I'm interested in what's actually happening, not how it feeds the narrative about Trump. We saw the same thing yesterday with a dozen people on HN het up about how the Library of Congress Annotated Constitution had removed Habeas from its online copy of the Constitution (along with the Navy, letters of marque and reprisal, and the No Favored Ports clause) and people said the same thing there: stop claiming this was just a website fuckup and normalizing Trump!
In that Constitution story, a government website that has the Constitution's text was updated in a peculiar way. It could be interpreted as having been related to habeas corpus rights, as that was in the middle of the removal. It could also be interpreted as unintentional, as the deletion started in the middle of Article I Section 8. You'd think a targeted deletion wouldn't include so much unrelated text. Then again, you could say that it's just an incompetently done targeted deletion. It's debatable! Maybe it was intentional and maybe the order came from the top. Or maybe it was just a run of the mill tech SNAFU.
In this situation, Trump, on Trump's social media platform, posted that he wants this CEO to resign. That's not debatable, it's verifiable fact. It happened. We know the man at the top is saying this.
So yeah, stop with the false equivalencies and pay attention to what's actually happening.
Just so we're clear that you apparently still think it's possible that an order came down from the top to delete Congress's authorization to form a Navy from the Library of Congress's online annotated Constitution, which isn't even in the first SERP for me on Google for "online constitution", but I guess you've gotta start somewhere.
I described the situation you referenced to show why it is not the same as this situation. I did not declare ownership of a position.
Personally I'd say it's 99.99% in favor of run of the mill SNAFU. The 0.01% is mostly an allowance for the tendency of authoritarian systems to occasionally act in incredibly clumsy and incompetent ways. I feel this may be a factor of personal loyalty and ideological alignment receiving more consideration than competence in hiring and advancement decisions within authoritarian systems.
It's a good story, but what I'm remembering and is relevant here is this:
> At some point, I realized that if I wrote a wiki page and documented the things that we were willing to support, I could wait about six months and then it would be like it had always been there.
Authoritarians and fascists recognize this potential to create new "truths". If you say it enough, it's the truth. If you change things and say it's always been that way, then it was. If you're willing to drag through the mud, fire, prosecute, imprison, harm, or kill those who push back, fewer people push back. Even if everyone "knows" it's false, it no longer matters - most operate as if it is true.
That's why this shit makes people nervous, why people are on edge about information changing on government websites for no apparent reason. Trump has repeatedly shown a willingness to inflict his view of reality on others, with force, and without regard for facts.
I am trivializing the LOC Constitution page thing and nothing you can say is going to make me stop, because the conspiracy theory behind it doesn't make any sense. By continuing to defend it, you're making my point for me about this Intel story (where malfeasance would make sense!).
But we're going around in circles and should probably just let this go.
In this thread: a household name in the infosec field tells us to chill out and let our guard down, despite a pattern of abuse and contempt for democratic norms not seen in developed Western countries since the 1930s.
>Eh. Without getting anywhere near the merits of this particular fracas, the federal government has gotten deeply involved in critiquing the management of companies like Lockheed and Boeing, both for national security reasons and because of the importance of those companies to the economy. Easy to see Intel fitting into that mold in 2025.
Which was you saying "this Intel thing is NBD and basically the same as a bunch of past things presidents have done."
That's the original false equivalency I called you out on. And which you now disagree with apparently, because now you think the Intel thing is potential malfeasance? I don't think you really know what your position is anymore.
I have no idea if it's no big deal or not, only that it's not unprecedented and of all the companies you'd expect to see something like this happen at in a normal administration, this is the one.
Again, what is the precedent for the president of the united states to publicly call on a CEO to resign, in the absence of a major scandal or company failure that has required the government to intervene to save the public / investors / etc?
You keep saying it's the same old shit but when people point out the differences you change the subject. You're basically a troll.
It's exactly because I think this is the most dangerous President in American history that I find these kinds of claims so risible and worth knocking down.
And in doing so you are inadvertently providing cover for their actions. The constitution fuck up was likely a mistake, but at the same time you should be reacting like the way others did because it sends a clear, strong message that people are watching.
And in this scenario your counterargument is so incredibly weak that you're not knocking down anyone's claims, you're just weakening your own position.
Ridiculous. The LOC thing doesn't even make sense as a movie plot. I'm not going to pretend it does just so I can keep the same polarity as you. It probably just doesn't make sense for us to keep talking about this.
You started the tangent with the Library of Congress thing and then demand people stop talking about it when they push back against your staked out position. I'm not sure what you expect other than it seems you've consistently ignored the point of people's posts here in favor of extrapolating something completely different.
I'm interested in what's actually happening, not how it feeds the narrative about Trump. We saw the same thing yesterday with a dozen people on HN het up about how the Library of Congress Annotated Constitution had removed Habeas from its online copy of the Constitution (along with the Navy, letters of marque and reprisal, and the No Favored Ports clause) and people said the same thing there: stop claiming this was just a website fuckup and normalizing Trump!
