US Politics Thread 2016-2020 [Archive] - Page 29

vienna

05-01-19, 09:13 PM

If that is the case then perhaps the Democrats should put up or shut up. Barr’s initial memo did not change one word of the Mueller report. That report is now public knowledge. It's not Barr's fault that the Democrats don't like the conclusions in the report. It is remarkable that over a period of two years or so they have gone from Russia! Russia! and calling the President a traitor to an argument over a summary of a report that was released in full. The show's over. Elvis has left the building.

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Democrats would be wise to heed that statement. The path that they are presently on is reckless and could be disastrous for them.

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Oh, I agree, Barr's four-page memo did not change a word of the over 400 page SC's Report. What it did was try to couch the conclusions to fit the narrative Trump and his minions are desperate to foist on the voting public. As some have pointed out, the memo is reminiscent of those movie ads that quote reviewers: the original critique may have said "this film is awe-inspiring in its failings, a true monument to what bad film-making, and will be long remembered for its awfulness" ;what the ad for the film will quote is "awe-inspiring", "a true monument", and, "will be long remembered"; didn't change word, but the 'spin' is still toxic...

Dem arguing about the merits and many failings of Barr and his attempted whitewash job instead of the full report is not out of sense: Barr wrote that memo, not the report and the issue is Barr's intent, honesty, integrity, loyalty to the mandate of his office, and, perhaps ultimately, his fitness to continue as the "Nation's Attorney", all of which have nothing to do with the contents of the report; that will come when Mueller has his turn...

As far as the DEMs are concerned, I was also surprised when they didn't move to seriously start something like impeachment proceedings, at least until I came to think what the DEMs are doing is something the GOP is inept at executing: playing the long game. We all know the election is oming up, so why would the DEMs g for a quick strike and meager gains when they can let the GOP and Trump foul their own beds. We all know if anyone can find a way of making a good situation bad and a bad situation worse, its Trump; ably aided by his slapstick band of minions, they will very likely continue to shoot themselves in their asses, providing more fodder for the DEMs to use against Trump, and, if the GOP continues to cling to Trump, they will be painted by the same brush. Remember, in the House Mid-Terms, which are the best metric of the mood of the voters, Trump and the GOP got their collectives asses handed to them; also remember Trump's approval ratings have flat-lined over the course of his term and nothing either he or the GOP has done has moved the ratings appreciably upwards; also remember the disapproval ratings have grown; in fact, it would be expected the Mueller report and the Trump 'spin" of 'total exoneration would have given him a 'bounce' in his ratings; instead he took a small hit; and, on top of that, the percentage of voters who now believe Trump lies increased. The DEMs don't have to do any real heavy lifting: Trump, his minions, his Trumpettes and the GOP are doing all the work for the DEMs...

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Oh I agree. The Republican members of Congress are going to have a field day with Mueller.

I can hardly wait.

Mueller won't be as easy a 'get' as Barr. Mueller is tough old Ranger-trained, Marine officer and a smart, cool customer. I really doubt he'll be anything like the easily rattled Barr we saw today...

..and, as I suspect, he will have one major advantage over anyone who might want to raise doubts about the nature of the Report: I seriously doubt many of the GOP questioners will have actually read the Report (most likely have only been given a 'digest' by their staffs) and Mueller not only has read the Report, he basically wrote it, and, most likely, has more information and background that didn't make it to the final Report...

Me, I'd tread lightly if I wanted to question the knowledge of a guy who administered and wrote a 400+ document and all I had was the "cCiff Notes"...

<O>

u crank

05-02-19, 08:21 AM

Oh, I agree, Barr's four-page memo did not change a word of the over 400 page SC's Report. What it did was try to couch the conclusions to fit the narrative Trump and his minions are desperate to foist on the voting public.

This is the same kind of nonsense that Democrat polititians and the Left wing media are blabbering about. Are you suggesting that Barr wrote his conclusion with the belief that Mueller's report would not be released to the public? During his confirmation hearings Barr promised to release as much of the report as was legally possible. Amd that is exactly what he did with Mueller's help. The truth is that nothing will be good enough for these people. They are like spoiled children who are mad because the toy they got is not good enough. They're still mad that Hillary Clinton lost to a reality TV star. They're still mad that Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court and they are out of their mind crazy that Mueller couldn't give them what they thought they were going to get.

Too bad.

I watched most of the hearing live. It was a waste of time. Nothing we didn't already know was revealed. Despite the media spin, Barr handled himself very well.

Mueller on the other hand has not. First of all how did this letter get into the public sphere? Leakers gotta leak. It was Mueller not Barr who wanted to control the narrative. Mueller had his own summary which he wanted to get out to do just that. But the truth is that it was not Mueller's prerogative. He is not the AG, Barr is. The AG was having none of this political gamesmanship, which by the way reveals more about Mueller's motives than Barr's.

So what did exactly did Barr do that was so wrong? Apparently he didn't play Mueller's political game and Mueller got butt hurt over it. Barr has been accused of covering for Trump yet he released Mueller's report in full. It was something he did not have to do. What am I missing?

The bottom line here is that you, the Dems and the left wing MSM are mad at Barr when they should be mad and disappointed with Mueller. Mueller could not dispite his best effort find a single American to charge with conspiracy with Russia in regards to the 2016 election. The Rachel Maddows and Adam Schiffs of the world got your hopes up but alas no payoff.

DOJ guidlines don't allow for an inditement of a sitting President. But it was within Mueller's authority to recommend prosecution on obstruction of justice. But he did not. Why? Because he knew there was no case. Instead he used his position to smear Trump politically with his findings. When Barr instead issued a statement explaining that no prosecution would take place Mueller got his feelings hurt. AG Barr did exactly what the Attorney General is supposed to do: avoid smearing unprosecutable people for unspecified crimes. But that is exactly what Mueller did.

Mueller won't be as easy a 'get' as Barr. Mueller is tough old Ranger-trained, Marine officer and a smart, cool customer. I really doubt he'll be anything like the easily rattled Barr we saw today...

Oh I think you might be disappointed. Mueller has a lot to answer for. If and when he does take the stand it may be angry Democrats with the tough questions. They by the way they are the ones who insist that Mueller appear before Congress. Why? Is Mueller holding out? Of course not. They simply want more political theatre. And they will probably get it. The truth is hard to admit. Robert Mueller failed to do what so many had hoped he would do. And he knew he was going to fail probably long before he was done with his investigation. So he did the only other thing he could do to fullfil his mandate. Supply the impeachment crazy Dems and never Trumpers with material for impeachment. It is quite a system. If you can't do it legally you do it politically. Barr addressed this yesterday.

“We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon.”

That statement by Barr was aimed directly at these people. They will disregard it at their own peril. And make no mistake, there are people in the GOP who would be happy to play that game as well. Joe Biden is currently the Dem frontrunner for 2020. But Uncle Joe was in the Obama White House when all this shady stuff went down. Before 2020 Biden as the Dem candidate might find himself sitting in that same chair that Barr was in yesterday. You know what they say about karma....

Mr Quatro

05-02-19, 09:30 AM

They simply want more political theatre. And they will probably get it. The truth is hard to admit. Robert Mueller failed to do what so many had hoped he would do. And he knew he was going to fail probably long before he was done with his investigation. So he did the only other thing he could do to fulfil his mandate. ...

This is so true .. Political quote of the year :yep:

vienna

05-03-19, 05:39 PM

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I watched most of the hearing live. It was a waste of time. Nothing we didn't already know was revealed. Despite the media spin, Barr handled himself very well.

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I also watched the hearing (and downloaded the video) and was not at all impressed by Barr; he seemed furtive, kind of like a kid whose parent has caught them raiding the cookie jar and is trying to tap dance their way out of the dilemma and its consequences. In particular, the questioning of Barr by Harris was strangely fascinating; it would appear Barr made his conclusions on the Mueller report without even having reviewed the underlying evidence provided by the SC; in fact, there is a strong indication Barr hasn't even read the full report; I was almost expecting Barr to start to argue what "Is" is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHd_UlebyoM

In the questioning by Hirono, Barr seemed to want to cite evidence he never reviewed as substantiation of his actions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Zcv722Q0g

Barr keeps citing the rational for his actions as actions normal prosecutors do in common course; yet, I think a competent, thorough, and diligent prosecutor would have at least personally reviewed the evidence in a case, asked questions of the investigators, and be as fully knowledgeable about a case before rendering an opinion on the viability of prosecution. That is a minimum standard and Barr doesn't even come close to meeting the minimum...

Barr says he didn't review underlying evidence of Mueller report before making obstruction call --

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/441643-barr-says-he-didnt-review-underlying-evidence-of-mueller-report

Of course, it can only be expected Barr would give a half-baked, half-assed, half-hearted, and half-cocked accounting of himself and his actions given that he was appointed for a specific, self-serving purpose by a half-baked, half-assed, half-hearted, and half-cocked idiotic poor excuse for a president...

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Mueller on the other hand has not. First of all how did this letter get into the public sphere? Leakers gotta leak. It was Mueller not Barr who wanted to control the narrative. Mueller had his own summary which he wanted to get out to do just that. But the truth is that it was not Mueller's prerogative. He is not the AG, Barr is. The AG was having none of this political gamesmanship, which by the way reveals more about Mueller's motives than Barr's.

So what did exactly did Barr do that was so wrong? Apparently he didn't play Mueller's political game and Mueller got butt hurt over it. Barr has been accused of covering for Trump yet he released Mueller's report in full. It was something he did not have to do. What am I missing?

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So, are you saying Mueller, himself leaked the letter? Got any, you know, , like, facts to back that up? Or is your claim your homage to the honesty and integrity of your hero, Trump? :haha:

Mueller has, by far, been the most closed-mouthed, retiring, and reclusive person in the whole investigative process. Is it possible one or some of those prosecutors and investigators who worked on the investigation is/are more than a bit irked by the attempts by Trumps and his minions, vocally supported by the Trumpettes, to twist the evidence and findings to save the political bacon of Trump and keep his broad ass out of jail; it is possible the leak came from that quarter; however, it is not out of the shadow of a doubt that some one in the Trump camp, with knowledge of the letter, say some one in the DOJ not part of the Mueller team may have finally said "Enough!" and leaked the letter....

Mueller was within his ethical rights to assert his opinion to Barr on the seeming attempt by Barr to recast the findings, which, again, Barr, self-admittedly had no complete knowledge, to match Trump's hoped for results. Barr, on the other hand, abdicated whatever meager ethical leadership he had by participating and engineering a gross deception. There is now obvious reason why Barr (and Trump) didn't want the SC's report made public, since it has run counter to the whitewash Team Trump tried to foist on the voters. Barr didn't release the Report as an altruistic gesture: he (and Trump) couldn't stop the report becoming public once it became obvious the Barr 'summary' was a tissue of deceit: they were caught next to the open cookie jar and, now, had to open their hands and show what really happened...

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The bottom line here is that you, the Dems and the left wing MSM are mad at Barr when they should be mad and disappointed with Mueller. Mueller could not dispite his best effort find a single American to charge with conspiracy with Russia in regards to the 2016 election. The Rachel Maddows and Adam Schiffs of the world got your hopes up but alas no payoff.

DOJ guidlines don't allow for an inditement of a sitting President. But it was within Mueller's authority to recommend prosecution on obstruction of justice. But he did not. Why? Because he knew there was no case. Instead he used his position to smear Trump politically with his findings. When Barr instead issued a statement explaining that no prosecution would take place Mueller got his feelings hurt. AG Barr did exactly what the Attorney General is supposed to do: avoid smearing unprosecutable people for unspecified crimes. But that is exactly what Mueller did.

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I do not hate Barr and can't be lumped into your convenient 'grouping' and I know that rather much upsets your attempt at neat bow-tying, but that's a fact. Just like Trump, who I also don't hate, I only know what I can, on my own, find out about them. I didn't know much of Trump before he ran for office in 2016 other than he was a loud-mouthed, overly-boastful, self-promoting pop culture reality star and pop culture is full of them, like Trump's BFF Kanye. I didn't much care or think about him before he took office and I won't think or care much about him after he leaves office and faces indictment. The same for Barr: I knew he was a former, two-year AG under Bush who had a rather non-consequential tenure in that office and he came back again under Trump; I actually had a bit of hope for him, even knowing that he had openly lobbied for the AG post, initially losing it to Sessions, even going so far as to write an unsolicited, and factually unsupported 'opinion' on the legal status of matters pertaining to Trump; Barr actually did have a bit of earned respect in the DC legal and judicial circles, so I gave him a bit of slack and he failed. I don't hate Barr and I'm nt angry at him, but I am disappointed in his now failed attempt at political pandering; again, once Barr is gone, I'll neither think nor care about him...

The DOJ guidelines are just that: they are not enacted laws or even enacted regulations; there is no underlying act of Congress making the guidelines law of the land; the guidelines are, for all intents and purposes, opinions reached by various DOj administrations over many, many years and leaderships. If it were to be decided to actually indict a President, no legal defense could be mounted saying an indictment is a violation of Federal Law. What the 'no indictment policy' is is a sort of domestic governmental form of the "diplomatic immunity"; it doesn't mean that a President can never be indicted, just that the DOJ would rather not do so while the incumbent is in office, for various legal logistical reasons (it is also fairly certain that if the incumbent committed a heinous enough crime, the 'no indictment policy' would be very quickly ignored); and, like "diplomatic immunity', it only exists as long as the offender is covered by the immunity while holding their position; once a foreign diplomat or functionary is no longer in 'office', they are fair game for prosecution for crimes committed while under the shield of immunity; similarly, once Trump is out of office, he's going to face a slew of indictments, both Federal and State, and he will have to face prosecution. Nixon was famously the "Unindicted Co-Conspirator" in the Watergate indictments and was facing prosecution until he made the pardon deal. Trump is already the prominent "Individual One" in the Cohen campaign finance scandal and a court has already found there was a crime and accepted the guilty plea of Cohen; once Trump is out of office, that "Individual One" placeholder will bear his name...

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Oh I think you might be disappointed. Mueller has a lot to answer for. If and when he does take the stand it may be angry Democrats with the tough questions. They by the way they are the ones who insist that Mueller appear before Congress. Why? Is Mueller holding out? Of course not. They simply want more political theatre. And they will probably get it. The truth is hard to admit. Robert Mueller failed to do what so many had hoped he would do. And he knew he was going to fail probably long before he was done with his investigation. So he did the only other thing he could do to fullfil his mandate. Supply the impeachment crazy Dems and never Trumpers with material for impeachment. It is quite a system. If you can't do it legally you do it politically. Barr addressed this yesterday.

...

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Of course they can't do it legally: there is no law regarding Presidential indictability. However, there is law that does allow for indictment or impeachment of a sitting President, its just that the DOJ has a ploicy, not a lwa, just a policy, against indicting Presidents and impeachment is in the hands of Congress, legally. Why did Mueller not indict? Well, there is that nagging little policy issue, and the Report indicates that but for the 'policy', Grand Jury indictments would have been handed down. This does not mean Trump or any other President in the same position is innocent, exonerated, or fully beyond the reach of law, just that a 'policy' exists, with no weight of law, as an impediment and not a bar. Mueller did absolutely the right thing: he put out the investigations findings and left the adjudication to the proper legal channels, i.e., the Congress and/or the courts. He also took the teeth out of the bit of Trump, his minions, and the Trumpettes: if Grand Jury indictment(s) were handed down against Trump, they would have filled their Pampers, risen up on their hind,legs, and howled about 'one man' making decisions about the conduct of law. Instead, the SC set the matter out for all to see and left it to the heavy guns to fight it out; it wasn't the SC's fight; he just presented the facts, as dispiriting and irksome to Trump, his minions, and the Trumpettes as the facts may be...

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That statement by Barr was aimed directly at these people. They will disregard it at their own peril. And make no mistake, there are people in the GOP who would be happy to play that game as well. Joe Biden is currently the Dem frontrunner for 2020. But Uncle Joe was in the Obama White House when all this shady stuff went down. Before 2020 Biden as the Dem candidate might find himself sitting in that same chair that Barr was in yesterday. You know what they say about karma....

Karma? Oh, you mean what's going to come back and take a big chunk out of Trump's behind when he's out of office? :haha:

As far as sitting in Barr's chair, remember, the GOP ruled both the House and the Senate for two whole years and did absolutely nothing about their long uttered threats and sabre-rattling about the Clinton's, Obama, et al. Why didn't they do anything they had the power, they had the votes, they controlled the process; hell, they even had a GOP president in the oval office and a GOP head of the Justice Dept. Where was their investigation, where were their indictments, where were their hearings? Two years of unbridled opportunity and they pissed it away. Was it because they knew they really had no case(s)? Was it because they feared a potential backlash? Were they afraid, since all their prior investigations and hearings into the Clintons, Obama, et al, in previous years had come to naught, that yhey'd have yet another embarrassing failure? Was the GOP Congress, for those two years just, plain afraid? To be fair, once the Mid-Terms were over, and the GOP realized their chance had dissolved, the GOP Senate did have two committees hold rushed, ill-planned hearings about their pet peeves; and, like the other GOP hearings before, they just rehashed the same, tired, rhetoric and, ultimately, couldn;t reach any conclusion(s); both committees, just called a joint press conference and announced they were referring their concerns to the DOJ...again...

All hat: No cattle...

<O>

vienna

05-03-19, 05:57 PM

If one read the SC's report, this would have been noted, but as for now, most of the public hasn't really heard about this aspect of the underlying evidence to the SC's report:

Watergate had the Nixon tapes. Mueller had Annie Donaldson’s notes. --

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/watergate-had-the-nixon-tapes-mueller-had-annie-donaldsons-notes/2019/05/03/d2b1bc62-66b5-11e9-8985-4cf30147bdca_story.html?utm_term=.417fe3db3b43

It will be interesting to see if the GOP members of the Congressional committees will want to delve too deep into such documentation...

Somewhere Nixon's looking up and saying, "Yup, kharma..."...

A bit of "truth in jest"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMaZwLIm3pY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlQocCdsKWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3IcdcBPQ9U

<O>

u crank

05-03-19, 08:46 PM

it would appear Barr made his conclusions on the Mueller report without even having reviewed the underlying evidence provided by the SC;

It doesn't 'appear' like it, Barr said he didn't. And why should he? What Harris is suggesting here is that somehow Mueller's evidence doesn't line up with Mueller's conclusions. I'm going to suggest that Barr trusts Mueller more than Harris does. There is no evidence that AG Barr does not trust or respect SC Mueller's work. And they are long time friends. Lawyers disagree on legal matters all the time. In this case each person has a different role. Mueller's ended when he submited his report. Harris's problem like so many others is that she doesn't like the conclusion. Here's a news flash...Barr wasn't the investigator, Mueller was. Barr didn't write the report, Mueller did. Barr released the entire report except redactions which Mueller agreed on. I am finding it hard to see what the problem is. Oh wait... I know what the problem is.

and was not at all impressed by Barr; he seemed furtive,

Barr is bored out of his mind with these idiots.

As for Sen. Harris she was being her usual rude, ignorant self but I can respect her as she is somewhat intelligent. Crazy Mazie on the other hand has the mental capacity of a gnat.

in fact, there is a strong indication Barr hasn't even read the full report; I was almost expecting Barr to start to argue what "Is" is:

Got any, you know, , like, facts to back that up?

So, are you saying Mueller, himself leaked the letter? Got any, you know, , like, facts to back that up?

If Mueller personally wasn't the leaker then someone on his team did. Barr speculated that his staffers wrote the letter and most likely they leaked it. Or did it just magically appear at The Washington Post? Or some other conspiracy theory.

Mueller was within his ethical rights to assert his opinion to Barr on the seeming attempt by Barr to recast the findings, which, again, Barr, self-admittedly had no complete knowledge, to match Trump's hoped for results. Barr, on the other hand, abdicated whatever meager ethical leadership he had by participating and engineering a gross deception.

