@WarChiefZeke: Of course the mistakes go in one direction. They went in one direction during the Obama years and Bush years and Clinton years, too. We've only got one administration to report on at a time. If you're looking at fake stories in general, they go in all kinds of directions.
I can't agree with you more about the body cameras. It's not like the technology or the data storage is beyond the United States in this day and age, and on top of providing a buffer against police brutality, it would also help the police gather evidence. It's a win for all the good cops in the country as well as the general citizenry; it's only a loss for the crooks.
Apparently Russia reached out to the Trump administration with a non-interference agreement. The idea was that Russia wouldn't interfere with American affairs if America doesn't interfere with Russian affairs. The Trump administration refused.
I doubt the agreement would have amounted to anything, since I don't particularly trust Russia to abide by it and it would probably involve a promise not to promote democracy in Russia (a big deal for Putin, but pretty much a non-starter for the U.S.). But it doesn't hurt to engage in talks. Talk is cheap. There was still a slim chance the result could have been an agreement that worked for the United States. I'm not surprised the Trump administration rejected the offer; merely agreeing to a discussion would constitute an admission that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, which the Trump administration denies. From the administration's perspective, there's no incentive to do anything but reject the offer outright.
This proposed agreement was not meant to be public. And I find it immensely significant because Russia is admitting its interference to the Trump administration.
This also, however, means that the Trump administration was not involved in the interference, because if it was, there would be no point in making the offer. If Trump was in cahoots with Russia, Russia would not offer to stop working with them. What would be the point? But then, what would the point be of asking the administration to stop interference in the first place, if the interference was supposed to be in Trump's favor? Unless, of course, Russia was reaching out to people they thought were not aligned with Trump.
It's hard for me to pin down all of the implications. I see too many possible explanations behind Russia's proposal.
I don't know if you did this on purpose, but both of those (being sick and stumbling on stairs/fainting) were used against Clinton during the campaign to show she was not fit for office.
My choices were not chosen at random, I assure you.
If you can't take an unarmed person into custody without shooting them, when you have (at least) a taser, a baton and mace at your disposal, then I'm sorry, but you need to go get a new job. Being a police officer isn't compulsory service. They are supposed to protect and serve, and yes, that DOES include suspects in all but the most extreme of circumstances. This isn't Judge Dredd.
There are too many police officers who washed out of the military or couldn't make it in at all so they did the next best thing. With all of the Dept. of Homeland Security hand-me-downs police departments have been receiving in the last 15 years some local police departments are as well-outfitted as the military. Of course, one abusive cop who likes to lord his authority over people or one who is just itching for you to backtalk or question him in even the slightest way is enough to counterbalance the other 99 who spend their days actually protecting and serving people.
Every time someone mentions that police are trained to assess situations for threats I mention Tamir Rice. He got assessed for about 2 seconds before the police shot him in a city park.
Tamir Rice was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. He was essentially a child playing cops and robbers in a park by himself. A paranoid white citizen in a house nearby got freaked out and called the cops. The cops rolled up and executed a 12-year old child within 2 seconds. They later said it was because they thought he looked older. Studies have shown that people often mistake black children for being older (meaning more dangerous and more culpable for their actions) than they actually are. Tamir Rice was killed because he was black. That would have never, ever happened to a white child.
I think we can agree that sans evidence of any kind what we have to go on is the credibility of the accuser. The accuser allowed this to be fully attributed to the accused for three weeks. She said nothing as it was read aloud, fake time and date included, and presented as his. That's really not defendable as an honest mistake, in my view, especially as this all comes after Allred was basically grilled on live T.V and refused to defend her client. I think it can be argued this is damage control at this point.
That evidence, which I had assumed to be true at the time, gave credibility to the whole bundle of them that came out at once. Now that this can be credibly doubted, I don't see what we have to go on.
That being said, I don't know what you're talking about in terms of testimony Grond. I had assumed guilt up until now basically so I admit to not having a full knowledge of his statements, just the evidence. If he said something particularly damning i'd like to hear it.
I'm not quite sure of your point @jjstraka34. You appear to believe that Moore was chasing after very young women and I agree that the evidence for that is overwhelming (one small part of that is the written inscription, minus notes, on Nelson's year book). I know that there have been accusations of assault made against him, but I haven't commented on those.
There have been several of Moore's statements quoted in this thread following a predictable line: 1) I didn't do this and the people saying I did are lying outrageously 2) I don't remember doing this, but if I did everything was innocent 3) this type of behavior is normal My reference to self-incriminating statements was that I believe that someone who chooses to go down the justification route of 2) and 3) as opposed to sticking at 1) is highly likely to have committed the behavior they originally said they didn't (though in Moore's case I think the evidence that he did chase very young women is so strong that I wouldn't believe him whatever he said).
