To be fair, the 2016 election was a lot more interesting than the 2012 one. Obama's victory was not a huge surprise for anyone; Trump's victory was a huge surprise for practically everyone. The only election in recent memory that generated that much controversy was the 2000 election.
There's a lot more to be said about 2016 than 2012.
And while we're on the subject....I don't see how this new NRA ad (which is only a slight ramp-up from the one posted a few months ago) is anything less than calling for armed conflict in the streets, especially considering their main focus as an organization is making sure everyone is armed to the teeth. So liberals are going to "perish in the flames of their own fires". Good to know. Put me on the record as saying that the NRA is a far bigger threat to my (and nearly everyone's safety) than ISIS could ever hope of being.
These aren't even regulations supposedly burdening anything. They are guidelines to help explain regulations on how federal funding for children with special education needs can be spent. There are no replacement guidelines that have been made to replace the ones being rescinded. The Department of Education won't comment on the move. It's nothing more than Betsy DeVos making another play to destroy public education as much as humanly possible to try funnel students (but likely NEVER students with learning disabilities) into for-profit charter schools. This country is a cess-pool. And we are approaching our twilight if this goes on for 4 full years.
Trump says that the average savings for his tax plan is 7000 dollars which is technically true I guess.
Nonpartisan website, Politifact.com, found that 80% of the GOP tax cuts would benefit the top 1% by the 10th year of the plan.
According to Fackcheck.org, "Ninety percent of the top 1 percent -- those earning about $900,000 and above in 2027 -- would get a tax cut, averaging $234,050."
Those in the middle tax bracket, earning $50,000 to $90,000 a year would receive a tax break on average of $660, or 1.2% of their after-tax income. While they would get an initial, tiny tax cut, the numbers would get worse over time. By 2027, more than one of every four middle-income families would pay more in taxes.
So the average could be $7000. That would include my year one $600 bucks - which will over time increase to higher taxes, and the top 1%s $240,000 tax cut.
My my my. Seems we're getting hosed here fellas. Add in cuts to medicare and medicaid and poor and elderly are doing worse than that.
I hadn't expected it to take this long, but I assumed massive tax cuts would be one of the first things to come out of the new administration, and I had assumed that the tax cuts would primarily benefit the wealthy, just like the Bush administration cuts.
I'm guessing this won't fall through like all those health care law proposals.
I hadn't expected it to take this long, but I assumed massive tax cuts would be one of the first things to come out of the new administration, and I had assumed that the tax cuts would primarily benefit the wealthy, just like the Bush administration cuts.
I'm guessing this won't fall through like all those health care law proposals.
Not to mention how it will increase the deficit. Mind you, I don't really care that much about the deficit, but I sure as hell do care when it is getting blown up by people who spent the last 8 years pretending that it was an apocalyptic problem when Obama was in office. For every second of the last Administration, it was "Democrats are putting your children into debt". Now?? Might as well have never happened. The moment another Dem takes office, the deficit will again magically become an issue. This is probably the single most predictable Republican con-job they have: When Democrats are in office, the deficit is a giant millstone on the backs of the country, and it is your patriotic duty to question the Commander in Chief. Once the Republican takes over, the word deficit is erased from the English language, and questioning the Commander in Chief is a direct attack on the military and seen as just this side of treason. This pattern has played out exactly this way since 1992.
On CNN they showed 3 or 4 clips of the villain from Saw, oops I mean Mitch McConnell, saying during times when a Democract was President that he wanted tax cuts but only if they are revenue neutral meaning only if benefits are cut. Now that a Republican is Prez it doesn't matter that his cuts for the rich are going to add trillions to the debt. When the news anchor asked McConnell about that he just lied and said something about the economy is going to grow because trickle down and so the deficit won't be as bad. Of course he changed the goal posts to suit his lies.
So if a Democrat is in office, then Republicans are against them making tax cuts if they might add to the debt, now that it's a Republican it doesn't matter at all. At all.
