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The Old Hack

Political Discussion Thread (READ FIRST POST)

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On 11/24/2019 at 5:03 PM, Don Edwards said:

1) I don't watch Fox News. Its news coverage, not including stuff that is explicitly offered as commentary, is the most balanced of the major news networks (15-20 years or so ago a study, which I can't find again, found it was one - the largest by a wide margin - of only two or three news source that wasn't to the political left of Congressional Democrats collectively. In the 2008 election the other news networks' reporting on Obama was over 2/3 favorable while reporting on McCain was only about 1/3 favorable, while Fox's Obama reporting was about 36% favorable and on McCain the fairly-close-to-the-same 40% favorable), but still biased and just as inane and boring as the others.

It would be customary if you are embedding a link in a statement that the linked article be germane to the statement; supportive evidence, for instance. Granted, if I follow what you are saying, and I'm not sure I do, it seems like you could not find the article you want and substituted another that still somehow supports the position. Except it doesn't. The most balanced link points to a site that itself rates well, and I'll give you that it is at least in the ballpark of being on subject, but it does not address the issue. The closest it comes is the statement, "Fox was the only news outlet in the study that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall, however, there was variation in the tone of Fox’s coverage depending on the topic.", which is exactly what I'd expect from the Trump cheerleaders.

The second link, 2008 election, is far more germane. Forbes weighs in as biased, but not greatly so. The author, however, is controversial. The article makes a good case on a casual read; give is a second glance; the numbers come off as spin, and lack rigor, the sample set smacks of cherry picking; "CNN and MSNBC have no comparable flagship evening news show" - again, lack of criteria, seems to me they have plenty of similar content.Boils down to one man's biased opinion, albeit a learnedly biased man. Seems disingenuous when he sites John Stewart (The Daily Show), Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report), and Bill Maher (Real Time with Bill Maher), none of which are anything like the "flagship evening news show" he is ostensibly comparing. (Especially Colbert, who, in the Colbert Report, was parodying a conservative talk show host, and in-character was highly conservatively biased.)

Rest assured, if you want to believe Fox is unbiased, you will have plenty of voices who will back you up, including of course, Fox themselves.

 

 

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5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Given that the 'Russia is innocent and Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election on Hillary's behalf' narrative stems directly from Putin himself, that did not really require the assistance of Gil Grissom to guess. :(

Russian jokes tell deeper truths about Putin and Trump - scary stuff.

'On the Estonian border, a border guard is filling out Putin’s entry form. “Occupation?” the officer asks. “Not today,” Putin replies. “Just tourism.”'

Edited by Darth Fluffy
Had to include one.

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I've heard it claimed that, with regard to impeachment, the Democrats have cried wolf too many times, and that even if there were something to it this time, Republicans will not be inclined to listen, hence its dismissal as a purely partisan act.

But that only works as an analogy if, in the story, each time the boy cried for help, there actually was a wolf, but the townspeople pretended there wasn't, because they just didn't like the boy and were hoping his sheep would get eaten. Or they feared what the wolf would do to them if they acknowledged it. Or they were, in fact, wolves themselves.

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On 1/21/2020 at 11:04 PM, Illjwamh said:

I've heard it claimed that, with regard to impeachment, the Democrats have cried wolf too many times, and that even if there were something to it this time, Republicans will not be inclined to listen, hence its dismissal as a purely partisan act.

But that only works as an analogy if, in the story, each time the boy cried for help, there actually was a wolf, but the townspeople pretended there wasn't, because they just didn't like the boy and were hoping his sheep would get eaten. Or they feared what the wolf would do to them if they acknowledged it. Or they were, in fact, wolves themselves.

Also, replace "wolf" with "rabid schnauzer".

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I am sorry to vent so crudely about this, but I hope to GOD that Bernie Sanders will not become the nominee. I fear him, I distrust him and he is to my complete satisfaction disablist to the core. I take solace in the fact that his 'victory' yesterday was in fact a much poorer showing than the one he made in 2016 and I hope he will continue to show less momentum than he did back then.

