His passport was cancelled less than 24 hours before his arrival in Russia. Either he was already in transit when the passport was cancelled, the Hong Kong government was not aware of the cancellation when they let him leave, or Hong Kong fudged the paperwork because they were getting heavy pressure from the U.S. to extradite Snowden and they wanted him gone. To my knowledge, it’s still unclear which of those is true, but in any case, he says he was headed to Ecuador, he had Ecuadorian emergency travel documents, and other famous leakers like Assange have gone to Ecuador for aid, so there’s really no reason to doubt that claim.

“Give any evidence that what you said about Snowden aiding Russia is true.”

“I will only discuss how you are a big lair that hurt my feelings.”

Anyway, I’m done here, but thanks for the Dunning-Kruger demonstration.

Then correct me. Back up any of the claim that Snowden, "gave the NSA’s tools of influence and power over the internet to Russia,’ with a single source that actually says that. Or even just explain in your own words what you think Snowden did to help the Russians.

Ill be blunt; Trump’s NSPM-7 instructs intelligence agencies to treat dissenting Americans as domestic terrorists and Congress is currently trying to extend the FISA authorization that let’s intelligence communities gather their data. The very thing that Snowden was trying to warn us about is currently happening, right now, as we speak, under Trump. So I don’t have a lot of patience for conspiracy theories about Snowden and Russian influence campaigns.

Well, it’s not the first time I’ve seen this. A lot of the, “but her emails,” crowd weren’t paying attention to the Snowden leaks because it happened under Obama. They conflate Manning, Snowden, and Assange. They don’t know the difference between Wikileaks and the Snowden disclosures. They just remember, “Snowden, hacker, leaks, Russia,” and assume it has something to do wirh Wikileaks publishing the DNC emails that Russia hacked. It’s especially pissing me off right now, given that Congress is trying to quietly pass an extension of FISA, and even though it gives Trump a massive domestic spying tool, there is a bipartisan effort to get it through.

You’ll clearly believe anything, even if you don’t understand it. Explain what you think Snowden did that materially help the Russians? How did a metadata collection program help hack John Podesta’s emails? Or build Russian troll farms? Share one intelligence source that you think made a credible case that Snowden shared information with the Russians.

The entirety of your belief that Snowden helped Russia influence the 2016 election is based on the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee saying, “maybe he shared Intelligence with the Russians, we don’t know,” in 2014. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

You said Snowden, “gave the NSA’s tools of influence and power over the internet to Russia.” This did not happen. There is no evidence he shared anything with the Russian government, he has long denied that he gave the Russian government any of the materials he took with him, and the only people who suggested otherwise are security agency hacks who tried to smear him in 2014. You’re treating old, unsubstantiated accusations of Snowden passing materials to Russia as proof that he materially helped them influence the 2016 election. It’s absolute nonsense.

No, none of that is correct. He exposed the government metadata collection program to the Gaurdian, then the Obama administration revoked his passport while he was changing flights in Russia and he was forced to seek asylum there. There’s no evidence that he gave the Russians any classified materials, and he’s long maintained that the only materials took were shared wirh the Gaurdian.

In fact, your own Wikipedia article that you just shared mentions Snowden exactly once, in a footnote, and it links to an article in which Snowden criticizes Wikileaks for being careless in how it handled the DNC email leaks. The idea that Snowden helped Russia hack the 2016 election is ahistorical nonsense based on recycled intelligence community lies that were adopted by liberals who don’t know the difference between Snowden and Assange.

You should only shop at a locally owned co-op that sources it’s products from local farm co-ops. And in the very likely event that those aren’t available where you live, you should starve to death on principle.

Yeah, don’t mistake my criticism of armchair leftists for all leftists. I certainly fall pretty far on the communist/socialist spectrum compared to what passes for the American left. But at this point, I have more respect for normie liberals who are just getting radicalized enough to take action, even if the action is just supporting a more progressive primary candidate, over online leftists who just mock them and argue theory.