It's like how Ted Nugent was saying he'd be in jail for killing Obama and Hillary needs to eat his machine gun, but now that Trumps king, why Honest Ted goes out and says he wants there to be civil discourse and he's done being a violent crazy person. Two faced - the lot of them.
So now that this morning Trump has called a recently widowed, expecting, mother of 2 a liar, what's next?? Punch a person with cerebral palsy in the face?? Push a 90-year old woman in a wheelchair down a hill??
I am curious about something. There were four soldiers who were killed in Niger so did Trump contact the other families, as well? If so, did he say essentially the same thing to them? If so, why aren't they raking him over the coals in the media? If he didn't say the same thing, then what did he say (or not say) that was different?
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy is moving ahead to remove Catalonia's self-governance, a courtesy that Madrid had extended to Barcelona, which will include firing all of Catalonia's current leaders and prompting new elections in about 6 months' time. Carles Puigdemont, regional President of Catalonia, will meet with the region's Parliament this week and this time perhaps they will formally declare independence instead of that half-hearted, maybe-we-are-and-maybe-we-aren't mess they did last time.
Meanwhile, Trump has reactivated over 1,000 Air Force pilots and the Air Force is placing B-52 bombers (which are nuclear-capable) on alert for the first time since 1991. I guess he misses the old Cold War days? *shrug* I like the 1980s, too, but that doesn't mean I want to go back there.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Shinzo Abe's coalition now controls 80% of the Diet (their Parliament). One item on their agenda is to get rid of Article 9 in their Constitution, which prevents Japan from using (or even threatening to use) military force. I guess they are sick and tired of the DPRK shooting missile over their cities.
Meanwhile, we should get a pool going to see how long Tillerson remains as SecState. I think he will make it through the end of the year but probably be out by mid-January, presuming some other crisis doesn't pop up before then. If he calls the President a moron again, though, he won't make it another month.
No one was initially suggesting Trump had to personally call the family of every killed solider. What happened was that last week Trump was asked a question about Niger, and deflected by saying he had done more for and contacted more families than Obama or Bush had. He opened himself up to the entire line of attack. After he did so, obviously, people started looking into it. It seemed about half had been called and half hadn't. That's fine. But then it came out that he had offered to personally give $25,000 to the father of one of the dead soldiers during a call. This was months ago. Being Donald Trump, he never sent the check. It didn't get sent until the story broke. Seeing all the negative coverage he himself had created, he then calls the widow of La David Johnson literally while she is en route to meet her husband's casket and, being as he is a piece of human filth without a shred of emotional maturity or empathy, he botches the call so badly she breaks down from being upset. He then sends out his Chief of Staff, who slanders and lies about Congresswoman Wilson, and today the widow 100% confirms everything we had heard last week about the call.
Two things are for certain: 1.) This story never gets off the ground if he doesn't turn a simple question about Niger into an attack on Obama and Bush and 2.) Donald Trump should not be making any sort of contact with griefing family members. Because so far we know that he will either stiff them on money he promises them, or cause them to break down in tears.
Keep in mind that despite their constant pro-troop rhetoric, Republicans have no trouble straight-up attacking family members of dead soldiers who question the dear leader. Cindy Sheehan was mercilessly mocked and ridiculed by right-wing media for the entirety of the Iraq War.
I am curious about something. There were four soldiers who were killed in Niger so did Trump contact the other families, as well? If so, did he say essentially the same thing to them? If so, why aren't they raking him over the coals in the media? If he didn't say the same thing, then what did he say (or not say) that was different?
He offered one $25 000 out of his own pocket. It took an allegedly long time for the cheque to be mailed though, citing it needed to clear through a lot of organizations (which makes sense due to ethical concerns) but it was mailed the day after the media got a whiff of the story and started asking about it.
On my phone, so cant provide a link, but will later.
Besides that, these are private conversations and if other families do blot want to come forward about their experience, they really shouldnt have too. They are already going through enough as it is.
Trump probably did not say the exact same thing to each family.