I think we can agree that sans evidence of any kind what we have to go on is the credibility of the accuser. The accuser allowed this to be fully attributed to the accused for three weeks. She said nothing as it was read aloud, fake time and date included, and presented as his. That's really not defendable as an honest mistake, in my view, especially as this all comes after Allred was basically grilled on live T.V and refused to defend her client. I think it can be argued this is damage control at this point.
That evidence, which I had assumed to be true at the time, gave credibility to the whole bundle of them that came out at once. Now that this can be credibly doubted, I don't see what we have to go on.
That being said, I don't know what you're talking about in terms of testimony Grond. I had assumed guilt up until now basically so I admit to not having a full knowledge of his statements, just the evidence. If he said something particularly damning i'd like to hear it.
I'm not quite sure of your point @jjstraka34. You appear to believe that Moore was chasing after very young women and I agree that the evidence for that is overwhelming (one small part of that is the written inscription, minus notes, on Nelson's year book). I know that there have been accusations of assault made against him, but I haven't commented on those.
There have been several of Moore's statements quoted in this thread following a predictable line: 1) I didn't do this and the people saying I did are lying outrageously 2) I don't remember doing this, but if I did everything was innocent 3) this type of behavior is normal My reference to self-incriminating statements was that I believe that someone who chooses to go down the justification route of 2) and 3) as opposed to sticking at 1) is highly likely to have committed the behavior they originally said they didn't (though in Moore's case I think the evidence that he did chase very young women is so strong that I wouldn't believe him whatever he said).
I was replying to the someone else, not you. The formatting sometimes gets all messed up on the reply feature, and I don't spend much time trying to fix ones that get out of whack. Wasn't trying to bring you into the conversation at all. Apologies. It actually drives me nuts and I usually just delete the whole thing and start a new comment without quotes, but didn't this time.
I agree it is funny, yes . On a more serious note though the previous statements were made in the context of promoting a 2 state solution.
The issue isn't just this symbolic reference to Jerusalem as the capital (and this is all religious nonsense that will never be solved by the way) but that the United States President is going to move the embassy there. There is a reason the other Presidents gave it lip service and didn't do so. Because, once they became President, they became responsible for both the safety of Americans at home and, in this case, especially abroad. And they took that responsibility seriously. And the came to realize very quickly that moving the embassy would be a disaster. Donald Trump not only doesn't understand the situation, he doesn't give a shit either, beyond what it can do to fire up his evangelical base and appease his top donor.
@WarChiefZeke: Of course the mistakes go in one direction. They went in one direction during the Obama years and Bush years and Clinton years, too. We've only got one administration to report on at a time. If you're looking at fake stories in general, they go in all kinds of directions.
I can't agree with you more about the body cameras. It's not like the technology or the data storage is beyond the United States in this day and age, and on top of providing a buffer against police brutality, it would also help the police gather evidence. It's a win for all the good cops in the country as well as the general citizenry; it's only a loss for the crooks.
Apparently Russia reached out to the Trump administration with a non-interference agreement. The idea was that Russia wouldn't interfere with American affairs if America doesn't interfere with Russian affairs. The Trump administration refused.
I doubt the agreement would have amounted to anything, since I don't particularly trust Russia to abide by it and it would probably involve a promise not to promote democracy in Russia (a big deal for Putin, but pretty much a non-starter for the U.S.). But it doesn't hurt to engage in talks. Talk is cheap. There was still a slim chance the result could have been an agreement that worked for the United States. I'm not surprised the Trump administration rejected the offer; merely agreeing to a discussion would constitute an admission that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, which the Trump administration denies. From the administration's perspective, there's no incentive to do anything but reject the offer outright.
This proposed agreement was not meant to be public. And I find it immensely significant because Russia is admitting its interference to the Trump administration.
This also, however, means that the Trump administration was not involved in the interference, because if it was, there would be no point in making the offer. If Trump was in cahoots with Russia, Russia would not offer to stop working with them. What would be the point? But then, what would the point be of asking the administration to stop interference in the first place, if the interference was supposed to be in Trump's favor? Unless, of course, Russia was reaching out to people they thought were not aligned with Trump.
It's hard for me to pin down all of the implications. I see too many possible explanations behind Russia's proposal.
Honest question @semiticgod. When was the last time the MSM had to retract a story highly damaging to a democrat? I can't recall any in the Obama years although I was admittedly pretty young for the first term. I do know of some pretty serious ones against Republicans even before the Trump era though.
@WarChiefZeke: No idea. I don't watch much TV; I nearly always get my news online. @jjstraka34 might know.