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*blinkblinks* :danshiftyeyes:

From what I know of your political leanings, I am confused that your dislike of him is so strong. Did I miss something here? As far to the left as he is by current American standards, I thought he counted as relatively moderate by European standards?

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18 hours ago, ijuin said:

From what I know of your political leanings, I am confused that your dislike of him is so strong. Did I miss something here? As far to the left as he is by current American standards, I thought he counted as relatively moderate by European standards?

I could criticise his political leanings till the cows come home, but they are not the only reason I distrust the man. My primary reason -- and this alone is a deal breaker for me -- is that he is an arrant disablist with nothing but contempt for the mentally ill. A group which includes me and my wife. I am virtually certain that if he gets elected he will show absolutely zero concern for the disabled and I strongly suspect that he may actively throw us under the bus. Since my wife is a citizen in the US and current health policies are already having protections for the disabled brutally dismantled, I do not wish to see him in the Oval Office.

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14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I could criticise his political leanings till the cows come home, but they are not the only reason I distrust the man. My primary reason -- and this alone is a deal breaker for me -- is that he is an arrant disablist with nothing but contempt for the mentally ill. A group which includes me and my wife. I am virtually certain that if he gets elected he will show absolutely zero concern for the disabled and I strongly suspect that he may actively throw us under the bus. Since my wife is a citizen in the US and current health policies are already having protections for the disabled brutally dismantled, I do not wish to see him in the Oval Office.

I have never heard this about him, now I need to investigate.

In any case, the choice will be someone vs Trump, and whoever that is has my vote. Trump is dismantling all kinds of social protections. He appears to not have any sense of right and wrong, only what benefits him and what can he get away with.

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5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I have never heard this about him, now I need to investigate.

It is simple enough. He blames gun violence on the mentally ill. He calls Republican policies 'insane.' He refers to those who disagree with him as 'crazy.' I could go on, but there is no point. When he is called on it, he merely handwaves it. Once I politely requested in a tweet directed at him (knowing it was extremely unlikely to be seen by him) that he stop doing this. I did receive response from a follower of his who informed me that I should stop being so thin skinned and not try to ruin the English language.

These are merely my personal experiences. I have friends on Twitter I trust who have had similar or worse experiences relating to misogyny, racism and similar forms of bigotry. I am fully convinced that Bernie Sanders is a progressive solely in terms of finance -- to be precise, his own finances. I do not trust this man, and I have no faith that he will in any way or form improve matters very much in the Oval Office.

That I also find his 'socialist' stance highly unrealistic and unconvincing is merely another reason not to trust him. That and I am morally certain that he will sabotage the Democratic Party in an attempt to blackmail himself to the nomination. I want Trump replaced with something somewhat better, not merely 'bad in a different way.'

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5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

It is simple enough. He blames gun violence on the mentally ill. He calls Republican policies 'insane.' He refers to those who disagree with him as 'crazy.' I could go on, but there is no point. When he is called on it, he merely handwaves it. Once I politely requested in a tweet directed at him (knowing it was extremely unlikely to be seen by him) that he stop doing this. I did receive response from a follower of his who informed me that I should stop being so thin skinned and not try to ruin the English language.

These are merely my personal experiences. I have friends on Twitter I trust who have had similar or worse experiences relating to misogyny, racism and similar forms of bigotry. I am fully convinced that Bernie Sanders is a progressive solely in terms of finance -- to be precise, his own finances. I do not trust this man, and I have no faith that he will in any way or form improve matters very much in the Oval Office.

That I also find his 'socialist' stance highly unrealistic and unconvincing is merely another reason not to trust him. That and I am morally certain that he will sabotage the Democratic Party in an attempt to blackmail himself to the nomination. I want Trump replaced with something somewhat better, not merely 'bad in a different way.'

