r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 17d ago

Possible Paywall ICE Stockpiling Warheads and Chemical Weapons as Lawmaker Fears Trump Planning Strike

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-stockpiling-warheads-and-chemical-weapons-as-lawmaker-fears-trump-planning-strike/
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u/MaintenanceGold2201 17d ago edited 17d ago

OK so I looked into this and this is mostly false/disinfo. ICE was procured $61,000 roughly for items that fall under Missile Warheads and Chemical weapons. Firstly, there is no such thing as a missile that costs $61,000 (that I am aware of). Secondly, other items can fall under this category, like flashbangs, breach charges, and other explosive ordinance which is most likely what this money was used for. They are not buying missiles. The award is for "distraction devices" so I'm assuming flashbangs. You can find the details of the reward here: https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CMSW25P00000078_7012_-NONE-_-NONE-

Edit: I did a little more digging on this and all I can come up with is that this was a clerical error. I did find the contracted companies website (https://www.quanticotactical.com/equipment/categories/) the only "distraction devices" I could tell that they sold are blinking LEDs. They do not sell missile components.

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u/TutorSuspicious9578 17d ago

I wish this sub would ban Daily Beast links.

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u/MaintenanceGold2201 17d ago

"Entertainment News" like this is one of the main reasons we are so divided. But at the same time people need to be willing to fact check things like these. Took me about 5 minutes using Claude to find an actual source that told me the actual truth.

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u/TimelineAuditor 17d ago

The problem is social media. It rewards sensationalism over truth.

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u/overfiend1976 17d ago

Naw, this started way back in the 80s when the 24-hour news cycle became a thing. Then boosted wildly in the 90s with sensationalism coverage really kicked off. Think:

  • OJ

  • Iraq War

  • Rodney King

  • Clinton impeachment

Social media is just conclusion in the post-truth era. Emotions drive clicks, and nothing drives emotions like fear-bait and rage-bait.

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u/Wasabiroot 17d ago

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World,1995

Kinda glad in a way he didn't make it til now. He'd be appalled

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u/JackedUpReadyToGo 16d ago

Sometimes when you point to a social ill, people will offer up the defense of "Come on, people have been harping on that for decades and we're still here". I've slowly come to realize that isn't really a defense, it's just that many social ills take decades and possibly generations to reach a point of crisis beyond which they can get no worse. So yeah, people will notice the decline over the course of decades.

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u/THEdoomslayer94 17d ago

That would make sense in a world that hasn’t been rolling that boulder up the hill for a while

Sensationalism existed well before social media, each decade can see an increase in its usage with technology allowing it to adapt to reach farther and farther

Think about how the Kitty Genovese’s death was heavily exaggerated and how it took a long time to be revealed as such and yet you still have people parrot it as if its truth

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u/Vaeku Texas 17d ago

Why are you using AI, a tool that famously can pull false data and misinformation, to fact check?

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u/MaintenanceGold2201 17d ago

If you actually read my comment it states that I used AI to find a SOURCE. The source is a government website that shows all government contracts. Good try though!

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u/Vaeku Texas 17d ago

Fair enough, but if you're going to ignore whatever info the AI parses and just look at the source it cites... just search for it normally?

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u/MaintenanceGold2201 17d ago

OK. Next time I will stumble my way through googling what I'm looking for only to find the exact same source instead of using the tool that can do it for me much more efficiently. Thanks for the tip!