Yes, what actually happened is important.
In that Constitution story, a government website that has the Constitution's text was updated in a peculiar way. It could be interpreted as having been related to habeas corpus rights, as that was in the middle of the removal. It could also be interpreted as unintentional, as the deletion started in the middle of Article I Section 8. You'd think a targeted deletion wouldn't include so much unrelated text. Then again, you could say that it's just an incompetently done targeted deletion. It's debatable! Maybe it was intentional and maybe the order came from the top. Or maybe it was just a run of the mill tech SNAFU.
In this situation, Trump, on Trump's social media platform, posted that he wants this CEO to resign. That's not debatable, it's verifiable fact. It happened. We know the man at the top is saying this.
So yeah, stop with the false equivalencies and pay attention to what's actually happening.
Just so we're clear that you apparently still think it's possible that an order came down from the top to delete Congress's authorization to form a Navy from the Library of Congress's online annotated Constitution, which isn't even in the first SERP for me on Google for "online constitution", but I guess you've gotta start somewhere.
I described the situation you referenced to show why it is not the same as this situation. I did not declare ownership of a position.
Personally I'd say it's 99.99% in favor of run of the mill SNAFU. The 0.01% is mostly an allowance for the tendency of authoritarian systems to occasionally act in incredibly clumsy and incompetent ways. I feel this may be a factor of personal loyalty and ideological alignment receiving more consideration than competence in hiring and advancement decisions within authoritarian systems.
Dude, he altered a weather map with a Sharpie on live TV.
The theory behind this Constitution thing is as if, after altering the weather map, the weather changed.
Well, it would have if he had been allowed to use nuclear weapons on the hurricane instead of just a Sharpie.
I remember this blog post coming across HN when it was posted: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2025/07/07/support/
It's a good story, but what I'm remembering and is relevant here is this:
> At some point, I realized that if I wrote a wiki page and documented the things that we were willing to support, I could wait about six months and then it would be like it had always been there.
Authoritarians and fascists recognize this potential to create new "truths". If you say it enough, it's the truth. If you change things and say it's always been that way, then it was. If you're willing to drag through the mud, fire, prosecute, imprison, harm, or kill those who push back, fewer people push back. Even if everyone "knows" it's false, it no longer matters - most operate as if it is true.
Let's not forget that years later, Trump felt the need to inflict revenge on NOAA employees connected to sharpiegate: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/two-high-rankin...
That's why this shit makes people nervous, why people are on edge about information changing on government websites for no apparent reason. Trump has repeatedly shown a willingness to inflict his view of reality on others, with force, and without regard for facts.
You trivialize it at your own peril.
I am trivializing the LOC Constitution page thing and nothing you can say is going to make me stop, because the conspiracy theory behind it doesn't make any sense. By continuing to defend it, you're making my point for me about this Intel story (where malfeasance would make sense!).
But we're going around in circles and should probably just let this go.
In this thread: a household name in the infosec field tells us to chill out and let our guard down, despite a pattern of abuse and contempt for democratic norms not seen in developed Western countries since the 1930s.
Super normal response to a temporary website glitch at the 9th most popular online copy of the US Constitution.
Actually your original point was:
>Eh. Without getting anywhere near the merits of this particular fracas, the federal government has gotten deeply involved in critiquing the management of companies like Lockheed and Boeing, both for national security reasons and because of the importance of those companies to the economy. Easy to see Intel fitting into that mold in 2025.
Which was you saying "this Intel thing is NBD and basically the same as a bunch of past things presidents have done."
That's the original false equivalency I called you out on. And which you now disagree with apparently, because now you think the Intel thing is potential malfeasance? I don't think you really know what your position is anymore.
I have no idea if it's no big deal or not, only that it's not unprecedented and of all the companies you'd expect to see something like this happen at in a normal administration, this is the one.
Again, what is the precedent for the president of the united states to publicly call on a CEO to resign, in the absence of a major scandal or company failure that has required the government to intervene to save the public / investors / etc?
You keep saying it's the same old shit but when people point out the differences you change the subject. You're basically a troll.
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It's exactly because I think this is the most dangerous President in American history that I find these kinds of claims so risible and worth knocking down.
And in doing so you are inadvertently providing cover for their actions. The constitution fuck up was likely a mistake, but at the same time you should be reacting like the way others did because it sends a clear, strong message that people are watching.
And in this scenario your counterargument is so incredibly weak that you're not knocking down anyone's claims, you're just weakening your own position.
Ridiculous. The LOC thing doesn't even make sense as a movie plot. I'm not going to pretend it does just so I can keep the same polarity as you. It probably just doesn't make sense for us to keep talking about this.
You started the tangent with the Library of Congress thing and then demand people stop talking about it when they push back against your staked out position. I'm not sure what you expect other than it seems you've consistently ignored the point of people's posts here in favor of extrapolating something completely different.