Until 9/11 hit, the #1 story in the country was how Representative Gary Condit was surely a MURDERER when one of his interns was killed in a park (he perhaps had the most airtight alibi ever, considering he was in meetings with the Vice President when the murder took place). Shirley Sherrod was run out of her government post on a rail within hours after a James O'Keefe scam took her speech wholly out of context. Sean Hannity spent over a week insinuating earlier this year that a DNC staffer was MURDERED to cover up the email leak. Obama was attacked for weeks in the campaign about his pastor while John McCain's endorsement by fundamentalist nutbag John Hagee, was completely ignored. The entire 2nd term of the Clinton Administration was nothing but an endless stream of mainstream press outlets getting leaks from people in Ken Starr's office and printing them as fact time after time after time. They ran with the claim that Al Gore said he invented the internet (never happened). The mainstream media basically decided the 2000 election in the minds of most of the public when (after Bush's cousin called the race at FOX) they all rushed to declare Bush the winner despite not having the data to do so, thus cementing forever the idea that Gore would be a sore loser if he contested the outcome. Do we even need to discuss the complete sycophancy that the media engaged in in regards to the Bush Administration leading up to the Iraq War (which is perhaps their greatest failure EVER)??
All of these stories were never even addressed as controversial, much less ever retracted or apologized for (as nearly every incorrect detail about Trump usually is within a couple of hours). The media isn't biased toward one side or the other, they are biased toward laziness and access to powerful people who will feed them information and quotes. They are open to be criticized, but not for the reasons most think. They aren't making shit up about Trump. Some of the details in some stories are wrong. As we saw throughout the last week, they were corrected, again, within hours. What are they supposed to do, NOT correct them?? It's gotten to the point where apparently we now expect 100% accuracy from all reporting, which is absurd on it's face. You have to take everything in total and make a judgement based on the volume of what is being reported on any given topic. How else do people think we are going to get information, by telepathy and divination??
Furthermore, it's almost always TV news that is taking it on the chin for mistakes because they are rushing to get it on the air first. As you saw last week with the Washington Post, when that little prick James O' Keefe TRIED to get them to swallow a fake story about Roy Moore, they didn't. You can watch the video of the female reporter going over every little detail about what was being said and then coming to the clear conclusion the entire thing was an attempted hit job. It is video evidence of how journalism ACTUALLY works as to how people now believe it works because Donald Trump repeats the phrase "fake news" every 30 minutes. Why do you think Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair were so ostracized and excommunicated from the profession by their colleagues?? Because it is a cardinal sin to actually make up stories out of whole cloth. News can be wrong and be neither biased nor malicious. We live in a complicated world with human beings who do their best and make mistakes, and then (shock!) admit to them. It's clear that is no longer enough. I mean, that Bush National Guard story caused Dan Rather to lose his job, along with the producer. What more should be demanded of them, public flogging??
I'm not even going to discuss FOX News, which is a full-blown propaganda operation that would make Goebbels stare in wonder and amazement. The same can be said about, literally, 99% of AM radio stations that have anything to do with politics whatsoever. It would take me the rest of my life to go over the conspiracy theories and straight up bullshit that has been put over the airwaves in those two mediums in the last 30 years. It wouldn't just be a book, it would be an entire set of encyclopedias.
Well the last administration was a lot more transparent. It's easier to get things wrong when the administration trying to lie and hide about every little thing. Trump is complicit too here because he's constantly changing his story half the time and purporsely distorting the truth the rest of the time.
Trump is such a coward, he won't take questions from the free press. He only appears when he can dictate one way to the crowd or on Fox with sycophants and softball propaganda interviews. The Obama administration, and every other President and administration, would meet the press and then the press could quote them directly.
This police incident is why we need nationwide body cams in this country. These people would have gotten away with literal murder if we didn't have that sort of video evidence.
I agree we need nationwide body cams but there's issues with it. Bodycams help prevent and reduce violence but there have been more than a few cases where there's bodycam and police get away with it.
Sometimes police just turn off their body cams. Other times even when bodycam video shows police doing what looks like murder they still get away with it.
Police in Mesa, Arizona released disturbing body camera video on Thursday hours after a former officer was acquitted of a murder charge in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man.
The video shows a Policeman pointing a gun at Daniel Shaver as Shaver lies on the ground, holds his hands in the air, cries and begs the officer not to shoot. Then the cop shot him. The cop was acquitted.
