I think Hillary was a much better choice than Trump.
Should the Democrats have put up someone other than Hillary? Yes, but that would have required a radical reshaping of the party - which they weren't prepared to do at the time. At the time, Obama was coming off two successful terms (in the court of popular opinion anyway) as evidenced by his high approval ratings leaving office. That isn't normally the point where you try something radically different.
Anyway, water under the bridge at this point. Trump's president even though he's still bitching about Hillary. The thing to do now is look to the future. Odds are against it but the mission has to be to take away their blank check and power to railroad the USA in 2018.
I don't need an excuse for why I voted the way I did. I own it. If I was wrong I'll modify it in the future. That's what reasonable people do.
I wasn't coerced in any way and I don't apologize for it no matter the result. I voted the way I felt was right at the time.
As long as you know where the blame lays if it does hit the fan and don't fall back on the excuse that the Dem's should have fielded a better candidate then all is good.
He doesn't have to justify anything to me, or anyone else here. I wasn't referring to @Balrog99 personally in any of my posts. I was simply predicting what to expect from MANY Trump voters when the shit hits the fan. He can speak for himself, and he doesn't owe me or anyone else an explanation.
I think Hillary was a much better choice than Trump.
Should the Democrats have put up someone other than Hillary? Yes, but that would have required a radical reshaping of the party - which they weren't prepared to do at the time. At the time, Obama was coming off two successful terms (in the court of popular opinion anyway) as evidenced by his high approval ratings leaving office. That isn't normally the point where you try something radically different.
Anyway, water under the bridge at this point. Trump's president even though he's still bitching about Hillary. The thing to do now is look to the future. Odds are against it but the mission has to be to take away their blank check and power to railroad the USA in 2018.
2018's Senate map looks absolutely horrible for Democrats. They'll be struggling to maintain the status quo, much less win more seats. The House is so horribly gerrymandered due to Tom DeLay's work in the Bush Administration that nothing less than a total wave can flip the power in that chamber. It would take a titanic effort even with Trump falling apart at the seems to take even one chamber, much less both.
This is why Trump is going into an all-out assault on the media. Soon the Supreme Court will be as worst a wash, and he has both Houses of Congress. There is nothing left to check his power but the media and the 2018 Election.
2018's Senate map looks absolutely horrible for Democrats. They'll be struggling to maintain the status quo, much less win more seats. The House is so horribly gerrymandered due to Tom DeLay's work in the Bush Administration that nothing less than a total wave can flip the power in that chamber. It would take a titanic effort even with Trump falling apart at the seems to take even one chamber, much less both.
This is why Trump is going into an all-out assault on the media. Soon the Supreme Court will be as worst a wash, and he has both Houses of Congress. There is nothing left to check his power but the media and the 2018 Election.
If these were normal times then yeah I'd tend to agree. However, these are not and Trump's historically unpopular. I am cautiously optimistic that things will tick in sanity's favor in 2018 at least in the Senate. The House is truly hosed for the time being. Eight of the ten most gerrymandered districts in the United States were drawn by Republicans.
He doesn't have to justify anything to me, or anyone else here. I wasn't referring to @Balrog99 personally in any of my posts... He can speak for himself, and he doesn't owe me or anyone else an explanation.
Yup. This thread is just here to discuss politics. Nobody here is on trial.
This is a recurring pattern. He makes public statements that carry the weight of the President based on what is being broadcast on FOX News. By the way, Sweden has taken in over 200,000 refugees, and (like here) they have not committed one terrorist attack. And this STILL doesn't explain the intent behind bringing this up as being anything but an allusion to a terrorist attack. Unless you happened to watch this particular segment yourself, there was not other meaning you could infer. Of course, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume a hell of a lot of people at that rally did see the segment.
