would be the motivation of any government-backed group doing something like this and chance it being traced back to them? What would the Russians have to gain, for example? They have a lot of better ways to mess with Ukraine and Ukraine’s economy that won’t risk massive international backlash. And watching Iran mess with the US in Iraq is probably something Russia wants.
I just can’t come up with any reasonable scenario in which it would be to the benefit of any country to bring down commercial aircraft in another country. Even Iran’s enemies like Saudi Arabia? Can’t see how they would benefit from starting a tit-for-tat of bringing down commercial airliners.
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@zhena gogolia: The only Russian connection I see is that Iran uses Russian military hardware. Pretty sure the only Ukrainians on that flight were crew.
Cheryl Rofer
This is fair enough too.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
[blink]If[/blink] this video is legitimate, it would seem to me to argue against a missile being responsible. The plane was on fire but seemingly intact before it hit the ground. Missiles cause planes to break up.
My armchair speculation.
Donnie commenting on it is just making it worse, of course. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
I know she probably doesn’t want to dignify the stupid rumor by addressing it, but Rep. Omar really should talk to Snopes about that whole “she married her brother!” thing. Having it show up as “unverified” only adds fuel to the rumor.
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray: All the reports I’ve seen were sourced by the US govt. Like they have special insight into what Iranians are doing?
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
The plane was still climbing out of the airport in Tehran, so it seems to me that the most likely scenario (assuming the claim it was shot down is correct) is a massive screw-up by Iranian air defense forces. I suppose it could have been a missile fired by a foreign jet, but it would have had to have been a very stealthy one. Otherwise, Iran would have radar tracks to show that’s what happened, and you can bet they’d be sharing them with the world.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
On the plane shoot-down, remember that the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian A300 in the Gulf in 1988. It happens. More here: https://www.askthepilot.com/ukraine-crash-teheran/
zhena gogolia
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That is so sad.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
The only way it could possibly make sense is if they think they can disguise their actions as somebody else to stir up trouble. That’s a lot harder than it sounds, so I agree it’s an implausible scenario.
ThresherK
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Iran in the news…Canada is credible to rest of world…
I know enough about the Montreal Expos, the Quebec Nordiques, and the CFL to fake it.
Thanks to Trump, “Americans pretending to be Canadians” is becoming a thing again, isn’t it?
Kent
@Cheryl Rofer: The most plausible scenario in my mind was that Iranian anti-aircraft defense batteries across the country were on ultra-high DEFCON 1 level alert due to the very reasonable expectation that the US would be lobbing cruise missiles and/or sending precision bombing raids against them in retaliation to Iran’s missile strikes. And for whatever reason (old equipment, miscommunication, etc.) some trigger happy battery shot off missiles at a commercial jet thinking they were going to be heroes of the Republic by bringing down an American bomber.
I would’t expect Iran’s air defenses to be the most state of the art after 30 years of sanctions. They might just have really crappy radar that isn’t good at distinguishing civilian aircraft from US cruise missiles and bombers.
cleek
i’ve been on FB forever and i have never once had a news post pushed to me.
how do people see it? do they have to opt-in to follow news feeds?
gene108
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Might not be toxic masculinity, per se.
Some families really have a hard time coming to grips with the reality that mental illness is a thing.
Families can push the idea that you need to try harder or be stronger willed, because “this guy over there, has it worse than you and you don’t see him moping around”, rather than acknowledge mental illness is a real thing, which needs real treatment.
It’s just part of the stigma that’s around mental illness
Major Major Major Major
I check Memeorandum in the morning and then go straight to twitter and here, and I wouldn’t say I miss too much that I care about.
Cheryl Rofer
@Kent: yup
bemused
@Barbara:
They’re all frauds hiding behind their phony religions and “family values”. Monsters, actually, imo.
Shalimar
Google News frequently gives me stories with very misleading or outright false headlines about the band Tool, mostly from this one website which seems to despise them. I like Tool, and they were in the news with a new album last year, but the volume of stories even if they were positive and informative is way out of kilter to my interest level. Just one example of Google’s weird news algorithms.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@cleek:
Judging from my wife’s feed (she has a large extended family), you need some nutjob relatives to re-post it. How they get the article in the first place is a mystery to me, since I don’t use Facebook.
Kent
@gene108:
I suspect a lot of it in the military and police arena is fear the negative career consequences of being labeled as suffering from mental issues. And frankly, those are probably reasonable fears, even in this day and age. A lot of getting promoted these days has to do with intangibles like “leadership qualities” and “has what it takes”
Kent
It takes one second to repost to your FB news feed any news article you find anywhere on the internet. Some news sites make it even easier by putting up Facebook/Instagram/Twitter etc. buttons. But even without those you just copy the outside article URL into a FB post and FB does the rest.
