US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...b69_story.html



Stupidity gets redefined often these days. Hunting season opened for Russia.

I wondered how long it would take Trump to really screw things up again and contradict the statements of his own people trying to defend him:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...69b209cf2b83d/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...umn/101729966/


I estimated Friday would be the day, but Trump is getting more efficient with his screw-ups. In a way I really feel sorry for Spicer, Mcmasters, and others who have to be publicly humiliated by their buffoon of a boss; the upside for them would be they can get some very good book deals when its all over; the upside for the US would be, given the way Trump has been taken increasing aim at his glutes, he probably won't be around for much longer, although you've got to feel for Pence who will have to clean up the big, fat mess Trump's gonna leave behind...




<O>

[Dowly]

I heard they're planning to remake 'A few good men', though the script seems a bit short.

 

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by vienna

In a way I really feel sorry for Spicer, Mcmasters, and others who have to be publicly humiliated by their buffoon of a boss;

I judge the respectability and integrity of a man also by his choice for whom he is willing to work and whose commands he is willing to take. You must not feel sorry for this can of mades you mentioned. Their choices speak against them, and will disqualify their character forever. Or in the unforgettable words of Obi-Wan Kenobi: who is the bigger fool - the fool, or the fool following him?

This primitive and bigmouthed prolet in the WH most likely has given the Russians the hints they need to add 1 and 1 together and identify the persons who were sources for Western intelligence becasue they were stupid wenough to take the risk and trust the American intel apparatus. At best these people will not be available as sopurces anylonger, which means other peoploe will get killed. At worst, thse persons who were the sources will be hunted down and killed themselves. Which leaves our services without said sources.

Worth to note: our press over here reports that European intel agencies have repeatedly asked the Americans for the information that Trump now has given to the Russians, and that has denied to share with the European "allies". This really says something.

I accused Bush jr of betraying the good willingness of the people serving in the armed forces and sending them on a mission based on lies and betrayal of the nation. Which in my book is treason. I accused Bush senior of betraying the Shia in Iraq when first having the CIA motivating them to rebel against Saddam, then leaving Saddam the helicopters he needed to mow them down, and leaving the Shia without the American support that they were promised. The result was genocide triggered and assisted by the US. What Trump here has done, is different. Both Bushs acted by cold-blooded, unscrupulous calculation, but Trump is too stupid to understand what he has done and is doing - he apparently was just about boasting and showing what a sensational big mouth he has. Cracker-barrel behaviour: trying to dominate the table and imporess, if not intimidate people by showing what a big shark you are. Slamming the fist on the table instead of thinking first, stomping the feet and cursing loud when not getting your will. He reminds of these type of gorillas you somtimes see sitting in bars or in the subway or in busses, with always extra wide-spread legs so that everybody has a first-class outlook on their formidable big package they have - or what they hold for that.

A boasting prolet. And he costs people their lives who every single day are much better than he will ever has been in all his wasted life.

No, wealth is not always a good standard to measure the intelligence or value of a person.

Yes, I have started to become really angry at this zero.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...b69_story.html



Stupidity gets redefined often these days. Hunting season opened for Russia.

Yet another article based on unnamed sources. Don't you Never Trumpers ever have something real to complain about?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Yet another article based on unnamed sources. Don't you Never Trumpers ever have something real to complain about?

Thank God journalism has been saved from you becoming a journalist. You would burn your sources like a smoker burns matches.

[Bilge_Rat]

let's see, WaPo story, no sources..

..let's see what National Security Adviser McMaster, who actually was in the meeting, says about the WaPo story:

White House says Trump info-sharing with Russia 'wholly appropriate'

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on Tuesday adamantly defended President Trump’s conversations with Russian officials as “wholly appropriate,” pushing back for a second day on a news report claiming the president revealed highly classified information on an Islamic State terror threat during that meeting.

During a tense White House briefing, McMaster suggested the details discussed in that meeting concerned ongoing operations that were public for months.

“The president in no way compromised any sources or methods in the course of that conversation,” McMaster said.