If you watch (or in the past watched) professional wrestling, there is a story Triple H once told to a radio show about the Donald. There was a segment many years ago in which Vince McMahon got into his limo and the limo blew up, and storyline-wise, the angle was that McMahon was dead. Now, Trump has learned a HELL of a lot from the wrestling business and it's sense of obscene spectacle, but apparently he missed one key point: That it's not real. He called up after the segment and asked if Vince was ok because he actually thought he'd been inside the limo when it was blown up. While most things about Trump remind one of Nixon, in this case, it's Ronald Reagan, who used to tell stories from movies he had been in or watched as if they were personal real life experiences. We survived Reagan (though anyone who is looking for the culprit in your factory jobs being gone, here is your man) even though it's almost certain that the guy was suffering from dementia for most of his second term. But that was because he was still surrounded by long-time Republican professionals. Trump is surrounded by nothing but absolute loyalists and sycophants. There is no one in that White House who can (or will) tell him something can't be done or that it's a bad idea.
Populisms are exploiting a tendency to invest more power in the executive in many countries. Institutions such as congress and parliament may begin to react against this accumulation of power if crises do not occur (e.g. civil war in ancient Rome leading to Emperors), however this will be based on societal consensus. Currently a sufficient number of people are being reduced in status with little hope of improvement, as wealth becomes concentrated, that societal consensus has become difficult to achieve in a stable fashion. I'm a bit worried by how the underlying economics are driving the politics. Our current crop of elites seem to be drowning in the ever shallower water of these debates...
In the meantime, Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been given a keynote address at CPAC (which nearly every single Republican candidate for President speaks at every year) now has had multiple videos come to light where he not only defends pedophilia, but seems to actively encourage it. Keep in mind that this man is the crowning hero of the anti-PC/Gamergate movement. He is their Christ figure. Another prediction?? His fans will dismiss it all as a elaborate joke, because hey, it's the internet, and you can't take anything seriously. I mean, really, what kind of special snowflake can't handle differing views on child sex abuse?? The reality?? In no way can his discussions about this be construed as a joke. I'll leave it to any who wants to to actually track the videos down, but dismissing his views on this subject as a joke is just the purest form of crap imaginable.
A massive part of Trump's base comes from the online gaming community that looks to this man as their personal vanguard of freedom of speech. He was at the center of the protests at Berkeley. Trump has PERSONALLY defended him (Bannon is his former boss). And a conference every major conservative political figure makes a pilgrimage to made him (until now at least) their feature this year. Because whatever principles they ever claimed to have have been replaced by nothing but venom for minorities and vulnerable sections of the population, and hatred of liberals.
This article is long, but VERY instructive in explaining the under-reported story of disaffected young males as a backbone of Trump's support. If you want to know why the Siege controversy enveloped these forums last year, this is why. And it ties into our current situation more than you think:
And this is what I was talking about a few pages back. Now even the POTUS is using a false image of Sweden as an argument against refugees and immigration in general. Because yes, as far as I can tell that Fox news broadcast was just spreading the usual myths about no-go zones for swedish police and what not.
I think this video really shows the craziness of the whole situation, with Sweden just being one of many examples.
So, according to our own posters on the ground in Sweden, this is predictable nonsense. What kind of President just flat-out lies about a friendly ally for no reason other than to soothe his own ego??
So, according to our own posters on the ground in Sweden, this is predictable nonsense. What kind of President just flat-out lies about a friendly ally for no reason other than to soothe his own ego??
This guy has to attack everybody. We have no allies anymore. Ridiculous.
I mean, seriously.....how hard is it to not mess up diplomatic relationships with Sweden and Australia?? Thia would be like going out of my way to make my neighbor's life miserable when they haven't bothered me once.
Trump saw a segment on Tucker Carlson's FOX program which was a propoganda hit piece. He tweeted about it. It's not like he has the entire National Security apparatus of the US at his disposable to actually check to see if it's accurate. When he was called out, the only thing left to do to save his own image was to paint Sweden as some sort of dangerous hellhole.
