
Trump, our next president, promised to block AT&T/Time Warner merger - ohjeez
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/president-trump-may-be-trouble-for-atttime-warner-merger-and-comcast/
======
ixtli
> “Comcast's purchase of NBC concentrated far too much power in one massive
> entity that is trying to tell the voters what to think and what to do,”
> Trump said. “Deals like this destroy democracy and we'll look at breaking
> that deal up and other deals like that. That should never, ever have been
> approved in the first place, they're trying to poison the mind of the
> American voter."

My prognostication is that when they "look at" stopping it (if they do) they
will find what everyone who has worked in the world he's entering found out
long ago: it's only possible through strong regulation. Fine, he'll think:
I'll just embolden the regulators. This, I think, will be when the people who
elected him will start to realize how business is done and that, just like in
their private lives, they've bought into yet another CEO's fanciful promises
that once again turned out to be self-serving in their entirety.

~~~
beedogs
Either that, or he'll just break his promise and let it go through.

~~~
r00fus
Bingo. Promises, for Trump, are fulfilled upon announcement, and then
forgotten. The examples are legion.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Honestly what else is new? I voted for Obama on pledges he'd end the war in
Iraq and close down the constitutional abomination that is Guantanamo. 8 years
later and here we are.

~~~
edblarney
" I voted for Obama on pledges he'd end the war in Iraq and close down the
constitutional abomination that is Guantanamo. 8 years later and here we are."

Obama earnestly tried to close Guantanimo.

He's a lawyer, and should have known better.

Guantanimo is a geostrategic issue - that only 'looks like' a Constitutional
problem.

The problem is there are some very, very bad people in Guantanimo - and
putting them through the American justice system would not work. Obama figured
this out.

Paradox:

1) US Servicement are subject to a different legal system than Americans -
harsher in many ways - but Dems wanted to put terrorist on US soil, subjecting
them to regular courts - it would have been a farce.

2) US Soldiers are not the FBI. They don't do fingerprints. The kinds of
evidence/investigation required to convict someone in US courts (meant for
citizens) ... the defense attorneys could have easily kicked out the cases
against the terrorists.

3) Many of these terrorists were caught on the battlefield. They could have
been killed there - and none would have been the wiser. A young Canadian, was
caught attacking US servicemen - and killed a medic. He was shot in combat,
and was dying. US Special Forces arrived and medivaced and then applied super
USA field medical technology to save this 'terrorist'. Then he was held at
Guantanimo - in a really odd legal situation.

He was just a kid, but many of these guys are really, really bad characters,
caught on the battlefield.

They don't belong in the US justice system.

So they go to Guantanimo and stay in limbo.

If you ask me - many of them deserve it.

As for the 'regular combatants' \- that's too bad - I wish where were some way
to reintegrate them, I think it happened with some.

Anyhow - the realities of the situation hit Obama - and the above issues are
far to explain to Dems in a populist manner.

Obama orders people to die in drones strikes. Not so 'peace and love eh'? He
does it because he has to, and he knows it.

Obama's 1st term was pretty good.

2cnd term, he didn't accomplish much, that said, he did not have the power.

~~~
antithesis
> If you ask me - many of them deserve it.

The point of justice is to avoid further crimes by rendering the criminal
harmless, and by making an example out of them to scare away other potential
criminals. What does 'deserving it' have to do with this, and how is it
applicable? Do you think prisons exist out of resentment toward people?

~~~
edblarney
"The point of justice is to avoid further crimes by rendering the criminal
harmless,"

No. Or rather - 'criminal justice' as we understand it in the civil sense,
does not apply here.

" What does 'deserving it' have to do with this, and how is it applicable? Do
you think prisons exist out of resentment toward people?"

Some of the people in Guantanimo are terrorists of the worst kind. The people
that planned 9/11\. The kinds of people that chop off heads, who commit
genocidal massacres, who grab little girls from families, rape them, and sell
them into slavery.

Suppose one of these mass murdering criminals could be 're-integrated' into
society, without much fuss, i.e. he sees the error of his ways, admits he was
'caught up in false jihad'. And we felt he could go back to a more stable part
of Iraq and roughly go about his business? And we let him do that, and he
pretty much behaved.

Would that be justice?

No.

99% of ex-Nazi SS-officers, after WW2, then one's that 'escaped' \- went on to
live relatively normal lives in hiding. They were 'reformed' essentially, and
posed no threat to anyone. Their murderous activity was really in the context
of WW2. Does that mean we let people who put people in the gas chamber go
free?

No - some people deserve to die - and sometimes worse.

There are some kinds of 'bad people' that are either 'not reformable' or who
have committed such grievous crimes such that 'true justice' is probably
impossible.

I'm not advocating anything other than saying I have absolutely no sympathy
for some of the people in Guantanimo.

Now - there are definitely some people there who were just 'villagers with
guns, fighting for their village/community' whatever - and are not
totalitarian, ideological, terrorists etc. - and sometimes that's a fine line,
but clearly they don't belong there.

The 'injustice' is not the existence of Guantanimo, but simply our failure to
apply 'actual justice' meaning some 'partly innocent' people are tangled up in
a system designed for truly the most nefarious and evil types.

When we caught high ranking Nazi SS officers after WW2, we sentenced most of
them to death. I suggest many ISIS fighters are far, far worse than SS
officers.

Go ahead and watch the YouTube executions of thousands of Iraqi soldiers by
ISIS after they took parts of Iraq. They were executed by the river, the river
was literally running red with blood. I don't think that 'reform' is an issue
that enters into one's mind when thinking about how to apply justice in those
scenarios.

I appreciate that by enlarge, criminal justice should be focused on 'reform'
but especially in these kinds of situations, it's really quite another
reality.

I was in the (Canadian) Army a long time ago, and it was a difficult moral
issue, but death is part of the equation. Think of this paradox: someone who
has a gun and running from police, shooting back occasionally - will probably
get a 'death sentence' on the street and that we generally accept. To think
that mass murdering, genocidal people get more than that is a little
disturbing.

Anyhow - I hope that we get better at separating the 'villagers with guns'
from the 'genocidal terrorists'.

------
JumpCrisscross
> _But Trump 's promise to block the merger won't necessarily be fulfilled._

Cop-out in the subtitle followed by thirty paragraphs of navel gazing.