For one thing quite a few gold star families have come forward saying Trump didn't call. But of those he did, some might have thought it was ok. Maybe it was ok for some, maybe some others we're bamboozled or bought his flimflamming.
Some others we're offended, probably rightfully so. Based on what we all know about Trump - mainly that he only can be bothered to care about himself and has an abrasive personality the rest of the time.
Let's get real here. Over the course of the campaign, Trump attacked ridiculed John McCain for being captured. He strongly implied that soldiers who have PTSD are weak-minded (totally forgotten, but some of us remember). He spent a week after the Democratic Convention attacking the Khan family. Now we are entering the second week of him insisting that friends and family of La David Johnson are lying about him, to the point where he sent his Chief of Staff out to smear and slander a sitting member of Congress close to the family and is now calling the widow a liar. As a sports pundit on ESPN is fond of saying, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it ain't a damn mongoose. Anyone claiming to support the troops who thinks Donald Trump gives a shit about those troops is either blind or brainwashed. Honestly, anyone who thinks Donald Trump cares about anyone but Donald Trump is those things as well.
Quite frankly, I think that applies to his family as well. He would throw Don Jr. or Eric under the bus in a second to save his own skin. I've never seen him acknowledge the fact that Tiffany even exists. I've never seen him have any sort of physical or loving interaction with his youngest son Baron. Melania is clearly nothing to him but a prop to drag around the world with him, and even a cursory look of the video interactions between them will reveal that she hates his guts. I highly suspect that the only reason he seems to prefer Ivanka is because deep down he probably wants to sleep with her, and you can infer this by the insanely creepy comments he has made about her in the past while she was sitting right next to him. This was posted during the campaign, and obviously, I can't vouch (and really no one can) for it's veracity, but it certainly sounds specific enough and in-character enough about Trump to be totally believable:
As many of you know, I attended the University of Pennsylvania with Donald Trump Jr. I feel compelled to share this story before the election, in the hopes that it will shed a bit of light on the kind of person that Donald Trump is, and the kind of son that he raised. I was hanging out in a freshman dorm with some friends, next door to Donald Jr.'s room. I walked out of the room to find Donald Trump at his son's door, there to pick him up for a baseball game. There were quite a few students standing around watching, trying to catch a glimpse of the famed real estate magnate. Don Jr. opened the door, wearing a Yankee jersey. Without saying a word, his father slapped him across the face, knocking him to the floor in front of all of his classmates. He simply said "put on a suit and meet me outside," and closed the door. Donald Jr. was a drunk in college. Every memory I have of him is of him stumbling around campus falling over or passing out in public, with his arm in a sling from injuring himself while drinking. He absolutely despised his father, and hated the attention that his last name afforded him. His nickname was "Diaper Don," because of his tendency to fall asleep drunk in other people's beds and urinate. I always felt terrible for him. I am voting for Hillary Clinton for a number of reasons, her opponent notwithstanding. However, in light of what I saw that day, it is clear to me that Donald Trump lacks the temperament and basic social decency to run our country.
That's what he thinks of his own family. Imagine what he views the rest of us as.
Don Jr. sounds like my first college roommate--the first night he was there he got so drunk that he collapsed in our doorway (after screaming at people across the hall that someone had thrown a mop at him--the mop he had fallen over), so we left him there for about 30 minutes before deciding to throw him into his bed. When I got up the next morning the first thing I smelled was the aftereffect, then I got up and saw it, so I moved to a different room that very day. *yeesh*
Don Jr. sounds like my first college roommate--the first night he was there he got so drunk that he collapsed in our doorway (after screaming at people across the hall that someone had thrown a mop at him--the mop he had fallen over), so we left him there for about 30 minutes before deciding to throw him into his bed. When I got up the next morning the first thing I smelled was the aftereffect, then I got up and saw it, so I moved to a different room that very day. *yeesh*
Coming from a small town, I had drank alot in high school (quite honestly, once I turned 21, it lost most of it's appeal). It's just what you did in a rural community where I lived. But when I got to college, I was sort of shocked at how many people from bigger towns and cities had no experience with alcohol before, and the fact that their tolerance level was, to put it mildly, non-existent. It was like some kind of bizarre reverse culture shock. I had always assumed everyone drank a ton in high school. It turned out that most people didn't. Multiple times I just had to walk away from certain situations, because things just felt....weird. It's not hard to see why sexual assault is prevalent on college campuses. You have young men whose hormones are out of control and women vulnerable from being exposed to alcohol for the first time in their lives. And trust me, when someone who has never drank before gets 3 beers in them, you are in for some seriously loopy behavior. Personally, I have always found the idea of engaging in sexual behavior with someone who is drunk when you are sober to be just be.....really uncomfortable, even with long-time girlfriends. It just doesn't feel like an even playing field in regards to consent. In fact, dealing with drunk people at all when you are sober is probably one of the most annoying things in the world. Of course, that goes out the window when everyone is drinking, and people likely feel the exact same way about you when the situation is reversed.