It's pretty simple: Donald Trump is nuts, incompetent, and a malignant narcissist. And he is (this is important) INCAPABLE of changing. This is who he has been for 70 years, this is who he campaigned as. It's who he'll be until the day he dies. I don't know how anyone can possibly think differently at this point.
An FEC official has claimed that 3 of the 6 top officials at the FEC have consistently blocked enforcement of campaign finance laws. The officials' terms have expired, so the Trump administration will be naming their replacements.
The author is currently leaving the FEC for unclear reasons, so there may be some bitterness about a lost job that's motivating the article. However, if the author's claims are true, it means that some of the very people who are supposed to keep dark money out of our election campaigns are actively trying to shield corrupt politicians and the groups that give them money.
Laws mean very little by themselves if the people in power are deliberately not enforcing them.
An FEC official has claimed that 3 of the 6 top officials at the FEC have consistently blocked enforcement of campaign finance laws. The officials' terms have expired, so the Trump administration will be naming their replacements.
The author is currently leaving the FEC for unclear reasons, so there may be some bitterness about a lost job that's motivating the article. However, if the author's claims are true, it means that some of the very people who are supposed to keep dark money out of our election campaigns are actively trying to shield corrupt politicians and the groups that give them money.
Laws mean very little by themselves if the people in power are deliberately not enforcing them.
There was a situation in Nebraska a few years ago where the legislature abolished the death penalty. The Governor then vetoed the bill. The legislature overrode the veto. And then the Governor just flat-out ignored the override until they could put it on a statewide ballot measure. Courts don't have armies to enforce things, and unless a judge is willing to instruct law enforcement to go arrest the people deliberately ignoring laws or court orders, they have no real weight if a poweful person decides to ignore them. There is just flat-out nullification going on all across the country, ESPECIALLY in regards to court orders involving voting rights. This is why one party totally abadoning political norms is so damn dangerous. Society has depended on them for years.
All I know is I'm starting to really lose faith in the media. I can understand the need for a fourth estate, a check on executive power at a time when we're getting dangerously close to being a single-party State (if GOP sweeps mid-terms and maintains their grip on local governments, it's going to be baaad. They could call a national convention and rewrite the whole thing...a total lock out.Repugnantcans stick together like no other). An adversarial media is absolutely crucial at times like these, and regardless of how I feel about Trump personally (I think he's an awful human being), I believe there are things Trump can do as a president that could really be positive...things no other republican has even come close to advocating. But we need the press to be fair when it calls for fairness. To hold Trump's feet to the fire, hold him to the populist positions, proposals to benefit the working class people. But it's hit piece after hit piece. Have you seen Fox News ratings? It's sickening. People in droves are abandoning MSM and turning to overtly partisan sites like Fox News because the media has completely shown their hand. They've completely shown their hand. I think faith in the media is like 20% now. Worst ever. All they're doing is playing right into Trump's hands. That's it. I don't know what else to say. Trump has played them for fools again and again and again. This last one was a real beauty. Alluding to an attack in Sweden that didn't even exist. And what does MSM do? Sure, they pointed out Trump's overt lie. But in doing so they drew attention to migrant crime rates and the failing immigration policies of Sweden. That's exactly what Trump wanted them to do. That move had Bannon written all over it.
Fools. I've had it with the media. Idiots. They can't even help themselves anymore. It's sickening to watch.
It's become quite apparent that the so-called mainstream media is in bed with the Democrat party. When even moderates and liberals are taking notice you know it's gotten bad.
If they held the people on both sides of the spectrum to equal standards it wouldn't be so bad. Even journalists have opinions. It's impossible not to. However, when a supposedly unbiased institution begins to lose objectivity it becomes a big problem and erodes people's faith in said institution.
I must add that the media and their Chicken Little 'the sky is falling' reporting is also part of the problem. There are only so many times you can cry wolf until people don't believe you anymore...