I am completely mystified by this kind of reasoning. What is this 'gross deception' that you are talking about. Please be specific. Barr promised to release the SC's report. He did. He did not change a word of it. He asked Mueller if his summation was inaccurate. Mueller said it was not. The accusation that Barr somehow 'spun' the summation would only make sense if Barr refused to release the report or changed it in some way. We know that didn't happen. In fact the exact opposite happened. Barr's initial summation was made with the sure knowledge that the full report would be released as promised. Gross deception is pretty strong language. How about an explanation.

I fully understand the Dems and the lefty MSM hatred for Barr and their desire to smear him. The reason is they fear him. Barr has the confidence to almost taunt them. They are not use to that. What is now known about how Mueller's investigation got started is just the beginning of some very bad times for these people. The truth is out there, and Barr is threatening to reveal it.

I'm reminded of the last lines of that Queen song 'One Vision'.

'Just gimme gimme gimme
Fried chicken'

Buddahaid

05-03-19, 09:21 PM

"As for Sen. Harris she was being her usual rude, ignorant self but I can respect her as she is somewhat intelligent."

She made him look completely stupid and you know it! Tough, but relevant, questions he tried to deflect at every turn.

em2nought

05-04-19, 12:26 AM

Do you hear that sound? The Langoliers are coming! :up:

u crank

05-04-19, 05:28 AM

She made him look completely stupid and you know it! Tough, but relevant, questions he tried to deflect at every turn.

I'm going to respectfully disagree. He actually seemed disinterested and most likely aware of her tactics. Harris has been admonished before for her rude behavior while questioning people.

During the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh she interrupted the very first sentence of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) opening statement. Pure showboating.

Harris interrupted Rod Rosenstein as he started to say there wasn’t enough time to explain the answer.

Homeland Security Secretary nominee John Kelly repeatedly asked Harris if she would let him answer her questions.

She had to be admonished for her questioning of Jeff Sessions.

And then there are her really silly questions asked purly as virtue signalling stunts. The best one was when she actually asked the CIA Director nominee Mike Pompeo about climate change at his confirmation hearing. The look on Pompeo's face was priceless.

I can understand why people would defend her but there is no excuse for rude behavior. Not very presidential.

u crank

05-04-19, 08:41 AM

While were on the subject of Kamala Harris some thoughts. I think that Harris has the best chance by far of being the first female US President. That being said I think it was a mistake to run in 2020. She would have been much wiser to wait until 2024. She would still not be 60 years old and by then would likely be the senior Senator from California. If she fails to win the nomination this time she can then be refered to as 'failed Presidential nominee' Harris. If she does happen to win the nomination she will be up against an incumbant President. If she loses, (a possibility) she will then be refered to as 'failed Presidential candidate' Harris.

In 2024 the three top candidates at present will be gone. To old or irrelevant. I also think it would be a mistake to accept a VP position on a ticket with Biden or Sanders. Stay far away from those losers.

In my opinion she has five years to raise her profile, soften that rude interrogator persona and stop associating herself with dumb policies. If she does that she would be almost unbeatable in 2024.

Mr Quatro

05-04-19, 10:09 AM

While were on the subject of Kamala Harris some thoughts. I think that Harris has the best chance by far of being the first female US President. That being said I think it was a mistake to run in 2020. She would have been much wiser to wait until 2024.

No I don't think so u crank ...

1 She's a woman
2. She's from California
3 She's black

Percentage wise she doesn't even have a chance and with 19 others to decide on for the democrats run for the WH ... she will get lost behind the front runners.

Besides it's Trump in 2020 and then he will turn the WH over to VP Pence :yep:

u crank

05-04-19, 10:28 AM

No I don't think so u crank ...

1 She's a woman
2. She's from California
3 She's black

For some voters those are strong points. Well...not the California one. :O:

em2nought

05-04-19, 11:46 AM

Besides it's Trump in 2020 and then he will turn the WH over to VP Pence :yep:
Race Bannon as President? :D :hmmm:
https://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/227/971/010.png

ikalugin

05-05-19, 06:00 AM

http://time.com/5582867/mueller-report-trump-russia-sanctions/
This is going to go amasingly, isn't it?

em2nought

05-05-19, 11:52 AM

http://time.com/5582867/mueller-report-trump-russia-sanctions/
This is going to go amasingly, isn't it?

After all other means have failed miserably, starting a nuclear war with Russia would be a small price to pay in order to finally make President Donald Trump look bad. :yeah: :03:

August

05-05-19, 01:24 PM

http://time.com/5582867/mueller-report-trump-russia-sanctions/
This is going to go amasingly, isn't it?

This should include a national examination of “best practices” in our various state election systems (http://time.com/5543649/2020-elections-voter-security-states/); a mandatory, federally-evaluated test for each state to pass to be certified to hold elections; and drills conducted at the federal, state, and local level to actually test our readiness. Beyond this, we should also educate our children at the earliest age about what information is real and what is fake, especially in digital settings. Above all, we need to pass new laws that stop any campaign from seeking or benefiting from foreign influence

None of this would actually stop or even significantly inhibit foreign interference in national politics but it sure would mean a significant increase in the size and power of our government to create and administer all these these tests and education. This might even take a whole new government administration! Statists everywhere will rejoice.

August

05-05-19, 09:09 PM

Interesting question.

There’s no need for conversations when you can simply rewrite definitions.
But there is no question, no matter how many euphemisms they create or how many tortured word salads they toss, the intelligence community under the administration of Barack Obama used every tool they had at their disposal to spy on the Trump campaign.
They spent a year and a half running a “counterintelligence operation” that turned up nothing actionable. No arrests were made, no coordination with any foreign government occurred – nothing. They listened to phone calls, read emails, even sent in undercover agents to bait them, and zip.

So why, after all that does the Justice Department, as a result of manipulation by the then recently fired FBI Director through leaks of government material to the New York Times, launch a Special Counsel investigation into the very same thing they’d been working covertly for a year and a half? They’d found nothing while being knee-deep in the operations of the campaign while it was happening, what did they expect to find after the fact?
The truth is they knew they’d find nothing because they’d found nothing, at least on the idea of collusion. But they needed to damage the Trump administration, and nothing in politics does that like the whiff of scandal.

But acknowledging the dry well they’d already dug would not have allowed them the opportunity to manufacture process crimes – charges of lying to investigators during an investigation that came up dry when it was covert. They claimed a few scalps that way – General Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos. They’d broken them financially and got them to agree to plead guilty to inconsequential “lies” in order to avoid the type of lifelong financial ruination only federal prosecutors can inflict.

Weird, considering the Justice Department knew everything those men had done, and that they hadn’t broken the law, because they were watching and listening the whole time.

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2019/05/05/none-dare-call-it-spying-but-it-was-obviously-spying-n2545854

u crank

05-06-19, 09:18 AM

The truth is they knew they’d find nothing because they’d found nothing, at least on the idea of collusion. But they needed to damage the Trump administration, and nothing in politics does that like the whiff of scandal.

I think that sums up this whole affair. It's beginning to appear like people at the very top of the Obama administration not only knew about this but were part of it. That's a disturbing revelation that I hope is not true but evidence says otherwise. If the previous administration were subjected to a full court press type of investigation that Trump has had to endure what would be the result? I think the sky would fall.

Mr Quatro

05-06-19, 01:00 PM

Obama was a fence sitter his entire 8 years :yep:

Torvald Von Mansee

05-07-19, 12:53 AM

It's funny how many conservatives seem to want to cut their noses off to spite their faces just to "stick it to the libs."

You know the GOP is robbing YOU and your children to benefit the top .0001%, right? I sincerely doubt ANY of you are in the .0001% or whoever it is that GOP policies primarily benefit.

Torvald Von Mansee

05-07-19, 12:55 AM

Race Bannon as President? :D :hmmm:
https://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/227/971/010.png

Oh, the "Christian." The guy who cast the tie-breaking vote to protect BANKS from class-action suites. Who totally would have been on the side of the money-changers in the temple and conveniently ignores Matthew 19:24.

Rockstar

05-07-19, 07:40 AM

Damn you Torvald my morning coffee shot out my nose when I read that. :har:

August

05-07-19, 02:18 PM

Rockstar

05-09-19, 10:54 AM

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/its-time-to-break-up-facebook/ar-AAB84r5?li=BBr5KbJ

Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government.

Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks. I’m disappointed in myself and the early Facebook team for not thinking more about how the News Feed algorithm could change our culture, influence elections and empower nationalist leaders. And I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them.I wonder why he didnt get indicted by Mueller, oh wait.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000033563&cycle=2018

Unfortunately the only way to combat this is for people to turn it off or delete it. Unless there's a major CME that wipes out global communications and frys everyone's computers that's just not going to happen.

August

05-10-19, 09:45 PM

The truth continues to emerge.

The FBI’s sworn story to a federal court about its asset, Christopher Steele, is fraying faster than a $5 souvenir T-shirt bought at a tourist trap.Newly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official who met with Steele in October 2016 determined some of the Donald Trump dirt that Steele was simultaneously digging up for the FBI and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media.
The concerns were flagged in a typed memo and in handwritten notes taken by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11, 2016.
Her observations were recorded exactly 10 days before the FBI used Steele and his infamous dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s contacts with Russia in search of a now debunked collusion theory.
It is important to note that the FBI swore on Oct. 21, 2016, to the FISA judges that Steele’s “reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings” and the FBI has determined him to be “reliable” and was “unaware of any derogatory information pertaining” to their informant, who simultaneously worked for Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign to find Russian dirt on Trump.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/442944-fbis-steele-story-falls-apart-false-intel-and-media-contacts-were-flagged

u crank

05-11-19, 07:00 AM

Much has been made of the accusation that a so called 'deep state' was in operation and that a 'soft coup' was in progress to remove a duly elected president from office. Both sides of this argument it would now appear were wrong. There was never any possibility that this would happen not legally or by any other means. The final nail in the coffin was the Mueller report.

What was the real agenda?

Legal analyst Andrew C. McCarthy explains it in this article in National Review.

This is an exquisitely planned political campaign.

Russiagate has always been a political narrative masquerading as a federal investigation. Its objective, plain and simple, has been twofold: first, to hamstring Donald Trump’s capacity to press the agenda on which he ran ... and ultimately, to render him unelectable come autumn 2020.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/trump-russia-investigation-partisan-politics/

It had to be obvious to Robert Mueller in 2017 that there was no collusion by Trump or his campaign. Why did we have to wait until April 2019 to find this out? Why no leak or better still an announcement by Mueller to that effect? Would the American public have not been better served to know this as soon as posible? The reason is becoming clearer as to why.

It would be perfectly appropriate for all anti-Trump partisans to make the public case that the president should be removed from office.

But the anti-Trump partisans are not going that route. They know they’d lose by a humiliating margin that would strengthen the president.

Instead, they are perverting the criminal-justice process they claim Trump has obstructed. With the transparently eager cooperation of Mueller’s team, they intimate that the president could have been charged and would have been convicted. They suggest that, although not charged, he has not been “exonerated,” effectively imposing on him the burden to establish his innocence.

The suspicion that the out going Obama administration used the power of the Federal government and its law inforcement and intellegence agencies improperly against their political opposites is becoming clear. And we are only beginning to find out the true scope of this operation.

The Russia counterintelligence probe, based on the fraudulent projection of a Trump-Putin conspiracy, was always a pretext to conduct a criminal investigation despite the absence of a predicate crime. The criminal investigation, in turn, was always a pretext for congressional impeachment chatter. And the congressional impeachment chatter is a pretext for the real agenda: Making Trump an ineffective president now, and an un-reelectable president 18 months from now.

They try to make it look like law. It has always been politics.

u crank

05-23-19, 07:32 AM

Since the Trump Presidency the MSM has had some stunning failures but their elevation of lawyer Michael Avenatti has to be one of their most spectacular ones. Just how desperate the left wing media is to get Trump was brought into sharp focus with this guy's rise and fall.

Avenatti appeared on CNN 65 times and MSNBC 43 times between March 7 and May 10. Of course the media needs to sell and he was a big story in connection to Stormy Daniels and her claims about Trump. This video compilation is an embarrasing look at how this guy was drooled over by people who had no interest in finding out anything about him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfVwotyqhHc

Guess they missed a big story.

Embattled attorney Michael Avenatti was charged by federal prosecutors in New York Wednesday with defrauding adult-film star Stormy Daniels, the client who propelled Avenatti into the national spotlight.

Avenatti, 48, faces one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. He faces up to 22 years in prison if convicted of those charges.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/politics/michael-avenatti-stormy-daniels-indictment/index.html

"Michael Avenatti abused and violated the core duty of an attorney -- the duty to his client," US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman said in a statement Wednesday. "Far from zealously representing his client, Avenatti, as alleged, instead engaged in outright deception and theft, victimizing rather than advocating for his client."

Don't hold your breath for any apologies or admissions of failure.

August

05-23-19, 07:12 PM

I'm sure Justice Kavanaugh gets no small degree of satisfaction at seeing Avenattis spectacular downfall.

vienna

05-23-19, 09:23 PM

He's too busy having some beers...

<O>

em2nought

05-24-19, 01:31 AM

He's too busy having some beers...
<O>

Meanwhile the liberal elites trying to look like they drink something so mundane as beer fall flat. LMAO :D

https://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embed-lg/public/2019/01/02/screen-shot-2019-01-03-12.png

Platapus

05-24-19, 10:02 AM

Straight from our Dear Leader's .....uh... mouth?

"The Democrats have done nothing other than to obstruct. They're obstructing this country," Trump said Thursday.

As for himself, Trump once again proclaimed: "I'm an extremely stable genius."

How many bills have the Senate not even allowed on the floor for debate?

As for Trump, he is 1/3 correct. He is extreme. The rest?

Platapus

05-24-19, 10:24 AM

An interesting article on this.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/opinions/donald-trump-voters-political-polarization-slepian/index.html

In November 2016, the world was shocked by the outcome of the US presidential election. Not only had the chattering classes gotten it wrong, but the data -- the polls that many closely tracked -- were sometimes off, too. Why did several state polls seem so off, especially in key battleground states like Pennsylvania (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/pa/pennsylvania_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5964.html)and Wisconsin (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/wi/wisconsin_trump_vs_clinton-5659.html)?

Perhaps Trump voters were less likely to pick up pollsters' phone calls; perhaps people changed their minds; or perhaps even some decided to keep their true intentions a secret. It was this last possibility that intrigued us. The day after the election, my colleagues and I launched a study (http://www.columbia.edu/~ms4992/Pubs/in-press_McDonald-Salerno-Greenaway-Slepian_MotivSci.pdf) to explore the phenomenon of keeping a vote secret.

Like many, we assumed that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election, and consequently, we expected that the majority of our participants would be women in traditionally Republican districts secretly supporting Clinton. To our great surprise, we were wrong on both counts.

For our study, we sought to recruit 1,000 individuals, bringing together a pool of voters who admitted to us that while telling someone they would vote for one candidate, they secretly voted for another. To find our participants, we advertised the study online, and within five days we had received 1,000 responses from people who qualified for the study.
Our participants came from Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform used by many academics for research studies. This population tends to skew toward liberal participants. And, yet, of those individuals who kept their vote a secret, about twice as many participants said they voted for Trump than voted for Clinton.

These individuals weren't just keeping their secret from coworkers, strangers or neighbors. Overwhelmingly, people who kept their vote a secret were hiding it from their family, friends and romantic partners, too.
So, what does it all mean? This research does not prove that people lied to pollsters, but it does suggest that people who kept their vote a secret overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Our findings ultimately reveal a deeper, more troubling truth: our political climate has left us so divided that many are unable to meaningfully engage with those who have different political beliefs -- including those with whom we are closest.

According to the research, (http://www.columbia.edu/~ms4992/Pubs/in-press_McDonald-Salerno-Greenaway-Slepian_MotivSci.pdf) people were concerned that voicing their political support would create conflicts and arguments with those around them. They also expressed concern that if they revealed who they actually voted for, their reputation would suffer.

It was this second motivation -- concern for one's reputation -- that made people's secret votes particularly burdensome. When people were more concerned for their reputation, they were more likely to ruminate on the secret (http://keepingsecrets.org/). In short, they felt disingenuous in their interactions with others.
One participant described the pains of keeping his support for Trump secret from his family: "How could I describe to my family, especially a hardcore, dyed in the wool, black pride woman like my mother, that I voted for Trump?"

Keeping our political beliefs and behaviors secret from those around us -- whether in our workplaces, families or homes -- reduces the opportunity for people to recognize and humanize the people with whom we politically disagree.

Eliminating these conversations not only cuts us off from those who think differently (https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/uy3k5), but it also prevents us from finding common ground and mutual respect.

In another ongoing project (https://columbia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1NXbxVXPb80Sjg9), we have been studying people who have changed their mind on a wide variety of political issues, asking: Who changed your mind? According to our preliminary findings, very rarely did people report that a politician or television host had changed their mind.
Frequently, however, their opinion was changed by someone they knew well -- family, friends and romantic partners. The extreme political nature of our new day-to-day has begun to rid us of the ability to speak frankly and honestly with each other, which, ironically, is one of the key ways to change someone's mind.

When people cast their votes in 2016, it seems too often they did so without talking it over with anyone -- and that had negative implications for those individuals and society at large. We are at risk of this happening again in 2020.

Perhaps Trump supporters will feel more comfortable voicing their intentions than they did in 2016. But it's important to remember that the Trump 2016 win was built on "identity politics," where political views and interests center on particular demographic groups, and our research makes clear that people remain concerned about the reputational implications of their political support.

In other words, many people have learned it's safer to say one thing and do another at the ballot box.

At a time when political divides have never been sharper, political polarization has led people to avoid talking to each other, and to give up on engaging in dialogue. While these kinds of conversations can cause discomfort and a potential rift, meaningful dialogue has to start somewhere. Not only is the home often a safe place to start -- it is likely to be the place where we can make the most change.

I know that in my house, there are political topics I have learned not to discuss. And I have learned the strategic wisdom of keeping my big yap shut when any group starts yammering about political issues.

In public, I can accept this. But when families are unwilling to take the risk to discuss political opinions because of any perceived risk, that's a problem.

But the political schizm in this country is only increasing. While people love to point fingers at specific politicians as "the cause", this has been happening for decades. I am sure that the advent of the Internets Tubes has enabled this far more than any one politician.

But if you can't "agree to disagree" within your own family who can you agree to disagree with? And so people are either suppressing their opinion or worse, faking opinions in order to not rock the family boat.

em2nought

05-24-19, 02:31 PM

When people cast their votes in 2016, it seems too often they did so without talking it over with anyone -- and that had negative implications for those individuals and society at large. We are at risk of this happening again in 2020.

Gee, I wonder where that author's sympathies lie? :D

August

05-24-19, 02:49 PM

I'm still waiting to see the negative consequences they keep talking about. The economy is booming, our taxes have gone down and the liberals are angry and upset. It all seems pretty positive to me... :)

u crank

05-24-19, 04:54 PM

Yea.

When people cast their votes in 2016, it seems too often they did so without talking it over with anyone -- and that had negative implications for those individuals and society at large. We are at risk of this happening again in 2020.

I know it is CNN and I realize that it is an opinion piece. Never the less that sentement expressed there says all you need to know about the Progressive Left in America today. If your vote dissagrees with the Progressive Left you have voted the wrong way. You have made a mistake that needs to be corrected. I would have thought that in the democratic process voting for your preferred candidate is a choice. But apparently not. This person thinks that choice can be a mistake rather than a political decision. And how do you know that? Easy. People like this guy will tell you. Remarkably that lack of self awareness was probably one of a number of reasons the 2016 election went the way it did.