The same official publicly had refuted The Washington Post report on Monday evening, describing the claims as false.

The president himself has since acknowledged he shared “facts” about the terror threat with Russia, while saying he was in his right to do so.

McMaster on Tuesday continued to dispute the premise of the story. While acknowledging Trump shared information with the Russians, he maintained the discussion was appropriate.

“I stand by my statement that I made yesterday … the premise of that article is false,” he said.

“… That conversation was wholly appropriate.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...propriate.html

..so how long before Democrats call on McMaster to resign? Oh wait, that has already happened.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...=.3fec7ead8664

Originally Posted by August

Yet another article based on unnamed sources. Don't you Never Trumpers ever have something real to complain about?

Funny, you did not complain at all about the use of anonymous sources when they were in favor of Trump/Republicans, or at least something against Hillary/dem libruls!
Now, I wonder why that might... be...

Ohhhh, right!

I bet my behind, if Hillary would be POTUS now, and would have made the very same mistake of "sharing information", the Trump fans here would LOSE it and immediately start the star-spangled "traitor!!!" banter again. 100%.

But when Trump does it?
It's fine, all good White House says, move along, keep moving.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Thank God journalism has been saved from you becoming a journalist. You would burn your sources like a smoker burns matches.

Yeah I am much too honest to be one of those snakes.

Seriously though how many of these so called news stories attributed to anonymous sources and published by hostile media organizations does it take for you not to swallow them hook line and sinker? You wish to believe it so much that you are willing to take anything negative someone says as gospel without any proof at all.

[August]

Here's a report from Rand Paul that the Obama administration spied on him and at least one other member of the opposition party in addition to members of the Trump administration.

Of course Paul doesn't name the person making the accusation either but according to the standards of some folks here it still must be taken as absolute proven fact.

On "America's News HQ" this afternoon, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) revealed that another senator confided in him that he was surveilled by the Obama administration. Earlier this week, Paul said reporters have told him they have evidence he was a target of Obama administration spying.
This is the first time that Paul mentioned another senator is also concerned about the Obama administration's surveillance.
He said if this proves to be true, it's a much bigger story than any allegations about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the presidential election.
"It's about your own government spying on the opposition party," Paul said. "That would be enormous if it's true."

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/05/1...ed-obama-admin

Originally Posted by Catfish

^ if people still continue to say that Obama wiretapped Trump's phone (no he didn't) or that Mrs Clinton would be bad and the devil and eeeeemaiiils (he lied, in fact he has lied all the time) i think it would be only fair if Trump fell over a wrong statement, or fake news.

Apart from that, nice try for diversion.

[Catfish]

^ sorry, i just deleted my own post because i am sick and tired of all this. But yes i wrote it.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

Honestly, I don't think that's the actual reason.
Considering who left Subsim over the years, a rather clear picture becomes visible.

I've seen members leave because they were asked once not to engage in certain behavior (in one case name-calling). Others have left because of the reasons you list. Most seem to leave because they're bored.

Look at the way Bilge_Rat (and others) debate people here.
As soon as they run aground and don't know what to say because there's no copy/paste material available yet on breitbart and Co, its nothing but trolling of the lowest form.

No, it isn't. I've seen trolling of the lowest form, and this is not even close.

The sole point for this kind of people isn't the topic, it is to destroy the political enemy no matter what, and that's a real issue.

While that is true for some, I read all the threads and I don't see that here. More than one person who has left here has been part of the hard-core Right, and did exactly what you are complaining about, and we have confronted them about it, and they have left.

People leave this forum because it more and more turns into a right-wing primate-cave where this sort of debate-tactics are tolerated by the administration team, while the most important thing now is to not swear.

The swearing part is a written rule that I can actually read and enforce without guessing the intent. There is no such rule governing debate tactics. We do try to limit the open insults, but General Topics is considered more open than other forums on the site, and so people are allowed more leeway in their posting.

Hell, you can even happily share pirated movie links - it's cool, just don't say the f-word.

We've been over that already, and Neal stated his reasons. Since it is his site, that should be the end of it.