Now I just don't care, it doesn't make anything any better but it certainly can make you feel worse. If I drink now I mostly just end up wanting to go to sleep.
The latest estimates put the number of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar at over 500,000; most of them have fled to Bangladesh.
McCain is attacking Trump over Vietnam while Corker is attacking Trump for...well, for being Trump. He called the President "untruthful" and stated that the White House is now "an adult day care center". The Democrats couldn't be doing more damage to the Republican Party right now even if they had video of every closed-door, smoke-filled room meeting which had been held for the last 15 years.
The latest estimates put the number of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar at over 500,000; most of them have fled to Bangladesh.
McCain is attacking Trump over Vietnam while Corker is attacking Trump for...well, for being Trump. He called the President "untruthful" and stated that the White House is now "an adult day care center". The Democrats couldn't be doing more damage to the Republican Party right now even if they had video of every closed-door, smoke-filled room meeting which had been held for the last 15 years.
Corker said that but it was after Corker politely asked Trump to butt out of tax negotiating and let the committees handle it. Trump responded by saying something similar to "neener neener neener you're short!" To which Corker responded that Trump was loose at day care again.
Good times. And there's a Republican lunch today. Trump has personally insulted 1 in 5 Republican Senators. Awkward..
The latest estimates put the number of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar at over 500,000; most of them have fled to Bangladesh.
McCain is attacking Trump over Vietnam while Corker is attacking Trump for...well, for being Trump. He called the President "untruthful" and stated that the White House is now "an adult day care center". The Democrats couldn't be doing more damage to the Republican Party right now even if they had video of every closed-door, smoke-filled room meeting which had been held for the last 15 years.
It's worth noting that Corker is not running for re-election and McCain is almost certainly in the last six months of his life. Neither of them have anything left to lose. Everyone else is still too afraid of Trump's base to speak up, even though it is clear even many Republican lawmakers (though not Republican voters, according to polls) think he is insane and unfit for office. Paul Ryan continues to pretend Trump doesn't exist, and McConnell, true to form, is focused on stacking the judiciary in total juxtaposition to the unprecedented obstruction faced on Obama's picks. For Corker and McCain to even speak out this forcefully (remember, Ronald Reagan coined a 11th Commandment for the party, "though shalt not speak ill of another Republican") things must be far worse behind the scenes than the public is even privy to.
Apparently also Trump is re-instituting 24 hr nuclear bombers. I believe this was known as SAC - Strategic Air Command. This program ended in '91 I believe. It was lucky there weren't more accidents.
Trump is recalling to active duty a bunch of pilots who had moved on with their lives. Now they have to put their lives back on hold and fly nukes around in the air 24 hours a day. What could go wrong?
Now Jeff Flake of Arizona has said he won't run for re-election. I'm not one who buys into the idea of GOP moderates in this day and age, but at this point every even SEMI-moderate voice in the Senate doesn't see the point in continuing because they know Steve Bannon is coming for their heads in the primary. The Republican Party is very quickly morphing into a cult centered around Donald Trump's ability to make manifest a segment of the population's hatred of liberals, or, to be more accurate, a caricature of liberals. The Bannon wing is now ascendant, and seems interested in little else but exerting their will over those who oppose them.