Mr Quatro

05-24-19, 06:31 PM

Same results without Russian interference this time ... My family talks about it all of the time ... so far it's one against Trump and 8 for Trump :yep:

August

05-24-19, 07:03 PM

I want to see Trump win the popular vote so i can watch my local politicians have to award our electoral votes to him because they signed that silly interstate pact.

u crank

05-25-19, 08:10 AM

Logic is a funny thing. When it comes to politics it can best be discribed as relative. Depends on where you are standing and what you are looking at. And it also depends on who you are talking to.

A case in point is the use of the word 'transparency'. That word, like collusion, gets used a lot these days.

So President Trump has granted Attorney General William P. Barr “full and complete authority” to declassify government secrets, issuing a memorandum late Thursday that orders U.S. intelligence agencies to cooperate promptly with Barr’s audit of the investigation into Russia’s election interference in 2016. Dispite what critics in the media and Democrat politicians are saying this will not result in the wholesale publication of this information. Far from it. Trump has order Barr's DOJ to work with the inteligence agencies and produce relevant material.

So now the logic part with regards to transparency. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who just happens to be the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, has spent the last two years demanding every possible bit of information about the President. He wants to know the color of his underwear and if he has ever spit on the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue. Yet remarkably Mr. Schiff has had a change of heart, (or logic), and now thinks 'transparency' is bad. Even “un-American”. He tweets...

While Trump stonewalls the public from learning the truth about his obstruction of justice,

Trump and Barr conspire to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies.

The coverup has entered a new and dangerous phase.

This is un-American.

The most unbelievably ironic part is...

...to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies.

We are about to find out if this is not the exact thing that the Obama administration did. And if that is true who knew what and how did they know? And why would this be a bad thing and 'un-American'? And why would Rep. Schiff and others not want to know if anything wrong or illegal was done? I can only think of one reason.

Dowly

05-25-19, 09:04 AM

Logic is a funny thing.It is, isn't it?

em2nought

05-25-19, 06:36 PM

I believe we're about to see much more of this on an epic scale. :up:

https://comicallyincorrect.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/pointers-600-li.jpg

Skybird

06-01-19, 01:18 PM

I did not know the name Erin Burnett.

Now I know.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/05/29/robert-mueller-investigation-public-statement-erin-burnett-monologue-ebof-vpx.cnn

Impressive performance, Mrs. Burnett! :salute:

u crank

06-01-19, 05:21 PM

I did not know the name Erin Burnett.

Now I know.

Since you did not know who Erin Burnett is then you are obviously unfamiliar with CNN as seen in Canada and the USA.

Hmmm....where to begin. First of all, there is not a single segment or on air personality at CNN who is not obviously bias against the President and nothing they say can be taken seriously. That ship has sailed long ago. It is of no surprise then to see their attitude toward Robert Mueller as bordering on messanic worship.

Not everyone holds that opinion of Mr. Mueller. Here is a different one.

https://www.meridianstar.com/opinion/columns/rich-lowry-the-wayward-special-counsel/article_44836d81-d5b8-5272-abfd-de0de620e09a.html

In the end, by-the-book Robert Mueller departed wildly from the book.

He invented an extraconstitutional legal standard for his obstruction investigation and acted, at best, in violation of the spirit of the special-counsel regulations.

His departing act was a public statement meant to influence the public debate in a manner inappropriate for a prosecutor, in part because the long public report he wrote that was also inappropriate for a prosecutor lacked clarity.

Mueller's statement, "if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so" is a stunning statement for someone of Mueller's standing. What Mueller is saying is "Trump is Not Not a Criminal". It goes against everything the American legal system stands for. Prosecutors do not find accused people innocent or guilty. Judges and juries do that. Prosecutors either indict or do not indict. There is no grey, wishy washy middle ground. But that is the exact ground that Mueller has taken.

An institutionalist who lost his way, Mueller will be lionized for the duration since he's been so useful to Trump's opposition, but his performance won't age well – and shouldn't.

Mr Quatro

06-01-19, 06:12 PM

I'm starting to think that Mueller was thinking all along that he and his team would not be the trigger man for Trump, but let the dice tumble where they may on the US Congress deciding the fate of the POTUS with what he was not allowed to do under Justice Department rules, which included not being able to indict a sitting president. :yep:

Mueller couldn't get the job done and had no way of knowing till last November that the US Congress would be the Democrats leading a anti-Trump rally to dump the president. :o

Skybird

06-02-19, 05:51 AM

Since you did not know who Erin Burnett is then you are obviously unfamiliar with CNN as seen in Canada and the USA.

Hmmm....where to begin. First of all, there is not a single segment or on air personality at CNN who is not obviously bias against the President and nothing they say can be taken seriously. That ship has sailed long ago. It is of no surprise then to see their attitude toward Robert Mueller as bordering on messanic worship.

Not everyone holds that opinion of Mr. Mueller. Here is a different one.

https://www.meridianstar.com/opinion/columns/rich-lowry-the-wayward-special-counsel/article_44836d81-d5b8-5272-abfd-de0de620e09a.html

Mueller's statement, "if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so" is a stunning statement for someone of Mueller's standing. What Mueller is saying is "Trump is Not Not a Criminal". It goes against everything the American legal system stands for. Prosecutors do not find accused people innocent or guilty. Judges and juries do that. Prosecutors either indict or do not indict. There is no grey, wishy washy middle ground. But that is the exact ground that Mueller has taken.
u_crank,
quotes given by Mueller are not just "an opinion about Mueller". Mueller spoke for himself, and his words were clear and devastating and speak for themselves, too. The way he formulated, shows the man'S class who even in the face of his enemy refuses to loose style and manners, different to that enemy's usual idiot behavior. I thought that already before the broadcast with Erin brunett, when I first heard what Mueller said. Burnett just made it crystal clear that even the deafest guy in the backcorner of the room could understand what Mueller said. His formulations were chosen with precision. He may not stomp his feet like Trump does, but right for that precision his strike penetrates even deeper.

Bias had little to do with it, and I do not care for claims made about the political enemy'S home broadcaster and how biased they are. Mueller spoke for himself, and his words were a broadside.The conclusion from what he said: Trump is no innocent, but it is only formal reasons preventing him getting charged by Department of Justice. The proper way to hold him accountable is that Congress now must start procedures against Trump. And that he, Mueller, thinks that Congress must udnerstand that it has no other choice.

The video I linked, is not the complete video, which i actually saw on cable TV here. I do not waqtch foreign news prgrams thtsa much anymore like I did in the past, but on that day it just happened. Brunett in the same broadcast program had a guest, some congressman, and she confrointed him with the imoplications of Mueller'S wording. The guy struggled and surimed and tried to wrerst himself out of her direct questions, but to no avail. He obviously illustrates an attotude that fully understands that Congresss by all remaining sense of the constitutional orde rmust open imperachment procedjures agaiunst Trump, but for some reasons denies reality and at no cost wants to do so.

Mueller made it quite clear thathe thinks Trump did wrong and must be held accoutnable, and that only formla reasons are why he, Mueller, or the department of Justice cannot do it. Its also clear that his senior boss, Barr, betrays the public with his way of summarizing what Mueller should have meant - but neither meant nor said.

A see a lot of integrity in Mueller's stand and style. If I compare his modest yet determined wayand comoare it to the infantile, childish feet-stomping of this illiterate spoiled child in the white house, I can just laugh about this carricature of a president. That this child nevertheless managed to kick the US into the deepest constitutional system crisis one could imagine, is not such that it rebuilds trust into it. It already began to beocme obvious with the second Bush and his childish rethoric.

In Britain, the state also is in a deep constitutional crisis. And in the EU, states work on replacing their constitutional orders voluntarily with that of the continental super state, choosing both legally valid and illegal ways for that. Seems the whole west is at a political turning poiint, a voluntary or involuntary replacement of its former state orders. The turmoil maybe is helped by Russia and China to boost their own benefits from that, but I doubt they are the only triggers. The EU states started it all by themselves and at a time already when said Russian and Chinese pressure by far was not that intense already.

Dowly

06-02-19, 06:27 AM

Media and a lot of people seem to take what Mueller said as new revelation, but he quite literally repeated what was already in the report word for word.

u crank

06-02-19, 09:22 AM

Bias had little to do with it,

Bias has something to do with it. The American news media is completely biased one way or the other.

The conclusion from what he said: Trump is no innocent, but it is only formal reasons preventing him getting charged by Department of Justice.

Mueller made it quite clear thathe thinks Trump did wrong and must be held accoutnable, and that only formla reasons are why he, Mueller, or the department of Justice cannot do it. Its also clear that his senior boss, Barr, betrays the public with his way of summarizing what Mueller should have meant - but neither meant nor said.

I'm sorry but that is just not true. DOJ policy prevents a sitting President from being indicted but there was nothing preventing Mueller from making that recomendation. He did not. Mueller used this policy to pass the buck to AG Barr. Then his staff complained about it. Why? Because he knew that there was not sufficient evidence to get a conviction. Not in a court of law. Congress is a different story.

A see a lot of integrity in Mueller's stand and style.

Your regard for Mr. Mueller is noted. As I said not everyone shares in the hero worship. When Mueller was first appointed I had high expectations for a fair, unbiased and quick investigation. That expectation was short lived. Mueller's choice of investigators was the first sign of a biased investigation.

Too many members of Mueller's team were highly partisan Democrat supporters to view him in high regard. Andrew Weissmann publicly supported fired acting AG Sally Yates after she disobeyed a directive from the President. Now he is investigating that President. Jeannie Rhee, as a lawyer represented Obama aide Ben Rhodes and Hillary Clinton’s family charity, the Clinton Foundation. Now she is investigating Trump, Hillary's political rival. Mueller’s lawyers donated $65,657 to federal-level Democrats, $11,850 to state-level Democrats, and a mere $2,750 to federal Republicans.

Mueller's treatment of non violent and elderly targets Paul Manafort and Roger Stone borders on thug tactics that would make Stalin proud. Shameful.

Then there is Mueller's recent performance for the media to drool over. Mueller says that his report speaks for itself, then proceeds to explain it. He breaks long establish rules about presumed innocence and the role of a prosecutor and people like Erin Burnett fall over themselves with praise for him. Sad.

Then there is Mueller's refusal to answer any questions from the media. If any other person who just completed a two year investigation of the President of the USA tried that the outcry would be loud and long. Why does Mueller get a pass?

There are some very relevent questions that Mr. Mueller needs to answer and if it takes a subpoena to get them so be it. One of them for sure would be at what point in the investigation did Mueller realize that no Americans colluded with Russia in regards to the 2016 election? Some people have suggested that it was late 2017 or early in 2018. Why did Mueller not announce the President or any American's innocence as soon as possible? Why no deep dive into the known Russia connection to the 2016 election, the Steel dossier and it's conection to Clinton's campaign? Mueller's refusal to answer questions is a stunning display of arrogance. Mueller is a mere human and his mistakes will become more evident as time goes by.

August

06-02-19, 09:27 AM

That this child nevertheless managed to kick the US into the deepest constitutional system crisis one could imagine

Skybird stop drinking the liberal media kool-aid and read the following very carefully:

There is no constitutional crisis here in the US. None, nada, nope.

The US Constitution is not in danger of being either abrogated, threatened or ignored, and certainly not by Donald Trump. Any media shill who claims otherwise is a partisan playing on the fears of the ignorant like they have been doing ever since Trump won the election.

Democrats very stridently tried to claim that Trump wouldn't accept the results of the election but really it's they who can't accept the result and for the past two and a half years they have used every weapon at their disposal including an enormous media machine in increasingly apparent and desperate attempts to destroy his presidency.

No wonder liberal media bastions like CNN are tanking. They can only cry wolf with biased claptrap billed as "Breaking News" so often before people start tuning them out and their ratings show it.

Skybird

06-02-19, 09:27 AM

Media and a lot of people seem to take what Mueller said as new revelation, but he quite literally repeated what was already in the report word for word.
Indeed. Which leads to the quesiton why the consequences that are to be demanded from that report are so actively hidden, ignored, avoided, and some even conclude fake truths from it.

Obviously Muieller saw the need to reinterate what the report said, due to too massive bending and ignorration and faking its conclusions.

Said congressman I pointed to from that broadcast was asked about Müller's final comment that he would not tell any further word about it, the man got kind of furious and said that if Mueller gets called to witness to congress he would need to talk as much about it as Congress demands him to, and that it were not his decision to decide whether he makes any further words about the report or not. Illustrates nicely what a confused assembly of idiots Congress seems to be. Trump is not strong due to his strength and skill and intellect, he has none of that. He is strong because possible challengers and opponents are too weak. In a way they thus are even worse a choice than Trump already is, therefore.

Thats why I do not defend Democrats even when i dislike Trump. I cannot stand them all.

August

06-02-19, 07:25 PM

Interesting opinion piece on Democrat double standards.

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2019/06/02/if-liberals-were-held-to-their-own-standards-n2547248

While we’re at it, I can’t find any proof the employees of MSNBC aren’t cheating on their spouses. If I were married to any of them, especially the on-air “talent,” I’d be worried because I can’t prove otherwise. And don’t even get me started about what I can’t prove they don’t do to farm animals and small woodland creatures.

No one, rightly, would accept the idea they were guilty of something simply because they couldn’t prove themselves innocent. I suspect most of us have no alibi for what we were doing when Malaysian flight 370 disappeared, does that make us suspects? Are we now a Kafka novel?

We aren’t, but Donald Trump is. He is guilty of something, perhaps lots of things, Democrats insist, they just have to find it. Until they do, they’re going to act like they have. And their minions in the media are content to go along with it. Maybe they should be treated the same way.

ikalugin

06-03-19, 12:31 AM

Skybird stop drinking the liberal media kool-aid and read the following very carefully:

There is no constitutional crisis here in the US. None, nada, nope.

The US Constitution is not in danger of being either abrogated, threatened or ignored, and certainly not by Donald Trump. Any media shill who claims otherwise is a partisan playing on the fears of the ignorant like they have been doing ever since Trump won the election.

Democrats very stridently tried to claim that Trump wouldn't accept the results of the election but really it's they who can't accept the result and for the past two and a half years they have used every weapon at their disposal including an enormous media machine in increasingly apparent and desperate attempts to destroy his presidency.

No wonder liberal media bastions like CNN are tanking. They can only cry wolf with biased claptrap billed as "Breaking News" so often before people start tuning them out and their ratings show it.
I wonder if democrats would accept Trump being re-elected.

Buddahaid

06-03-19, 12:50 AM

I wonder if democrats would accept Trump being re-elected.

Of course they will. They just won't like it and will continue down the path of seeking a way to oust him. I'm a registered Democrat but I didn't vote Democrat or Republican because I didn't like either candidate and I still don't like them.
If Trump could just shut up and get on with doing his job I might start to like him but I might as well hope for finding an elixir of youth in my refrigerator tomorrow as neither will ever happen. As it is he walks like an ass, talks like an ass, and behaves like an ass. I don't like the sound of ******* in Chief.

ikalugin

06-03-19, 02:00 AM

Of course they will. They just won't like it and will continue down the path of seeking a way to oust him. I'm a registered Democrat but I didn't vote Democrat or Republican because I didn't like either candidate and I still don't like them.
If Trump could just shut up and get on with doing his job I might start to like him but I might as well hope for finding an elixir of youth in my refrigerator tomorrow as neither will ever happen. As it is he walks like an ass, talks like an ass, and behaves like an ass. I don't like the sound of ******* in Chief.
I was thinking more about democrat leadership, but it is good to hear that reasonable voters exist :)

Skybird

06-03-19, 05:44 AM

The case about mean Meghan is, taken for itself, a relatively minor one. The problem is that it is so absolutely symptomatic for Trump. First babbling like an idiot about how stupid his next visits' host is. A reasonable man would not have done so. And then, with recorded evidence on hand, rejecting that he did say . Thats the behaviour of a spoiled child that got caught with its hands in the sugarbox and even then says "Its not me". That is as convincing as it would be if I say "I can type perfectly (tm) I never do typos when hacking text into the machine". Or a mentally handicapped with an ill-working short-time memory. Last year I spoke with a former university buddy who now works in the forensic analsis department for the police, psxyhcological profiling and such. He talked about the signature by Trump, these Tatoo-style strange loking grahical zigzagging lines that he produces on his pamphletes and lovs to hold into the camera in the oval office to show what a big, big boy he is. He said that that were quite tpyical for people who could not write and only act as if they could: like little childrnen not yet attending school and playing somethign and then producing some graphical constructions that they shows what they imagine what written text would look like, if they would alreaby being able to write. Its more a graffitti than a signature. If Trump cannot read, it woudl explain whle we still wait for him to ever follow a script on a teleprompter or a sheet of paper to the end and not strolling off rather sooner than later. Thats somethign that even in Germany is beign taken note of. I think he just acts as if he could read - and many get fooled indeed. Much in Trump'S behaviour and his aggressiveness I see as the tpyical attempt of such people to hide their deficits by aggressiveness, and to react with boasting overcompensation. Plays hand in hand with the imposter-part, because the show is a runaway train- yu need to become an ever bigger imposter to continue the deception, because you entangle yourself ever deeper in your facades and false claims and must invets bigger and bigger efforts and more and more energy to keep the show running.

Well, the excuses for Trumps so many wrongs and sillinesses seem to be everlasting, so I guess America has the president that it deserves. Some of you celebrate ho for his "successes". Lets see how long-living they are - and how self-sustaining. I only fear that evben if they show to not ve on, you will still defend hom - if for no other reason than to avoid admitting that you were terribky wrong and had hopelessly overestimated this man. I say you fell for a spoiled, incapable child whose only talent is that for boasting and imposting. And no, he neither is a genius for deals and negotiations, nor a big business man. His record gives evidence for the opposite. As a businessman he was a fraudulent and cheating dud. As president he has negoiated and shocked th world a lot. But i fail to see the great results. He is not a presidnet. He is a child that plays beign president, and how he iagines it is to be president in his toy world.

That such a imature imposter could make it to president and could not be removed, and that the two party system could drift so far apart and polarize society like it does, illustrates perfectly that the US is in a deep constitutional crisis for sure. The constitutonal order fails in guarding against what is happening right now, it does not provide the tools necessary to dela with this imposter. Its a bit like with Bush jr. after eight years some people here told me "See, the system works, he is gione" Yeah, but not before granting him the maximum time to do his damages and dong a lot of wrongs and evils. The opporuntiy for wrong and evil was maximised by the system. Thats what I call a malfuncitonijg system before anythign else. Impeachmeent was introduced as a means to avoid wrong wrongdoing presidents maximising their damages over two terms.

The cracker barrel voters still jubilate, lets see if they will still do in 7 years. To me it looks as if all reaosnable thinking has left the oublic debate and it all is just about tribes and totems like the streetfights of holligans in engand before or after football matches. Its just the "we are bigger than you" kind of game.

u crank

06-03-19, 08:34 AM

That such a imature imposter could make it to president and could not be removed, and that the two party system could drift so far apart and polarize society like it does, illustrates perfectly that the US is in a deep constitutional crisis for sure.

Because certain people do not like the President and his policies and want him gone does not make a constitutional crisis. Not even close. One example of a crisis would be if there was an attempt to indict Mr. Trump for obstruction of justice. As noted, Mr Mueller chose not to do this for very good reasons. One to avoid an unnesessary crisis and two because then there would have to be a trial in which all of Mr. Mueller's methods and evidence would be exposed. Guaranteed he wants to avoid that.

Impeachmeent was introduced as a means to avoid wrong wrongdoing presidents maximising their damages over two terms.

Not quite. If opposing political parties had their way every President would be impeached.

I'll go on record to say I am not a big fan of Mr.Trump. There are lots of things he does that I don't like but I do not see him as some kind of threat to the Constitution or the rule of Government. At least not more than any other President. I notced you are criticizing Trump and GW Bush but you missed a guy.

Mr. Trump, to our knowledge has yet to put members of the media and their families under surveillance. Or weaponize the IRS to go after his political rivals. And there is now the possibility that the Obama administration used the FBI and the intellegence agencies to help Clinton and hurt Trump. I sincerly hope that last one is not true but more and more the evidence is suggesting that some wrong doing occured.

