Liberals had literally waited over 30 years to even SLIGHTLY move the court to the left. And it was ripped from them. And since it was allowed to happen, they will now wait ANOTHER 30 years. Basically, damn near the entire lifespan of anyone my age who cares about politics. It's over, done. 3 more decades down the drain. Not because we didn't win the race (the 2012 Presidential election) that gave Obama the right to replace Scalia, but because the rules were just plain thrown out the window. Because conservatives truly believed that because Scalia was such a conservative firebrand, that his spot was THEIR seat. It wasn't their seat. It was America's seat, to be filled by the man who was in the office at that time voted in (by massive popular vote margins by the way) by the people. And it was perhaps even more of an indignity that his pick was then handed off on a silver platter to the man who questioned Obama's very eligibility to serve as President for no other reason than his skin color and background.
Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate took every vote for Barack Obama cast in 2012, threw it in a dumpster, and lit it on fire. They were prepared to do the exact same thing to Hillary for 4 more years, by their own admission. The explicit stance of the Republican Party is that Democrats no longer get to make Supreme Court picks. That isn't opposition, that is nullification. The Supreme Court will decide on cases and make decisions for us all going forward, but it is no longer in the remote vicinity of being a legitimate institution. What was done in regards to Obama's pick of Merrick Garland (who literally could have been ANYONE and it would have been the same result) is, without question, the most destructive act against American democracy in my lifetime. Maybe ever. Elections have consequences is what they tell you when you lose. But what is the tired line and trope that they'll trot out when you win and those consequences don't apply to the other side?? I pray to whatever God does or doesn't exist that if the Democrats somehow take back the Senate and Trump wins (and it's pretty much inconceivable that both those things would take place) that they have the balls and backbone to steal the seat back. But I have serious doubts they do.
Obama's real flaw as President was not realizing what he was up against until it was far, far too late. By all rights, he should have told Mitch McConnell and Orin Hatch to go f**k themselves and installed Merrick Garland in a recess appointment. But not only would he not have done it because it just wasn't in him to play the game that way, but he would have never been ALLOWED to. The media would have turned on him and sang the "both sides" song 24 hours a day (which they basically did anyway). Obama was a gentleman. We no longer need a gentleman. We need a knife fighter. If Democratic politicians need to get one thing into their heads it's that they need to stop caring about rules and norms the Republicans no longer even acknowledge the existence of.
Well because of those and other un-american actions, democrats will need to fight back. Packing the court or whatever needs to be done might just have to be done especially in light of Republicans refusing to reign in an authoritarian corrupt and lawless President. Mitch McConnell has shown that if there's no law then screw it do what you want. What a terrible precedent.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is, at age 29, the youngest member of Congress. She’s lived through exactly one presidential election (2004) where Republicans won the nationwide popular vote and she shares this distinction with every American under the age of 30. In 2022, assuming that Trump does not become the second Republican in AOC’s lifetime to win the popular vote, there will be young voters who’ve never lived through an election in which a Republican president won the popular vote.
And yet Republicans control the White House, the judiciary, and the Senate. Something has got to give.
And another thing. In regards to the inevitable "scandals" that will envelop the top-tier 2020 contenders. Do NOT acknowledge the legitimacy in any way of the bad faith concern over them when THIS is being allowed to take place:
Trump is getting 3 million dollar payouts from shadowy LLCs for real-estate property WHILE IN OFFICE that no one can trace the source of. At this point I'm surprised people aren't just driving up trucks to the White House lawn and dropping sacks of cash in the Rose Garden. Even if that happened, it would be lucky to make page A-16 of most newspapers. I am dead serious when I say that anyone who supports this man and thinks they have a leg to stand on when talking about controversy or corruption must be out of their damn minds. How sick have we become as a society to allow this kind of bullshit to take place in the highest office in the land??
That sure sounds like a Chinese official is bribing the President. Trump talks tough, makes tarrifs, takes bribes, later goes easy on them. Great racket with the force of the US to personally enrich himself.
Saw this tweet about the US ambassador what a poopshow
It's incredible how alarmed people get when they've actually experienced something horrendous. They've seen their cities destroyed and country literally divided. They have watched their citizens persecuted by fellow countrymen for being "different", persecuted to the point of mass murder. They've watched one man and his idealogy poison an entire nation. Its incredible that when you remember just how bad it once got, you'll try anything to prevent it from happening again.
This is really, really dangerous, America. We are already hurtling down a slippery slope and the small half our political establishment is cheering it on.
Don't ever come to this forum while I'm here and expect to get away with this one. Obama had his pick stolen. It can never be given back. MY vote and the vote of millions of others was rendered partially meaningless by a unprecedented theft of a President's Constitutional power. So right up until the moment when a Democratic Senate refuses to hold a hearing on a Republican President's Supreme Court pick, anyone on the political right can go jump into the frickin' ocean when making arguments about the Supreme Court. The vote of nearly 60 million people in 2012 was partially nullified.
Obama had the power to take Congress to war over this and chose not too. If he had been half as passionate as you about it, it would have been an all-out battle. Instead, he and the Democratic Party decided to wait for their 'chosen one' to win in 2016. Worked out well for them...
At least 3 Republican Senators were on record stating they would do everything in their power to block any vote on a Hillary nominee for her entire term, with a couple more seriously leaningin that direction. Assuming she squeaks by in MI, PA and WI, the Senate map remains the same, and in all likelihood the seat sits vacant for 5 years. It wouldn't matter if the Democrats had ran Jesus Christ himself in 2016. If he had been elected, his court pick would have been stopped.
The fact is that no Democrat can ever again expect to be able to put someone on the Supreme Court with a Republican Senate. Ever. And since the Senate is where those small, red states have galaxy-sized representation, I have serious doubts I'll ever see one again in my lifetime. They didn't even bother holding a hearing where they could have EASILY just voted him down. They just said "no, your party doesn't get to do this anymore". Because they didn't just want to stop Garland (and it was never so much about Garland himself anyone). They wanted to set the PRECEDENT so that the next time they have a chance to do it, it seems more normal than the first time. Just like Trump's scandals. Because it works. The fact that I posted an article about the President of the United States receiving 3 million dollar payouts while occupying the office doesn't even register with anyone as a problem is proof of that. Just make people numb, and ride roughshod over and sense of normal conduct or procedure. Seems like a good time to bring up that not so long ago, Jimmy Carter was expected to relinquish all holdings in his PEANUT FARM before taking office. Fast forward about 40 years, and it's perfectly acceptable to run an international business empire while being in office.
