The first article about the FISA warrant was by Louise Mensch back in November. She's the one who claimed a source told her the FBI was using it to examine the activities of people in Trump’s campaign who have ties to Russia. In the way Trump looks at things, that means Obama wiretapped him. None of that is the weird part. The weird part is that Mensch's husband is the manager for Metallica and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Mensch is a fucking psychotic head case who believes whatever demon rattles around in that skull of hers. Don't believe anything she says, ever. I'm amazed she isn't a complete burnout yet. She'll never rise above tabloid material.
A well reasoned piece by Matt Taibbi on the dangers of major news outlets pushing conspiracy narratives about Trump and Russia. They do so at their own peril with their long standing credibility with the public. Ive seen the "fake news" phenomenon in two forms, the facebook post style links to fringe political blog sites that 'reporting' was shared as fact. The second being what is described in this piece, half truths used as insinuations that push a one sided narrative by the media outlet. The latter is the older traditional sense. Again if it weren't for Trump's uncontrollable impulse control and huge negative ratings, he'd have a good case outing the inherant media biases against him.
I just cant believe Rolling Stone published an article with a shred of clarity, but it was a good one. This quote from the end of it should be the real concern here:
If the media was going to recognize that nonstop shit flinging and playing up unproven scandals to drive ratings wasn't actually journalism it would have happened by now. The funny thing about the Trump era thus far is that you'd almost think there was nothing else happening in the world. He is all they talk about. The Russia stuff wouldn't even be so bad if they didn't obsess about it 24/7.
They also have experience in skating away from it nearly scot-free. One lousy little lawsuit is all these fucks have recieved as punishment. I hope the writer of that article quits and works for a better organization. Which won't be hard to find. At least the law had the common decency to scorch Gawker's earth to the core.
That article was great just for the sheer silliness of its cartoonish evil. I have no idea how everyone wasn't questioning its veracity the second it was released. The dialogue seemed like it was straight out of some B horror movie. I swear, the rape culture campus stuff is like a weird fantasy to some people.
I agree with Taibbi's main point (the risk of inoculation), but damn do I resent being on the "side" that has to play by the rules and deal with reality, while the opposition gets to have Alex "gay froggery" Jones whisper into the ear of President Donald "Kenyan Muslim" Trump.
Can we please drop this "They're the stupid side and we're the smart side" bullshit already? It's seriously getting old and just detracts from any actual discussion.
One day I will see a conservative blame someone other than Brock, Soros, or "the Jews" but it is not this day.
Listen I do wish for the sake of the right they'd have chosen a different course than Trump and fringe media. Not the best reaction to what has turned out to be, what was always seemed a foregone conclusion, an insane amount of bias in the MSM. PS, the Alex Jones Gay Frog clip has rocketed into my top 5 online clips of all time:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/01/24/americas_second_civil_war_132880.html I've seen this start popping up in quite a few places. Some people say it is a cold civil war or the battle for America's soul as well. Reading some of the back and forth between people on this board who still buy in to the two party system seems to show that we really don't agree on much anymore. So, where are we going from here as divided as we are?
I'll admit to not understanding why the two party system in the US doesn't work. In the US it seems the two parties go as far to the extreme of their ideologies as possible. In Canada on the other hand, we have a multi-party system and the result is that every party trends towards the centre on policy ideas. The question is, does the multi-party system make for a more moderate government or does the country itself make for a more moderate government. My point is, is the US as divided as you think they are. Or are they only so divided because people have to choose between these two extreme views. If a centrist, middle of the road party came along would that party get the most votes? and I don't mean someone like Bernie because he is not centre at all. But for those of you that know the Canadian system if a party like the Liberal party came long in the US would they just attract the most votes by virtue of not being the extreme?
It has a lot to do with not being in a parliamentary system. It also has much more to do with money. Major donors give that money to the two major parties. And they therefore don't get smaller 3rd parties much air time. If you watch our election cycles, you would think only 2 parties exist. In order for a 3rd party to even get on the debate stage, they need to be polling at an average of 15% across several polls nationwide. Gary Johnson at one point hit 14% but only in one poll. And then people started interviewing him and it turns out he doesn't know any of the things. And embarrassed himself on tv and in magazines. Also, we don't have many reasonable 3rd parties out there. In addition, identity politics is so bad right now that people need to feel like they are on a team and everyone who is on a different team is an asshole.