I have various MAGA relatives who like to repost that kind of shit along with their endless bible verses memes and recipes. I don’t unfriend them. I just change my settings to “unfollow” them so I don’t see their feeds anymore. Problem solved.
The only “news” I still get on my Facebook feed are various articles on Central America that are posted by my Peace Corps alumni friends.
Cheryl Rofer
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@Kent: A lot like the MH 17 shootdown.
Kent
It is sounding pretty definitive:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/world/middleeast/iran-plane-crash-ukraine.html
Apparently Iran is even asking the US NTSA crash investigators for help in conducting the investigation and they have found remnants of the Russian anti-aircraft missiles that Iran uses near the crash site.
That Iran is inviting US crash investigators in really astonishes me. I don’t know what that means. But it feels like a really big deal.
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@Cheryl Rofer: Wonder why everyone is skipping over MH 17.
VeniceRiley
@MattF: Hipster algorithms!
Yutsano
@Kent:
This is especially important for active duty military. The services have developed a habit of labeling legitimate PTSD as “Mental Issues” from prior to service so military medicine doesn’t have to cover them and they can be drummed out with no benefits. It’s completely unsurprising how many want to avoid that label. And so they suffer their symptoms until either a breaking point is reached and they have to face up to them or they just can’t take it anymore and commit suicide. We’re damaging generations of soldiers with endless wars and untreated PTSD. It’s one of our greatest modern shandas.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
This is juvenile. The commenters here corrected you when you spread a false rumor yesterday about a member of the British Royal Family and you react passive-aggressively by changing your pen name to mock them. How very disappointing.
Ruckus
On twitter I had a reply in a thread about PTSD, that in the conversation that AOC was having when she said she had PTSD, that the conversation continued and she laughed so she’s basically full of shit. He-notice the he- implied that she hates and is not to be trusted because she laughed.
People find all kinds of arguments that they use to justify their hate, because they have no real reason other than fucking because. Small people with small minds. I’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t looking for a reason to be fucking hateful. No wonder humanity has wars and racism and hatred and makes progress so fucking slowly, they waste their lives trying to be the same shit that’s been going on since fucking forever.
Kent
Who is skipping over it? What do you think is relevant about MH17? That the Russians were behind it? It most certainly didn’t play to their advantage. Why would they make the same mistake twice?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
If it was the Russians, this is going to blow up pretty big in Putin’s face. It could even push the Iranians away from Russia, which would undermine Putin’s aims in the ME
Frankensteinbeck
@Cheryl Rofer:
I trust the equipment and even the people who run the equipment. The President, however, lied on his first day in office about the weather. Do we have an even remotely trustworthy confirmation that our equipment saw the plane shot down?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Arrogance?
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@Kent: The tweets I’ve seen go back 3-plus decades to the Vincennes, which seems much less relevant. MH 17 is an example of trigger-happy anti-aircraft operations using perhaps outdated Russian equipment, and it was only 5 years ago. It seems directly on point.
Kent
@Yutsano: Nothing modern about it. In previous wars it was called “battle fatigue” and before that “shell shock” and before that “soldiers heart” and is, in fact, one of the oldest documented conditions in human history. It was even mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh in 2100 BC not to mention the war histories of Herodotus and Thucydides.
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It wasn’t.
David Evans
@Another Scott: I have read that a small infra-red homing missile, such as a Stinger, would be quite likely to home on an engine and start an engine fire.
Kent
Is the consensus that MH17 was an accident? I thought the Dutch had evidence that it was shot down on purpose. But it isn’t something I have really followed.
Cheryl Rofer
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m seeing people I trust on the technical stuff, like Steffan Watkins (tweet above) feel that this is reasonable confirmation.
Trump isn’t smart enough to make up a story about satellite detection, so he’s repeating what he got from people who know what they’re doing.
It’s a lower probability that they were told to make up a convincing story. Not impossible, but unlikely imho.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
The reports are saying that the missile fragments are Russian in origin, are they not? I suppose all that tells us is that they were manufactured/primarily used by Russia
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@Kent: I don’t get your distinction. In both cases, it seems, the operators shot down something “on purpose”. In both cases, it wasn’t what they thought it was.
Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Russia sells equipment to lots of countries, just as the US does.
Bill Arnold
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
Iran has decent, fairly new, Russian-made SA defenses, notably these, delivered 2005 or later. (Looks like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_missile_system
(Wikipedia says 29 of them.)
War situation, a couple of hours after a ballistic missile attack launched by Iran, air defenses on hair trigger, and then the scenarios can get a lot weirder. (E.g. ruthless amoral Russian weapon manufacturer opportunistically “advertising” their wares using a (hypothetical!) backdoor, with bonus revenge for Siberia Airlines 1812)
Unless it was an unrelated mechanical failure, it was a indirect side effect of the assassination of an Iranian leader (who reported IIRC to the Supreme Leader).