I agree that you shouldn’t rely on elections alone, and mutual aid/community organizing are a huge part of any resistance to authoritarianism. I’m mostly criticizing leftists who claim (or at least imply) that violence is the only possible resistance to a authoritarians.

I really believe that we are capable of turning back the tide of authoritarianism through the levers of democracy. When South Korean politicians scaled the fence around Parliament to vote down martial law, I fully expected the President and military to ignore them, but it worked for them, and it could work for us. If we continue to excise weak-willed centrists from the Democratic party and show Republicans that authoritarian rule will not be tolerated (as the people of Minnesota did), I really believe we can dismantle American fascism with our current institutions. (Dismantling the oligarchy and strengthening those institutions will be a longer, harder battle, but I think clearing out the current fascist regime is well within our immediate grasp.)

Agreed. Until there is an open Civil War, voting will be important, as well as protests and general strikes.

Well, first of all, no I’m not just talking about America. There are tons of leftists on here who argue that voting is hopeless any time an authoritarian rises to power, and seem to believe the only solution is a violent revolution that they are not planning (not that I’m trying to bait anyone or fed-posting, but I doubt the people spending 16 hours a day debating Neo-Marxism versus Anarchist Communism are also forming a militia).

Second of all, you’re saying that the American system is set up to prevent voting out fascism, but what you’re describing is learned helplessness, not institutional restrictions. Learned helplessness is powerful, but I’m rapidly seeing it being unlearned since Trump took office. Republicans who’ve been ignoring economic issues for identity politics suddenly seem sick of hearing about wokeness. Liberal wine moms who held up, “But her emails,” signs in 2017 want Chuck Schumer’s blood. The other day I saw the fucking Mueller She Wrote account slamming Dick Durbin for saying, “reform,” ICE instead, “abolish.”

In terms of the institutions, there are a lot of measures against direct democracy that make reforms more difficult, but the structure of our elections have huge advantages. The constitution gives power of our federal elections squarely with the states, which is why Trump is having so much trouble rigging the elections. His current plan seems to be, “send ICE to intimidate voters,” and based on Minneapolis, that’s not an effective strategy.

Even the bigger obstacles are mostly imaginary. Congressional gridlock can easily be overcome by leadership willing to abolish the filibuster. Supreme Court members can be impeached, and the Court can be expanded by Congress. There are institutional, Democratic solutions to this, we just have to stop pretending they’re too difficult.

True, and I don’t mean to imply that Hungary will magically be transformed into a thriving democracy as soon as Orbàn is out. It’s gonna take years to rebuild the judiciary alone, and we’ll see how committed Maygar is to restoring inconvenient aspects of democracy like press freedom and fair elections. Still, Hungary took the first step towards reestablishing democracy by voting, and I’m getting tired of hearing how voting doesn’t work from people who’s only political activities are sharing the, “You’re Finished,” meme and telling people to read theory.

Agreed, but I see a lot of supposed leftists that seem like they just want to do the first one.

Been thinking a lot about the, “you can’t vote your way out if this,” doomer leftists today.

Damn, it’s crazy that we let one guy decide these things. Seems like the kind of thing that should be determined by a large legislative body that holds the power over our nation’s budget and the ability to write laws. Weird we don’t have one of those.

Yes. Even if you don’t think the goals of space exploration are important, we’ve made huge developments in medicine, engineering, solar panels, telecommunications, and road safety based on NASA technology. You’re probably reading this on a phone that wouldn’t exist with space exploration research. Scientific research is never a linear set of goals or inventions, and the ancillary benefits of our pursuit of space have already changed the world.

In my opinion, one too many Eevees. Vaporeon, Jolteon, Umbreon, and Espeon are solid choices, but you don’t need two fire types, and Flareon sucks ass. Not worth wasting your one fire stone on him.

Who knew that taking funding for scientific research away from government institutes and universities and giving it to ketamine-addicted con men would have negative consequences.

People are downvoting real hard for this, but there are 3 different interpretations of this comic in this thread, so you definitely have a point.