Edit: Flake is giving a speech on the Senate floor that is a direct repudiation of Trump without saying his name. He essentially called him a threat to democracy,
AZ might be getting two new Senators soon then what with brain cancer McCain and Flake Jeff Flake.
They should elect Ds but the GOP controlled state is very pro-voter suppression, similar to your North Carolina, so it's not going to happen.
Ballots will be tossed, precincts will be closed or only open for 20 minutes and if you are standing outside when that happens too bad. Computer malfunctions. Whatever it takes.
Also apparently the GOP house of representatives, ever so eager to close out the Russian interference probe by the end of the year before 2018 elections, opened two new investigations today. Guess who they are investigating?
For the record, I think what really upsets people like McCain, Corker, Flake and all the "never-Trumpers" you see all over TV (who are almost all Bush 2 or Romney alumni) is that Trump revealed the dark heart that has been at the core of the Republican Party since Nixon and Pat Buchanan put the Southern Strategy into play. They've always known the racist fire was there, and they appealed to it in whisper and code for 40 years. But admitting that out loud is giving away the game. The Republican Party is like a business with two sets of books. The first set of books is for the primary, when they appeal to the far-right fringes. Blacks, abortions, immigrants and women are destroying the white male empire. But for the general election, they'd burn that set of books and focus on the actual goal, which is tax cuts for rich people. Donald Trump just came in and threw gas on the entire thing. Anyone could have done it, the base has been primed and ready for someone like Trump for years. It just took someone who had no scrupples to go through with it.
When the Civil Rights Act passed, Nixon decided the Republican Partt would cast it's lot in opposition to what that meant. Trump is the final form. There is a reason he has engendered cult-like devotion from the base. He talks like a right-wing talk radio host. He gets his information from FOX News. He is a walking, talking personification of a 30-year right-wing media strategy put into effect after Nixon was impeached to prevent it from happening again. Most Republican voters have been listening to people who sound like Donald Trump on radio and TV for 3 decades. This isn't something new to them. He talks like they would like to and thinks like they do. It's pure venom.
I believe FOX News is the most destructive force in American discourse over the last 20 years. And here is how you know it was ALWAYS a propaganda effort: FOX News never breaks stories, and they don't really have any reporters outside of the White House, Capitol Hill, and local affiliates. They have no international bureau of any kind. The "News" part was to add legitimacy, and Tucker Carlson (who now occupies Bill O'Reilly's former slot) has flat-out admitted in the past that the tagline "fair and balanced" was always meant to piss liberals off. The genesis, the incubator for everything you are seeing in 2017 has been playing out on FOX and AM radio 24/7, 365 for 20 years. The amount of poison they have injected into the bloodstream of American political debate has now simply reached a toxicity levle too high to bear without massive consequences. We're 9 months in. I'm afraid we haven't seen anything yet.
Apparently also Trump is re-instituting 24 hr nuclear bombers. I believe this was known as SAC - Strategic Air Command. This program ended in '91 I believe. It was lucky there weren't more accidents.
Trump is recalling to active duty a bunch of pilots who had moved on with their lives. Now they have to put their lives back on hold and fly nukes around in the air 24 hours a day. What could go wrong?
If you scroll up a little, I did mention this earlier but no one picked up on it.
@jjstraka34 It is about time the the status quo gets shaken up a bit, though. People need to be put off-balance so they will drop their masks and show us who they *really* are. As I have been saying for a long time now, this is what the two-party system gets us--the lesser of two evils is still evil.
Speaking of Conservative propaganda efforts, the FCC is trying to let Sinclair broadcasting merger it's way to owning local news coverage in 66% of US households.
They feature fearmongering style must run segments on the mandatory TERRORISM alert desk and other editorials are made to ensure local news leans right wing.