The media isn't just one bloc. It's a vast array of news groups with different biases. Fox News is part of the mainstream media; same goes for conservative outlets like the Heritage Foundation. Those have been major news groups for years.
If you define the mainstream media only as stuff like MSNBC and the Huffington Post, then of course it has a liberal bent--you're excluding the conservative parts. But if you include the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times, suddenly the mainstream media doesn't seem so one-sided.
Even the liberal-oriented outlets tell more than one story. Last time I tuned in to CNN, they were featuring a Republican Congressman as their guest. And the majority of the columnists at the New York Times are conservatives, not liberals.
You can't paint a hundred different companies with the same brush. There are places like Breitbart and Buzzfeed where the partisan biases are palpable, but the Economist and the New York Times give voice to more than one viewpoint.
If you want a strictly non-partisan news source, check out the Christian Science Monitor. It's famous for its non-partisan reporting.
"You can't paint a hundred different companies with the same brush." Yet 90% of all media outlets are owned by just 6 companies. Using one brush is pretty simple.
So, according to our own posters on the ground in Sweden, this is predictable nonsense. What kind of President just flat-out lies about a friendly ally for no reason other than to soothe his own ego??
First and less importantly, the event mentioned in the Telegraph article you posted refers to a riot over a drug arrest. That's not a terror attack.
Second and more importantly, looking at the tweets and the Telegraph article you posted, it seems that Trump wasn't even referring to that event in the first place:
February 18th: Trump claims there was a terror attack in Sweden. February 19th: In the morning, Trump defended his tweet. February 20th: Trump repeated the defense in the morning. Late in the day, the riot happened. February 21st: The Telegraph reported the riot.
Sweden is only 6 hours ahead of the United States, not 24 hours or more. Even if you conflate riots with terror attacks, his tweet on the morning of February 18th was not referring to a riot that happened in the evening of February 20th.
You are linking to an article about a small scale riot where one person got minor injuries. No, there is no lie in the article itself. It's just being blown way out of proportion, like so many other things about Sweden. Because yes, of course Sweden has problems, all countries do. But none of these problems will be solved by people exaggerating, lying and spreading a skewed view of them.
Like how this riot is suddenly being reported about all over the world, as if it was comparable to the Rodney King riots. There are riots like that all the time all over the world. But they are just not news worthy unless you can use it to say "ah, look what happens when you let those people we don't like into your country!". That part of Stockholm has had similar problems for years and years. These complex social problems only get worse when people are satisfied with blaming those pesky immigrants and refuse to listen to anything else.
So of course Sweden has problems. But it's strange when the president of a country with much much more murders and civil unrest points to Sweden and says "let's not be like them, because they've got murders and riots!".
And I could give lots of examples of widespread lies about Sweden. From the no-go zones and the rape capital of Europe to the banning of christmas lights.
I'm sick of hearing that we don't want to talk about the problems, or deny their existence, whenever we point out that people are lying. People who don't agree with Trump's and the alt-right's skewed view of Sweden aren't saying that it is a problem free paradise. We're saying that it isn't a dystopian hellhole like they claim.
Would be nice to see that FoxNews too to make picture more clear. They might have talk about something in the past. I have not seen that news, just know how common it is for Scandinavia in general to hide as much as they can any information about any social troubles. Would not be surprised if we know about the riot only because all attention was on Sweden after that twit.
Of course you wouldn't have known about the riot if everyone's attention wasn't on Sweden right now! Not because the country is trying to hide stuff, but because it is such a minor thing that it just wouldn't be of interest to other countries! I don't read about murders in New York or robberies in Hong Kong in Swedish media. Does that mean that USA and China are trying to cover up their social problems? Of course not. Same logic applies.
Comments
Should the Democrats have put up someone other than Hillary? Yes, but that would have required a radical reshaping of the party - which they weren't prepared to do at the time. At the time, Obama was coming off two successful terms (in the court of popular opinion anyway) as evidenced by his high approval ratings leaving office. That isn't normally the point where you try something radically different.