Bill Arnold
@David Evans:
Yeah, the Tor missile system that everyone is talking about is proximity fused. Heat seeking would for sure be more likely to blow up an engine.
NotMax
Here’s a wild thought: If the performance/productivity of the app is unsatisfactory, turn it off.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Or in this case, just don’t use Google
: )
Kent
There’s a huge difference between an unfortunate accident during the fog of war and the deliberate shooting down of a civilian airliner by a government for political reasons. I thought there was evidence that the Russians or their proxies knowingly did it on purpose.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
And if it was a small heat seeking missile then it could have been launched covertly in a false flag operation by non-Iranian-state actors. Utterly amoral and with a decent probability of getting caught. I haven’t figured out a plausible motive for this scenario yet.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
Yeah, I sort of answered my own question at the end of my comment. Who do you think did it?
Roger Moore
@Kent:
It can think of two reasonable, not mutually exclusive explanations. One is that it’s a symbolic attempt to show they are interested in avoiding further escalation. The other is that they are genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of this and are willing to put aside their pride to ask in experts from a hostile country to help.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
A lot of the time, families are desperate for the veteran to be the same person s/he was when they left, and they put huge pressure on them to pretend that war didn’t change them. It’s a natural human tendency, but very destructive.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cheryl Rofer:
Good enough for me. I wish we weren’t in a situation where everything the White House says I must assume is a lie until proven otherwise, but that’s the situation we’re in.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
IIRC, it’s pretty common for other countries to request assistance from the NTSB to investigate plane crashes since they have a lot of data available. It’s probably smart of Iran to make the request so they can say they were transparent about getting to the bottom of it.
Kent
A third reason might be to cast doubt on the notion that the Iranian military did it by accident. Anyone who has ever been involved in any sort of organized military knows that things like advanced weaponry are incredibly tightly controlled and inventoried, especially during times of peace. If some Iranian AA battery fired off a missile by mistake then there is pretty much ZERO chance that the Iranian military won’t be able to figure that out without outside help. But if they want to claim it wasn’t one of theirs then perhaps having outside investigators poking around “discovering” what everyone else already knows might actually help with the cover up.
Just a guess. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
To add a slightly different shade to basically the same answer, Iran wants the international community to know that the US are the belligerent assholes, and anyone else who wants to work peacefully and respectfully with Iran to fix real international issues will find Iran willing to work peacefully and respectfully in return.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Frankensteinbeck:
That really is the worst part of Trump and GOP lies. They undermine public confidence in the government and have no credibility, yet still act entitled to it and expect to be believed. It’s maddening.
Mnuchin has already said he wants to delay disclosure of Trump’s travel expenses until after the election. See how that works? Literally no way to spin that other than for pure political advantage. They just don’t care and still expect to be believed
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
People are bringing up the Vincennes because it involved the US and Iran. It’s also slightly less controversial, since the US has acknowledged it was our mistake, while Russia still vehemently denies any role in MH17.
trollhattan
@David Evans:
Yes, that seems possible and shrapnel either from the missile itself or the disintegrating engine would pierce and ignite the wing tank fuel.
A proper forensic investigation will reveal whether or not a missile brought down the plane. I’m skeptical Iran will conduct one if they already know it was a defence force mistake, but these are the Weird Times so who knows?
kindness
i do wonder how much money Putin/Russia spends on the St. Petersburg troll farm & associated bots.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
But why would Iran want to take down a commercial airliner with many Iranians (even if they were foreign citizens) on it or further risk escalation? Killing foreign civilians would only justify war along with making them look like the villains in world opinion
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Given that the plane was full of Canadian citizens, it’s probably in Iran’s best interest to do a full and impartial investigation even if that investigation ends up showing that they were at fault. As someone else said above, they want to demonstrate that they will be respectful and cooperative if they’re approached with equal respect. They’re in a position where they can’t afford to alienate anyone who might have an influence on the US.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I came up with the same two possibilities, but I find myself completely unable to order them in terms of most likely to be the reason.
Neither one is terrible, of course, so we’ve got that going for us!
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: Isn’t that Step 1 in the authoritarian handbook? Make is to impossible for people to know who or what to believe, so they lose all trust in institutions?
Bill Arnold
@kindness:
Almost nothing. Seriously, that sort of factory-style influence operation is fairly cheap relative to exotic military hardware.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Pretty much. You’d think it’d counterproductive, since the authoritarians would want people to trust their institutions, but that’s not necessary apparently
Frankensteinbeck
@WaterGirl:
I guarantee you that there is no strategic purpose beyond the immediate lie. They’re entitled, dishonest, cowardly, incompetent people. Trump lies about everything, all the time, even the most minutely petty shit, because he’s an asshole. In almost all situations the truth does not serve his cronies’ purposes, so they lie. It’s not a campaign, just something they do constantly because that’s who they are.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I don’t think there is any reason why they would want to do that. That WHAT happened part of the investigation might be very straight forward. The WHO and WHY may be much more vague. Much like the Khashoggi killing. It was pretty easy to figure out WHAT happened. Figuring out WHO was harder. Especially after the principals were executed.