How hard is this basic concept to understand?? Any money received at any Trump property in the world is directly enriching him and his family. Full-stop. So in a sane country, it would be logical to ask, "gee, what is he giving away as the most powerful elected official in the country to secure that deal". It's bribery simply by virtue of the fact thay he's in office. And we hear nothing. Crickets. From the media and from the public at large.
At least 3 Republican Senators were on record stating they would do everything in their power to block any vote on a Hillary nominee for her entire term, with a couple more seriously leaningin that direction. Assuming she squeaks by in MI, PA and WI, the Senate map remains the same, and in all likelihood the seat sits vacant for 5 years. It wouldn't matter if the Democrats had ran Jesus Christ himself in 2016. If he had been elected, his court pick would have been stopped.
The fact is that no Democrat can ever again expect to be able to put someone on the Supreme Court with a Republican Senate. Ever. And since the Senate is where those small, red states have galaxy-sized representation, I have serious doubts I'll ever see one again in my lifetime. They didn't even bother holding a hearing where they could have EASILY just voted him down. They just said "no, your party doesn't get to do this anymore". Because they didn't just want to stop Garland (and it was never so much about Garland himself anyone). They wanted to set the PRECEDENT so that the next time they have a chance to do it, it seems more normal than the first time. Just like Trump's scandals. Because it works. The fact that I posted an article about the President of the United States receiving 3 million dollar payouts while occupying the office doesn't even register with anyone as a problem is proof of that. Just make people numb, and ride roughshod over and sense of normal conduct or procedure. Seems like a good time to bring up that not so long ago, Jimmy Carter was expected to relinquish all holdings in his PEANUT FARM before taking office. Fast forward about 40 years, and it's perfectly acceptable to run an international business empire while being in office.
How hard is this basic concept to understand?? Any money received at any Trump property in the world is directly enriching him and his family. Full-stop. So in a sane country, it would be logical to ask, "gee, what is he giving away as the most powerful elected official in the country to secure that deal". It's bribery simply by virtue of the fact thay he's in office. And we hear nothing. Crickets. From the media and from the public at large.
It's too hard and takes too damned long to fact-check all this for one thing. I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
At least 3 Republican Senators were on record stating they would do everything in their power to block any vote on a Hillary nominee for her entire term, with a couple more seriously leaningin that direction. Assuming she squeaks by in MI, PA and WI, the Senate map remains the same, and in all likelihood the seat sits vacant for 5 years. It wouldn't matter if the Democrats had ran Jesus Christ himself in 2016. If he had been elected, his court pick would have been stopped.
The fact is that no Democrat can ever again expect to be able to put someone on the Supreme Court with a Republican Senate. Ever. And since the Senate is where those small, red states have galaxy-sized representation, I have serious doubts I'll ever see one again in my lifetime. They didn't even bother holding a hearing where they could have EASILY just voted him down. They just said "no, your party doesn't get to do this anymore". Because they didn't just want to stop Garland (and it was never so much about Garland himself anyone). They wanted to set the PRECEDENT so that the next time they have a chance to do it, it seems more normal than the first time. Just like Trump's scandals. Because it works. The fact that I posted an article about the President of the United States receiving 3 million dollar payouts while occupying the office doesn't even register with anyone as a problem is proof of that. Just make people numb, and ride roughshod over and sense of normal conduct or procedure. Seems like a good time to bring up that not so long ago, Jimmy Carter was expected to relinquish all holdings in his PEANUT FARM before taking office. Fast forward about 40 years, and it's perfectly acceptable to run an international business empire while being in office.
How hard is this basic concept to understand?? Any money received at any Trump property in the world is directly enriching him and his family. Full-stop. So in a sane country, it would be logical to ask, "gee, what is he giving away as the most powerful elected official in the country to secure that deal". It's bribery simply by virtue of the fact thay he's in office. And we hear nothing. Crickets. From the media and from the public at large.
It's too hard and takes too damned long to fact-check all this for one thing. I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
Let's say they are anti-Trump. That doesn't mean their criticism is false. In fact, I always read the negative reviews of games I'm going to buy first, because those usually offer the most valuable criticism. I can then decide whether I care about those things or not.
At least 3 Republican Senators were on record stating they would do everything in their power to block any vote on a Hillary nominee for her entire term, with a couple more seriously leaningin that direction. Assuming she squeaks by in MI, PA and WI, the Senate map remains the same, and in all likelihood the seat sits vacant for 5 years. It wouldn't matter if the Democrats had ran Jesus Christ himself in 2016. If he had been elected, his court pick would have been stopped.
The fact is that no Democrat can ever again expect to be able to put someone on the Supreme Court with a Republican Senate. Ever. And since the Senate is where those small, red states have galaxy-sized representation, I have serious doubts I'll ever see one again in my lifetime. They didn't even bother holding a hearing where they could have EASILY just voted him down. They just said "no, your party doesn't get to do this anymore". Because they didn't just want to stop Garland (and it was never so much about Garland himself anyone). They wanted to set the PRECEDENT so that the next time they have a chance to do it, it seems more normal than the first time. Just like Trump's scandals. Because it works. The fact that I posted an article about the President of the United States receiving 3 million dollar payouts while occupying the office doesn't even register with anyone as a problem is proof of that. Just make people numb, and ride roughshod over and sense of normal conduct or procedure. Seems like a good time to bring up that not so long ago, Jimmy Carter was expected to relinquish all holdings in his PEANUT FARM before taking office. Fast forward about 40 years, and it's perfectly acceptable to run an international business empire while being in office.