I don't see how body cameras are doing any good whatsoever. Everyone assumed they would, but this country is so far gone in it's police worship that there is literally NOTHING a cop can do to get convicted if the jury is of that mindset. I mean, LOOK at that Daniel Shaver video. The cop is just toying with him like a sadistic maniac. Why didn't he just walk over there and put a pair of goddamn handcuffs on him?? The guy was crying and literally BEGGING the cop not to shoot him, he was doing everything he was told to do. The guy was clearly simply drunk, and as he was crawling (as the cop had instructed him to do) over towards the cop (again, what the hell is that, go over there and CUFF THE GUY!!!), he clearly felt his shorts falling off, he reached back to pull them up instinctively, and the cop unloads an automatic rifle into him, killing him on the spot. It's one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen, and I won't post the video here because honestly it's too graphic. The cop was clearly ENJOYING making this guy jump through hoops while having a gun trained on him, he was humiliating him instead of just arresting him, and then as he's making the guy crawl across the hotel hallway carpet to him, he just f******g murders the guy on the spot for pulling his shorts up. And maybe some white folks will wake the hell up seeing that video, because cops are now so paranoid and out of control that it could be YOU on any given traffic stop. That video is absolutely insane. I can still barely wrap my head around it. It wasn't just murder, it was a minute or two of totally uncalled for psychological torture of a clearly scared to death person who had had too much to drink. That cop should be in a prison cell for the rest of his life.
That cop should be in a prison cell for the rest of his life.
He's free, we're not.
The only reason I can think of that anybody would defend what happened in that video is if they simply AGREE that cops should have the right to take out people perceived to be guilty or drains on society, so as to save us all the trouble and money of court costs and possible incarceration. That is what Duterte is doing in the Philippines. His cops are simply executing drug users (users) on the street when they come across them. And Trump has specifically PRAISED Duterte's stance on the drug war. So where exactly are we headed?? Because this Administration and Justice Department sure as shit aren't going to do anything about it. People shouldn't forget that speech Trump gave to the cops in New York a few months ago when he specifically urged police to be rougher with suspects when putting them in the squad car. What kind of message do you think shit like that sends to guys like the cop in this video?? I'm fairly certain it makes them think they are untouchable and above the law. Which, of course, they basically are. This is the kind of stuff that you see in a failing society.
That cop should be in a prison cell for the rest of his life.
He's free, we're not.
So where exactly are we headed?? Because this Administration and Justice Department sure as shit aren't going to do anything about it.
Note that Trump practically rolled over himself tweeting and getting his justice department to file federal charges against an illegal immigrant who was found not guilty but was involved in the death of a woman. But here, oh yeah, they will not do a damn thing. They might even praise the cop or give him a job in the administration.
Oh and Ex-Fox News anchor Juliet Huddy said Trump assaulted her by kissing her on the lips after a lunch without her permission exactly as he described he would do on the Access Hollywood recording.
That cop should be in a prison cell for the rest of his life.
He's free, we're not.
So where exactly are we headed?? Because this Administration and Justice Department sure as shit aren't going to do anything about it.
Note that Trump practically rolled over himself tweeting and getting his justice department to file federal charges against an illegal immigrant who was found not guilty but was involved in the death of a woman. But here, oh yeah, they will not do a damn thing. They might even praise the cop or give him a job in the administration.
Oh and Ex-Fox News anchor Juliet Huddy said Trump assaulted her by kissing her on the lips after a lunch without her permission exactly as he described he would do on the Access Hollywood recording.
As far as I read she didn't go so far as to describe it as assault, and said it was weird and surprising. But it certainly fits the general pattern of behavior from his other 16 accusers. Ranging from just taking liberty and kissing a women to cornering them physically or grabbing their genitals. It's all about him exerting his power over them. Some nights it was only a kiss, other nights it was probably out-right assault. But I'm willing to bet he has done something or another to HUNDREDS of women over the years.
@WarChiefZeke: No idea. I don't watch much TV; I nearly always get my news online. @jjstraka34 might know.
Until 9/11 hit, the #1 story in the country was how Representative Gary Condit was surely a MURDERER when one of his interns was killed in a park (he perhaps had the most airtight alibi ever, considering he was in meetings with the Vice President when the murder took place). Shirley Sherrod was run out of her government post on a rail within hours after a James O'Keefe scam took her speech wholly out of context. Sean Hannity spent over a week insinuating earlier this year that a DNC staffer was MURDERED to cover up the email leak. Obama was attacked for weeks in the campaign about his pastor while John McCain's endorsement by fundamentalist nutbag John Hagee, was completely ignored. The entire 2nd term of the Clinton Administration was nothing but an endless stream of mainstream press outlets getting leaks from people in Ken Starr's office and printing them as fact time after time after time. They ran with the claim that Al Gore said he invented the internet (never happened). The mainstream media basically decided the 2000 election in the minds of most of the public when (after Bush's cousin called the race at FOX) they all rushed to declare Bush the winner despite not having the data to do so, thus cementing forever the idea that Gore would be a sore loser if he contested the outcome. Do we even need to discuss the complete sycophancy that the media engaged in in regards to the Bush Administration leading up to the Iraq War (which is perhaps their greatest failure EVER)??