Presidents come and go. So far in my opinion the best thing President Trump has done is to put two people on the Supreme Court who will interpret the Constitution the way it was written rather than by some SJW creed they happen to believe at the moment. It is possible he will get to add to the Court and some people don't like that.

The proper way to remove a President from office is by voting him out of office. Although that election is not too far off it seems to me that this is the least likely path that Dems want to take. I wonder why? Looking at the current slate of potential candidates it's not hard to see why. As Bill Maher just recently said, "I know more about what Democratic candidates have apologized for than I know their stance on the issues."

Bilge_Rat

06-03-19, 09:26 AM

there is no constitutional crisis, the system is working exactly as it should.

I am no big fan of Trump, I can think of many other who I would rather have been President, but what all the "rabid anti-Trumpers" (tm) seem to be missing is that other than his distractive twitter habit, 99% of Trump's policies have been garden variety/ plain jane Republican/conservative policies. That is the reason his approval rating has hovered between 45-50% generally and is at 90% for GOP voters.

That is also the reason why he stands a very good chance of being re-elected in 2020.

em2nought

06-03-19, 10:10 AM

Trump has been a better Republican than most Republicans. I'd prefer that he came in more of a Reagan wrapper, but I'll take him warts and all.

It's similar to Lincoln's thoughts about General Grant I can't spare this man–he fights.

mapuc

06-03-19, 12:25 PM

Mr Quatro

06-03-19, 12:47 PM

Two thing

1. If Trump will be running for a second term is up to the American voters

2. If an Impeachment against Trump should be the case IT shall be because he has broken some federal law. NOT because some Americans don't like him.

That's my point-of-view.

Markus

You mean winning a second term, because running is up to his party and so far he's the only one running for POTUS on the GOP side against 23 candidates on the democrats side.

Your second point is right on though :up:

mapuc

06-03-19, 01:25 PM

You mean winning a second term, because running is up to his party and so far he's the only one running for POTUS on the GOP side against 23 candidates on the democrats side.

Your second point is right on though :up:

You are correct.

It's if he is selected by his party, it's up to the American voters to decide if he shall be their President for a second term.

Markus

Catfish

06-03-19, 01:32 PM

Collusion is not a crime.

u crank

06-03-19, 02:07 PM

Collusion is not a crime.

Collusion is not not a crime. Fixed. :D

Catfish

06-04-19, 01:33 AM

[...]
It's if he is selected by his party, it's up to the American voters to decide if he shall be their President for a second term.
Markus

This is what's most frightening.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits

Bilge_Rat

06-04-19, 06:34 AM

This is what's most frightening.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits

No what is really frightening is that "rabid anti-trumpers" (tm) are such a predictable troupe of bigoted lemmings.

Aktungbby

06-04-19, 10:22 AM

^ SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION??!!:k_confused: http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/properties/danziger/art_images/cg5cf5e7763e646.jpg

mapuc

06-04-19, 12:35 PM

This is what's most frightening.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits

It made me real sad when reading the article.

That people who support or like Trump should suffer from some psychological issue.

What if it's the other around, those who dislike Trump have some psychological problems.

But hey I'm not a psychiatrist.

It just makes me really sad that a person must have some
psycho-problem(s) when this person put his or her vote on a not-so-popular-politician

And this sentence
"Given their extreme devotion and unwavering admiration for their highly unpredictable and often inflammatory leader"

So far I have seen those type of people in every parti here in Denmark and Sweden-extreme devoted to their parti and the leader

This is my point-of-view.

Markus

u crank

06-04-19, 01:38 PM

This is what's most frightening.

I think it is pretty funny. Is it meant to be a joke? Mr. Azarian wears his political predjudices quite plainly as per this quote from an article just prior to the 2016 election. Emphasis mine.

So what can we do to potentially change the minds of Trump loyalists before voting day in November? As a cognitive neuroscientist, it grieves me to say that there may be nothing we can do. The overwhelming majority of these people may be beyond reach, at least in the short term. The best we can do is to motivate everyone else to get out to the booths and check the box that doesn’t belong to a narcissistic nationalist who has the potential to damage the nation beyond repair.

What arrogance. There is a phrase for this condition. It's called the “tyranny of the experts”. It fits Mr. Azarian and many others perfectly. They are by their own opinion smarter than the people who don't vote the way they think they should. Their solution I would venture is that if everyone went to a Progressive/Liberal university and was properly indoctrinated they would then know how to vote properly.

From the linked article...

Authoritarianism refers to the advocacy or enforcement of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom, and is commonly associated with a lack of concern for the opinions or needs of others.

The fact is that no other group of people in America looks more favorably at authoritarianism than the progressive/left/Democrats, especially the younger ones. They would gladly give up their rights to an authoritarian Big Brother if it would make their socialist dreams come true. These people have an adverse view of things like free speech and their constant application of identity politics feeds the authoritarian beast.

Then there is this bit of comedy...

Relative deprivation refers to the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes they are entitled.

This describes the present state of many people on the Left from Hillary Clinton on down. They deserve to be in power and if they are not they were cheated out of it and there is something wrong with the people who are in power.

Catfish

06-04-19, 01:57 PM

I think it is pretty funny. Is it meant to be a joke? [...]
Seems at least one saw the Smilie.

But: I would not call this 'arrogance of the experts' though. The right wing knows exactly why it refuses science on a broader scale. But what are facts in our times.

u crank

06-04-19, 02:29 PM

But: I would not call this 'arrogance of the experts' though. The right wing knows exactly why it refuses science on a broader scale. But what are facts in our times.

So you agree with Mr. Azarian, the cognitive neuroscientist. His assumption that Trump voters are 'beyond reach' sounds like an expert giving his opinion. And it is an arrogant opinion. I don't know what else you would call it.

As for the Right refusing science on a broad scale people on the left can be very selective when it comes to science over doctrine as well. A denial of the very basic XX and XY chromosomes in saying a man can and is a woman if he chooses to be one comes to mind. And the hell with science. :D

Dowly

06-08-19, 07:19 AM

For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!https://i.imgur.com/ub3RErX.gif

(https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137051097955102720)

eddie

06-09-19, 01:44 AM

https://i.imgur.com/ub3RErX.gif

(https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137051097955102720)

LOL Especially when just a few years ago he told NASA to go back to the moon first, Mars later!! Just a friggin idiot!:haha::haha:

em2nought

06-09-19, 01:50 AM

Just a friggin idiot!:haha::haha:
If he's an idiot then the only explanation for his success is that God must be on his side. :D

JU_88

06-09-19, 03:26 AM

Seems at least one saw the Smilie.

But: I would not call this 'arrogance of the experts' though. The right wing knows exactly why it refuses science on a broader scale. But what are facts in our times.

The right wing likes to deny science when it comes to global warming.
The left wing likes to deny science when it comes human biology.
Personally I think they both want to drive us to extinction :)

Skybird

06-09-19, 06:59 AM

I do not so much see the denial of science, but its propagandistic abuse. A huge dose of fanatism is the motivation for that. Methodology gets corrupted and exploited. Results of scientific research must be chosen from a preset pool of allowed outcomes. Reality has to obey ideology. Objection to this abuse gets sanctioned, and socially banned. This way, fanatism feeds itself. Science, once the remedy to religious fanatism, this way gets turned itself into a tool for practiucing fanatism.

In the end, those using it for thes epiurpose, al claim they want to save the world. But what they always are about is: they want that all others must follow their commands and must be like their fanatical preachers are. We all must be a uniform big happy family. Opinion incest included.

Where consensus becomes a civil duty, discussion, debate, diversity become a crime. Always all and evertyhign dopen and decided by consensus is like sheets a soft, warm waxed silk-paper gently put in layers onto the face of a delinquent, until he suffocates. Germany is a wonderful example for that.

The only hope is the delinquent fights with all his power and manages to free himself. Formerly known as a peaceful, reasonable kind guy, he then may now be so angry that he goes on a killing frenzy against his perpetrators. Of course he then gets called ill-tempered and uncivilised. Isn't consensus good stuff? Don't you want to be a civilized kind guy...?

I see the whole academic factory in big, big troubles. Its corrupted from the bottom to the top, me thinks. Free research is not so much in retreat, but in panical stampede. Many of those few still resisting, get literally crucified, socially silenced, economically killed, job-wise fired.

Catfish

06-09-19, 07:24 AM

somehow true, somehow not.
Politically abused to serve one's agenda in international politics and among politicians and dictators to justify and cement their grab to power? Always.

But let me ask you..this is what i thought some time ago:
You are young, and have learned a lot at school. Then maybe you go to a university, to learn more. And you begin to apprehend what it is all about, at least a faint glimpse on what this world is running on, from phsyical laws to resources to "politics".
It was my firm belief that no one studying natural science and who got this glimpse can ever be on the politically "far right" without completely compromising what he learned. With a few exceptions of course.

Then a lot happened. People using computers and mobile phones and technical stuff of all kind, while actively denying the technology behind it. From arabian terrorists shunning and hating the new enlightend times and trying to bring it down with the very devices their declared 'enemy' invented and developed. And now the inventors do it themselves. No to vaccination. No to evolution. No to women driving cars. No to international development. Back to national isolated states. Back to tribes.
It is as if no one ever has learned something.

Skybird

06-09-19, 08:05 AM

The corruption of science gets driven from many sides and directions. Commercial interests. Political intersts. Ideological interests. Religious interests. Special interest groupd interestsd. And, last but not least: the inner dynmaic of the process itself. My prime example for that is String Theory - a theory of whcih not few say that it is not even a theory in a scientific defintion, since it lacks certain decisive key criterions for a theory actually being a theory. Individsual craeer interests, peer group pressure, the need for securign finaical donations, the lost-investments dilemma in case one abadons it, the prressure to get poublished if you want to keep your opffice at university, , and many more factors come into play here. The result is that a wild specualtion, that string theory in my understandin actually is, gets constantly speculated on differently, gets constantly blown up, rewritten, compelmented, added to, for exmaple an inflation of dimensions it postulates - withouth any basis for all this action that goes beyoind mere speuclation and trying to keep this speculation free of neqwly emerged inner contrsadictions. It is not being checked by experiment, because it cannot be checked by experiment - it is a theorewticla fdanatsy onlky so far. Nevertheless it consumes an ammount of research budgets and gets credit and apllaus to a degree and by itself serves as thge fundaemnt for further spöeculations build on its basis, that it all borders the hilarious. Ctitical physicists not agreeing weith this canon, have a very difficult stand, and tend to be ignoired by their colleagues with the latter forming their career and exiostence on the grounds of treating the string theory asan actually methodoligically correctly identified "theory". But it isn't. It borders esoteric, I once heard one British physicist saying on TV. - The corrupt nature of the academic way of dealing with string theory due to corrupted motives, breeds the ongoing corruption of science itself - and its branches that have contact with string "theory".

So personal economic interests (fame, prestige, money, economic existence) are a driving factor for the corruption of science as well.

Science is under fire from all directions. At the same time our failings in so many other areas direct expectations at it to "provide solutions" - with thes esoltuioions then beign demanded to be in conformity with ones own convictions and worldviews that one already had set up before one approached science. Open-end review of thigns is not possible, a pre-arranged set of allowed views that science shall proviode, already has been selected in advance. Thats why I have become so critical of climate consensus science. Its not so much an attempt to deny certain tings, but the ideologically dicated solutions that science is demanded to fabricate, no matter how, so that they are in line with what is politically and ideologically en vogue currently. Necessarily, the soltiuioons for takclig climate issues this way become coprrupted as well, misled, ineffective, basing on false assumptions, getting locked down in hairpslitting irrelevancies that willd o little while other , more monumental concerns get even completely ignored. Nevertheless the solution to how the planet must be saved, gets dictated with utter conviction. Thats why I have nothing by laughter for "Friday for Future" - people maybe shouod spend some time with researchign the biographic background of both Greta Thunberg, and the WWF püeople that manage her form the background. Her story is deeply saddening, and tragic, but that does not mean that I do not diagnose her to be a case for psychiatric treatment - although she found this her crusade as a solution for herself to get herself engaged on something that pulled her out of her deep psychological troubles and troublesome family background (both the father and mother have psychological issues as well, even suicidal - crisisses. Heck, what's the plural of crisis? ). The nature of the managers in the background however must be seen critically and are imo shady at best. I already flattened my ears when the WWF was mentioned before the latest scandal published some weeks ago. A very dubious business organisation, with apparently a very strong selfish economic agenda. They did the child crusade thing before already, Thunberg is not the first one.

Rockstar

06-09-19, 10:39 AM

It was my firm belief that no one studying natural science and who got this glimpse can ever be on the politically "far right" without completely compromising what he learned. With a few exceptions of course.

This 'belief' of yours, is it based on any kind of scientific statistical method? If not, I would suggest it may be a symptom of infection by modern politics. Don't you think its just a tad bit on the fascist side to accuse someone of having a politically undesirable bent because they dont ascribe themselves to your scientific method or beliefs? Maybe we should start rounding them up huh? Of course we'll be sure to keep those few exceptions out of the solution.

Catfish

06-09-19, 12:09 PM

This 'belief' of yours, is it based on any kind of scientific statistical method? If not, I would suggest it may be a symptom of infection by modern politics. Don't you think its just a tad bit on the fascist side to accuse someone of having a politically undesirable bent because they dont ascribe themselves to your scientific method or beliefs? Maybe we should start rounding them up huh? Of course we'll be sure to keep those few exceptions out of the solution.

Scientific methods.. so you think the outcome of experiments is different depending on the prober having a "left" or "right" agenda?
What you describe is not "science".

What you describe has indeed infected universities in Europe, but mostly this is based on lobbyism from interfering companies, especially in the medical sector. Write your dissertation on a product of ours, and we pay but would prefer a certain outcome. Significant statistics not needed. This foremost serves capitalistic ideas, meaning it is rather "non-left" lol

Experiments and results are what they are. What people make of it is a different question.
When certain people discover a rare species of hamsters in a to-be-built airport area they can either try to block the construction to save the animals, or they can say there are enough others, or profit is more important. You decide which is the more "scientific" method.

Skybird

06-09-19, 01:21 PM

The experimental setup decides on what results are possible to materialise, and which one forever will never have any probability of that at all.

This is the value and the curse in science at the same time. Responsible scientists are always aware of that and try to work accoridingly. Manipulative authors are always aware of that and try to work accordingly as well. Still, both act by completely different motives and with very different ambitions, aiming at very different results. The one is ready to see any result. The other wants to command a wanted result.

Rockstar

06-09-19, 02:13 PM

Scientific methods.. so you think the outcome of experiments is different depending on the prober having a "left" or "right" agenda?
What you describe is not "science".

What you describe has indeed infected universities in Europe, but mostly this is based on lobbyism from interfering companies, especially in the medical sector. Write your dissertation on a product of ours, and we pay but would prefer a certain outcome. Significant statistics not needed. This foremost serves capitalistic ideas, meaning it is rather "non-left" lol

Experiments and results are what they are. What people make of it is a different question.
When certain people discover a rare species of hamsters in a to-be-built airport area they can either try to block the construction to save the animals, or they can say there are enough others, or profit is more important. You decide which is the more "scientific" method.

No I didnt say that, I was under the impression you did though when you politicized the argument 'being a firm believer' someone must be a far right/left extremist kook because they don't agree with your science.

JU_88

06-10-19, 04:28 PM

Back to national isolated states. Back to tribes.
It is as if no one ever has learned something.

I'd like to know how do you think we got here exactly?
10 years ago the rise of the 'far right' or nationalism was was unpopular as it was unthinkable .
So what changed in that time? Hint: it wasn't the 2008 economic crash- that very clearly and immediately gave rise to both economic socialist and libertarian movements - not nationalism/tribalism.

And in response tot he many failures of the Establishment- what have the fringes of the right & left spectrum been obsessively screeching about in the past decade? two words... 'group identity' & 'culture'

Skybird

06-11-19, 12:38 AM

How we got here, is clear.

The socialist party in Denmark has won past elections a few days ago by - praising very tough migration regulation. With that they chased the ruling rights out of office. So try to do so-called right-wing populist parties across all the continent.

-----

There are four factors that are massively causing fallout influencing the rise of the the "populists" (and I woudl insist to claim the loudest populists there are are the pro-EC claqueurs):

1. Enforced migration of unqualified, often culturally incompatible and actively integration-resisting fporigners, mostly males, from African and Muslim countries, and active enforcing locals' adaptation to and tolerance for the demands of an ever growing Islam.

2. The systematical deconstruction of masculine role figures, the (left-wanted) destruction of the social core cell of core families, and the overboarding gender BS madness and the feminist sexual discrimination of males that malicvously gets sold under the label "equality", but in fact wants a clear female dominance and female special rights and even the femalization of boys and men.

3. Climate-focussed self infantilisation rooting in the naive mental heritage of the German romantic era.

4. Excessive power-grabbing by the EU that claims regulative administrative command far beyond just being a trade organization and free trade zone, but abuses its power to boost further points 1, 2 and 3 above.

Interestingly, the FIAT currency system, national debt explosion, and massive redistribution from Northern to Southern nations in the block seem to play little or no role in most people'S perceptions - although it affects thgeir economic existence more directly than anything else. I can explain that only by lacking education and knowledge. The propaganda machinery of the established political parasites as well as of the populist opposition does the rest.

Action has reaction. Force inflicted, returns. The further the EU and the stupid Zeitgeist pushes, the more hostility to them will grow. Personally I learned to think that without being faced with most direct threats to his mere existence, man tends to stray off with his focus into the realm of the obscure and the absurd. Existential boredom, so to speak. It seems danger and conflict and threat are what keep us focussed and constructively creative. I think that also is part of the truth in that idiom on war as the father of all things. And why obedience towards a dogmatic or totalitarian collective hierarchy is so very tempting for many people. Lets face it, most people, the vast, vast majority, think in terms of "leaders" and "peasants". They want the structure of a authoritatiove hierarchy, and a simple belief system - both poltically and religiously - that provides clean and simple guidance on what goes and what not, to bring order into a cosmos of chaos and to bring meaning into one'S own life. Life is a traffic light.

I even go as far as saying that most people do not really want freedom, not if they are aware of the consequences it implies. They only claim to want it, for the nice odor and sound around this "pathetic value". Popular freedom mostly is with - unscrupulous criminals (which in no way means to imply that freedom is criminal).

JU_88

06-11-19, 06:51 AM

@ Sky, its pendulum effect. every 20-30 years we swing to right then back to the left and so on.
Its only scarier this time as the rhetoric is more extreme than usual. with acts of physical violence and calls for authoritarian intervention, to 'make them go away' (them being 'the other side of the argument'.)

The immigration discussion is so damn complicated, its near impossible to get past the surface level. neither right nor left really wants to dig in to root of it. because that is a very messy conversation on western culture/society/economics that's even MORE uncomfortable, as half of it will undermine both their values.

But yeah, opinion is roughly split between working class right wing populists, and left wing middle class progressives, because they live in two completely different realities, and have a completely different world view.
The former takes more pride in national/regional cultural identity, the latter takes more pride in internationalist multi-cultural identity.

Nothing wrong with either of those things really so long as you can balance them. The problem when one one side tells the other - I think you should be FORCED to adopt my set of values entirely and if you don't like it i'm going to use slurs because your an evil person.
And the more they resent each other, the more they go out of their way to be polar opposites, not because its always 'rational', but - just to spite the other and score one for the team.
and there is your far right/left 'radicalization'. (The Media has been heavily fueling this in recent times, since they found it to be very lucrative)

But the main reason I quoted catfish, is that he implied the very nature of tribalism, (citing national identity) is backwards, a statement imo that is in itself tribal- towards the tribe of western progressivsm. Point being, everyone is tribal on some level.
You cant truely despise tribalism unless you are impartial and diplomatic to a near impossible standard.