How hard is this basic concept to understand?? Any money received at any Trump property in the world is directly enriching him and his family. Full-stop. So in a sane country, it would be logical to ask, "gee, what is he giving away as the most powerful elected official in the country to secure that deal". It's bribery simply by virtue of the fact thay he's in office. And we hear nothing. Crickets. From the media and from the public at large.
It's too hard and takes too damned long to fact-check all this for one thing. I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
Other way around.
The American public has never had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount is overwhelming.
I mentioned this before. Trump is creating the chaos so people get overwhelmed. It doesn’t matter what the crisis is of the day, in two weeks time he’s going to do something even more stupidly outlandish that it’ll be forgotten. Rinse repeat and because people have memories like gold fish, when he starts screaming “Presidential Harrassment” a good chunk of the population will believe it because they want the overwhelming barrage of negativity to stop, where the news networks just want to inform the public of what is happening.
Not to bring whataboutism into it but just remember Hannity freaked out at Obama because Obama asked a restaurant if it had Dijon mustard. That is throwing shit and seeing if it sticks.
At least 3 Republican Senators were on record stating they would do everything in their power to block any vote on a Hillary nominee for her entire term, with a couple more seriously leaningin that direction. Assuming she squeaks by in MI, PA and WI, the Senate map remains the same, and in all likelihood the seat sits vacant for 5 years. It wouldn't matter if the Democrats had ran Jesus Christ himself in 2016. If he had been elected, his court pick would have been stopped.
The fact is that no Democrat can ever again expect to be able to put someone on the Supreme Court with a Republican Senate. Ever. And since the Senate is where those small, red states have galaxy-sized representation, I have serious doubts I'll ever see one again in my lifetime. They didn't even bother holding a hearing where they could have EASILY just voted him down. They just said "no, your party doesn't get to do this anymore". Because they didn't just want to stop Garland (and it was never so much about Garland himself anyone). They wanted to set the PRECEDENT so that the next time they have a chance to do it, it seems more normal than the first time. Just like Trump's scandals. Because it works. The fact that I posted an article about the President of the United States receiving 3 million dollar payouts while occupying the office doesn't even register with anyone as a problem is proof of that. Just make people numb, and ride roughshod over and sense of normal conduct or procedure. Seems like a good time to bring up that not so long ago, Jimmy Carter was expected to relinquish all holdings in his PEANUT FARM before taking office. Fast forward about 40 years, and it's perfectly acceptable to run an international business empire while being in office.
How hard is this basic concept to understand?? Any money received at any Trump property in the world is directly enriching him and his family. Full-stop. So in a sane country, it would be logical to ask, "gee, what is he giving away as the most powerful elected official in the country to secure that deal". It's bribery simply by virtue of the fact thay he's in office. And we hear nothing. Crickets. From the media and from the public at large.
It's too hard and takes too damned long to fact-check all this for one thing. I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
Let's say they are anti-Trump. That doesn't mean their criticism is false. In fact, I always read the negative reviews of games I'm going to buy first, because those usually offer the most valuable criticism. I can then decide whether I care about those things or not.
Agreed, but a lot of the stuff I see in this forum is from even more left-leaning sources than CNN. I personally don't think CNN would miss a chance to take a shot at Trump if it was legit, thus I ignore most of what isn't confirmed by them. I don't have the time or inclination to investigate everything on my own so I use them as a buffer, so to speak...
I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
I don't think this is wise. You can expect CNN to criticize Trump over almost anything and you can expect them to never praise him, but that doesn't mean that if CNN isn't making an accusation, the accusation must not have much weight behind it. You can only dedicate so many hours a day to the news, and given how much TV news involves repeating the same talking points, and focusing on the most interesting ones first and foremost, it's entirely possible that there could be a real scandal about Trump that even CNN wouldn't bother addressing, simply because they had something flashier and more attention-grabbing to report on instead.
I do find it tiring that nothing seems to stick. I am weary of the daily arguing over the weekly scandal. But I don't think the media is the reason we're seeing a new scandal every week.
I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
I don't think this is wise. You can expect CNN to criticize Trump over almost anything and you can expect them to never praise him, but that doesn't mean that if CNN isn't making an accusation, the accusation must not have much weight behind it. You can only dedicate so many hours a day to the news, and given how much TV news involves repeating the same talking points, and focusing on the most interesting ones first and foremost, it's entirely possible that there could be a real scandal about Trump that even CNN wouldn't bother addressing, simply because they had something flashier and more attention-grabbing to report on instead.
I do find it tiring that nothing seems to stick. I am weary of the daily arguing over the weekly scandal. But I don't think the media is the reason we're seeing a new scandal every week.
I have to believe that somebody does their homework. I sure don't have time for it. The farther to the poles the source material is, the less I believe it. CNN is fairly reliable in my experience and they're not afraid to retract something if facts change. Their commentary is a bit left of what I would prefer, but they're certainly not as biased as, say, Fox News. I throw in a bit of Limbaugh at lunchtime to hear the further right viewpoint once in a while too.
@Balrog99 I'll also add there is an ethics in journalism not to steal other people's work.
Another media may make mention of story that broke elsewhere, however, they should not/will not go into details about what is written in the piece.
So if the NYT breaks a story about Deuche bank and lending money to Trump, CNN may do a profile piece on a person mentioned in the article, or interview the reporter on how they broke the story but they won't do a story about what was written unless they have something substantial to add.
So just because CNN, or some other media doesn't mention a story doesn't mean it isn't valid.
I think it's a reasonable approach. Does it mean you'll never miss a big story? Of course not. It also means you're getting a lot of biased information - but I think it still keeps one relatively well informed - and that you can pick up on truly big stories by osmosis (someone will post it here, or on social media, etc, etc).
Incidentally - I do think a lot of people do this same thing, but with a less reputable source, like Breitbart, and consider themselves informed without recognizing their own biases. Maybe that's an argument against the above, but there seems to be a clear difference in journalistic integrity there, and that's not nothing.
Also - in the thread below it they demonstrate how the GOP generally agrees with using the popular vote... except in 2000 and 2016. Huh. I wonder why...