All of these stories were never even addressed as controversial, much less ever retracted or apologized for (as nearly every incorrect detail about Trump usually is within a couple of hours). The media isn't biased toward one side or the other, they are biased toward laziness and access to powerful people who will feed them information and quotes. They are open to be criticized, but not for the reasons most think. They aren't making shit up about Trump. Some of the details in some stories are wrong. As we saw throughout the last week, they were corrected, again, within hours. What are they supposed to do, NOT correct them?? It's gotten to the point where apparently we now expect 100% accuracy from all reporting, which is absurd on it's face. You have to take everything in total and make a judgement based on the volume of what is being reported on any given topic. How else do people think we are going to get information, by telepathy and divination??
Furthermore, it's almost always TV news that is taking it on the chin for mistakes because they are rushing to get it on the air first. As you saw last week with the Washington Post, when that little prick James O' Keefe TRIED to get them to swallow a fake story about Roy Moore, they didn't. You can watch the video of the female reporter going over every little detail about what was being said and then coming to the clear conclusion the entire thing was an attempted hit job. It is video evidence of how journalism ACTUALLY works as to how people now believe it works because Donald Trump repeats the phrase "fake news" every 30 minutes. Why do you think Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair were so ostracized and excommunicated from the profession by their colleagues?? Because it is a cardinal sin to actually make up stories out of whole cloth. News can be wrong and be neither biased nor malicious. We live in a complicated world with human beings who do their best and make mistakes, and then (shock!) admit to them. It's clear that is no longer enough. I mean, that Bush National Guard story caused Dan Rather to lose his job, along with the producer. What more should be demanded of them, public flogging??
I'm not even going to discuss FOX News, which is a full-blown propaganda operation that would make Goebbels stare in wonder and amazement. The same can be said about, literally, 99% of AM radio stations that have anything to do with politics whatsoever. It would take me the rest of my life to go over the conspiracy theories and straight up bullshit that has been put over the airwaves in those two mediums in the last 30 years. It wouldn't just be a book, it would be an entire set of encyclopedias.
These are pretty awful examples no offense. The MSM never reported on Seth Rich like there was any chance Clinton did it, it was rendered conspiracy fodder from the word go. Ken Starr wasn't fake news, his accurate claims led to Clinton's impeachment. The 2000 election results were correct because Bush won. Obama was attacked on the basis that William Ayers was a terrorist, which is the case. That was accurate.
It's almost like the folks in media have agendas too.
I love how we talk about the MSM like FOX News doesn't exist and that the right-wing doesn't have an almost total monopoly over an entire medium of communication (that everyone has in their car), which is the radio. Or, for that matter, the internet, which is the wild west and open to anyone (well, for now, give it a couple years).
As a matter of fact, radio has a 93% saturation in reaching the American public. TV has 89%, smartphones have 83%. And, again, there are almost no (I repeat NO) liberal radio stations left in this country. Maybe a dozen or so in major metro areas. Right-wing extremism (not just bias) is broadcast 24/7 on any radio station that has to do with politics. I've said it before and will say it again: you can drive from San Francisco to Bangor or Seattle to Orlando, and you would be LUCKY to get one hour of signal time with a liberal talk show host. You could make the same trips and never have a single solitary second where you couldn't tune in Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Yet this never gets talked about, nor do those who bitch about MSM "bias" seem to either aware of it or care. I would trade whatever advantage the MSM supposedly gives Democrats for the nearly blanket radio reach of the right-wing media in a second. I wouldn't even hesitate.
And for the record, I wasn't talking about Bill Ayers, that was another story. I was talking about Rev. Wright. I didn't get into this game yesterday, I've been following politics and the media coverage behind them since 1998, very closely. I know what I meant to say and why I said it.
I love how we talk about the MSM like FOX News doesn't exist and that the right-wing doesn't have an almost total monopoly over an entire medium of communication (that everyone has in their car), which is the radio. Or, for that matter, the internet, which is the wild west and open to anyone (well, for now, give it a couple years).
As a matter of fact, radio has a 93% saturation in reaching the American public. TV has 89%, smartphones have 83%. And, again, there are almost no (I repeat NO) liberal radio stations left in this country. Maybe a dozen or so in major metro areas. Right-wing extremism (not just bias) is broadcast 24/7 on any radio station that has to do with politics. I've said it before and will say it again: you can drive from San Francisco to Bangor or Seattle to Orlando, and you would be LUCKY to get one hour of signal time with a liberal talk show host. You could make the same trips and never have a single solitary second where you couldn't tune in Rush Limabaugh or Sean Hannity. Yet this never gets talked about, nor do those who bitch about MSM "bias" seem to either aware of it or care. I would trade whatever advantage the MSM supposedly gives Democrats for the nearly blanket radio reach of the right-wing media in a second. I wouldn't even hesitate.
You're forgetting about NPR on the radio waves. There you can get a liberal perspective interspersed with some nice Jazz, Blues or classical music! Of course it seems like you have to be within 20-30 miles of a University to ever find a station in your car (especially if it's FM).