And just like that you can debate in the most despicable and mean way and insult your opponent way worse, by disrespecting him like we've seen above. That's WAY worse than any f-bomb if you ask me, but the administration decided to not moderate debates besides protecting the countless children on this board(?) from bad bad words that probably destroy their soul upon reading.

I've seen people here "debate in most despicable and mean way", and again I've seen none of that in this thread. Maybe you've forgotten some of the true trolls we've had in the past.

As to the "disrespecting vs swearing" problem: As I've said, we do try to keep it civil, and there are certain lines we do enforce, but they have to be specific, such as name-calling. Every time somebody says anything remotely insulting we do look at it and make a decision. Sometimes the decision is a PM asking the person to tone it down. Other times the answer is to let it slide. In still other cases the person is indeed brigged, but usually not until after other methods have failed.

I'd rather protect anyone from despicable human scum that, for example, seriously suggests to "nuke the middle east!", but hey - at least no one cursed, right? Phew!

We do have specific rules regarding hate speech, and we enforce them the best we can, but not without first trying the other means mentioned above. Sometimes it's hard to know from a written post whether the person is being serious or not. You may think he really wants "them" all dead. whereas I may think from other posts that he's really making fun of people he thinks want "them" all dead. Sometimes we'll ask him privately to clarify what he really means. In that case you'll never even know, just as you are unaware of most of what goes on behind the scenes.

Oh, and about the swearing? You can blame that 100% on me, as I'm the only one who has ever gone out of his way to enforce that. Since bad news sticks around long after good news has gone, you may not have noticed that I slacked off on that a long time ago, so you're complaint there is a bit dated.

The level of hypocrisy and arbitrariness went completely through the roof quite a while ago and I sincerely believe that's why we lost some incredibly valuable and interesting members and are now left with a right-wing circle jerk of stupidity where, vienna put it best, elementary school yard rhetoric is the way to go for many people.

I agree to a point, but we don't have specific rules on how people must debate, and that's the way Neal wants it. Honestly, if every debate had to follow the true rules of debate, most of the people here would never be allowed to post, including yourself. It has even been suggested on occasion that General Topics be shut down altogether. That's not going to happen since this is where most of the posting goes on these days.

As long as there won't be a sensible, honest and unbiased moderation of these topics that bear high danger of friction, naturally, there won't be any quality debate at all. Period.

Some might argue that there never has been quality debate here. That's possibly true of any internet forum. Unless we have absolute debate rules that everybody has to follow that will continue to be the case. If we have such rules many people will be restricted from saying anything. While you may be happy that applies to people you don't like, it will also affect many with honest opinions but no formal training. In other words, if you can't say it exactly the way the rules require your opinion won't count, because you can't say it at all.

I remember that resident nazi we had, fartenbohn or something?
In his case the moderation demanded he backs his claims up or be gone (holocaust denial craze).
Why isn't that the case always?

See? Even you can't bring up that discussion without resorting to mockery and insult. It affects all of us.

Regarding that specific case, SubSim does have rules regarding hate speech and specifically Holocaust Denial. The member in question had been throwing out hints for a very long time that he believed in that particular concept. It was my decision to start a thread just for him and give him a chance to prove it. I was willing to let it go until it reached what I would consider a satisfactory conclusion. After some time it became apparent that was never going to happen, and steps were taken. Even he was granted a certain amount of slack.

The reason that "isn't the case always" is because everybody looks for sources to back up their beliefs, while very few look for sources to condemn their own beliefs. In that way most players in any political debate are dishonest. If someone is called to task every time he does that it would likely result in more flaming, not less. The difference would be that it would all be directed at us, rather than at the debate opponent.

Why are people allowed to troll someone into oblivion like above?
Why isn't the moderation team, you know, moderating?
This is beyond me, frankly!

Because what is obvious to you is not so much to everyone. You are also affected by your biases, whether you admit it or not.

So, considering the above, personally, I don't see why anyone would invest the energy to create a well constructed post (ot post at all, for that matter) if the counter argument is just poo-flinging from an ape-like deplorable who only seeks to disrupt an opponents arguments by basically ignoring or insulting them.