I think it's a reasonable approach. Does it mean you'll never miss a big story? Of course not. It also means you're getting a lot of biased information - but I think it still keeps one relatively well informed - and that you can pick up on truly big stories by osmosis (someone will post it here, or on social media, etc, etc).
Incidentally - I do think a lot of people do this same thing, but with a less reputable source, like Breitbart, and consider themselves informed without recognizing their own biases. Maybe that's an argument against the above, but there seems to be a clear difference in journalistic integrity there, and that's not nothing.
Also - in the thread below it they demonstrate how the GOP generally agrees with using the popular vote... except in 2000 and 2016. Huh. I wonder why...
It was a fairly well-known rumor at the time that if Bush had lost the electoral college and won the popular vote in 2000 they were going to launch an all-out assult on the EC. Not AFTER accepting the results of the election and discussing it after the fact like we are now, but to dispute the election itself:
It's too hard and takes too damned long to fact-check all this for one thing. I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
For one thing, CNN is not really anti-trump. They regularly have on panels of rational people and trump's liars and let them yell at each other and shrug and "gee I don't know who's telling the truth". That's not anti-trump, reality is anti-trump. Why? Because he lies, he tries to spin his own reality which is based on his prejudices and feelings. He doesn't care about facts, only about his feelings. And his feelings are that he wants to say whatever it is at that point in time that he thinks makes him look good or might get people to agree with him.
Reality is that Immigrants commit less crimes than citizens but his whole thing is to get poor and middle class and racists to be afraid so that they will willingly give him more power so that he can give himself more tax cuts. Fear is the motivator he uses, it's all he has, division and fear. It's an obvious tactic he's doing there.
No President has sent out the amount of shit and lies that come from his mouth. Again, he's using the firehose of falsehood propaganda model of lying so much that fact checkers and your guard is overwhelmed. That's on him.
Obama wasn't out there lying about white supremacists being the biggest threat in the world, they are a big threat but at the time they weren't the BIGGEST threat for example. Why should you be nice to someone who lies to you and attacks you (CNN) again? He's such a snowflake he only appears on Fox. He only kisses Fox's ass. Why is that? Is every media and reality and your own lying eyes lying or is Trump using Fox as a propaganda network? Occam's razor that one.
He started out on lies on day 1 and has only escalated from there. Even before that on the campaign trail when no one expected anything from him he was out lying about CNN and made up stuff about immigrants or whatever. So why do you have to be nice to someone who is operating in bad faith, who has no moral compass, is clearly racist, and who lies all the time? "No President has been treated more unfairly." He is not operating in good faith and he is being treated fairly considering his own actions.
CNN and Trump are in a symbiotic relationship. Despite the fact that she brazenly lies everytime they put her on the air, Chris Cuomo continues to have Kellyanne Conway on his show week after week. I have more respect for FOX than I do CNN. At least they are trying to ruthlessly pursue a political goal and succeeding at it. If CNN is trying to do the same for the left (and they aren't, not by a longshot), then they are utterly ineffectual at doing so. I have been fed up with CNN long before "fake news" ever entered the lexicon. The idea liberals love CNN is one of the enduring fallacies of this era.
It's too hard and takes too damned long to fact-check all this for one thing. I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
For one thing, CNN is not really anti-trump. They regularly have on panels of rational people and trump's liars and let them yell at each other and shrug and "gee I don't know who's telling the truth". That's not anti-trump, reality is anti-trump. Why? Because he lies, he tries to spin his own reality which is based on his prejudices and feelings. He doesn't care about facts, only about his feelings. And his feelings are that he wants to say whatever it is at that point in time that he thinks makes him look good or might get people to agree with him.
Reality is that Immigrants commit less crimes than citizens but his whole thing is to get poor and middle class and racists to be afraid so that they will willingly give him more power so that he can give himself more tax cuts. Fear is the motivator he uses, it's all he has, division and fear. It's an obvious tactic he's doing there.
No President has sent out the amount of shit and lies that come from his mouth. Again, he's using the firehose of falsehood propaganda model of lying so much that fact checkers and your guard is overwhelmed. That's on him.
Obama wasn't out there lying about white supremacists being the biggest threat in the world, they are a big threat but at the time they weren't the BIGGEST threat for example. Why should you be nice to someone who lies to you and attacks you (CNN) again? He's such a snowflake he only appears on Fox. He only kisses Fox's ass. Why is that? Is every media and reality and your own lying eyes lying or is Trump using Fox as a propaganda network? Occam's razor that one.
He started out on lies on day 1 and has only escalated from there. Even before that on the campaign trail when no one expected anything from him he was out lying about CNN and made up stuff about immigrants or whatever. So why do you have to be nice to someone who is operating in bad faith, who has no moral compass, is clearly racist, and who lies all the time? "No President has been treated more unfairly." He is not operating in good faith and he is being treated fairly considering his own actions.
I have never said Trump was being treated unfairly. I almost never use the word 'unfair'. In my experience, people who expect 'fairness' are usually pretty miserable.
Trump himself just might be a prime example of this seeing as he constantly portrays himself as a 'victim' of injustice and 'unfairly' demonized by the press. He doesn't really seem very happy to me, considering all that he has going for him...
CNN and Trump are in a symbiotic relationship. Despite the fact that she brazenly lies everytime they put her on the air, Chris Cuomo continues to have Kellyanne Conway on his show week after week. I have more respect for FOX than I do CNN. At least they are trying to ruthlessly pursue a political goal and succeeding at it. If CNN is trying to do the same for the left (and they aren't, not by a longshot), then they are utterly ineffectual at doing so. I have been fed up with CNN long before "fake news" ever entered the lexicon. The idea liberals love CNN is one of the enduring fallacies of this era.
Yes. Fox news is not legitimate in any way, it is propaganda by way strawman and complaining, scapegoating and lying. CNN is a legitimate news outlet but not a great one or anything, especially politics wise.
CNN does things like put climate deniers and scientists on and pretends their assertions should count equally and golly gee maybe the truth is in the middle. The whole letting giving a platform to people who lie outrageously everytime, like Kellyanne, is ridiculous too. They call it falsehoods - it's lies. Their anchors are out of touch as well, they may not be overt racists, like on Fox, but instead they are just pro-business, they know where the big checks are coming from.