I love how we talk about the MSM like FOX News doesn't exist and that the right-wing doesn't have an almost total monopoly over an entire medium of communication (that everyone has in their car), which is the radio. Or, for that matter, the internet, which is the wild west and open to anyone (well, for now, give it a couple years).
As a matter of fact, radio has a 93% saturation in reaching the American public. TV has 89%, smartphones have 83%. And, again, there are almost no (I repeat NO) liberal radio stations left in this country. Maybe a dozen or so in major metro areas. Right-wing extremism (not just bias) is broadcast 24/7 on any radio station that has to do with politics. I've said it before and will say it again: you can drive from San Francisco to Bangor or Seattle to Orlando, and you would be LUCKY to get one hour of signal time with a liberal talk show host. You could make the same trips and never have a single solitary second where you couldn't tune in Rush Limabaugh or Sean Hannity. Yet this never gets talked about, nor do those who bitch about MSM "bias" seem to either aware of it or care. I would trade whatever advantage the MSM supposedly gives Democrats for the nearly blanket radio reach of the right-wing media in a second. I wouldn't even hesitate.
You're forgetting about NPR on the radio waves. There you can get a liberal perspective interspersed with some nice Jazz, Blues or classical music! Of course it seems like you have to be within 20-30 miles of a University to ever find a station in your car (especially if it's FM).
NPR is always (as you mention) very difficult to get a signal on, it's on the left-end of the dial (almost exclusively) and it's not nearly as liberal as it used to be, much like PBS actually. If at all really. I would view trading right-wing radio domination for a more "balanced" MSM (and I don't even know what that is supposed to entail) like giving up a 2nd round draft pick for LeBron James. In other words, I wouldn't even bother thinking about it.
You and I both know (coming from rural areas) that guys in their tractors are listening to Rush Limbaugh for their news. They've been doing so since the Clinton Administration.
I still like listening to Rush myself. He's actually very entertaining even though he's gotten to be a bit transparent in his Trump worshipping the last year or so. I think he just likes stirring up the hornets' nests for his ratings. He's also not as religious as most of the other radio hosts. I can't stand Hannity. I think he's dumb as a box of rocks. Mark Levin is an asshole and Savage is about the most vitriolic host I've ever heard (and his constant touting of his books is just sad - I can't believe anybody would part with $0.01 to buy his trash).
Ken Starr wasn't fake news, his accurate claims led to Clinton's impeachment. The 2000 election results were correct because Bush won.
It's almost like the folks in media have agendas too.
You're promoting results bias. Yes, Clinton was impeached for lying about a BJ. So what, is that any worse than lying about crowd size at your inauguration? Both are lies, Clinton was impeached for apologizing about it, would it have been better for him if he'd just denied reality like Trump does? Arguably so. Trump suffers no reprucussions for lying constantly he certainly has not stopped after one bald faced lie. Is one lie any better than the other? Well if you say one got a free pass and one got a president impeached that's results bias. If you look at the lies then no one is not better than the other because both were lies.
Bush did win but that does not make the election results correct. The recount was stopped by Republicans and relatives but if it had continued then Gore would have won. So the election was not correct if the votes had been counted.
I still like listening to Rush myself. He's actually very entertaining even though he's gotten to be a bit transparent in his Trump worshipping the last year or so. I think he just likes stirring up the hornets' nests for his ratings. He's also not as religious as most of the other radio hosts. I can't stand Hannity. I think he's dumb as a box of rocks. Mark Levin is an asshole and Savage is about the most vitriolic host I've ever heard (and his constant touting of his books is just sad - I can't believe anybody would part with $0.01 to buy his trash).
AM radio is (besides the propaganda) about trying to get people to buy gold and home security systems. Basically, their audience is paranoid, retired white people. And the advertisers reflect that. Rush is talented, if totally cynical and evil in my book. Levin is like listening to nails on a chalkboard. Savage is a lunatic, BUT (and this is worth mentioning)....he and Trump are friends. Trump learned everything he is doing now in office (as far as how he acts when in trouble) from right-wing radio and FOX News. He is that section of public discourse made manifest and put in office. Trump knows what he is selling and to who he is selling it to. That may only be 33% of the public, but it is 33% of the public he has basically NO chance of ever alienating.
BBC gets public money, I don't get why taxpayers have to pay for liberal news organizations.
A major reason why the BBC gets public money is precisely because it doesn't have an agenda (that's mandated both by the funding agreement and governance arrangements - and for news coverage that's the general law in the UK). Politicians from across the spectrum have been complaining about BBC bias for as long as I can remember - so they must be getting something right .