JU_88

06-11-19, 09:09 AM

Yeah things have changed alot for men and women, gender roles etc.
Its kind of the elephant in the room.
Immigration is one of the key reason we are still going. I think if it wasn't for that, many western economies would have arguably fallen at the point they dipped too far below the replacement rate to sustain themselves and their elderly.

Women joining the work force en mass had a huge impact each place it happened.
Over time you eventually double your labour force, so short term - Economic BOOM.
But then come the side effects, With the free market running the show - You half the value of the labour force, so now husband and wife in most cases must both go to work to earn enough to support the family and find childcare.
So the State must step in to provide some support, especially for single parents, where the state is now expected to be a surrogate dad as well. (in many but not all cases)
Now men and women are no longer so symbiotic, they don't really need each other as they once did. there is no more social shame in being a bachelor at 40. you can go off in pursuit of self fulfillment, our only social responsibly is to sustain ourselves by earning money.
Also neighbor hoods became emptier during working hours, no longer was there a stay home spouse to chat to the neighbors, suddenly, people hardly know their neighbors anymore! communities get weaker. bored youth get crazier, because if if you don't know your neighbors, why should you care them? they don't care about you right? (certainly true of inner cities)

I think what wasn't appreciated just how valuable the stay at home mom (or dad) was, they were kind of the glue holding alot more together that they got credit for.
And more recently feminists (who now have alot more clout and reach than they use to) have not helped by actively attacking /shaming women who adopt traditional gender roles.

But what can you do?
it was never fair or right to deny women and girls the same right to self determination as boys and men.
Even if it wasn't always necessarily enforced by some evil patriarchal law. it was done though social stigma, etiquette and expectation. Its not hard to put myself in a womans shoes, and think: well how would i have liked that.

But yeah women's emancipation was a big deal in more ways than one. it along with liberal values and a decline in religion and marriage, meant, men and women were less dependent on each other and more focused on indervidual freedom and pursuit of money other vices besides a family.

Western lifestyle is big factor too, the world has way more to offer for hobbies, interests, travel socializing etc. than it once did,
Now we have guys in their 30s dropping out of society, staying home in baseball caps drinking fizzy drinks, watching superhero movies and playing video games.... :P
And more ambitious career focused women who just want to work, date and see the world while they are young. but they are not so interested in the above mentioned men, because women typically like to pair up across and up hierarchies, but they rarely look down.
And by the time the biological clock starts ticking, its already too late. nobody is really warning them of this anymore. it is too old fashioned and Un-PC to do so.

and all that amounts to Less kids and the need for alot of immigrants to come and pick up that baton for us.

So there we go..... This kind of why many other parts of the world emulate/adopt western systems up to a certain point - and then they stop.
they are worried about their own cultural & ethnic self preservation to some extent. They see our societal experiments and the results very clearly.
They understandably would rather be the nation that over produces people that they can afford to export them, rather than the nation that under produces people and has to import them.

Catfish

06-12-19, 04:46 AM

I'd like to know how do you think we got here exactly?
10 years ago the rise of the 'far right' or nationalism was was unpopular as it was unthinkable .
So what changed in that time? Hint: it wasn't the 2008 economic crash- that very clearly and immediately gave rise to both economic socialist and libertarian movements - not nationalism/tribalism. [...]'

For me it is not about left or right, they both take what they need to push their agenda. What i said and what is still my opinion is that a certain education will usually not put you at the far(!) right of the spectrum. And, with the knowledge and experience of the past decades also not at the far(!) left.
But what is an almost neutral stance in Europe seems to be far left in the US. I cannot imagine anymore what communism is for the US, when liberals or democrats are already described as being "ultra-left".

Regarding evolution or where social development or science have brought humans .. certain distinctive human attributes that have contributed to the development of scientific inquiry and logical deduction have somewhat paradoxically generated knowledge which denies humanity its value and distinctiveness in this big uncaring universe. The earth is not the center of the universe, mankind is most probably not alone, and the earth's peoples' shortcomings outweigh the accomplishments.
A lot of people find this hard to take, so i take it that denying science is their only way to get that warm and fuzzy feeling of self-importance back.

u crank

06-12-19, 06:58 AM

For me it is not about left or right, they both take what they need to push their agenda. What i said and what is still my opinion is that a certain education will usually not put you at the far(!) right of the spectrum. And, with the knowledge and experience of the past decades also not at the far(!) left.

It is unfortunate that the extremists in both camps can and do have an outsized influence. But that very education is what, at least in Canada and the US is influencing and driving the far left. It is indoctrination when it comes to social and political issues. One plus one will always be two, but the question then is can a scientific application be driven by so called social justice agendas?

Kptlt. Neuerburg

06-12-19, 08:31 AM

Not quite sure if this video belongs here but I think it should.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2QMqsNvWuc

Mr Quatro

06-12-19, 08:56 AM

Not quite sure if this video belongs here but I think it should.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2QMqsNvWuc

Due to past Political mistakes of allowing the enemy access to our country at the cost of many millions of dollars and the whole Iran transfer of funds amounting to billions of dollars ... I think it belongs here.

America has lost it 's priority to it's citizens especially the ones that suffered at ground zero on 911.

Restore the promise to take care of them :yep:

Onkel Neal

06-26-19, 04:35 PM

Should be a good show tonight, 10 Democrats trying to make an impression :)

em2nought

06-26-19, 07:26 PM

Should be a good show tonight, 10 Democrats trying to make an impression :)

"Show" is a very apt word for it. :D

eddie

06-26-19, 08:40 PM

"Show" is a very apt word for it. :D

Can't be any worse then the freak show the retard in the White House puts on everyday,lol

Buddahaid

06-26-19, 08:54 PM

I find it humorous that Trump is now standing behind respect for the White House and the office of the president after all the crap he's put out before, and after, he got there. Gee, some people think he's a charlatan and don't respect him enough to even respect the office he holds. :hmmm:

What goes around comes around Donald, you're soaking in it now. Enjoy.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/48775195

August

06-26-19, 09:16 PM

That's what I like about Donald Trump. He continues to piss off all the right people.

Buddahaid

06-26-19, 11:31 PM

If that refers to me, I'm not pissed off, I'm more embarrassed about having the court jester in charge, and by the way, that doesn't make me support the bizarre left either.

It's more than just pissing off the right people, it's pissing off the wrong people in the process.

em2nought

06-27-19, 02:01 AM

That's what I like about Donald Trump. He continues to piss off all the right people.

Making some Trump clones might be fun just to see the outrage alone! :up:

Catfish

06-27-19, 02:23 AM

Decals should be easy to copy :)

Onkel Neal

06-27-19, 05:16 AM

Oh brother, it was worse than I thought. :haha: Beto pandering with his gringo spanish, his simple-minded posing and hand gestures. What was he doing? Signalling the Illuminati (https://twitter.com/i/status/1144054839183388674)? At least there was one good result, he blew black Lex Luthor's mind, that was worth a laugh. And then the debate switched to Spanish. When the moderator started asking questions in Spanish I had to switch the TV to My Cousin Vinny.

I might vote for the bald dude on the far right or the super hot hawaiian chick, but none of the rest are worth a moment's notice. Especially Bill the bozo or Pocahontas.

Mr Quatro

06-27-19, 08:02 PM

Game on ... The best comedy show on TV with ten (10) candidates of democrats running for POTUS on NBC and MSNBC live just for your entertainment :haha:

Onkel Neal

06-29-19, 07:02 AM

Poor Biden, the PC Dems will flay him alive. Remember when he praised Obama for being "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean"? Harris does, I bet.

August

06-29-19, 08:22 AM

Poor Biden, the PC Dems will flay him alive. Remember when he praised Obama for being "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean"? Harris does, I bet.

I have to agree, he's toast. One of his large donors just abandoned him. What's more I think Bernie may be right behind him.

em2nought

06-29-19, 01:49 PM

I have to agree, he's toast. One of his large donors just abandoned him. What's more I think Bernie may be right behind him.
Bernie is definitely too Jewish for the modern democrat socialist party of allah. :hmmm:

Buddahaid

06-29-19, 02:07 PM

Hmmm, I guess I'll have to agree with you that he doesn't fit in to the modern all inclusive democratic ideal, but then again, nobody can. I want a candidate that can bridge the extremes of both viewpoints without being a dickhead! There must be somebody with their head external to their arse somewhere....

Rockstar

06-29-19, 03:07 PM

That's what I like about Donald Trump. He continues to piss off all the right people.

ya, you could say that :D

The Official 2020 Trump vs Democrat poll
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/landing/2020-trump-vs-dem-poll

vienna

06-29-19, 04:22 PM

ya, you could say that :D

The Official 2020 Trump vs Democrat poll
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/landing/2020-trump-vs-dem-poll

:yawn:...

<O>

Mr Quatro

06-29-19, 04:40 PM

The Senator from Colorado looked good ... He could be the sleeper that wins the nomination :yep:

Rockstar

06-29-19, 05:17 PM

:yawn:...

<O>

i saw that posted on FARK sorry I couldnt resist ;)

Onkel Neal

06-29-19, 09:03 PM

JU_88

06-30-19, 04:32 AM

Think it goes with out saying the Democratic lineup pretty much spells Trump 2020.

STEED

06-30-19, 04:34 AM

Donald Trump has become the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea, after meeting Kim Jong-un in the area between the two Koreas.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48814975

Wow.

Rockstar

06-30-19, 05:52 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMSmoNOZJ9Y

whats cheaper, health care per person or the cost per person to repatriat them?

Also its been thought with better healthcare (living standards and education) less babies are born to poorer couples who would otherwise tend to raise large families in an attempt to compensate for infant mortality. I think healthier people would help reduce an already over populated globe. As Skybird has said "there are too many of us" of which I agree.

however I dont think coming right out and stating a political platform for global population control will get anyone elected.

Mr Quatro

06-30-19, 09:39 AM

Think it goes with out saying the Democratic lineup pretty much spells Trump 2020.

I agree :yep:

23 of them against one Trump and who else on the GOP ticket is still to be determined ... this has to be another circus in the making. :oops:

JU_88

07-01-19, 03:42 AM

They seem to be clueless, Trump partly won in 2015 on a 'tighter immigration' platform. And here we have some Dem candiates saying, well we can just legalize illegal immigration to solve the border crisis.

Its completely insane, no one out side the progressive western hemisphere would ever consider such a thing.
They don't seem to realize they are pandering to a fringe minority, because there is (on the left) something of a main stream narrative to support it, so they think there is a majority in population to support it too, but there isn't!
Even the minority and 'marginalized' communities they want to protect - would be very worried about open borders since they would be on the front line.

This all comes from a bubble of mostly educated upper middle class progressives on a crusade to 'save the world' So ideological they have lost their grip on reality. Its painful to watch :oops:

Skybird

07-01-19, 04:16 AM

It IS insane indeed. In Stalinist Russia, there was an era when in the workers' perfect paradise state no murder was committed. Because it was such a paradise state for sure than nobody simply could and would turn bad and commit murder - that would have spoiled the white shine of paradise on Earth. So, "it cannot be what should not be": for some years, acts of murder where relabeled and declared as anything, accidents, mishaps, whatever: just not "murder". Needless to say: officially the police also did not investigate murder. Because there was none. They investigated and concluded for "accidents", for example.

To watch such an amassed, toxic concentrate of stupitity like these politicians parades on TV, may it be the Democrats in the US currently, or the Tories in British TV, makes me sick, wanting to vommit. What a parade of pitiful, intellectually defunct carricatures, sobbering for power.

em2nought

07-01-19, 11:41 AM

I'm betting that election night 2020 is going to be even more enjoyable than election night 2016 was. They'll be just as surprised AGAIN

I still love this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ46I3kMOr0

Catfish

07-01-19, 01:18 PM

I'm not sure Trump will give in to a defeat, he will just declare it as fake and remain :D

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/12/trump-2020-presidential-election-polling-results

em2nought

07-01-19, 04:17 PM

he will just declare it as fake :D

He'd be correct if blue state allow illegal aliens to vote. :03: Maybe the voters of Spain should decide an election in Germany? LOL

Catfish

07-01-19, 04:27 PM

Oh, apart from the US "Kurfuerst" election type, more people voted against Trump.
"Illegal aliens", sounds like a broken record.

August

07-01-19, 04:41 PM

Oh, apart from the US "Kurfuerst" election type, more people voted against Trump.
"Illegal aliens", sounds like a broken record.

As does this ridiculous idea that anything besides electoral votes should count in the election for president.

JU_88

07-01-19, 05:33 PM

Oh, apart from the US "Kurfuerst" election type, more people voted against Trump.
"Illegal aliens", sounds like a broken record.

and 'but trump lost the popular vote' also sound like a broken record.
those are bad arguments catfish and you know it.
its just the kind interchangeable partisan sour grapes that either side can throw down, when things don't go their way and it basically just translates as, Democracy is only fair when we win and its only a 'bad system' when we lose.

Maybe progressives need to look their rhetoric for a 5 seconds (a period of self reflection) To find the real reason they keep losing.
Make the left cool again maybe? Ditching intersectionality and language policing would be a good start, but they Keep doubling down on that nonsense and morally brow beating everyone with it - to assign guilt/victimization based on group identity, turns out most folks don't really appreciate that..... and so they will keep losing as long as they play that card, no matter how much 'free stuff' they are offering.

vienna

07-01-19, 07:30 PM

Actually, the popular vote is more important than the EC vote: oyu can't get EC votes without having won the popular vote in each of the States; I never heard of any candidate getting EC votes that were not based on individual popular vote tallies; what makes the EC vote so unreliable is the "winner takes all" apportioning of the vote used by so many states: the tally just doesn't always reflect the reality...

Did anyone else notice how silent the Trump camp has been since Trump's Orlando, Florida official reelection kick-off rally 06/18/2019, with nary a trumpeting of the event one might expect given Trump's penchant for bombast? There was an awful lot of pre-event hype about how the event was going to be 'Yuuuge!!'; how they had more than 100,000 tick requests weeks before the actual event; how they were going to set up giant screens to accommodate the 'Yuuuge!!' overflow crowds that could not get tickets to the actual event that would fill the surround areas of the arena. They even had a '45 Fest' tailgate party-style set up prior to the actual event just hours before the start of the rally...

Well, reality happened. The actual attendance at the rally was only about 80% of the arenas capacity and there were no overflow crowds outside the arena: those giant screens were playing to litter-riddled empty parking lots. Anyone who wanted to could get a ticket to the event online instantly because there was no great demand for the ducats, certainly not the 'over 100,000' requests touted by the Trump minions. All in all, there was/is no real reason for the Trump camp to want to draw attention to their embarrassment...

The failure of Trump to fill an arena in Florida does not bode well for him in the key 'swing state' of Florida. The inability to raise any substantial interest among the Floridians (not to mention the touted 'hordes' of out-of-state Trumpettes who were expected to make the pilgrimage to Orlando) is a 'Yuuuge!!' foreshadows a serious problem for Trump; it is almost impossible to win the EC without winning in Florida. In 2016, Trump barely scraped by, with a margin of 1.2% of the Florida vote over Clinton; in the months following 2016, Florida GOP candidates have had rough go in a state that had been considered a GOP stalwart. GOP Rick Scot won his run for US Senate by a .4% margin over the DEM candidate; GOP Ron De Santis won his run for Governor by a .7% margin over the DEM candidate; of the 27 House seats up for the vote, the GOP lost two seats to the DEMs (all of the other 25 seats retained their party affiliations unchanged). It seems the hold the GOP has traditionally enjoyed in Florida is slipping away, and, with it, the prospects of keeping those vital EC votes in 2020...

Another item that went unnoticed over the past week was a very possible reason for Trump to suspend his ICE roundup scheduled for weekend before last: the Trump camp had scheduled a "Latinos For Trump" rally, to be MC'd by VP Pence on the Tuesday following the announced ICE roundup; apparently, the status quo of the right hand of the Trump disorganization not knowing what the left is/was doing is still in full effect. It would have looked really, really bad to the Latino voters and their supporters to tout how Trump, and, by extension, the GOP, really, really like Latinos a couple of days after staging a mass roundup of Latinos. It would have been even more of a PR disaster given where the "Latinos For Trump" rally was being held: Miami, Florida. Also note that the Trump camp has also not made any major mention of the Latino rally much as they have all but abandoned any broad mention of the kick off rally, you know, kinda of like how Trump ignores his so many failures...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5PN2Hm5_Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWnf_qQwc_o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbq0jzg5QnE

<O>

Rockstar

07-01-19, 08:16 PM

Actually, the popular vote is more important than the EC vote: oyu can't get EC votes without having won the popular vote in each of the States; I never heard of any candidate getting EC votes that were not based on individual popular vote tallies; what makes the EC vote so unreliable is the "winner takes all" apportioning of the vote used by so many states: the tally just doesn't always reflect the reality...

Did anyone else notice how silent the Trump camp has been since Trump's Orlando, Florida official reelection kick-off rally 06/18/2019, with nary a trumpeting of the event one might expect given Trump's penchant for bombast? There was an awful lot of pre-event hype about how the event was going to be 'Yuuuge!!'; how they had more than 100,000 tick requests weeks before the actual event; how they were going to set up giant screens to accommodate the 'Yuuuge!!' overflow crowds that could not get tickets to the actual event that would fill the surround areas of the arena. They even had a '45 Fest' tailgate party-style set up prior to the actual event just hours before the start of the rally...

Well, reality happened. The actual attendance at the rally was only about 80% of the arenas capacity and there were no overflow crowds outside the arena: those giant screens were playing to litter-riddled empty parking lots. Anyone who wanted to could get a ticket to the event online instantly because there was no great demand for the ducats, certainly not the 'over 100,000' requests touted by the Trump minions. All in all, there was/is no real reason for the Trump camp to want to draw attention to their embarrassment...

The failure of Trump to fill an arena in Florida does not bode well for him in the key 'swing state' of Florida. The inability to raise any substantial interest among the Floridians (not to mention the touted 'hordes' of out-of-state Trumpettes who were expected to make the pilgrimage to Orlando) is a 'Yuuuge!!' foreshadows a serious problem for Trump; it is almost impossible to win the EC without winning in Florida. In 2016, Trump barely scraped by, with a margin of 1.2% of the Florida vote over Clinton; in the months following 2016, Florida GOP candidates have had rough go in a state that had been considered a GOP stalwart. GOP Rick Scot won his run for US Senate by a .4% margin over the DEM candidate; GOP Ron De Santis won his run for Governor by a .7% margin over the DEM candidate; of the 27 House seats up for the vote, the GOP lost two seats to the DEMs (all of the other 25 seats retained their party affiliations unchanged). It seems the hold the GOP has traditionally enjoyed in Florida is slipping away, and, with it, the prospects of keeping those vital EC votes in 2020...

see post #7116. we've heard it all before and looked what happened 2016. Nobody has a clue whats gonna happen until 2020. Anything said is right up their with late night comedy shows, accusations of collusion, treason, conspiracy and after 35 million dollars and waiting 22 months for Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels to turn.

Another item that went unnoticed over the past week was a very possible reason for Trump to suspend his ICE roundup scheduled for weekend before last: the Trump camp had scheduled a "Latinos For Trump" rally, to be MC'd by VP Pence on the Tuesday following the announced ICE roundup; apparently, the status quo of the right hand of the Trump disorganization not knowing what the left is/was doing is still in full effect. It would have looked really, really bad to the Latino voters and their supporters to tout how Trump, and, by extension, the GOP, really, really like Latinos a couple of days after staging a mass roundup of Latinos. It would have been even more of a PR disaster given where the "Latinos For Trump" rally was being held: Miami, Florida. Also note that the Trump camp has also not made any major mention of the Latino rally much as they have all but abandoned any broad mention of the kick off rally, you know, kinda of like how Trump ignores his so many failures...
You are however correct in stating it is a 'possibility'. Another possibility according to the New York Times something entirely different.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/22/us/politics/trump-ice-raids.html

The president’s abrupt reversal on Saturday came as lawmakers were considering a measure to send $4.5 billion in humanitarian aid to the border, money the Trump administration has said is desperately needed to handle a huge influx of migrants.
Some Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, had threatened to withhold their support for the funding package when it comes to a vote in the House this upcoming week, in protest of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies. The specter of high-profile immigration raids had risked imperiling its chances of passage.

ikalugin

07-02-19, 03:40 AM

If US had popular vote Trump would have tailored his campaign to win the popular vote, not EC vote. Certain states may also have different popular vote, for example in blue states there may be more red votes because those votes would actually matter.