Still, when we launch to colonize mars or whatever, CNN will cover it well. Fox News might cover it ok but their viewing lense is so distorted I don't want to hear the opinions blonde racist #732 has during the coverage.
I'm not fond of CNN as a news source, simply because it does have a specific angle on politics and it's willing to spend airtime on trivial non-issues as well as more substantive stuff. But yes, they do invite members of the other side over to comment on issues, and very often the conservative guest will get to have the last word. Fox will seldom offer liberals a chance to speak at length on their channel and will gleefully and literally shout down their own guests. Promoting conspiracy theories and peddling vitriol is just another reason not to trust Fox as a source.
If you had to watch one of them, I'd watch CNN, but ideally, you'd get your news from a traditional newspaper like the New York Times. TV news channels generally focus more on making their reporting attention-grabbing than making it accurate or substantive.
I'm not fond of CNN as a news source, simply because it does have a specific angle on politics and it's willing to spend airtime on trivial non-issues as well as more substantive stuff. But yes, they do invite members of the other side over to comment on issues, and very often the conservative guest will get to have the last word. Fox will seldom offer liberals a chance to speak at length on their channel and will gleefully and literally shout down their own guests. Promoting conspiracy theories and peddling vitriol is just another reason not to trust Fox as a source.
If you had to watch one of them, I'd watch CNN, but ideally, you'd get your news from a traditional newspaper like the New York Times. TV news channels generally focus more on making their reporting attention-grabbing than making it accurate or substantive.
Most of my news I get from WJR AM-760 here in Detroit. The news show in the morning and the Mitch Albom show on my way home keep me pretty well informed on what's going on in the country. Some of the the talk-shows are pretty far right (Savage and Levin are particularly obnoxious) so I don't listen to that tripe. On the weekends I watch CNN in the mornings. I never watch Fox News.
It was a fairly well-known rumor at the time that if Bush had lost the electoral college and won the popular vote in 2000 they were going to launch an all-out assult on the EC. Not AFTER accepting the results of the election and discussing it after the fact like we are now, but to dispute the election itself:
The end of that article is particularly groan-inducing...
"The good news is that in Trump the GOP has nominated such a disastrous candidate that he can make whatever contingency plans he wants, and it won’t matter."
The polls were right Hillary won the popular vote but a handful of idiots in a couple swing states and idiot boomers who fell for Russian memes on Facebook and propaganda on Fox put him over the top using the crooked electoral college which steals power for arbitrary lines on a map over real people.
It was a fairly well-known rumor at the time that if Bush had lost the electoral college and won the popular vote in 2000 they were going to launch an all-out assult on the EC. Not AFTER accepting the results of the election and discussing it after the fact like we are now, but to dispute the election itself:
The end of that article is particularly groan-inducing...
"The good news is that in Trump the GOP has nominated such a disastrous candidate that he can make whatever contingency plans he wants, and it won’t matter."
I saw that line too, obviously. The point of the article was the provide context to what Republicans were ready to argue in 2000 had things not gone their way. And they were fully prepared to use it to CONTEST an election, not argue about it after the fact for next time. It also goes out of it's way to point out that some in the Gore camp were allegedly laying the same groundwork. But seeing as that is (among many other things) exactly what happened to them and they DIDN'T do so kinda shoots that whole thing to shit. And everything I know about how the 2000 recount was decided, from Bush's own cousin prematurely calling Florida for Bush on FOX News (causing the other networks to follow suit and forever plant the idea that Bush was the real winner and Gore a sore loser in the minds of the public) to the manufactured "riot" in Dade County that was portrayed as grass-roots uprising when it was in fact nothing but Republican staffers and operatives flown in from DC tells me contesting a popular vote win/electoral college loss is EXACTLY what the Bush camp would have done. After all, if they didn't win, they would never be able to lie the country into a massive ground war in the Middle East, or have been able to be completely asleep at the switch in the summer leading up to 9/11.
The Brexit debate continues to hot up. The big news yesterday was that Theresa May did a special interview making a point of blaming Parliament for the delays to date and appealing over the heads of MPs to the general public to support her proposed deal.
Given many MPs already thought the blame for the delays has far more to do with May's negotiating tactics and continued attempts to avoid Parliament expressing a view, that didn't do much to heal the existing rift in relationships. That was exacerbated by May stating she would only ask the EU for an extension from the current 29th March date for leaving until 30th June. I suspect the EU will agree that extension, but make it conditional on Parliament supporting the negotiated deal - meaning it would not be possible for Parliament to take control of the process after the 29th March and impose their own solution.
I think the options now are (in what I think is the order of the most probable, though the situation remains chaotic and hence very difficult to predict):
Parliament refuses to agree May's deal and the UK leaves without a deal. I had been thinking there was a decent chance she could get her deal through next week with a fair number of previously solid opponents having recently agreed to support it as the cliff edge approached. However, I think the prospects have taken a hit as a result of her little speech yesterday.
Parliament agrees May's deal and the UK leaves with a deal. Despite the heat and light just now, this is the only realistic alternative to no deal and many MPs are likely to feel they have to back it whatever their personal feelings.
A rank outsider is that either May is replaced as PM or the government as a whole collapses. Even if this happened, it's unlikely to change the options, but it is just conceivable that the EU might be willing to change the terms of an extension (allowing the possibility of other alternatives to emerge) if there were a change of government in the next few days.
As even more of a rank outsider, I'll mention the possibility of revoking article 50, i.e. withdrawing the notice to quit the EU. Up until today I would have said it was totally inconceivable that could happen without a second referendum - and such a referendum is not now possible unless there is a change of government. However, a petition on the Parliament's petitions website has been calling for that to happen for a while now. Now that it's obvious that other options are running out, a number of MPs and others have started promoting that and the numbers that have signed it have shot up past a million today, even though the surge has resulted in the website crashing for much of the day. For the petition to have a real effect it would need far more signatures than that though - to allow it to be used as an expression of democracy to set against the existing Brexit referendum result. I would guess it wouldn't be taken very seriously unless it got more like 10 million signatures - and that seems very unlikely to happen. The maximum number previously that have signed a petition is the 4m or so that asked for a second referendum on Brexit back in 2016. This petition will be drawing on effectively the same constituency, but will have to get a far greater proportion of them to sign in order to have an impact.