The broadcast empire, which requires its stations to air conservative content, now wants to reach fully 70 percent of households with its $3.9 billion bid to acquire Tribune Media's 42 TV stations.
The Trump administration appears to be going out of it's way helping Sinclair achieve its goals.
Under the leadership of Ajit Pai, a Republican who joined the commission in 2012 and whom Trump elevated to chairman, the FCC has seemingly gone out of its way to grease the wheels for the Sinclair-Tribune merger, reinstating a rule from the Reagan era that could help the company avoid limits on media consolidation.
“The FCC is gaming the rules to directly benefit Sinclair,” says Craig Aaron, the president of the public interest group Free Press.
Apparently also Trump is re-instituting 24 hr nuclear bombers. I believe this was known as SAC - Strategic Air Command. This program ended in '91 I believe. It was lucky there weren't more accidents.
Trump is recalling to active duty a bunch of pilots who had moved on with their lives. Now they have to put their lives back on hold and fly nukes around in the air 24 hours a day. What could go wrong?
If you scroll up a little, I did mention this earlier but no one picked up on it.
@jjstraka34 It is about time the the status quo gets shaken up a bit, though. People need to be put off-balance so they will drop their masks and show us who they *really* are. As I have been saying for a long time now, this is what the two-party system gets us--the lesser of two evils is still evil.
Well, as I've said, you can view Trump as a Molotov cocktail and the government as a machine. You can absolutely choose to throw the cocktail into the machine. But you destroy the machine. It doesn't work anymore. And inevitably, in a few months, you'll start saying to yourself "you know, it used alot of power, our electric bill was a little high, and it made a really annoying noise, but shit, we NEEDED that machine to work". And now it doesn't. Because that's what bombs do. And Trump was clearly, from the moment he walked down that escalator, a time-bomb with little to no fuse.
Comments
There's a lot more to be said about 2016 than 2012.
Also mad props to them for quick flashes of San Francisco as "their utopia from the ashes of what they burned down".
Didn't know that San Francisco was my vision of utopia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/10/21/devos-rescinds-72-guidance-documents-outlining-rights-for-disabled-students/?utm_term=.296cccc511a6
These aren't even regulations supposedly burdening anything. They are guidelines to help explain regulations on how federal funding for children with special education needs can be spent. There are no replacement guidelines that have been made to replace the ones being rescinded. The Department of Education won't comment on the move. It's nothing more than Betsy DeVos making another play to destroy public education as much as humanly possible to try funnel students (but likely NEVER students with learning disabilities) into for-profit charter schools. This country is a cess-pool. And we are approaching our twilight if this goes on for 4 full years.
Sounds a lot like Russia.
Nonpartisan website, Politifact.com, found that 80% of the GOP tax cuts would benefit the top 1% by the 10th year of the plan.
According to Fackcheck.org, "Ninety percent of the top 1 percent -- those earning about $900,000 and above in 2027 -- would get a tax cut, averaging $234,050."
Those in the middle tax bracket, earning $50,000 to $90,000 a year would receive a tax break on average of $660, or 1.2% of their after-tax income. While they would get an initial, tiny tax cut, the numbers would get worse over time. By 2027, more than one of every four middle-income families would pay more in taxes.
So the average could be $7000. That would include my year one $600 bucks - which will over time increase to higher taxes, and the top 1%s $240,000 tax cut.
My my my. Seems we're getting hosed here fellas. Add in cuts to medicare and medicaid and poor and elderly are doing worse than that.
I'm guessing this won't fall through like all those health care law proposals.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/20/entertainment/ines-rau-playboy/index.html
So if a Democrat is in office, then Republicans are against them making tax cuts if they might add to the debt, now that it's a Republican it doesn't matter at all. At all.
It's like how Ted Nugent was saying he'd be in jail for killing Obama and Hillary needs to eat his machine gun, but now that Trumps king, why Honest Ted goes out and says he wants there to be civil discourse and he's done being a violent crazy person. Two faced - the lot of them.
