The Politics Thread

[Juliajms]

I can't even imagine what it's like for people who fought fascism in the 40's to be confronted with this watered down version of it in 2018. I can only hope they live to see relative sanity restored.

[alphanguy74]

This year we had the largest single year deficit increase in the country's history. Trumpers seem to just ignore it, along with everything else. 

[Khan]

Seriously, moderators, why am I seeing comments again from people I'm supposed to have on Ignore?  Have your fancy-schmancy updates to SON resulted in our no longer being able to block filth from our view?  If it has, then I'm done with this [!@#$%^&*] board.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Khan

[Vee]

Mueller's next target?

 

 

[Vee]

[Juliajms]

^ OMG. I didn't know that he had been invited to Bible study by his victims.  They were trying to include him and bring him into their holy place and he killed them.  Death is really to good for the little POS, but I'll take it.

[DRW50]

This really is out of place with the above articles, but our VP is so embarrassing. Forced slang when you're as whitebread as is humanly possible reminds me of Pappy Bush, only Pappy wasn't a self-loathing psychopath who wanted to end the world. Moments like these are when the mask slips and you see just how craven and desperate for attention he is. 

 

 

[I Am A Swede]

 

Amen to that!

I can't help but wonder though how he came to be so filled with hate and disregard for other people. How is it possible to be so cold and downright evil? I just can't understand it, which in a way is a relief I guess.

[Juliajms]

Partially I think it's that unstable, isolated people are being radicalized online.  There was a time when guys like this would have just lived out there lives as drugged out losers. The internet has made it easier for them to find a cause online and to carry out some mission to support the cause (in their minds at least)  One way you can tell they are kind of delusional is that their mission never makes the slightest difference in reality. If anything it drives more people to support whatever or whomever they were against.

 

Just to be clear, I don't absolve any of these people of personal responsibility and they can all hang as far as I'm concerned. If we are going to have a death penalty might is well use it on these mass shooters.

[Vee]

[DRW50]

As always with CNN you can see how smug and deluded everyone who works there is and how shaken up they are by any hint of reality. I really do hate everything CNN represents. They are enablers and sycophants. They clearly still see all of this as a game. I saw an article earlier today about how they're likely to no longer bring on Trump people as pundits and will instead just have Republican members of Congress. It's so clearly just because Trump hates them and has caused violence toward them. Yet it means nothing, because the Republicans in Congress support all of this. They will hire various lunatics just because they were in Congress. And somehow this is a principled stand. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see someone like this on CNN soon:

 

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/11/gop-lawmaker-matt-shea-releases-christian-manifesto-calling-for-biblical-law/

[Chris B]

 

If true, why is CNN so far in last place? Rachel Maddow has one of the highest rated cable news programs and starts with a twenty minute monologue without commercials which usually recounts a historical story that ties into the present. She has no Republican or Democrat commentators either, only experts to the subject at hand. She doesn’t cover tweets or rallies. If she can do so well without that then anyone can. 

 

CNN has so much good talent but watching their shows is damn near impossible because it’s the same each hour with Democrat and Republican commentators screaming at each other. I found it fun at a time but it’s so tiresome. I also don’t understand constantly having certain Republican commentators on when they lie repeatedly. The media in general is afraid of seeming liberal so they do this to look balanced, but CNN just looks weak and foolish. Still airing his rallies in this day and age makes them no better than FOX. 

[DramatistDreamer]

It's been about eight years since I've watched an entire episode of anything on cable news but all I have to say is, never underestimate the calculus that goes into having an intelligent, engaging host who doesn't pander to the soundbyte.

 

I have to put in a mention to the highly under-rated PBS Newshour that has been doing longform broadcast journalism for decades.  I've watched them since I was a tweenager (Charlayne Hunter-Gault initially reeled me in).  These days I admit, I don't watch as faithfully (I don't watch as much TV period) and that Brooks and Shields segment has to be the weakest part of their broadcast (thankfully, it's usually only once a week).

 

I wasn't going to read this NYT article but I saw the first picture and excerpt and, it's not as bad as I thought it would be and it turned out to be a somewhat interesting read, particularly the young woman who states her feeling that the evangelicals have done immense harm to marginalized communities.  There are some real conflicts going on within the evangelical community and just as I have suspected, it goes along demographics like age and ethnicity/race primarily.  

 

‘God Is Going to Have to Forgive Me’: Young Evangelicals Speak Out

[JaneAusten]

I ve been super busy volunteering in recent weeks moreso than I planned. The horrible events over the past couple of weeks have led me and a couple of my friends to up our volunteer efforts here in Illinois. The shooting last weekend was a real tipping point. I was at a vigil on Sunday and outpouring of emotion, I can’t even describe it. And to those of you such as @Vee who have direct ties, I can’t even imagine how you must feel. I hope you know that so many out there share your sorrow and outrage. 

 

I hope you are all tuning out of the cable news outlets. I have for the past few months, and it doesn’t change what’s happening in the country but it does help you focus more directly on channeling that anger, outrage, fear, sorrow more positively I believe. Frankly I will never say anyone is asking for it. But CNN is frankly the worst. They put the worst people on. And hosts for example like Chris Cuomo feign a pretext of fairness while not putting on people with genuine arguments and positions but corporate shills who get paid to be outrageous. Most of them don’t even come across as genuine. It’s like a an op-Ed writer in The NY Times writing a column supporting the Saudis based on the nobility of the relationship with the US only to find out they are a lobbyist for the  Saudis. CNN is more disingenuous than Fox because IMO Fox has no pretense and even o.n Fox you have Shep Smith and Chris Wallace who can be fair.

 

And Chris is right. MSNBC has their own issues, and paid shills, but they do or did talk about other things when I was watching months back. Jeff Zucker is just a lazy hack who frankly likely doesn’t care if any of the staff at CNN gets hurt as long as it means more ratings. It’s sick.

[Khan]

 

 

From the article:

 

No one cared about us until Trump.

 

That's just it; they DID care and they still do care.  (Certainly, they care(d) more than Trump ever will.)  But the problem was that the solutions they were offering, you didn't want to hear.  You wanted to hear exactly what Trump told you: "the world is just fine, nothing is changing, just keep making your popcorn and we'll take care of the rest."  It's the equivalent of daddy coming into your bedroom after you've had a nightmare and telling you there are no monsters hiding under your bed or in your closet.  However, in this case, the monsters are very much real, and they are no longer hiding.

 

Thanks, DD, for the article!  

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Edited November 2, 2018 by Khan