I don't really want to continue to go in circles about the EC because, in the end, everyone is right.
We're in a world where everyone pretends their own position is absolutely correct and all the counter arguments are insane, but that's just childish and I try to be above that.
Of course it's a legitimate gripe that a person can win in this system despite losing the popular vote, even if that is the whole intent of the system.
And of course it's a legitimate gripe that the already lowest and least influential groups of people in this system don't want to be even lower and even less influential, to the point of nonexistence, despite their communities collapsing and all barometers of quality of life being generally bad.
I think we can all agree that if there continues to be a popular vote disparity, and if it grows larger in margins, that some form of changes need to occur to account for this while also not destroying the representation of smaller groups.
Basically, my support for the EC isn't unconditional. If the problem continues to get worse i'm fully in support of structural changes of some sort.
But tbh I don't consider the results of the previous few elections to be really decisive in that regard. Bush won an electoral majority of 4 votes and was only behind in the popular by .5%. Trump's was larger but without California he would have won the popular, he lost the national popular by less votes than what he lost California alone by. That state would have decided the election in spite of the vast majority of states being Pro-Trump and that's the sort of thing I specifically find objectionable in a large republic like ours.
The Brexit debate continues to hot up. The big news yesterday was that Theresa May did a special interview making a point of blaming Parliament for the delays to date and appealing over the heads of MPs to the general public to support her proposed deal.
Given many MPs already thought the blame for the delays has far more to do with May's negotiating tactics and continued attempts to avoid Parliament expressing a view, that didn't do much to heal the existing rift in relationships. That was exacerbated by May stating she would only ask the EU for an extension from the current 29th March date for leaving until 30th June. I suspect the EU will agree that extension, but make it conditional on Parliament supporting the negotiated deal - meaning it would not be possible for Parliament to take control of the process after the 29th March and impose their own solution.
I think the options now are (in what I think is the order of the most probable, though the situation remains chaotic and hence very difficult to predict):
Parliament refuses to agree May's deal and the UK leaves without a deal. I had been thinking there was a decent chance she could get her deal through next week with a fair number of previously solid opponents having recently agreed to support it as the cliff edge approached. However, I think the prospects have taken a hit as a result of her little speech yesterday.
Parliament agrees May's deal and the UK leaves with a deal. Despite the heat and light just now, this is the only realistic alternative to no deal and many MPs are likely to feel they have to back it whatever their personal feelings.
A rank outsider is that either May is replaced as PM or the government as a whole collapses. Even if this happened, it's unlikely to change the options, but it is just conceivable that the EU might be willing to change the terms of an extension (allowing the possibility of other alternatives to emerge) if there were a change of government in the next few days.
As even more of a rank outsider, I'll mention the possibility of revoking article 50, i.e. withdrawing the notice to quit the EU. Up until today I would have said it was totally inconceivable that could happen without a second referendum - and such a referendum is not now possible unless there is a change of government. However, a petition on the Parliament's petitions website has been calling for that to happen for a while now. Now that it's obvious that other options are running out, a number of MPs and others have started promoting that and the numbers that have signed it have shot up past a million today, even though the surge has resulted in the website crashing for much of the day. For the petition to have a real effect it would need far more signatures than that though - to allow it to be used as an expression of democracy to set against the existing Brexit referendum result. I would guess it wouldn't be taken very seriously unless it got more like 10 million signatures - and that seems very unlikely to happen. The maximum number previously that have signed a petition is the 4m or so that asked for a second referendum on Brexit back in 2016. This petition will be drawing on effectively the same constituency, but will have to get a far greater proportion of them to sign in order to have an impact.
I'm not entirely well versed in UK politics, but it looks to me like a no deal is becoming increasingly likely and that May is a terrible, terrible negotiator.
Comments
Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate took every vote for Barack Obama cast in 2012, threw it in a dumpster, and lit it on fire. They were prepared to do the exact same thing to Hillary for 4 more years, by their own admission. The explicit stance of the Republican Party is that Democrats no longer get to make Supreme Court picks. That isn't opposition, that is nullification. The Supreme Court will decide on cases and make decisions for us all going forward, but it is no longer in the remote vicinity of being a legitimate institution. What was done in regards to Obama's pick of Merrick Garland (who literally could have been ANYONE and it would have been the same result) is, without question, the most destructive act against American democracy in my lifetime. Maybe ever. Elections have consequences is what they tell you when you lose. But what is the tired line and trope that they'll trot out when you win and those consequences don't apply to the other side?? I pray to whatever God does or doesn't exist that if the Democrats somehow take back the Senate and Trump wins (and it's pretty much inconceivable that both those things would take place) that they have the balls and backbone to steal the seat back. But I have serious doubts they do.
Obama's real flaw as President was not realizing what he was up against until it was far, far too late. By all rights, he should have told Mitch McConnell and Orin Hatch to go f**k themselves and installed Merrick Garland in a recess appointment. But not only would he not have done it because it just wasn't in him to play the game that way, but he would have never been ALLOWED to. The media would have turned on him and sang the "both sides" song 24 hours a day (which they basically did anyway). Obama was a gentleman. We no longer need a gentleman. We need a knife fighter. If Democratic politicians need to get one thing into their heads it's that they need to stop caring about rules and norms the Republicans no longer even acknowledge the existence of.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is, at age 29, the youngest member of Congress. She’s lived through exactly one presidential election (2004) where Republicans won the nationwide popular vote and she shares this distinction with every American under the age of 30. In 2022, assuming that Trump does not become the second Republican in AOC’s lifetime to win the popular vote, there will be young voters who’ve never lived through an election in which a Republican president won the popular vote.