Anyway, water under the bridge at this point. Trump's president even though he's still bitching about Hillary. The thing to do now is look to the future. Odds are against it but the mission has to be to take away their blank check and power to railroad the USA in 2018.
This is why Trump is going into an all-out assault on the media. Soon the Supreme Court will be as worst a wash, and he has both Houses of Congress. There is nothing left to check his power but the media and the 2018 Election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/02/10/gerrymandering-is-the-biggest-obstacle-to-genuine-democracy-in-the-united-states-so-why-is-no-one-protesting/?utm_term=.9c7bd78116c1
This is a recurring pattern. He makes public statements that carry the weight of the President based on what is being broadcast on FOX News. By the way, Sweden has taken in over 200,000 refugees, and (like here) they have not committed one terrorist attack. And this STILL doesn't explain the intent behind bringing this up as being anything but an allusion to a terrorist attack. Unless you happened to watch this particular segment yourself, there was not other meaning you could infer. Of course, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume a hell of a lot of people at that rally did see the segment.
If you watch (or in the past watched) professional wrestling, there is a story Triple H once told to a radio show about the Donald. There was a segment many years ago in which Vince McMahon got into his limo and the limo blew up, and storyline-wise, the angle was that McMahon was dead. Now, Trump has learned a HELL of a lot from the wrestling business and it's sense of obscene spectacle, but apparently he missed one key point: That it's not real. He called up after the segment and asked if Vince was ok because he actually thought he'd been inside the limo when it was blown up. While most things about Trump remind one of Nixon, in this case, it's Ronald Reagan, who used to tell stories from movies he had been in or watched as if they were personal real life experiences. We survived Reagan (though anyone who is looking for the culprit in your factory jobs being gone, here is your man) even though it's almost certain that the guy was suffering from dementia for most of his second term. But that was because he was still surrounded by long-time Republican professionals. Trump is surrounded by nothing but absolute loyalists and sycophants. There is no one in that White House who can (or will) tell him something can't be done or that it's a bad idea.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-russia.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
In the meantime, Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been given a keynote address at CPAC (which nearly every single Republican candidate for President speaks at every year) now has had multiple videos come to light where he not only defends pedophilia, but seems to actively encourage it. Keep in mind that this man is the crowning hero of the anti-PC/Gamergate movement. He is their Christ figure. Another prediction?? His fans will dismiss it all as a elaborate joke, because hey, it's the internet, and you can't take anything seriously. I mean, really, what kind of special snowflake can't handle differing views on child sex abuse?? The reality?? In no way can his discussions about this be construed as a joke. I'll leave it to any who wants to to actually track the videos down, but dismissing his views on this subject as a joke is just the purest form of crap imaginable.
A massive part of Trump's base comes from the online gaming community that looks to this man as their personal vanguard of freedom of speech. He was at the center of the protests at Berkeley. Trump has PERSONALLY defended him (Bannon is his former boss). And a conference every major conservative political figure makes a pilgrimage to made him (until now at least) their feature this year. Because whatever principles they ever claimed to have have been replaced by nothing but venom for minorities and vulnerable sections of the population, and hatred of liberals.
This article is long, but VERY instructive in explaining the under-reported story of disaffected young males as a backbone of Trump's support. If you want to know why the Siege controversy enveloped these forums last year, this is why. And it ties into our current situation more than you think:
https://medium.com/@DaleBeran/4chan-the-skeleton-key-to-the-rise-of-trump-624e7cb798cb#.7sy9eibpg
for laughs
Try checking out the hashtag #LastNightInSweden
I think this video really shows the craziness of the whole situation, with Sweden just being one of many examples.
So, according to our own posters on the ground in Sweden, this is predictable nonsense. What kind of President just flat-out lies about a friendly ally for no reason other than to soothe his own ego??
It's Donald Trump and his ego against the world.