Skybird

07-02-19, 05:32 AM

Both parties massively tailor voting districts down to county level as well as city voting districts along ethnic and social groupings so to "balance" to-be-expected voting results such that votes for the political opponent cannot become decisive and own camp wins, sometimes even with just a minority of votes: ba scsattering the majority of opposing votzes over more districts so that they cannot chnage the result for the opponent. Its a fundamental manipulation of the mere idea of majority votings, and one of the strongest arguments against voting system as it is now. There are examples that in a single street the line between two different voting districts swtiches sides of the street form house to house - dpeending o what is known in political prferences of the house owenbr/inhabitant.

Its all a show, and nothing more than just a show. The whole mechanism is just an alibi. Or should I say: fake?

Stop voting. Boycott electiosn and all political parties. Chase every potlicians away who already has done two legislation periods in whatever a fanction he had. Chase him away at mere eye sight.

Oh, and letting illegal aliens in the US vote is like letting every EU citizen vote via mail as well.

With contribution comes rights. No contribution - less rights. You have no own skin in the game? Then shut up. You contributed a lot to the community you live in? Let your say be heard. Simple.

ikalugin

07-02-19, 06:20 AM

Boycotting would allow the other side win the elections.

u crank

07-02-19, 06:41 AM

Boycotting would allow the other side win the elections.

Exactly. Politics is not a game of chance although luck is involved. No one gets rich playing the stock market in a haphazard manner. No one is successful in pro sports without training or tactics. Why would politics be any different? The means for success in politics is not a secret. Everyone knows the rules. Anyone can get involved. The big problem that always comes up is when people don't like the results of a political contest.

ikalugin

07-02-19, 07:51 AM

Exactly. Politics is not a game of chance although luck is involved. No one gets rich playing the stock market in a haphazard manner. No one is successful in pro sports without training or tactics. Why would politics be any different? The means for success in politics is not a secret. Everyone knows the rules. Anyone can get involved. The big problem that always comes up is when people don't like the results of a political contest.
Well in liberal democracies anyway.

u crank

07-02-19, 08:09 AM

Well in liberal democracies anyway.

Is there any other kind?:D

Catfish

07-02-19, 08:33 AM

Skybird

07-02-19, 09:03 AM

Boycotting would allow the other side win the elections.
Quatsch. It would be a giovenrment that must enact itself without any support by any voter.

If you legitmise life-long fraudtsers and liars, you have no right to criticise them when they act like this - becasue your brought them into a position allowing them to do like this,m and you legitimised them and their acting. Therefore, only those not voting for them and refusing to legitimise them have a right to criticise them, for they try to enforce acts and deeds on the boycottersa that the boycotters never legitimised thme to do.

It is the same old and simply wrong argument that stubbornly gets repated over an dover and over again, that you bring up there. But that does not chnage that it is pointless in its core and essence.

And one of my fsavourite auhtors on the issue, Jason Brennan, adds another fine arugment here:
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/07/should-voting-in-the-us-be-mandatory-14/mandatory-voting-would-be-a-disaster

Don’t ask your neighbor to vote. Instead, ask the ignorant and irrational voters, how dare you?
What we have now is a huge bunch of unknowing, uneducated, politically "idiotised" people not knowing anything about the many implications and embedded problems of political themes, legitimsing psychopathic and attention-craving monsters, totalitarian ideologists and demagogues, and brutally egoist narcissists cravign for power and being unscurpulous enough to tell every lie from here to eternity in order to get onto the throne. Lobbyists and networks rule.

Also, see it like this, if you want: does anyone think they would let you vote on anything any anyone if your voting realyl would make a diference to their great scheme of things...?

Finally there is the ourely mathemtical, statistical argment. In a small group of lets say 10 owners of the flats in an appartment house you can tell yourself that your voice in the yearly assembly counts, with a weight of 1/10. But if you are part of a voting going on with your vote just representing 1/10,000,000 as an example, you can hardly convince yourself that your ballot matters. Fact is none of you ever saw the other side winning becasue you refused to give your ballot. Andbhardly has your party ever won because you vited for them. - This is an arugment pourely focussing on quanitty, not on qulaity. The educaiton of the voter to make educated decisions inmstead of just instinct-driven ones, is ignored here.

Stop making fools of yourself and allowing them to treat you as the idiots you behave as. Reject them and their rules and games. Completely. The only reason they tell you you should vote is that they want your acceptance for game and their rules going on, so that you give away your right to criticise them - you cannot legitimately criticise an imposter and liar and cheater if you voted him into office. They do not care for what party you vote for - the yonly want that you vote at all - and submit to their game and playing rules in principle. And you shoud, by now really know the limits of human potentials as well as the underhanded character quality of most career politicians there are. If you have no realised that by now, this is another argument then why you should not be allowed to vote.

The bigger the playing ground polticians are allowed to play on, the bigger the mess they create, and the more dramatic the consequences of their inevitable failure. Thats why I reject the idea of big super-national structures, big and deep states and such, it only helps to hide abuse and corruption, nepotism and secret establishing of lobbies and networks. Politicians pose as if they were superhuman capable and potent of doing and knowing all and everything. This hubris is our all fall. Our believe in the good strong Führer, even if he calls himself somehtign positive, is what leads us into the trap again and again and again. But this time, with globalization and unheared of tools of mass drestrzction and mass killing , the fear of those warning of a global fall, are real and realistic for the first time ever in human history. In past centureies and eras, people ahd the sam efears, but we know by now they did not have the reach and the tools and indeed doom all thre world and all mankind. this now has hcnaged - this time now the threat is real. And we face it still with the submissive servility of peasdant reaidng the lips of their kings?

We need to adapt to an ever chnagign world. We cannot prevent global warning, we cannot limit it annyore due to the immense, amssive self-dynamic in it all, we should not waste our time and ressources in trying that , but we should instea dinvest them to prepare and adapot as best as we can to the ever-chnaging world that the climate change is creating around us and forces us to live in in the future. And like we need to adapt to that process, we also need to learn to adapt to this new globalised world with tools by man that indeed, for the first time ever in his history, cna rip this world and civilization apart. Instead we follow bheavioural recipes of the past, and allow stoneage instincts to still overrule our reason and intellect.

Beside Jason brennan, I recommend to read Jarred Diamond on these issues ("Collapse"). He made a brilliant case for examining the contradiction that you can destroy the world around you, culturally as well as environmentally, for very rational, reasonable reasons and arguments that follow the tradition of the past. The fault is that the past may have found recipes based on conditions and variables that in the present are no longer valid, annulling validity and usefulness of strategies based on them.

Do not vote into office those people that damage you and the world you live in, both the civilization and the environment. Don'T legitimise people that lie and cheat - and never must face any responsibility!!! - and do not allow them to speak in your name and decide on your behalf! Limnit the reach and power of politics to dimensions that human senses can perceive and that human reaosn can overlook.

Political parties should be forbidden. No politician who made doing politics his job for life, shoud be allowed to do poltics. No polticians should be allolwed to serve in whatever a function for longer than two legislation pewriods. No politicians shoudl be allowed to escape respinsibility for his actiosn and deicisons, every polticians should be held full accountable with his property, his fortune and even his life for his record. Just saying "I accept the political responsibility for this mess", is nothing, is a free ride out. And you people buy it...! You beleive in an empoty, meaningless slogan...!

https://reason.com/2012/10/03/your-vote-doesnt-count/

https://reason.com/2019/06/26/dont-watch-this-weeks-democratic-debates/

Most people wallow in sentimental memories when they defend voting. Like they wallow in good moods when practicing christmas meetings and rites. Its not as if that would means that Santa Claus suddenly turns into somethign real. Its habit. Its memory. A glorification of childhood past. One got used to it, one does not know it better, one never cared to reflect on it. Parents did it like this. Friends do it like this. Lets feel like in good company when doing it like this ourselves.

Just that it pays off badly for us, and kicks us into the next desaster.The people on the Titanic were in company of theirs as well. And even had live music.

You go voting? How dare you, you should feel ashamed!

u crank

07-02-19, 09:12 AM

Trump's great friend Viktor Orban of Hungary would say that illiberal democracy is much better :D
Of course "illiberal democracy" is not democracy as most people understand it, but the right is doing their best to sell it to the masses. It will soon be regarded as a variant of "democracy". Which of cause is BS :03:

I'm not to familiar with European politics but I assume that Viktor Orban has been elected in a free and open election. Why does that make him illiberal? It is the same narrative over and over by people on the left. If they don't like the results they try to delegitimize the outcome. Trump is the shining example of that. Of course the end result of this tactic will be that both sides will engage in it. Not very Liberal or Democratic.:03:

Platapus

07-02-19, 03:27 PM

Trump says that at his fourth of July event there will be "brand new Sherman Tanks"

“And we’re going to have some tanks stationed outside,” “Gotta be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks, so we have to put them in certain areas. But we have the brand new Sherman tanks and the brand new Abram tanks, and we have some incredible equipment — military equipment on display. Brand new. And we’re very proud of it”

Brand new Sherman Tanks.....

Dowly

07-02-19, 03:37 PM

:har::har:

Rockstar

07-02-19, 04:08 PM

lol just add it the long and distinguished list of presidential gaffs.

"I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."- Warren G. Harding

"My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." - Ronald Reagan

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." - George W. Bush

"When the President does it, that means it’s not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon

"R-S-P-E-C-T." Barrack H. Obama

And then I dont think anyone in the history of the United States political arena can compare to the 2020 presidential hopeful Joe Biden. Well, maybe G.W. could.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-gaffes-quotes-2020-election-1323905

Mr Quatro

07-02-19, 04:11 PM

What? You mean you never heard of Allen Sherman?
He probably donated a couple of new tanks from his private collection.:D

August

07-02-19, 06:28 PM

What? You mean you never heard of Allen Sherman?
He probably donated a couple of new tanks from his private collection.:D

The Alan Sherman who wrote this epic?

Hello Muddah, hello Faddah
Here I am at Camp Grenada
Camp is very entertaining
And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining
I went hiking with Joe Spivey
He developed poison ivy
You remember Leonard Skinner
He got Ptomaine poisoning last night after dinner
All the counselors hate the waiters
And the lake has alligators
And the head coach wants no sissies
So he reads to us from something called Ulysses
Now I don't want this should scare ya'
But my bunkmate has Malaria
You remember Jeffery Hardy
They're about to organize a searching party
Take me home, oh Muddah, Faddah
Take me home, I hate Grenada
Don't leave me out in the forest where
I might get eaten by a bear

Take me home, I promise I will
Not make noise, or mess the house with
Other boys, oh please don't make me stay
I've been here one whole day
Dearest Fadduh, Darling Muddah
How's my precious little bruddah
Let me come home if you miss me
I would even let Aunt Bertha hug and kiss me
Wait a minute, it's stopped hailing
Guys are swimming, guys are sailing
Playing baseball, gee that's bettah
Muddah, Faddah kindly disregard this letter

Sailor Steve

07-02-19, 08:59 PM

The Alan Sherman who wrote this epic?
All day, all night, Cary Grant!
All I hear from my wife is Cary Grant!
What can he do that I can't?
Big deal! Big star! Cary Grant!

vienna

07-03-19, 02:54 PM

We are a lot of old gits here, quoting and referring to Allan Sherman...

...now, excuse me while I go back to binge listening to Tom Lehrer, and I've still got to get to those Vaughn Meader recordings...

<O>

Sailor Steve

07-03-19, 03:59 PM

I've still got to get to those Vaughn Meader recordings...
First Family Forever!

Yes, children, there was a time when making fun of JFK was big business.

I remember reading an article at the time, and one nightclub comic had this great line: "I will be re-elected in 1964. My brother Bobby will be elected in 1968 and 1972. My brother Teddy will be elected in 1976 and 1980. Then it will be 1984 and no one will care anymore!"

vienna

07-03-19, 04:38 PM

Sailor Steve: maybe you know the name of the guy who used to do one-man shows on PBS ca. 80's (just him and a piano) where he would do musical parodies on political subjects; for the life of me I can't recall his name... :hmmm:

<O>

Platapus

07-03-19, 04:44 PM

Mark Russel

oops

Mark Russell

vienna

07-03-19, 05:07 PM

Thanks Platapus! I've never been very good at names and that one bugged me, of late... :up:

<O>

Sailor Steve

07-03-19, 05:19 PM

Also thanks from me. I didn't know that one at all.

I didn't watch too much PBS back in the day, except the British TV shows like Six Wives of Henry VIII, I Claudius and the mystery shows. Oh, and The Great American Dream Machine.

vienna

07-03-19, 05:53 PM

So...

You was that one viewer.... :03: :D

Now that I have been reminded of Mark Russell's name, I've gone on YT and found not a few clips from his shows. I also found this clip, posted in June 2016, where Russell gave an impromptu performance on the subject of the then forthcoming Election:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypymexDn6JM

At eighty, he was still sharp as a tack...

<O>

Dowly

07-05-19, 04:13 AM

https://youtu.be/3pTirPV4Onw

Idiot.

Catfish

07-05-19, 04:44 AM

^ The comments are actually comedy gold

Jimbuna

07-05-19, 05:03 AM

What I find most concerning is the fact he probably believes what he's saying.

Time for a new speech writer me thinks.

Deepseadiver

07-05-19, 05:19 AM

Finally, an American president has acknowledged the sacrifice of the Army in taking over the air force and the airports at Fort McHenry during the revolutionary war.

Skybird

07-05-19, 05:27 AM

It seems somebody has mistaken the celebration of July 4th with celebration of his own ego.

Swank is not the same like style, like gold and glamour alone cannot replace good taste.

Deepseadiver

07-05-19, 05:38 AM

I blame Admiral Nelson. If only he could of hung onto the airport and air-force for a few hours more. The US would still be a colony of ours.

Onkel Neal

07-05-19, 07:28 AM

I think he simply mispoke and said "airports" when it read "ramparts". He probably doesn't know what a rampart is.

Platapus

07-05-19, 09:50 AM

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!":Kaleun_Salute:

Platapus

07-05-19, 09:52 AM

Ft McHenry was more noted for the War of 1812. In the Civil war, that fort was primarily a prison.

Sailor Steve

07-05-19, 11:02 AM

@ Dowly:

You don't understand. What he was trying to say was...well, what he meant was...I mean it's...well...well...

:rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:

em2nought

07-05-19, 02:24 PM

JU_88

07-05-19, 03:20 PM

Reminds me of that Guy on the Chatterbox Radio Station in GTA III
the one harping on about serving during the Australian - American War

"I didn't do two tours and take boomerang shrapnel in my head, just to have a bunch of hippies deny history!"

Catfish

07-05-19, 04:03 PM

[...] Australian - American War "I didn't do two tours and take boomerang shrapnel in my head, just to have a bunch of hippies deny history!"

:rotfl2::rotfl2: i really have to memorize that :D

Sailor Steve

07-05-19, 05:31 PM

Not playing those types of games, I hadn't heard that one. Yeah, it's good. :yeah:

vienna

07-05-19, 05:54 PM

That was a pretty bad flub, but at least he doesn't want to burn the flag that was flying over Ft McHenry. :03:

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/6f/61/e5/early-american-flag-fort.jpg

There's a problem about that being the actual flag flown over the fort at the time of the battle; it seems there was a strong storm during the battle's duration and the above flag was most likely not the one FS Key wrote abut in his song parody; during inclement weather, a smaller flag was hoisted and flown over the fort and the practice was most like ly followed at Ft. McHenry. There is some serious doubt the flag on display is the actual battle flag and the other "storm flag" has been lost to history. Its one of those "if you chose to believe you may be right and if you choose not to believe, you may be right" situations...

<O>

vienna

07-05-19, 05:59 PM

Given the current state of the US, the UK must being thinking "Wow, we really dodged a bullet, there!!"...

Now, back to the continuing "Madness of 'King Donald'"...

<O>

ikalugin

07-05-19, 06:01 PM

Considering how May has butchered BREXIT I doubt this.

JU_88

07-05-19, 06:19 PM

:rotfl2::rotfl2: i really have to memorize that :D

here @53:30 or so But i recommend listening to the whole thing - its hilarious :)
https://youtu.be/3lPytfSy-04?t=3208

em2nought

07-05-19, 07:10 PM

There's a problem about that being the actual flag flown over the fort at the time of the battle; it seems there was a strong storm during the battle's duration and the above flag was most likely not the one FS Key wrote abut in his song parody; during inclement weather, a smaller flag was hoisted and flown over the fort and the practice was most like ly followed at Ft. McHenry. There is some serious doubt the flag on display is the actual battle flag and the other "storm flag" has been lost to history. Its one of those "if you chose to believe you may be right and if you choose not to believe, you may be right" situations...
<O>

There's also the same sort of thing with the Iwo Jima flag(s). http://www.jaygarmon.net/2010/02/truly-trivial-what-happened-to-first-us.html

Rockstar

07-08-19, 08:59 AM

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/save-the-democrats-nomination-process-by-giving-voters-real-debates-2019-07-08

Perfect. Just perfect.

It turns out that Kamala Harris is no big fan of federally mandated “busing” to integrate schools. The California senator pointedly refused to back the policy under questioning last week. Yes, the same person who slammed Joe Biden during the previous week’s Democratic presidential debate — or “debate” — for not supporting it, either.

I’m sure the candidates will now thrash out alleged “nuances” between their positions, but the drive-by hit at the debate wasn’t about nuance. Harris implied there was a gulf between her and Biden. And the sound-bite format let her get away with it without any real Biden comeback. Could anything illustrate better just how these so-called debates are turning our presidential elections into an absolute farce?

They’re not debates. They’re “America Lacks Talent” — an unreality show. They’re about people swapping canned sound bites and hoping one of them goes viral on YouTube.

They don’t help select the best nominee. They insult the voters, they weaken our democracy, and they may end up costing the Democrats the 2020 presidential election. This is the very process that helped Donald Trump emerge from a crowded field as the Republican nominee in 2016. Really, Democrats? This is your plan?

You want free, universal health care for “undocumented” immigrants (“Mexicare, if you will)? OK. Defend the idea. Defend the risks. Defend the costs. Explain how it would work. And explain how it might win, or lose, Wisconsin.
I want real answers. I don’t want a show of hands. What is this, fourth grade?

u crank

07-08-19, 11:00 AM

They’re not debates. They’re “America Lacks Talent” — an unreality show. They’re about people swapping canned sound bites and hoping one of them goes viral on YouTube.

This problem started with Tom Perez's decision to not let Fox News host any of the debates. This guaranteed softball questions and no pushback from moderators. This won't play out well later on.

You want free, universal health care for “undocumented” immigrants (“Mexicare, if you will)? OK. Defend the idea. Defend the risks. Defend the costs. Explain how it would work. And explain how it might win, or lose, Wisconsin.
I want real answers. I don’t want a show of hands. What is this, fourth grade?

What is remarkable is that not one of these people had the backbone to say I'm not going to do it without an explanation pro or con. Not very Presidential.