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy is moving ahead to remove Catalonia's self-governance, a courtesy that Madrid had extended to Barcelona, which will include firing all of Catalonia's current leaders and prompting new elections in about 6 months' time. Carles Puigdemont, regional President of Catalonia, will meet with the region's Parliament this week and this time perhaps they will formally declare independence instead of that half-hearted, maybe-we-are-and-maybe-we-aren't mess they did last time.
Meanwhile, Trump has reactivated over 1,000 Air Force pilots and the Air Force is placing B-52 bombers (which are nuclear-capable) on alert for the first time since 1991. I guess he misses the old Cold War days? *shrug* I like the 1980s, too, but that doesn't mean I want to go back there.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Shinzo Abe's coalition now controls 80% of the Diet (their Parliament). One item on their agenda is to get rid of Article 9 in their Constitution, which prevents Japan from using (or even threatening to use) military force. I guess they are sick and tired of the DPRK shooting missile over their cities.
Meanwhile, we should get a pool going to see how long Tillerson remains as SecState. I think he will make it through the end of the year but probably be out by mid-January, presuming some other crisis doesn't pop up before then. If he calls the President a moron again, though, he won't make it another month.
Two things are for certain: 1.) This story never gets off the ground if he doesn't turn a simple question about Niger into an attack on Obama and Bush and 2.) Donald Trump should not be making any sort of contact with griefing family members. Because so far we know that he will either stiff them on money he promises them, or cause them to break down in tears.
Keep in mind that despite their constant pro-troop rhetoric, Republicans have no trouble straight-up attacking family members of dead soldiers who question the dear leader. Cindy Sheehan was mercilessly mocked and ridiculed by right-wing media for the entirety of the Iraq War.
On my phone, so cant provide a link, but will later.
Besides that, these are private conversations and if other families do blot want to come forward about their experience, they really shouldnt have too. They are already going through enough as it is.
edit: link https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-offered-a-grieving-military-father-25000-in-a-call-but-didnt-follow-through/2017/10/18/8d4cbc8c-b43a-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.f92377546769
For one thing quite a few gold star families have come forward saying Trump didn't call. But of those he did, some might have thought it was ok. Maybe it was ok for some, maybe some others we're bamboozled or bought his flimflamming.
Some others we're offended, probably rightfully so. Based on what we all know about Trump - mainly that he only can be bothered to care about himself and has an abrasive personality the rest of the time.
Quite frankly, I think that applies to his family as well. He would throw Don Jr. or Eric under the bus in a second to save his own skin. I've never seen him acknowledge the fact that Tiffany even exists. I've never seen him have any sort of physical or loving interaction with his youngest son Baron. Melania is clearly nothing to him but a prop to drag around the world with him, and even a cursory look of the video interactions between them will reveal that she hates his guts. I highly suspect that the only reason he seems to prefer Ivanka is because deep down he probably wants to sleep with her, and you can infer this by the insanely creepy comments he has made about her in the past while she was sitting right next to him. This was posted during the campaign, and obviously, I can't vouch (and really no one can) for it's veracity, but it certainly sounds specific enough and in-character enough about Trump to be totally believable:
As many of you know, I attended the University of Pennsylvania with Donald Trump Jr. I feel compelled to share this story before the election, in the hopes that it will shed a bit of light on the kind of person that Donald Trump is, and the kind of son that he raised.
I was hanging out in a freshman dorm with some friends, next door to Donald Jr.'s room. I walked out of the room to find Donald Trump at his son's door, there to pick him up for a baseball game. There were quite a few students standing around watching, trying to catch a glimpse of the famed real estate magnate. Don Jr. opened the door, wearing a Yankee jersey. Without saying a word, his father slapped him across the face, knocking him to the floor in front of all of his classmates. He simply said "put on a suit and meet me outside," and closed the door.
Donald Jr. was a drunk in college. Every memory I have of him is of him stumbling around campus falling over or passing out in public, with his arm in a sling from injuring himself while drinking. He absolutely despised his father, and hated the attention that his last name afforded him. His nickname was "Diaper Don," because of his tendency to fall asleep drunk in other people's beds and urinate. I always felt terrible for him.