Again, I agree to a point. The problem is that when someone is good at it, it's not as obvious as you'd like it to be. The insulted person isn't as good at that kind of subtle insult, so they explode and start swearing and name-calling. Which of them gets into trouble? Not the one you would like, and maybe not the one I would like, but the rules are there to keep order, not to dictate how one should discuss things.

That's the real problem here, not a swear word or an escalation now and then, it happens, no big deal - as long as both sides have an honest agenda and do not just want to disagree because "dem libruls stink!".

But different people see that problem differently, and there will almost certainly never be any kind of agreement on exactly what it is, much less what can be done about it.

Now it's my turn.

From my own point of view you seem to spend a lot of time looking for reasons to criticize the Moderation Staff. There's nothing wrong with that, but you seem to be making it your sole purpose for posting lately. The bigger problem is that you can't start your own thread to discuss the subject, where people can answer or ignore at their leisure, but seem to have the need for derailing other threads. This makes you just as guilty as the ones you accuse. This thread is for the discussion of US Politics. Please try to keep it that way.

[August]

For more reports on the veracity of these unnamed sources:

Tips For Reading Washington Post Stories About Trump Based On Anonymous Leaks

By Mollie HemingwayMay 16, 2017


In the midst of an active shooter situation, we have tips for how to judge breaking news. We need similar tips to manage anti-Trump breaking news.

On May 10, the Washington Post‘s Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Sari Horwitz, and Robert Costa claimed:

[Deputy Attorney General Rod J.] Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

But the “person close to the White House” who made the claim without using his or her name was contradicted by none other than Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein himself. The next day he said, “I’m not quitting” when asked by reporters. “No,” he said to the follow-up question of whether he had threatened to quit.

So I guess he must just be lying or incompetent like McMasters right? But there is more:

The story was based on anonymous sources, naturally, and noted “The news was first reported by the New York Times.” If true, it would support a narrative that Trump had fired Comey not due to his general incompetence but because he was trying to thwart a legitimate and fruitful investigation. Anonymous sources again had something very different to say from people whose comments were tied to their names, who all denied the report. The Justice Department spokeswoman immediately responded that the claim was false, and her quote was included in the story:

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said reports that Comey had requested more funding or other resources for the Russia investigation are ‘totally false.’ Such a request, she said, ‘did not happen.’

The next day under oath, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe repeatedly denied that the probe into Russia was undersourced or requiring any additional funds. In response to one question about whether the FBI had sufficient resources to investigate, he said:

‘If you are referring to the Russia investigation, I do. I believe we have the adequate resources to do it and I know that we have resourced that investigation adequately,’ acting FBI director Andrew McCabe told lawmakers, adding that he was unaware of any request by the agency for additional resources.

And even more!:

Previous Washington Post stories sourced to anonymous “officials” have fallen apart, including Josh Rogin’s January 26 report claiming that “the State Department’s entire senior management team just resigned” as “part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior Foreign Service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.”The story went viral before the truth caught up. As per procedure, the Obama administration had, in coordination with the incoming Trump administration, asked for the resignations of all political appointees. While it would have been traditional to let them stay for a few months, the Trump team let them know that their services wouldn’t be necessary. The entire story was wrong.
Rogin also had the false story that Steve Bannon had personally confronted Department of Homeland Security’s Gen. John F. Kelly to pressure him not to weaken an immigration ban. Take it away, Kelly:

‘It was a fantasy story,’ Kelly said. Of the reporter, he said: ‘Assuming he’s not making it up… whoever his sources are, are playing him for a fool.’

Each of these stories were explosive breaking news that served an anti-Trump narrative but later turned out to be false.

I recommend that the next time you folks want to post some of these fake news stories you first review the following guide:

http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/16/...onymous-leaks/

Originally Posted by Catfish

^ sorry, i just deleted my own post because i am sick and tired of all this. But yes i wrote it.

Want me to delete it as well? Your call buddy, I'm fine with it/understand.