This is a hell of a way of saying "I'm hiding in an embassy because of rape charges and I can leave at anytime I want but I'm too chickenshit to do so". Julian Assange is being illegally detained the same way I'm being illegally detained in my apartment right now.
This is a hell of a way of saying "I'm hiding in an embassy because of rape charges and I can leave at anytime I want but I'm too chickenshit to do so". Julian Assange is being illegally detained the same way I'm being illegally detained in my apartment right now.
He has been charged, if he wants justice he'll have to quit hiding
This is a hell of a way of saying "I'm hiding in an embassy because of rape charges and I can leave at anytime I want but I'm too chickenshit to do so". Julian Assange is being illegally detained the same way I'm being illegally detained in my apartment right now.
He has been charged, if he wants justice he'll have to quit hiding
I think the charges were dropped (for the time being) because Sweden realized he wasn't ever planning on coming out. I mean seriously....illegal detention. What a joke. The only reason he hasn't been detained is because he is holed up in that embassy. Fine. But any suggestion he isn't in there based on his actions and of his own free will are preposterous horseshit.
Two pieces of actual policy this week that are, of course, absurd on their face. One was passed by the House, that is trying to make it legal for your open carry permit from one state to be legal in ALL states, despite having different gun laws. Imagine if we spread this to everything. For instance, the speed limit in Montana is 80 mph. The speed limit in Minnesota is 70 mph. Should a Montana resident be able to drive 80 mph on Minnesota roads?? And this is coming from the party that has been preaching about state's rights and federalism non-stop for the past 75 years.
Beyond that, the Trump Administration is doing away with an Obama Administration proposal that would require airlines to tell passengers how much luggage fees will be when you purchase your ticket. Because there is nothing the average citizen enjoys more than being SURPRISED about a luggage fee at the airport. It's got a popularity right up there with genital herpes I believe.
Throughout this year, liberals have been mocked for comparing the current situation to the book (and recent Hulu series) "The Handmaid's Tale", a dystopian future in which Christian fundamentalism has taken over the country, and women are nothing but brood mares for rich couples. Well, Rep. Trent Franks resigned yesterday. The reason?? He offered one of his staffers $5 million dollars to carry his child (unclear as yet whether he was going to knock her up himself or through surrogacy). Franks was one of the leading Christian conservatives and abortion opponents in the Republican caucus.
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I can't agree with you more about the body cameras. It's not like the technology or the data storage is beyond the United States in this day and age, and on top of providing a buffer against police brutality, it would also help the police gather evidence. It's a win for all the good cops in the country as well as the general citizenry; it's only a loss for the crooks.
Apparently Russia reached out to the Trump administration with a non-interference agreement. The idea was that Russia wouldn't interfere with American affairs if America doesn't interfere with Russian affairs. The Trump administration refused.
I doubt the agreement would have amounted to anything, since I don't particularly trust Russia to abide by it and it would probably involve a promise not to promote democracy in Russia (a big deal for Putin, but pretty much a non-starter for the U.S.). But it doesn't hurt to engage in talks. Talk is cheap. There was still a slim chance the result could have been an agreement that worked for the United States. I'm not surprised the Trump administration rejected the offer; merely agreeing to a discussion would constitute an admission that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, which the Trump administration denies. From the administration's perspective, there's no incentive to do anything but reject the offer outright.
This proposed agreement was not meant to be public. And I find it immensely significant because Russia is admitting its interference to the Trump administration.
This also, however, means that the Trump administration was not involved in the interference, because if it was, there would be no point in making the offer. If Trump was in cahoots with Russia, Russia would not offer to stop working with them. What would be the point? But then, what would the point be of asking the administration to stop interference in the first place, if the interference was supposed to be in Trump's favor? Unless, of course, Russia was reaching out to people they thought were not aligned with Trump.
It's hard for me to pin down all of the implications. I see too many possible explanations behind Russia's proposal.
There have been several of Moore's statements quoted in this thread following a predictable line:
1) I didn't do this and the people saying I did are lying outrageously
2) I don't remember doing this, but if I did everything was innocent
3) this type of behavior is normal
My reference to self-incriminating statements was that I believe that someone who chooses to go down the justification route of 2) and 3) as opposed to sticking at 1) is highly likely to have committed the behavior they originally said they didn't (though in Moore's case I think the evidence that he did chase very young women is so strong that I wouldn't believe him whatever he said).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy
Here's an NYT one about Clinton.
All of these stories were never even addressed as controversial, much less ever retracted or apologized for (as nearly every incorrect detail about Trump usually is within a couple of hours). The media isn't biased toward one side or the other, they are biased toward laziness and access to powerful people who will feed them information and quotes. They are open to be criticized, but not for the reasons most think. They aren't making shit up about Trump. Some of the details in some stories are wrong. As we saw throughout the last week, they were corrected, again, within hours. What are they supposed to do, NOT correct them?? It's gotten to the point where apparently we now expect 100% accuracy from all reporting, which is absurd on it's face. You have to take everything in total and make a judgement based on the volume of what is being reported on any given topic. How else do people think we are going to get information, by telepathy and divination??