~~~
giarc
My wife and I were discussing issues like this tonight. We spoke about the
fact that when most politicians make promises, you can point to specific votes
or speeches during non campaign times to say "Yes, it seems like he/she is
really against this." With Trump though, we have no comparison, he's never
served any office before. The only thing we have is campaign promises and they
mean so little. So journalists probably have a hard time deciding whether
something he said is true or not.

~~~
rndgermandude
Maybe, and this is a radical thought, journalists (as opposed to pundits)
should wait for actual facts to emerge before branding somebody one way or
another?

~~~
grzm
I understand what you're saying. There is an aspect of "damned if you do,
damned if you don't" here, though, I think. In waiting, they're open to
accusations of not reporting or paying attention to a candidate, whether or
not the accusation is fair.

~~~
rndgermandude
It is perfectly possible to report on what Trump proposes and says and does
without becoming a mind reader and fortune teller. You can - and actually very
much should! - still report on his lies by giving facts disproving him, or
mention e.g. scientific consensus or lack thereof questioning or
substantiating his claims, or contrast the opinions Trump holds by also
reporting on the opinions his opponents hold.

You can write opt-ed pieces and be a pundit for a while if you think your own
opinion might interest your readers too.

But mixing reporting with fact-free punditry and a heap of general virtue
signaling in the same article is just detrimental to ones journalistic
reputation and will immediately alienate everybody outside of your own echo
chamber.

You researched facts why Trump's immigration policies are bad? People stopped
reading after the initial "Trump is such a racist!" paragraph.

You researched facts why Clinton's Libya policies backfired? People stopped
reading after the initial "Hillary is so crooked!" paragraph.

~~~
grzm
Agreed.

------
markwaldron
He's all about removing regulations, and then wants to regulate this?

~~~
bpchaps
Could you explain your thoughts on how those two ideas are necessarily
inconsistent with each other?

~~~
gefh
Well, one is removing a thing, and the other is adding the same thing. QED
_inconsistent_.

~~~
rndgermandude
You'll first have to prove your premise that he is all about removing
regulations (no matter what regulations), because that assertion is hardly an
axiom.

~~~
socialist_coder
He said that if any new regulations are passed, 2 must be removed.

~~~
freeone3000
That's not counter to regulation - add a regulation about large company
mergers, remove regulations on CO2 and NOx producers. Done.

------
anonu
I haven't followed this deal that closely - but I believe it had significant
antitrust headwinds before Trump said anything. Generally, if ATT wants to buy
anything thats large - I would be concerned about a decrease in competition.

------
CyberDildonics
He... promised to do a lot of things.

~~~
akerro
Clinton didn't promise much, she didn't say much at all. She wouldn't have
this problem.

------
coldcode
I don't care about yet another stupid merger, its the net neutrality weakening
that should concern everyone. In the end whether AT&Time is your ISP matters
little if you only have one choice for ISP and they charge you to access
Google special.

------
Fej
Remember that the world is not black and white, and that there is always a
silver lining.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Haha, our.

------
at-fates-hands
I stopped reading Ars Technica when they gave Trump an F on technology issues
and Clinton an overall B+, including a B- on "privacy and security". I mean,
how much more partisan can you get than that? The woman was under
investigation for leaking classified emails and using an unprotected email
server for fucks sake.

When a media outlet does something like that, I just can't take anything else
they report on seriously.

here's the article: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/when-graded-
on-te...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/when-graded-on-tech-
issues-2016-presidential-candidates-dont-do-well/)

~~~
feelix
Anything not-pro-clinton gets downvoted without explanation on any social
media platform I've seen, including HN (which is supposed to be less biased,
more objective, and superior to the other networks).

~~~
throwaway-hn123
Oh come on, do you still need to pretend to be a victim? Aren't those days
over now?

~~~
feelix
I'm not even pro trump, it's just an observation of overt bias.

~~~
pasquinelli
speaking of observations of overt bias, i've noticed that any time i question
what i see as overt male chauvinism here i get downvoted without any
explanation. i even got hellbanned once about it. this is only something i run
into here, but the only other place i really comment is jezebel.

~~~
interpol_p
I've felt the same thing about the comments here. It has led me to stop trying
to discuss any issues related to gender and avoid HN more on the whole.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Slashdot is worse, I stopped reading it for the same reason. :(