I hear you. My take on Bernie is that he has big ideas with no foundation. He doesn't take the trouble to connect the dots. It fits with what you're saying, "The details don't matter", when, in fact, it's all about the details, isn't it? So I would definitely agree with 'unrealistic'.

Still, Trump's 'bad' is off the scale. There are a lot of politicians I don't like, but they are on the map as politicians. Trump is just fractally awful at any scale of scrutiny. I would vote for a rabid racoon with Groucho glasses before Trump. (needs the Groucho glasses to get on the ballot)

I don't think you have much to worry about. Bernie did well in his home state. Whoopie! I don't think he has a snowball's chance on the melting icecaps in our present global warming.

 

 

 

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On 2/15/2020 at 11:02 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

I hear you. My take on Bernie is that he has big ideas with no foundation. He doesn't take the trouble to connect the dots. It fits with what you're saying, "The details don't matter", when, in fact, it's all about the details, isn't it? So I would definitely agree with 'unrealistic'.

Still, Trump's 'bad' is off the scale. There are a lot of politicians I don't like, but they are on the map as politicians. Trump is just fractally awful at any scale of scrutiny. I would vote for a rabid racoon with Groucho glasses before Trump. (needs the Groucho glasses to get on the ballot)

I don't think you have much to worry about. Bernie did well in his home state. Whoopie! I don't think he has a snowball's chance on the melting icecaps in our present global warming.

I did it, cast my ballot for the primary. I went with Elizabeth Warren. I don't know that she has the chops to take out Agent Orange (I stole that nickname), but there does seem to be a groundswell of support around her, so maybe? I like how she;s held corporate entities accountable, I hope she continues that.

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Coming to this a bit late, but I have long said that Trump had turned me from someone who felt no allegiance to either major party into a Yellow-Dog Democrat--that is, someone who would vote for a yellow dog rather than The Donald.

Bernie Sanders may yet make a liar out of me. He strikes me as a "True Believer" who is willing to wreck any and everything to achieve his vision. History is garlanded with the corpses of the victims of such men. Less dramatically, from truly hideous architecture (See Tom Wolfe's From Bauhaus to Our House), to the Prohibitionists' inadvertent creation of organized crime in the US, to the attempts of Iconoclasts of all ages  to erase cultural history, single-minded pursuit of The One True Vision has usually  left chaos and misery in its wake.

And yes, I know, Donald's cynical opportunism has also saddled us with problems that will take generations to fix. Both men make me more grateful than ever for the US system of checks and balances.

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Despite not being feverishly enthusiastic about any of the candidates (and grateful for simply not being feverish) I voted in the primary

This time, the "I Voted" sticker they handed out had a picture of a Manatee (Manatee County, Florida)

I would much rather vote for a Manatee than most of the available Elephants and Donkeys

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I hope Biden is up to the challenge. He's not exactly stellar material. Well, maybe actually stellar material, that's where the higher elements came from; ... ok, not helpful. He's not great. I hope he can beat the other geezer with the weasel on his forehead.

 

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4 hours ago, ijuin said:

Well, he's finally done it. Trump has declared that Congress itself (both the House and the Senate) are his opponents and threatens to forcibly adjourn them.

He can't do that unless one the houses adjourns and the other doesn't.  Then he, in theory, can adjourn the other.  Never in the history of the US been done, but there is a bit in the constitution that gives him that power.

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Interesting that it mentions that when Obama made recess appointments, the republicans got mad and the supreme court even said that he overstepped his authority. Now Trump wants to make recess appointments and is mad that the democrats aren't letting him?

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Interesting that it mentions that when Obama made recess appointments, the republicans got mad and the supreme court even said that he overstepped his authority. Now Trump wants to make recess appointments and is mad that the democrats aren't letting him?

Sirrah Trump is much like a spoiled child who has temper tantrums.  This is just the latest example of one.

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So, either he’s claiming that the pandemic stretches back to 2016, or else he’s saying that Obama was “in office” after the pandemic started.

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