And yet Republicans control the White House, the judiciary, and the Senate. Something has got to give.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2019/03/19/mysterious-buyer-pumps-29-million-into-president-trumps-coffers/#5c0256b45777
Trump is getting 3 million dollar payouts from shadowy LLCs for real-estate property WHILE IN OFFICE that no one can trace the source of. At this point I'm surprised people aren't just driving up trucks to the White House lawn and dropping sacks of cash in the Rose Garden. Even if that happened, it would be lucky to make page A-16 of most newspapers. I am dead serious when I say that anyone who supports this man and thinks they have a leg to stand on when talking about controversy or corruption must be out of their damn minds. How sick have we become as a society to allow this kind of bullshit to take place in the highest office in the land??
Saw this tweet about the US ambassador what a poopshow
It's incredible how alarmed people get when they've actually experienced something horrendous. They've seen their cities destroyed and country literally divided. They have watched their citizens persecuted by fellow countrymen for being "different", persecuted to the point of mass murder. They've watched one man and his idealogy poison an entire nation. Its incredible that when you remember just how bad it once got, you'll try anything to prevent it from happening again.
This is really, really dangerous, America. We are already hurtling down a slippery slope and the small half our political establishment is cheering it on.
Obama had the power to take Congress to war over this and chose not too. If he had been half as passionate as you about it, it would have been an all-out battle. Instead, he and the Democratic Party decided to wait for their 'chosen one' to win in 2016. Worked out well for them...
The fact is that no Democrat can ever again expect to be able to put someone on the Supreme Court with a Republican Senate. Ever. And since the Senate is where those small, red states have galaxy-sized representation, I have serious doubts I'll ever see one again in my lifetime. They didn't even bother holding a hearing where they could have EASILY just voted him down. They just said "no, your party doesn't get to do this anymore". Because they didn't just want to stop Garland (and it was never so much about Garland himself anyone). They wanted to set the PRECEDENT so that the next time they have a chance to do it, it seems more normal than the first time. Just like Trump's scandals. Because it works. The fact that I posted an article about the President of the United States receiving 3 million dollar payouts while occupying the office doesn't even register with anyone as a problem is proof of that. Just make people numb, and ride roughshod over and sense of normal conduct or procedure. Seems like a good time to bring up that not so long ago, Jimmy Carter was expected to relinquish all holdings in his PEANUT FARM before taking office. Fast forward about 40 years, and it's perfectly acceptable to run an international business empire while being in office.
How hard is this basic concept to understand?? Any money received at any Trump property in the world is directly enriching him and his family. Full-stop. So in a sane country, it would be logical to ask, "gee, what is he giving away as the most powerful elected official in the country to secure that deal". It's bribery simply by virtue of the fact thay he's in office. And we hear nothing. Crickets. From the media and from the public at large.
It's too hard and takes too damned long to fact-check all this for one thing. I personally think that CNN is pretty anti-Trump so if I don't hear about some of this stuff from them I just don't believe it. No president has ever had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount of it is overwhelming!
Let's say they are anti-Trump. That doesn't mean their criticism is false. In fact, I always read the negative reviews of games I'm going to buy first, because those usually offer the most valuable criticism. I can then decide whether I care about those things or not.
Other way around.
The American public has never had this amount of shit thrown at them. The sheer amount is overwhelming.
I mentioned this before. Trump is creating the chaos so people get overwhelmed. It doesn’t matter what the crisis is of the day, in two weeks time he’s going to do something even more stupidly outlandish that it’ll be forgotten. Rinse repeat and because people have memories like gold fish, when he starts screaming “Presidential Harrassment” a good chunk of the population will believe it because they want the overwhelming barrage of negativity to stop, where the news networks just want to inform the public of what is happening.
Not to bring whataboutism into it but just remember Hannity freaked out at Obama because Obama asked a restaurant if it had Dijon mustard. That is throwing shit and seeing if it sticks.
Agreed, but a lot of the stuff I see in this forum is from even more left-leaning sources than CNN. I personally don't think CNN would miss a chance to take a shot at Trump if it was legit, thus I ignore most of what isn't confirmed by them. I don't have the time or inclination to investigate everything on my own so I use them as a buffer, so to speak...
I do find it tiring that nothing seems to stick. I am weary of the daily arguing over the weekly scandal. But I don't think the media is the reason we're seeing a new scandal every week.
I have to believe that somebody does their homework. I sure don't have time for it. The farther to the poles the source material is, the less I believe it. CNN is fairly reliable in my experience and they're not afraid to retract something if facts change. Their commentary is a bit left of what I would prefer, but they're certainly not as biased as, say, Fox News. I throw in a bit of Limbaugh at lunchtime to hear the further right viewpoint once in a while too.
Another media may make mention of story that broke elsewhere, however, they should not/will not go into details about what is written in the piece.
So if the NYT breaks a story about Deuche bank and lending money to Trump, CNN may do a profile piece on a person mentioned in the article, or interview the reporter on how they broke the story but they won't do a story about what was written unless they have something substantial to add.
So just because CNN, or some other media doesn't mention a story doesn't mean it isn't valid.
Incidentally - I do think a lot of people do this same thing, but with a less reputable source, like Breitbart, and consider themselves informed without recognizing their own biases. Maybe that's an argument against the above, but there seems to be a clear difference in journalistic integrity there, and that's not nothing.
Also, fun fact:
https://mobile.twitter.com/CBSNewsPoll/status/1108409915364773889
Also - in the thread below it they demonstrate how the GOP generally agrees with using the popular vote... except in 2000 and 2016. Huh. I wonder why...
It was a fairly well-known rumor at the time that if Bush had lost the electoral college and won the popular vote in 2000 they were going to launch an all-out assult on the EC. Not AFTER accepting the results of the election and discussing it after the fact like we are now, but to dispute the election itself:
https://static.theintercept.com/amp/it-isnt-just-donald-trump-the-bush-campaign-plotted-to-reject-election-results-in-2000.html
For one thing, CNN is not really anti-trump. They regularly have on panels of rational people and trump's liars and let them yell at each other and shrug and "gee I don't know who's telling the truth". That's not anti-trump, reality is anti-trump. Why? Because he lies, he tries to spin his own reality which is based on his prejudices and feelings. He doesn't care about facts, only about his feelings. And his feelings are that he wants to say whatever it is at that point in time that he thinks makes him look good or might get people to agree with him.