Which you might think is taking the piss a bit. I suppose this is Trump's defense mechanism, @jjstraka34 ?
Trump saw a segment on Tucker Carlson's FOX program which was a propoganda hit piece. He tweeted about it. It's not like he has the entire National Security apparatus of the US at his disposable to actually check to see if it's accurate. When he was called out, the only thing left to do to save his own image was to paint Sweden as some sort of dangerous hellhole.
It's pretty simple: Donald Trump is nuts, incompetent, and a malignant narcissist. And he is (this is important) INCAPABLE of changing. This is who he has been for 70 years, this is who he campaigned as. It's who he'll be until the day he dies. I don't know how anyone can possibly think differently at this point.
The author is currently leaving the FEC for unclear reasons, so there may be some bitterness about a lost job that's motivating the article. However, if the author's claims are true, it means that some of the very people who are supposed to keep dark money out of our election campaigns are actively trying to shield corrupt politicians and the groups that give them money.
Laws mean very little by themselves if the people in power are deliberately not enforcing them.
Fools. I've had it with the media. Idiots. They can't even help themselves anymore. It's sickening to watch.
If they held the people on both sides of the spectrum to equal standards it wouldn't be so bad. Even journalists have opinions. It's impossible not to. However, when a supposedly unbiased institution begins to lose objectivity it becomes a big problem and erodes people's faith in said institution.
If you define the mainstream media only as stuff like MSNBC and the Huffington Post, then of course it has a liberal bent--you're excluding the conservative parts. But if you include the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times, suddenly the mainstream media doesn't seem so one-sided.
Even the liberal-oriented outlets tell more than one story. Last time I tuned in to CNN, they were featuring a Republican Congressman as their guest. And the majority of the columnists at the New York Times are conservatives, not liberals.
You can't paint a hundred different companies with the same brush. There are places like Breitbart and Buzzfeed where the partisan biases are palpable, but the Economist and the New York Times give voice to more than one viewpoint.
If you want a strictly non-partisan news source, check out the Christian Science Monitor. It's famous for its non-partisan reporting.
Swedish police on Tuesday were investigating a riot that broke out overnight in a predominantly immigrant suburb in Stockholm after officers arrested a suspect on drug charges.
Looks more like Swedish government does not feel for other countries to be appropriate to publicly discuss Swedish problems.
First and less importantly, the event mentioned in the Telegraph article you posted refers to a riot over a drug arrest. That's not a terror attack.
Second and more importantly, looking at the tweets and the Telegraph article you posted, it seems that Trump wasn't even referring to that event in the first place:
February 18th: Trump claims there was a terror attack in Sweden.
February 19th: In the morning, Trump defended his tweet.
February 20th: Trump repeated the defense in the morning. Late in the day, the riot happened.
February 21st: The Telegraph reported the riot.
Sweden is only 6 hours ahead of the United States, not 24 hours or more. Even if you conflate riots with terror attacks, his tweet on the morning of February 18th was not referring to a riot that happened in the evening of February 20th.
Like how this riot is suddenly being reported about all over the world, as if it was comparable to the Rodney King riots. There are riots like that all the time all over the world. But they are just not news worthy unless you can use it to say "ah, look what happens when you let those people we don't like into your country!". That part of Stockholm has had similar problems for years and years. These complex social problems only get worse when people are satisfied with blaming those pesky immigrants and refuse to listen to anything else.
So of course Sweden has problems. But it's strange when the president of a country with much much more murders and civil unrest points to Sweden and says "let's not be like them, because they've got murders and riots!".
And I could give lots of examples of widespread lies about Sweden. From the no-go zones and the rape capital of Europe to the banning of christmas lights.
I'm sick of hearing that we don't want to talk about the problems, or deny their existence, whenever we point out that people are lying. People who don't agree with Trump's and the alt-right's skewed view of Sweden aren't saying that it is a problem free paradise. We're saying that it isn't a dystopian hellhole like they claim.