Furthermore, it's almost always TV news that is taking it on the chin for mistakes because they are rushing to get it on the air first. As you saw last week with the Washington Post, when that little prick James O' Keefe TRIED to get them to swallow a fake story about Roy Moore, they didn't. You can watch the video of the female reporter going over every little detail about what was being said and then coming to the clear conclusion the entire thing was an attempted hit job. It is video evidence of how journalism ACTUALLY works as to how people now believe it works because Donald Trump repeats the phrase "fake news" every 30 minutes. Why do you think Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair were so ostracized and excommunicated from the profession by their colleagues?? Because it is a cardinal sin to actually make up stories out of whole cloth. News can be wrong and be neither biased nor malicious. We live in a complicated world with human beings who do their best and make mistakes, and then (shock!) admit to them. It's clear that is no longer enough. I mean, that Bush National Guard story caused Dan Rather to lose his job, along with the producer. What more should be demanded of them, public flogging??
I'm not even going to discuss FOX News, which is a full-blown propaganda operation that would make Goebbels stare in wonder and amazement. The same can be said about, literally, 99% of AM radio stations that have anything to do with politics whatsoever. It would take me the rest of my life to go over the conspiracy theories and straight up bullshit that has been put over the airwaves in those two mediums in the last 30 years. It wouldn't just be a book, it would be an entire set of encyclopedias.
Trump is such a coward, he won't take questions from the free press. He only appears when he can dictate one way to the crowd or on Fox with sycophants and softball propaganda interviews. The Obama administration, and every other President and administration, would meet the press and then the press could quote them directly.
Sometimes police just turn off their body cams. Other times even when bodycam video shows police doing what looks like murder they still get away with it.
For example, Philando Castile
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/20/us/philando-castile-shooting-dashcam/index.html
And a couple posts ago I mentioned the bodycam video was probably released during the trial and only made public after the cop was acquitted
Oh and Ex-Fox News anchor Juliet Huddy said Trump assaulted her by kissing her on the lips after a lunch without her permission exactly as he described he would do on the Access Hollywood recording.
It's almost like the folks in media have agendas too.
As a matter of fact, radio has a 93% saturation in reaching the American public. TV has 89%, smartphones have 83%. And, again, there are almost no (I repeat NO) liberal radio stations left in this country. Maybe a dozen or so in major metro areas. Right-wing extremism (not just bias) is broadcast 24/7 on any radio station that has to do with politics. I've said it before and will say it again: you can drive from San Francisco to Bangor or Seattle to Orlando, and you would be LUCKY to get one hour of signal time with a liberal talk show host. You could make the same trips and never have a single solitary second where you couldn't tune in Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Yet this never gets talked about, nor do those who bitch about MSM "bias" seem to either aware of it or care. I would trade whatever advantage the MSM supposedly gives Democrats for the nearly blanket radio reach of the right-wing media in a second. I wouldn't even hesitate.
And for the record, I wasn't talking about Bill Ayers, that was another story. I was talking about Rev. Wright. I didn't get into this game yesterday, I've been following politics and the media coverage behind them since 1998, very closely. I know what I meant to say and why I said it.
The group who kidnapped and tortured a white mentally disabled boy are getting probation for it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-facebook-live-beating-disabled-teen-20171208-story.html
You and I both know (coming from rural areas) that guys in their tractors are listening to Rush Limbaugh for their news. They've been doing so since the Clinton Administration.
Bush did win but that does not make the election results correct. The recount was stopped by Republicans and relatives but if it had continued then Gore would have won. So the election was not correct if the votes had been counted.
This is a hell of a way of saying "I'm hiding in an embassy because of rape charges and I can leave at anytime I want but I'm too chickenshit to do so". Julian Assange is being illegally detained the same way I'm being illegally detained in my apartment right now.
Beyond that, the Trump Administration is doing away with an Obama Administration proposal that would require airlines to tell passengers how much luggage fees will be when you purchase your ticket. Because there is nothing the average citizen enjoys more than being SURPRISED about a luggage fee at the airport. It's got a popularity right up there with genital herpes I believe.
Throughout this year, liberals have been mocked for comparing the current situation to the book (and recent Hulu series) "The Handmaid's Tale", a dystopian future in which Christian fundamentalism has taken over the country, and women are nothing but brood mares for rich couples. Well, Rep. Trent Franks resigned yesterday. The reason?? He offered one of his staffers $5 million dollars to carry his child (unclear as yet whether he was going to knock her up himself or through surrogacy). Franks was one of the leading Christian conservatives and abortion opponents in the Republican caucus.