I am voting for Hillary Clinton for a number of reasons, her opponent notwithstanding. However, in light of what I saw that day, it is clear to me that Donald Trump lacks the temperament and basic social decency to run our country.
That's what he thinks of his own family. Imagine what he views the rest of us as.
Now I just don't care, it doesn't make anything any better but it certainly can make you feel worse. If I drink now I mostly just end up wanting to go to sleep.
McCain is attacking Trump over Vietnam while Corker is attacking Trump for...well, for being Trump. He called the President "untruthful" and stated that the White House is now "an adult day care center". The Democrats couldn't be doing more damage to the Republican Party right now even if they had video of every closed-door, smoke-filled room meeting which had been held for the last 15 years.
Good times. And there's a Republican lunch today. Trump has personally insulted 1 in 5 Republican Senators. Awkward..
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/24/politics/trump-gop-senators-corker/index.html
Trump is recalling to active duty a bunch of pilots who had moved on with their lives. Now they have to put their lives back on hold and fly nukes around in the air 24 hours a day. What could go wrong?
Edit: Flake is giving a speech on the Senate floor that is a direct repudiation of Trump without saying his name. He essentially called him a threat to democracy,
They should elect Ds but the GOP controlled state is very pro-voter suppression, similar to your North Carolina, so it's not going to happen.
Ballots will be tossed, precincts will be closed or only open for 20 minutes and if you are standing outside when that happens too bad. Computer malfunctions. Whatever it takes.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/24/house-launches-two-new-investigfaioginvestigations-obama-administrations-approval-uranium-sale-russi/794175001/
When the Civil Rights Act passed, Nixon decided the Republican Partt would cast it's lot in opposition to what that meant. Trump is the final form. There is a reason he has engendered cult-like devotion from the base. He talks like a right-wing talk radio host. He gets his information from FOX News. He is a walking, talking personification of a 30-year right-wing media strategy put into effect after Nixon was impeached to prevent it from happening again. Most Republican voters have been listening to people who sound like Donald Trump on radio and TV for 3 decades. This isn't something new to them. He talks like they would like to and thinks like they do. It's pure venom.
I believe FOX News is the most destructive force in American discourse over the last 20 years. And here is how you know it was ALWAYS a propaganda effort: FOX News never breaks stories, and they don't really have any reporters outside of the White House, Capitol Hill, and local affiliates. They have no international bureau of any kind. The "News" part was to add legitimacy, and Tucker Carlson (who now occupies Bill O'Reilly's former slot) has flat-out admitted in the past that the tagline "fair and balanced" was always meant to piss liberals off. The genesis, the incubator for everything you are seeing in 2017 has been playing out on FOX and AM radio 24/7, 365 for 20 years. The amount of poison they have injected into the bloodstream of American political debate has now simply reached a toxicity levle too high to bear without massive consequences. We're 9 months in. I'm afraid we haven't seen anything yet.
@jjstraka34 It is about time the the status quo gets shaken up a bit, though. People need to be put off-balance so they will drop their masks and show us who they *really* are. As I have been saying for a long time now, this is what the two-party system gets us--the lesser of two evils is still evil.
They feature fearmongering style must run segments on the mandatory TERRORISM alert desk and other editorials are made to ensure local news leans right wing.
John Oliver did a segment on it
The broadcast empire, which requires its stations to air conservative content, now wants to reach fully 70 percent of households with its $3.9 billion bid to acquire Tribune Media's 42 TV stations.
The Trump administration appears to be going out of it's way helping Sinclair achieve its goals.
Under the leadership of Ajit Pai, a Republican who joined the commission in 2012 and whom Trump elevated to chairman, the FCC has seemingly gone out of its way to grease the wheels for the Sinclair-Tribune merger, reinstating a rule from the Reagan era that could help the company avoid limits on media consolidation.
“The FCC is gaming the rules to directly benefit Sinclair,” says Craig Aaron, the president of the public interest group Free Press.