Reality is that Immigrants commit less crimes than citizens but his whole thing is to get poor and middle class and racists to be afraid so that they will willingly give him more power so that he can give himself more tax cuts. Fear is the motivator he uses, it's all he has, division and fear. It's an obvious tactic he's doing there.
No President has sent out the amount of shit and lies that come from his mouth. Again, he's using the firehose of falsehood propaganda model of lying so much that fact checkers and your guard is overwhelmed. That's on him.
Obama wasn't out there lying about white supremacists being the biggest threat in the world, they are a big threat but at the time they weren't the BIGGEST threat for example. Why should you be nice to someone who lies to you and attacks you (CNN) again? He's such a snowflake he only appears on Fox. He only kisses Fox's ass. Why is that? Is every media and reality and your own lying eyes lying or is Trump using Fox as a propaganda network? Occam's razor that one.
He started out on lies on day 1 and has only escalated from there. Even before that on the campaign trail when no one expected anything from him he was out lying about CNN and made up stuff about immigrants or whatever. So why do you have to be nice to someone who is operating in bad faith, who has no moral compass, is clearly racist, and who lies all the time? "No President has been treated more unfairly." He is not operating in good faith and he is being treated fairly considering his own actions.
I have never said Trump was being treated unfairly. I almost never use the word 'unfair'. In my experience, people who expect 'fairness' are usually pretty miserable.
Trump himself just might be a prime example of this seeing as he constantly portrays himself as a 'victim' of injustice and 'unfairly' demonized by the press. He doesn't really seem very happy to me, considering all that he has going for him...
Yes. Fox news is not legitimate in any way, it is propaganda by way strawman and complaining, scapegoating and lying. CNN is a legitimate news outlet but not a great one or anything, especially politics wise.
CNN does things like put climate deniers and scientists on and pretends their assertions should count equally and golly gee maybe the truth is in the middle. The whole letting giving a platform to people who lie outrageously everytime, like Kellyanne, is ridiculous too. They call it falsehoods - it's lies. Their anchors are out of touch as well, they may not be overt racists, like on Fox, but instead they are just pro-business, they know where the big checks are coming from.
Still, when we launch to colonize mars or whatever, CNN will cover it well. Fox News might cover it ok but their viewing lense is so distorted I don't want to hear the opinions blonde racist #732 has during the coverage.
If you had to watch one of them, I'd watch CNN, but ideally, you'd get your news from a traditional newspaper like the New York Times. TV news channels generally focus more on making their reporting attention-grabbing than making it accurate or substantive.
Most of my news I get from WJR AM-760 here in Detroit. The news show in the morning and the Mitch Albom show on my way home keep me pretty well informed on what's going on in the country. Some of the the talk-shows are pretty far right (Savage and Levin are particularly obnoxious) so I don't listen to that tripe. On the weekends I watch CNN in the mornings. I never watch Fox News.
The polls were right Hillary won the popular vote but a handful of idiots in a couple swing states and idiot boomers who fell for Russian memes on Facebook and propaganda on Fox put him over the top using the crooked electoral college which steals power for arbitrary lines on a map over real people.
I saw that line too, obviously. The point of the article was the provide context to what Republicans were ready to argue in 2000 had things not gone their way. And they were fully prepared to use it to CONTEST an election, not argue about it after the fact for next time. It also goes out of it's way to point out that some in the Gore camp were allegedly laying the same groundwork. But seeing as that is (among many other things) exactly what happened to them and they DIDN'T do so kinda shoots that whole thing to shit. And everything I know about how the 2000 recount was decided, from Bush's own cousin prematurely calling Florida for Bush on FOX News (causing the other networks to follow suit and forever plant the idea that Bush was the real winner and Gore a sore loser in the minds of the public) to the manufactured "riot" in Dade County that was portrayed as grass-roots uprising when it was in fact nothing but Republican staffers and operatives flown in from DC tells me contesting a popular vote win/electoral college loss is EXACTLY what the Bush camp would have done. After all, if they didn't win, they would never be able to lie the country into a massive ground war in the Middle East, or have been able to be completely asleep at the switch in the summer leading up to 9/11.
Given many MPs already thought the blame for the delays has far more to do with May's negotiating tactics and continued attempts to avoid Parliament expressing a view, that didn't do much to heal the existing rift in relationships. That was exacerbated by May stating she would only ask the EU for an extension from the current 29th March date for leaving until 30th June. I suspect the EU will agree that extension, but make it conditional on Parliament supporting the negotiated deal - meaning it would not be possible for Parliament to take control of the process after the 29th March and impose their own solution.
I think the options now are (in what I think is the order of the most probable, though the situation remains chaotic and hence very difficult to predict):
I have extras, if you need?
We're in a world where everyone pretends their own position is absolutely correct and all the counter arguments are insane, but that's just childish and I try to be above that.
Of course it's a legitimate gripe that a person can win in this system despite losing the popular vote, even if that is the whole intent of the system.
And of course it's a legitimate gripe that the already lowest and least influential groups of people in this system don't want to be even lower and even less influential, to the point of nonexistence, despite their communities collapsing and all barometers of quality of life being generally bad.
I think we can all agree that if there continues to be a popular vote disparity, and if it grows larger in margins, that some form of changes need to occur to account for this while also not destroying the representation of smaller groups.
Basically, my support for the EC isn't unconditional. If the problem continues to get worse i'm fully in support of structural changes of some sort.
But tbh I don't consider the results of the previous few elections to be really decisive in that regard. Bush won an electoral majority of 4 votes and was only behind in the popular by .5%. Trump's was larger but without California he would have won the popular, he lost the national popular by less votes than what he lost California alone by. That state would have decided the election in spite of the vast majority of states being Pro-Trump and that's the sort of thing I specifically find objectionable in a large republic like ours.
I'm not entirely well versed in UK politics, but it looks to me like a no deal is becoming increasingly likely and that May is a terrible, terrible negotiator.