Rockstar

07-09-19, 01:12 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C5F1bsh6h0

Rockstar

07-10-19, 08:51 AM

fed chair testifies before congress live feed 10am 10 July 2019

https://youtu.be/HoWM7KpkAmY

Dowly

07-11-19, 12:18 AM

https://i.imgur.com/Fv5InCr.jpg

Rockstar

07-11-19, 07:24 AM

Transcript of Fed Chair testimony before congress

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/powell20190710a.htm

So far the economy doing well.

... The economy performed reasonably well over the first half of 2019, and the current expansion is now in its 11th year. However, inflation has been running below the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) symmetric 2 percent objective, and crosscurrents, such as trade tensions and concerns about global growth, have been weighing on economic activity and the outlook. The labor market remains healthy. Job gains averaged 172,000 per month from January through June. This number is lower than the average of 223,000 a month last year but above the pace needed to provide jobs for new workers entering the labor force. Consequently, the unemployment rate moved down from 3.9 percent in December to 3.7 percent in June, close to its lowest level in 50 years. Job openings remain plentiful, and employers are increasingly willing to hire workers with fewer skills and train them. As a result, the benefits of a strong job market have been more widely shared in recent years. Indeed, wage gains have been greater for lower-skilled workers. That said, individuals in some demographic groups and in certain parts of the country continue to face challenges. For example, unemployment rates for African Americans and Hispanics remain well above the rates for whites and Asians. ...on a side note instead of input from main stream media whose business it is to sell papers by any means necessary, political fanboys, internet memes or foreigners who suffer from the 'dark tetrad' compounded by heavy drinking because they have nothing else in life to do. Which only serve to divide a nation down political lines. There is a ton of information out there which you can see and read with your own eyes to make your own informed opinions and decisions. Which in turn will empower the readers to better hold BOTH parties accountable. If we grow up and start acting like adults they will have no choice but to follow suit.

According to Fed Chair what I found out is here at home, jobs are plentiful, employment good but needs work, wages are finally moving up primarily for whites and Asians however not sufficiently enough for others, national economy is doing well, global economy is slowing and we may eventually follow along that same path.

As of the 24th of July The Great State of Maryland will increase minimum wage of $15.00 and hour. yipeee!

Rockstar

07-11-19, 09:05 AM

Fed Chair live stream before senate

https://youtu.be/NfNFPr8eJZM

Skybird

07-12-19, 10:49 AM

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48962885

Will the US stand by its word and throw Turkey out? Turkey has plenty of money paid into the program, so a real kick-out will mean a substantial worstening of the relations with the US. Not that I would care - question is does or does not the US care as little for Turkey as I do?

I would welcome the US being tough here, for it could mark the beginning of the end of Turkey'S NATO membership. The Europeans will try to keep Turkey in, but guess who sits at the longer lever here: its the sam eguy who also sits at the longer lever in the Iran problem. And a turkey getting even closer to Russia as a consequence from beign no longe rin NATO, might be a wake-up call to Europeans with Russian influence driving deper into their Southern flank. Stratgeic threats cna have a good consequence: they hold a chance to make you awake again where before you were sleeping.

Russian influence also grows stronger in Greece, and already has been before, due to shared orthodox culture. Througho9ut the cold war Greece always was seen as a shaky ally.

If the US plays it tough with Turkey, and Erdoghan snaps, yes, then Europe really needs to realise some hard facts in its south. Which I welcome.

Trump can also use this issue as a tool to put pressure on the Europeans again, due to Europe beign piushed by Merkel into deep dependency on Turkey and Erdoghan's good will regarding migration routes.

Trump must enjoy his seat in all this. His position is strong, and he can once again dupe the Europeans "en passant". And I doubt he would consider to pay Turkey out. Thats pissing two sides for the price of one! :yeah:

Rockstar

07-12-19, 02:42 PM

just a guess based on news reports here. Suprisingly government appears unified in its position of not allowing Turkey to have its cake and eat it too.

talk already about no longer buying f35 parts from turkish manufactures by 2020 or allowing the purchase of these aircraft if Turkey continues with s-400 program

August

07-12-19, 03:04 PM

Picture illustrating how much Dowly hates our president (again)

So why do you put President in quotation marks Dowly? Are you attempting to claim that he was not legitimately elected? What are you going to do when he gets REelected? :haha:

Catfish

07-12-19, 03:38 PM

So why do you put President in quotation marks Dowly? Are you attempting to claim that he was not legitimately elected? What are you going to do when he gets REelected? :haha:

Legitimately indeed. Obviously no one else in the whole US was better.
But regarding your question I guess it is because no one outside of the US sees this something as a 'president'. Not now and not in the future.

Hey the main thing is Trump and Skybird have fun :D

August

07-12-19, 04:02 PM

But regarding your question I guess it is because no one outside of the US sees this something as a 'president'. Not now and not in the future.

No one? Did you all take a vote or something?

I mean it's not necessarily a bad thing to be disliked by those who have done nothing but dislike us ever since we became a country, but i'm curious, my what authority do you speak for the entire non US world?

Onkel Neal

07-12-19, 05:14 PM

Your "President"

I'm ok with most of those criticisms, I think they are apt. But be fair, did you have a similar collage for Obama or Clinton? :)

Meanwhile, it's so much fun to watch the PC crowd devour itself. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/12/about-that-aoc-problem/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bfaa502a3742)

Buddahaid

07-12-19, 10:23 PM

Rockstar

07-13-19, 05:57 AM

ah the real face of american politics. Us'ins agin them'ins. the dumbing down of the American electorate, reduced to memes and personal attacks on each other instead of paying attention to what the elected.

As far as Dowly and his meme all I can say is: we taught him well what its all about dont you think? I mean all he's doing is just following our example.

on the otherhand I could go to the Continuaton War thread and start trashing Finland, their politics, dig up some atrocities, make up and post some meme too. You know the usual troll stuff which adds absolutley nothing to the discussion

August

07-13-19, 09:31 AM

It doesn't need to be fair. What are you some type of socialist? :shucks:

It's nice to see August has a knee jerk reaction to "criticism" of "our" "president" just like "our" "president" does. It must sting somehow, and yes, Trump continues to piss off the right people, or is that the left people, or the right wrong people, or....:arrgh!:

Well Budda we'll see who he's really pissed off the most come november 2020. The way it's looking now with the Dems lockstep march to insanity he'll continue pissing them off for another 4 years after that. :)
Support open borders and free healthcare for illegal aliens? Madness.

em2nought

07-13-19, 10:02 AM

Meanwhile, it's so much fun to watch the PC crowd devour itself. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/12/about-that-aoc-problem/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bfaa502a3742)

It's even more fun to chum the water. :D

JU_88

07-13-19, 10:08 AM

So hypothetically if (in 2020) Trump wins the popular vote but losses the the college to his Dem Rival, Are the same outraged Democrats going to come out in Trumps defense and complain their own candidate is now illegitimate? And are absolutely NO Reps going to use the same argument that system is unfair?

No of course not. And the predictable accusations of hypocrisy will fly in both directions.

Those kinds of interchangeable 'hack' arguments are not grounded in any kind of principle.
I'm not a big fan of Trump either, the but the 'electoral college/popular vote argument' against him is a massive load of old bollocks.
he won the electoral college so he won the presidency. Any objection simply translates as:
'The system must be unfair if it didn't deliver the result I wanted'

Sorry but, that is the reasoning of an infant.

Mr Quatro

07-13-19, 10:27 AM

Well Budda we'll see who he's really pissed off the most come november 2020. The way it's looking now with the Dems lockstep march to insanity he'll continue pissing them off for another 4 years after that. :)
Support open borders and free healthcare for illegal aliens? Madness.

Yes, Trump will overcome all obstacle 's to win in 2020 (15 1/2 months from now), but then comes the breaking news that President Trump will not finish his 2nd term, but instead turn the WH over to VP Pence. :yep:

August

07-13-19, 11:02 AM

So hypothetically if (in 2020) Trump wins the popular vote but losses the the college to his Dem Rival, Are the same outraged Democrats going to come out in Trumps defense and complain their own candidate is now illegitimate?

They've set themselves up to have to do just that.

My state, as blue as they come, just signed a multi-state compact to give our electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote. In the scenario you describe they'd be forced to award them to Trump. Oh i can just imagine how that will go up on Beacon Hill! :)

August

07-13-19, 11:05 AM

Yes, Trump will overcome all obstacle 's to win in 2020 (15 1/2 months from now), but then comes the breaking news that President Trump will not finish his 2nd term, but instead turn the WH over to VP Pence. :yep:

Democrats are also setting themselves up to loose control of the House too and with it goes any chance of that happening.

https://freebeacon.com/columns/pelosis-house-of-pain/

Onkel Neal

07-13-19, 12:35 PM

It doesn't need to be fair. What are you some type of socialist? :shucks:

:

No, but I am annoyed by hypocrisy and double standards.

Well Budda we'll see who he's really pissed off the most come november 2020. The way it's looking now with the Dems lockstep march to insanity he'll continue pissing them off for another 4 years after that. :)
Support open borders and free healthcare for illegal aliens? Madness.

Yeah, unless the US has shifted more that I think, that's what's coming.

JU_88

07-13-19, 03:55 PM

I'm quite bewildered by the more far left Democrat rhetoric as well. (no borders, no ICE, free health care for non citizens)
They don't seem to realize that's actually a pretty niche market they are selling to. But if you are stuck in a social media bubble you might well be lead to think its popular opinion, when its statistically not.
And the other issue is 'trump derangement', it turns out policy based on 'just do the polar opposite of whatever bad orange man wants' doesn't make you sound reasonable, realistic or sane.
Who knew? .....well not them obviously. :doh:

Politicians need to be technocrats first and ideologues second. That's like' How to politician in democracy 101"

Buddahaid

07-13-19, 10:57 PM

Onkel Neal

07-14-19, 09:07 AM

I'm not a fan of anybody the Dems are espousing. I might get on board with Kamala Harris but I just can't vote for Trump as the best of the worst even though he would appear to be heading for another term.

I couldn't vote for Trumpo in the last election BUT with the insanity coming from the left growing to epic proportions, and with Trump getting 3% of the things he has promised done, I am beginning to think I will vote for him next year. He's going to get reelected, baring some major faux pas. I know quite a few people like me who did not vote for him in 2016 who are telling me they will enthusiastically support him over the likes of Harris, Biden and Warren.

Skybird

07-14-19, 11:30 AM

I can understand your motivation there, Neal. It reminds me a bit of myself. Over here, we have the Pegida movement which is even worse right extremist than a currently splitting 40% wing in the AFD, and there is the AFD itself. I have not much sympathies and absolutely zero loyalty for them all, parties and leading personnel alike, I strongly dislike them personally (the leaders of all these groups are awful personalities, some underhanded, others incredibly childish and infantile, and all of them unbelievably rightous and narcissistic), still I refuse to demonstrate or talk against them, because of the leftists' and progressives' calamities. The enemy of my ebemy is not necessarily my friend, but still is my enemy's enemy, and so I passively tolerate them, without sympathy, and due to pure opportunism.

Because the mainstream parties and their leaders, the mainstream opinion makers and influencer behemoths of media and movements, have left people like me no other choice. I refuse to chose between what they now call "Dunkeldeutschland", and the claimed "light" in form of the socialists/progressives/politically correct/special interest lobbyists. To me, they are all the same awful breed.

These are the times of a big darkening, it seems. People like me, and probably you, are not allowed any reasonable choices anymore. How to continue with your life without beign totally pissed by people and the mess they do around you...? I attack Trump a lot, and leave no good hair on him, and still I can understand your consideration. I would not go as far as to vote for him, but I understand it all too well. Its not just America - its in all the Western world now, it seems. And especially extreme in Germany. I do not recongise this country anymore form my expectations for a future I held after I finished school almost 35 years ago. And my parents say the same.

I read a newspaper article today, Russia preparing itself for local regional wars across Europe. Their concern in this is not so much to invade themselves deep into Europe - but to be able to keep the European turmoils away from their own country. I can understand them all to well, too. Occasionally there was to read in newspapers that the Pentagon also holds the expectation of growing hostility in Europe again, including the realistic possibility of wars again. There are so many conflictz-heavy themes, from water over ideology and religon to ressources, mass migration, ethnic land taking, confölicts between old and young, redistriubution crusades, it is apparently impossble not to make any step anymore without breaking some mine's trapwire. The West is a pressure cooker now, and temperature already is high, the progressives do their best to defend their grip of the regulator switch to make sure it stays at maximum, and it is quite clear where this madness necessarily must lead to. I believe in the inevitable causal link between cause and effect.

My personal chpoice in all this? I withjdrew from most of public life, work, contributing to society for free like I once did for many years, and all that. I created myself a hidden, small refugium, avoid the people for the most, and enjoy it as long as it will still last. And when its over and the world blows up one day, so may it be: delivery as ordered.

JU_88

07-14-19, 12:38 PM

@Sky, Russia is always doing drills and preparing for worst case scenarios,
during the height of the Syria tensions they actually did Nuclear Drills with citizens.
Russia's preparations are not a blue print of the future though, they just take national & regional security very seriously.

Skybird

07-16-19, 06:08 AM

Hooray and congratulations for the broken record, WH projects a fiscal budget deficit of

1.000.000.000.000 dollar this year.

"Once more into the abyss, dear friends, once more; close the gaps with our ruined savers, no debt shall ever be paid back, nor property remain untouched, in misery and fall we all shall finally be equal! Party hard, dance life away, and be dead before the kitchen cleaning starts!"

MMT. The modern recipe to leave nobody behind while commiting collective suicide.

Mr Quatro

07-16-19, 09:38 AM

August

07-16-19, 04:07 PM

Hooray and congratulations for the broken record, WH projects a fiscal budget deficit of

1.000.000.000.000 dollar this year.

A single trillion dollar deficit out of the 3.6 Trillion they will rake in this year hardly seems worth ripping off Shakespeare. :doh:

Skybird

07-16-19, 05:44 PM

Its already now 23% higher a budget deficit than it was for the whole last year.

And this is from 2018.
https://www.crfb.org/press-releases/new-white-house-report-shows-deficit-projections-have-doubled

No nation can sustain such madness for unlimited time. Money system must crash. And then the horror for the ordinary people begins. There is a reaosn why states wage total war on cahs money and prvate gold possession. The hint that one has been there before, holds no solace at all. We the living must fear the disaster to come, not the disaster that lies back in time.

And no share holder and land and house property hgolder should think he is safe. Shares are registered, land property cant be hidden and moved out of reach of the state plunderers. The syndicate of crime that states are, will get us all. By prohibitions, prosecution, and expropriations, or by deleting currency tokens and implementing plundering tax regimes.

Plus the plundering of value due to inflation and negative punishment interests is already there.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/white-house-expects-a-1-trillion-deficit-in-2019-and-nobody-cares

It's worrisome enough that President Trump has allowed deficits to creep back up to $1 trillion in 2019, according to (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/20msr.pdf?_cldee=bmVsaXNAdGhlaGlsbC5jb20%3d&recipientid=contact-be1a39f03079e71193fd0050568d4238-3dd5ebb0e7ec4d06949cbe400b375d51&esid=12a73077-28a7-e911-9415-0050568d4238) the White House's own estimates. But what's remarkable is that they've gotten so high during a booming economy, when deficits typically narrow. Despite this fact, both parties are as far as ever from caring about the mounting federal debt.

Globally, debts today are much higher, I think around TWICE as high as they were before 2007 symptom breakout. NOBODY HAS LEARNED ANYTHING FROM THAT. From worse to worse to worse. "Ever again into the abyss, ever again! Learning lessons is for stupids! Ruining everything is fun!"

Onkel Neal

07-16-19, 07:45 PM

Sky, people don't really learn these kind of lessons. That's why it keeps happening. :haha:

Rockstar

07-16-19, 07:58 PM

Too us peons a trillion more dollars is certainly a vast almost unimaginable sum of money. But compared to the United States of America its assets, a 20 trillion dollar economy and 3.5 trillion in federal tax revenue. So long as we dont run short and start uncontrollably printing money thereby devaluing the dollar we are, I think, far from trouble. We're not Greece.

When I buy a new car I go in debt, but its not the end of the world so long as I have the means to pay it back.

edit: What If We Paid Off The Debt? The Secret Government Report

October 20, 2011 12:59 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/10/21/141510617/what-if-we-paid-off-the-debt-the-secret-government-report
... It sounds ridiculous today. But not so long ago, the prospect of a debt-free U.S. was seen as a real possibility with the potential to upset the global financial system. ...
The copy of Life After Debt we obtained reads "PRELIMINARY AND CLOSE HOLD OFFICIAL USE ONLY."
The report was intended to be included in the official "Economic Report of the President" — the final one of the Clinton administration. But in the end, people above Jason Seligman decided it was too speculative, too politically sensitive. So it was never published. The danger that we would pay off our debt by 2012 has clearly passed. There are plenty of Treasury bonds around these days. U.S. debt held by the public is now over $10 trillion. :o

PDF copy of report:https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/10/20/LifeAfterDebt.pdf

https://media.giphy.com/media/3og0IPbUygZWsgzj5m/giphy.gif

Skybird

07-17-19, 04:42 AM

Sky, people don't really learn these kind of lessons. That's why it keeps happening. :haha:
Yes, and politicians do their best to prevent them from learning them.

Still, what is currently unfolding and is about coming after us, will get me as well. My lifeplan and security, once tailored to be independent and self-respnisble, maybe collapses due to that: due to other people'S faults and stupidity. And thats why I am worried, and rate this as an attack on my existence. And thats why I see politicians and central bankers and money theorestists not as just an abstract, anonymous threat, but my personal deadly enemy. Its as simpe as that. I am not so unconditionally hostile towards them all for no reason. Atlas Shrugged becomes true. Unfortunately I am not as ingenious as John Galt.

Rockstar

07-17-19, 09:46 AM

This guy first said its not going to replace the U.S. dollar then a few minutes later says it will and on top of that stated a desire that Libra be the only world currency. :har:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4aPp3wGufY

Skybird

07-17-19, 10:43 AM

Its easy to conclude that any currency establishing itself as an alternative to rotten, fraudulent state money, is good, and many tick by this logic for sure. But Facenbook's has an own interest and agenda here, and the example of Bitcoins showed that cryptocurrencies are not prone to being abused by organised criminals. Also, states still have the means and tools to enforce any prohibition and intimidate people from using them, since in a digital world all what you do leaves traces and makes you tis prone to announced punishment for using such currencies.

Also, it is an unwelcomed rival to the central banks with their debt loads and FIAT money ideology. For this reason central banks try to make people believe that gold is useless today (while they buy this useless commodity themselves like crazy since some years...). For similiar reasons they will not reach positive conclusions when assessing cryptocurrencies. It threatens the debt-basing financing of states. Their opportunism demands that they condemn it.

People first must understand the need for better money and why the monopole of controlling it must be taken away from the state at any cost, even by force. As long as this understanding is not so widespread that politicians must fear people'S retaliation if they try to claim control of money for themselves, I am a bit sceptical that any attempt of rebellion can be successful. Without understanding, their can be no determination over this issue.

Finally, cryptocurrencies have two flaws. First, they are no good, no commodity, no item, no token, they are as nonsubstantial as digital bank money and paper money, just that bthe state cannot overwatch it as easily as the established FIAT money system. Second, to "mine" - what a misleading euphemism! - this non-existent quantity of abstraction, hilarious ammounts of electricity already get consumed right now. Think of it. This enormous consumption of energy resources to produce - NOTHING. Its like mining for gold, not finding gold, and claiming one found gold. Little kids do like that when playing games in their fantasy.

As an economic Austrian, I am split over the issue. I like the idea of breakign state'S money monopole, yes. But I still prefer a material commodity curreency as a replacement - and politicians needing to fear for their lives if they dare to touch it. I tend to focus more on the interesting technical aspects of the security technology with the name blockchain, but that alone is no money, but just a method, a functionality. Its no money. The principle diea of a magmentic door lock, may be very good (I have one myself, so I know it a bit) - but it is no replacement for actually having a material lock mounted in your door for real.