If, as is the case, this was most likely a mistake then the cover-up will be designed to limit the mistake to the lowest levels of the military and not let the blame seep upwards to the highest levels. I don’t know how inviting NTSA investigators would further that sort of objective. But it isn’t really what they do
For example, it could have been known at the highest levels of the Iranian military that their air defense system was vulnerable to this sort of mistake due to lack of training, lack of correct equipment, short cuts in deploying equipment, or whatever million possible reasons there might be. That is the sort of information that they may be wanting to cover up. Inviting in the NTSA and making the investigation look international and professional might actually aid in that sort of effort.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:
It’s likely Iran. Their air defenses were probably set on WASF and they took the passenger jet down. So many ways ordinary people suffer for wars they want no part of.
zhena gogolia
@kindness:
Whatever it is, they got great value for their money in 2016, thanks to idiotic Americans.
Evil_Paul
@Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray: It’s also (apparently) one of the only routes that doesn’t pass through the US. Something that’s become more and more of an issue over the last few years.
This was mentioned ONCE on CBC radio the other night, but there hasn’t been any further discussion on it.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
It honestly doesn’t seem mysterious to me why Iran would request help from the NTSB — they want to be able to claim that they’ve been open and transparent, unlike the US, which is flailing around spouting lie after lie. It’s Strategy 101, but the idiots in the White House skipped all of the sessions because they thought they were smarter than everyone else.
West Point should be embarrassed that they graduated Pompeo at the top of his class when he apparently didn’t understand a goddamned thing about military strategy.
Evil_Paul
@Kent: Question: Has there been any evidence cited or a person in authority going on record saying it was an Iranian missile? So far I’m just seeing “unnamed officials” and “reports of” without an actual citation.
I’m not trying to cast shade here. But this would be an excellent time for a disinformation op. Emotions are running high, and our thirst for answers means every rumour immediately getting amplified and repeated.
Mnemosyne
@Evil_Paul:
That’s another reason that Iran would probably decide that it’s in their national interest to have an impartial team of investigators look into it. It would only help the US for a bunch of conspiracy theories to form.
I’m assuming that if it does turn out to have been shot down by Iranian military personnel, they’ll be court-martialed and executed. Because, again, it’s in Iran’s best interest to appear to be open and honest about this.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: It’s also pretty much SOP to have the regulatory agency for the country that built the aircraft to participate.
Evil_Paul
@Evil_Paul: …and it looks like I stand corrected already. CBC’s got Justin Trudeau in a live press conference saying that a missile was a possibility.
Kent
@Evil_Paul: This is a fast-developing story. But that is what the NYT is reporting right now: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/world/middleeast/iran-plane-crash-ukraine.html
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: I know Trump lies. With him it’s pathological. Just because he can? Because he can’t not lie?
But the rest of the Republicans, while morally bankrupt, aren’t liars in the way that Trump does. I simply don’t understand how or why they are willing to get on the Trump train. What kind of person sells their soul for money? Power? A seat in Congress? Got in over their head with the mob or the Russians?
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Yes it is.
That person will never be the same. They may or may not ever get well or even just OK, but they will never, ever be the same person again. And to expect that is a huge disservice to that returning service member.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Those republicans are not in any way leaders, they are, at best, toadies who will fall into line at the prospect of staying on their gravy train. And right now the conductor of that train is someone only a toady, with no morals or intellect of their own, would follow, who demands complete gratification no matter his indiscretions. Being who they are, they follow willingly. LG for example.
raven
@Mnemosyne: What kind of a person would be the same?
Chasm
Of course Google killed their rss Reader, but that was already after everyone decided to let the Algorithm take over anyway. facebook is dead, long live Feedly!
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
yeah, but it’s Boeing. So after the 737 Max, even their “civillian” wing isn’t trusted. There’s nothing much “new” Boeing can contribute.
Also, the Iranian’s didn’t refuse Boeing involvement in the investigations.
They refused to hand over the “black boxes” to Boeing, unexamined and uncopied.
It’s a “trust issue”. Iran does not trust that one of the largest US Defence Corporations won’t “rig, hack or fake” the readings of the “black boxes”. One of the products of having a rotating door between the US Military and Intelligence Orgs, Politics and the Industrial complex.
Amir Khalid
@Kent:
There were a safety investigation, which if I remember correctly was run by the Netherlands aviation authority, and a multinational criminal investigation involving a number of countries including Malaysia.