You can play casino, of course. Quickly get a dose of cryptocurrency, try to barter with it, and turn it with profit into something of material existence that has bartering value on the market. But that you already can do with paper money - both its paper-based and its digital version - as well. You need knowledge that most do not have. And if you order others to do on your behalf, you again need to trust them and are in the v uklnerabkle position from beginning on. I do not like to be in such a disadvantageous position where I depend ont he good will and mercy of some foreign person.

Last but not least, the syndicate - the state - always can decide to raise penalty taxes on any cryptocurrency transaction. Like anonymous owners of gold could be caught this way when they try to legally sell it. In the end, the big threatening problem overshadowing it all, is the state (and its actors) itself.

I see it pragmatic when assessing the value of a money. Does the money allow me to hold somethign of market value in my hands, carry it away, hide it from the plundering state, is it of material existence and in demand for the sake of itself being what it is (has it an "intrinsic" market value therefore when bartering with it) , or is it just promise, claim, hope, abstraction, that can be ordered in its value by the state at will at any time, but leaves me with empty hands and in a state of complete helplessness and vulnerability? The first is good money. The latter is fraud, and in the end a state-driven all-out assault on the basis of our material existence in this civilization and society.

Nothing beasts material commodity money that is borught up by the market and not controllable by the state. Nothing beats that, its just one of the most important inventions in the history of mankind. And if history shows us one thing, then that politicians and governments never, never, never shall be given control over the money. NEVER.

em2nought

07-17-19, 12:06 PM

If facebook libra was to become the world standard anyone who ever picked on a nerd in their lifetime would go to the ovens along with anyone who loves America. I miss Tom at MySpace. :D:D:D

I could see Mark Zuckerberg as "the beast", or at least starring in the next film adaption of "The Omen" LOL

JU_88

07-17-19, 12:41 PM

Unlikely, Facebook and Twitter seem to be competing to see who can become the next My Space the fastest.

Catfish

07-18-19, 07:46 AM

Europeans go home (https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fdietagespresse.com%2Fgeht-nach-hause-trump-fordert-322-millionen-amerikaner-auf-nach-europa-zurueck-zu-kehren%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR217lHnfPmkkEeTWts3aCrkotY gs4zz9tWrFmqqyJZyzp3L2ccaGji58F4) :hmmm: :haha:
(Google translation)

"By noon, finally, all Americans with roots abroad have left the country. The Aponivi Enapay ("uninsured eagle") Indian walks alone through the empty streets of Washington, past several bales Tumbleweed, to the White House. Unnoticed, he seizes power and subjugates all other aborigines. On Twitter he just wrote: "Make Native America Great Again"."

Jimbuna

07-18-19, 09:11 AM

^:haha:

Sailor Steve

07-18-19, 09:55 AM

The oldest ancestor I know by name came from Wales. I'm sure I have such a huge mix in my heritage I could never sort it all out. My latest foreign relative, my father's mother, was from Germany.

Where do I go?

Rockstar

07-18-19, 11:21 AM

I recently researched by family ties. Found and made contact with 1st cousins in Norway, Finland and Sweden. Outside of that bloodlines extend into Karelian peninsula/NW Russia. France, Germany/Prussia, Eastern Europe, Mediterranian and Slavic states.

I'm ready to go who will take me? Anyone? Bueller, anyone?

vienna

07-18-19, 04:51 PM

In last night's monologue, Colbert noted the whole Rep. Mike Kelly claim he is a person of color because he is White; Kelly also claimed, because he is Irish, he is also Anglo-Saxon, something which I knew the minute I'd heard about Kelly's idiocy earlier he was absolutely wrong; having grown up in a half-Irish neighborhood, in a city with a very large Irish population, I know the Irish are Celts, not Anglo-Saxons; it is indeed sad when bigots don't even know the roots of their own ethnicity while they question the roots of others; but then again, bigots aren't really known for their knowledge and intelligence or for their grasp of simple facts or, for that matter, facts in general...

Colbert's comments about Kelly start at about 3:15 into the clip...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-qEKhiaFzM

<O>

Buddahaid

07-18-19, 09:02 PM

Really president fathead? You started it!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49035505

JU_88

07-19-19, 02:25 AM

His Tweets were bad even for his standards - even though I don't like the 4 democrats they were aimed at, it was out of line.
I'm still entertaining this theory that this latest gaff was maybe him taking a bullet tactically though. But if so, Trump is playing with Fire.

1) Distracts the media with nasty tweets, while he quietly removes asylum for South American nations. (If so, its worked)

2) Rally Nancy Pelosi and wider Democrat support around four of its Fringiest far left members who have a very low favorability rating. - making the Dems overall political position look insane and ultimately damaging them for 2020. -That said, Trumps remarks are not exactly likely to be a hit with swing voters either.

If you think about it, Trump is so reviled by the left (and considered racist) anyway, so he didn't really have alot to lose as far as they are concerned.
And actual policy advocating open borders and equity though intersectionality will scare off most Americans more than a bigoted tweet that will soon get buried.
However the 'Send her back' chants, re-enforces why that kind of rhetoric is pretty dangerous as well as nasty.

Bilge_Rat

07-19-19, 09:08 AM

re the "so-called"/"horrible" "racist"/"non-racist" tweets (depending on your political viewpoint), as usual there is a lot of hypocrisy on both sides.

The only thing that is clear is that it has not moved the needle one bit. POTUS overall approval rating and approval rating among Republicans has not budged at all.

Dowly

07-19-19, 09:18 AM

depending on your political viewpoint
It really doesn't. Racism is racism. Telling someone to go "where they came from" even if said person is an American citizen is very much racist.

as usual there is a lot of hypocrisy on both sides.Do tell.

POTUS overall approval rating and approval rating among Republicans has not budged at all.You're right, in fact some polls say his approval ratings increased among Republicans after his tweets. Tells something about Republicans doesn't it.

Bilge_Rat

07-19-19, 09:30 AM

It really doesn't. Racism is racism. Telling someone to go "where they came from" even if said person is an American citizen is very much racist.

Do tell.

You're right, in fact some polls say his approval ratings increased among Republicans after his tweets. Tells something about Republicans doesn't it.

you are so predictable. :haha:

Mr Quatro

07-19-19, 09:36 AM

Why do they keep leaving out that President Trump said, "If you don't like America get out"?

Dowly

07-19-19, 09:46 AM

you are so predictable. :haha:Sure, go ahead ignoring the questions.

Why do they keep leaving out that President Trump said, "If you don't like American get out"?Whose version of America? Trump's?

Mr Quatro

07-19-19, 10:21 AM

Sure, go ahead ignoring the questions.

Whose version of America? Trump's?

Mine ... My America is country music, county fairs, beach bon fires, sports car races, College football, NFL football, back yard barbecues, playing pool at the local hang out, stuck in traffic listening to the news, relaxing under the freedoms our country gives us from wackos that want to destroy it. :yeah:

Skybird

07-19-19, 10:32 AM

There are mostly two forms of identity today.

The one is formal and bureaucratic, and bases on official papers with some official stamp on it. You fill a form, some uniform-wearer or clerk stamps it, and you are thos or that from that moment on. Formally.

The other is basing on life-long grown feeling of identit,y based on history, cilutre, socialisation, values,, memories, perosnal traits that formed up and itnercted with the environment. Its where the heart is, family came from, where people emotionaly reflect over. Etc. etc. etc.

Botht hings are two very, very diferent things.

This does not stop clever progressives to abuse the first definition as a strawman argument to defend peoiple who lack the latter.

Its the reason why I formed the habit to call some foreigner from far away who arrived and lives in Germany without being assimilated by German identity and even resisting to integrate himself, not a "German", but for example a Nigerian with german ID papers. - And yes, I said "assimilate". Becasue lets face it: to integrate yourself means that you allow getting assimilated by the new cultural context you have sought for, anbd found, and entered. No assimilation = no integration.

The bureaucratic definition of identity is lifeless and only helps bureaucrats and law-givers to keep their office problems sorted and in order. The latter definition however is what is the living reality and that decides what kind of person you are dealing with. The latter is the far more important definition. Its why the integraiton of the poverwhelming lion'S share of Musli migrants in Germany (and elsewhere in Europe) over the past decades has failed although they are officially "German". Islam knows no category "nationality", and "national state".

You can be called of this or that nationality, but without identifying with it. While you also can identify yourself with it, without having that nationality.

Lefties and progressive hate to be told this, it spoils their propaganda. For them, identity must come from the ideologiy-lab, totally arbitraily constructed due to opportunistic planning and intention, approved by their worldview, and opportunistically supporting their cause. The goal is always the same: to gain control and powert over people and subjugate them to one's own command.

I can tell from experience that outside the West people and regional culturres are not as degenerated as the West in general when it comes to the value and importance of identity (or family, while we are at it).

And the ancient Greek, the people whose city states we call the cradle of democracy, did not allow free rich man (= "citizens" these are, the only "citizens" there were) to raise their voice in the city assembly and to give their vote on issues who were up to be decided on, without these citizens beign able to prove a solid renown for being loyal to the family ancestors, the culture and religion of the city, and its deities. Multi-Culti? Allowing just any Peter and Paul and strolling dog and unknown foreigner in, and give him a word on decisions affecting the city's interest? Endlessly relativising one'S own identity and values until nothing was left of them anymore and the foreign is rated as precious already ust because it is not oneself? Maybe in the madhouse that the West is today. But not in the cradle of democracy, ancient Greece. There it would have been seen as treason.

Decadence, infantilization, cultural degeneration everywhere in the West. A growing of weakness and impotence, the rules of the orioginal inhabitants of places having less and lesser relevance. Laws being up to getting violated by the state himself, so that braking law and treaty becomes valid state reason (Merkel always on my mind), states that first have ursurped power monopoles and now being increasingly impotent to fulfill the services and duties they once promised to deliver. Its the final act of the play, the final curtain has been risen, and the horns and trumpets have started the final fanfare for the great, sad final.

u crank

07-19-19, 11:37 AM

This whole 'go back where you came from' dust up confirms that the progressive left has perfected the race card. Any criticism of a nonwhite person by a white person immediately gets the 'racist' card played. It doesn't matter whether it is a legitimate criticism or a true fact. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are the experts at this. They used it against Trump and they used it against Pelosi. In both instances the criticism was well founded but that doesn't matter. It's a child's game.

em2nought

07-19-19, 11:44 AM

eddie

07-20-19, 01:00 AM

JU_88

07-20-19, 04:56 AM

LOL Eddie :) Touche ^

All said and done about Trumps (Go back) line being 'out of line'
what gets ignored is the full context of who is it aimed at an Why.

Of the the Four targeted women, congress woman Ilhan Omar has basically nothing positive to say about the U.S. and Americans in general.
She quite vocally dislikes Jews and has a negative view of Whites (because they all have privilege through the ol' intersectional lense, and bla bla bla.)
She is quite the privileged bigot herself :P, so I cant say I feel much if any empathy for her personally.

No- I disliked Trumps words because its cheap and dangerous rhetoric that only deepens racial tensions and hurts people who did nothing wrong.
And its completely unnecessary to go that low to challenge the ideas of the likes of Omar and Cortez, because their ideas are mostly crap and they pretty much hang them selves anyway.

Sigh*

Similar thing with the Mayor of London here - Sadiq Kahn, when he got elected. The Far right was predictably proclaiming, 'London has fallen' 'Sharia Law by tomorrow' Sky is falling in' etc :yawn: While for Far left was of course bathing in their self congratulatory warm diarrhea 'how progressive we are for electing a Muslim'... :zzz:

Who was actually talking about his policies? Nobody really, the focus was all on 'what' not 'who' he was. Both Right and Left being 100% identitarian Morons.

And here we are again.
"Pick a side everyone! so we can obviously call you a communist or a racist, because we should all be morons who can only see in black and white."

Onkel Neal

07-20-19, 07:03 AM

ikalugin

07-20-19, 07:19 AM

LOL
https://i.postimg.cc/3xTKhv4b/67399190-10103707635690445-3980747072012812288-n.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
Blood and soil argument? :)

u crank

07-20-19, 07:46 AM

There have to be better candidates out there, someone with a little class and dignity who will form policies that strengthen our our country and not simply pander to groups and their self-interests. I just wish that candidate would show up.

There's your trouble. Both sides are playing a zero sum game. The policies being touted by the current crop of Democratic candidates would put Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the Republican party as moderates. I don't see any viable candidates on either side talking about reaching out to the middle ground. Well except Marianne Williamson. :O:

Maybe it's time to look offshore. I am available.:D

ikalugin

07-20-19, 07:59 AM

Do you have valuable skills?

u crank

07-20-19, 08:10 AM

Do you have valuable skills?

Yep. I got a lot of free time.:yep:

Bilge_Rat

07-20-19, 08:33 AM

:haha: Eddie,

JU_88, you nailed it, it's a sad state we find ourselves in. I fear it will only get worse. We can do a lot better than Donald Trump as our leader. There have to be better candidates out there, someone with a little class and dignity who will form policies that strengthen our our country and not simply pander to groups and their self-interests. I just wish that candidate would show up.

Agreed.

I remember reading somewhere that the only people who ran for President had enormous egos, very thick skins, killer instincts and willingness to walk over their own mothers for the job. :)

There are many persons who could do a decent job at it, but very few are wiling to put up with the process to get there.

Trump is far from the ideal POTUS, but the choice in 2020 won't be between Trump and the ideal candidate, but Trump vs whoever the Dems put up.

Skybird

07-20-19, 08:47 AM

The political systems in the West are such that not the best, most competent, most suited by character, the most self-controlled, calm and reasonable people get elected, but those who lie the most ruthlessly, boast the most unscrupulously, make promises the most infinitely, nod at the most of peoples' wishes and demands, and are embedded and raised in the bigger corrupted networks of people being like this.

If you want better candidates, Neal, you need to want a better electorate first. ;) The candidates are just a mirror's reflection of the electorate.

Platapus

07-20-19, 09:14 AM

The quandary is that anyone who wants to be president is most likely not a person we want as president. :03:

vienna

07-20-19, 12:09 PM

Yep. I got a lot of free time.:yep:

I don't know if that's a selling point...

...maybe if you couch it in terms like DT does for all the time (i.e., most of his time) he goofs off, ya know, call it "executive time"... :D

<O>

u crank

07-20-19, 01:49 PM

...maybe if you couch it in terms like DT does for all the time (i.e., most of his time) he goofs off, ya know, call it "executive time"... :D

It seems like the President hardly breaks a sweat keeping the 'derangement' crowd busy. That alone is worth the price of admission.:up:

Onkel Neal

07-20-19, 03:21 PM

Maybe it's time to look offshore. I am available.:D

I have but one question: Would you recognize the right of Texas Independence by self-determination?

u crank

07-20-19, 03:48 PM

I have but one question: Would you recognize the right of Texas Independence by self-determination?

Sure.

:hmmm:

What's Texas?

vienna

07-20-19, 04:03 PM

It seems like the President hardly breaks a sweat keeping the 'derangement' crowd busy. That alone is worth the price of admission.:up:

Yes, I agree: the crowds at his rallies are an amusing deranged lot and as long as he keeps them busy at the rallies, well, at least they are not free to roam the public streets...

<O>

u crank

07-20-19, 04:13 PM

Yes, I agree: the crowds at his rallies are an amusing deranged lot and as long as he keeps them busy at the rallies, well, at least they are not free to roam the public streets...

I rest my case. :D

vienna

07-20-19, 04:27 PM

I didn't know you had a case to rest... :haha:

<O>

JU_88

07-21-19, 05:00 AM

And here is the non republican half of the problem....

https://youtu.be/fUfjLZNnWds

Mr Quatro

07-21-19, 05:20 AM

You only have three choices to vote democrats or republicans or not to vote at all ... I know, I know someone will run as a third party and the losing party will blame the third party for taking their votes.

Right now the mood is don't let America go down the drain as a Socialist State, which leaves the GOP a clear path to another four years in the 2020 run for the WH :yep:

Skybird

07-21-19, 07:44 AM

And here is the non republican half of the problem....

https://youtu.be/fUfjLZNnWds

https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tagesspiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fus-wahlkampf-wie-die-demokraten-zur-ethnischen-spaltung-der-usa-beitragen%2F24683218.html

August

07-21-19, 09:50 AM

An interesting article from the Orange County Register.

A class guide to the 2020 presidential election: Joel Kotkin

America’s electorate in 2020 has been dissected by race, region, cultural attitudes and gender. But the most important division may well be, in a nation that has become profoundly unequal, along class lines. All politicians, from Donald Trump to Elizabeth Warren, portray themselves as “fighting for the middle class” and “working families.” Yet our increasingly neo-feudal America is best broken down into four broad groups — the oligarchs, the clerisy, the yeomanry and the serfs. The oligarchs dominate the economic realm, including control of information media. Below them are sometimes allied members of the clerisy, the well-educated middle class who set the country’s intellectual and cultural context.
Below them are the two most numerous classes — the property-owning yeomanry and, most numerous of all, expanding the new serfdom. Understanding these groups provides a valuable insight into 2020’s realities.

https://outline.com/SKpqpm

Onkel Neal

07-21-19, 10:02 AM

That article lost me when it tried to force medieval terms onto our society.

August

07-21-19, 10:11 AM

That article lost me when it tried to force medieval terms onto our society.

Yeah I was wondering if that would be a detraction. If you can try and see beyond the stupid tags I think he makes some excellent points.

BrucePartington

07-21-19, 06:39 PM

The quandary is that anyone who wants to be president is most likely not a person we want as president. :03:

I touched this issue in the past :O: (you may remember it).

Leadership without ego really is the rarest commodity.
Nobody runs for office out of selflessness. All candidates expect some kind of reward: power, prestige, money and business connections, you name it. What we wish we had is candidates that would take pride in doing a good job while in office, rather than just take advantage of it for self-serving purposes.
One can always dream.

Bilge_Rat

07-22-19, 10:41 AM

old news, but read an interesting article on the downfall of Al Franken.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken

Reporter Jane Meyer investigated all the sexual complaints which came out in 2017 and found they were either baseless or flimsy or riddled with inconsistency. If Franken had been given a fair hearing, he probably could have weathered the crisis.

However, since this was at the height of the "MeToo" movement, he was thrown under the bus by Senate Democrats who were more interested in potentially picking up a Senate Seat in Alabama than protecting their colleagues.

An interesting angle is that apparently, pro-Trump groups were behind the original accusation. :hmmm:

A big part of Franken’s political problem was the way the story broke. KABC-AM released Tweeden’s material on its Web site, giving it the look of a proper news story. In reality, the station, which is owned by Cumulus Media, was a struggling conservative talk-radio station whose survival plan was to become the most pro-Trump station in Los Angeles. Three top staffers there had been meeting secretly for weeks, after hours, with Tweeden to prepare her statement, but it hadn’t been vetted with even the most cursory fact-checking.

McIntyre emphasized that Tweeden and KABC-AM deliberately chose not to break the story with Hannity, or on Fox, because they didn’t want it to be tainted with charges of political bias.

Tweeden had also taken some controversial political stands. In 2011, in an appearance on “Hannity,” she sided with “birthers,” calling on President Barack Obama to produce a birth certificate to prove his citizenship, and praised Trump, who had been stoking racist suspicions about Obama’s identity. “I think Donald Trump is brilliant,” she added. “Who knows how far he could go?”

Sean Hannity exulted when the news broke. Tweeden called in to his radio show live, and Hannity described her as “a longtime friend.” Hannity, who, when Ailes died, celebrated him as one of America’s “great patriotic warriors,” pronounced the Franken photograph “disgusting”—and declared that Franken had been accused of “sexual molestation.” Trump joined the fray on Twitter, insinuating that the photograph documented an assault in progress: “Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6?”

I feel bad for Franken who I thought was a good Senator, but he was too nice a guy to last in Washington. As Harry Truman said: " You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog!"