So Gary Johnson is a good example, but he is also an extreme view with his Libertarian policies. Has there ever been a viable 3rd party in policy? Forget air time and all that other stuff. If there is a 3rd party with policies that speak to the majority middle-class I think they could win. Al the people fed up with left and right and identity politics would move to the middle. Or maybe I'm hopelessly naive
The back in forth in the US over this isn't shit compared to Europe. The left wing there is so obsessed with being pro more and more immigrants for the sake of being 'good'(and in a lot of cases anti-white because apparently hating white people also makes you 'good') they're set to collapse the entire EU. It's fucking incredible to watch it unfold. No matter what happens they pretend it's the native Europeans causing the problems and the migrants don't have cultural issues. It's become a situation where you have a lot of people across the continent supporting candidates that they normally wouldn't just because they aren't completely fucking retarded on the issue of mass immigration from the middle east. The left wing the world over is losing power. You'd think at some point it would be time for some self reflection on this victim culture anti-west idiocy, but so far they just triple and quadruple down, screaming at everyone that they're racist and stupid and blah blah blah. At least in the US the left will have the fact that they're going to be running against Trump in 2020 going for them. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Europe throughout the next two years. The whole point of social progress was supposed to be that you didn't define people by things like race, gender, or sexual orientation, but over the last decade the left wing has become increasingly obsessed with doing just that. I don't think it's really a civil or cold war because the victim culture stupidity is becoming pretty hated within the left as well. Take for example the fact that fewer millennials identify as feminist compared to every other generation. You would think being the most tolerant and most pro gender equality generation ever would mean the opposite, but there's just no way to take feminists seriously anymore. My guess is the left and right wings slowly normalize over time. Trump is kind of a nut, but he's also not really on board with all the neo-con, religion obsessed, total free market purists that have been pushing the republican party too far right. In that sense he's a good influence on the party, even if he is an embarrassment in so many other ways. Given how many people on the left are disgusted with the identity politics nonsense I'm guessing it'll die a slow death over the next ten years or so, kicking and screaming on the way down. Personally, if I could have things my own way I wish we had 5 parties in the US. The victim culture morons to the far left. The religious right extremists to the far right. Then center right and center left parties that could sensibly discuss and accomplish things, and then throw in a socially liberal/fiscally conservatism party that is without all the anarchist baggage libertarians bring with them. As far as libertarians go he wasn't actually extreme at all. He just happened to be, and I hate to put it so bluntly, a really stupid person who was incapable of not embarrassing himself whenever he opened his mouth. It was quite an achievement considering the two major party candidates. Yes, but they've died out really quickly. Theodore Roosevelt ran a progressive party briefly that racked up more votes than the republican candidate. Ross Perot also generated a lot of noise, and maybe even had a real shot to win if he had fully committed himself to a campaign instead of dropping out and re-entering towards the end. Then there was the dixiecrat party that managed to win a few southern states, but I'm not sure you could really call that viable.
Some politicians who have been successfully elected by one party or the other don't really fit the rank and file of the party in which they belong. There are several notable examples of this: Bernie Sanders - He is a Democrat in name only. Obviously you know what the DNC did to him. Ron Paul - He is a Republican in name only. He is a Libertarian and was railroaded to a lesser degree by the RNC Rand Paul - Seems to waffle back and forth between being a Republican and Libertarian but he is in the Republican tent There are the blue dog democrats out there that are more fiscally conservative than most of the rest If the infrastructure could be developed there is definitely room for two more parties in my opinion. I think the current incarnation of the Democrats and Republicans are hardly discernible in some arenas. They are both very pro big business of many stripes, unnecessary war, global trade etc. I view Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the same as I view John McCain or Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush, I think their politics are so close it is electing the same thing. We could have a more liberal party that supports Bernie Sanders ideals, I think they would have a lot of supporters and I also think a fiscally conservative and socially liberal party would do a lot of good as well. In the aftermath of the creation of those two parties, I think the DNC or RNC would fold under, I don't know which nor really care but as I said, I think their politics are too close together to survive the creation of more political parties.
Holy God damn strawman, Batman. There's a lot to be said about the near unprecedented levels of disunity in the country right now but this... is certainly not it.
He did Joe Rogan's podcast a while back when people were announcing their presidential races. He seemed like a really decent guy with good intentions, but he started to lose me when he got pressed for real details on his policies and it all basically boiled down to "we need less rules". Which sounds good in theory but without a lot of those "rules", there would be next to no protections for basic citizens and the environment.
I heard something interesting regarding the partisan and geographic divide in this country which made sense to me. People have slowly been migrating to communities which share similar views as them. Makes sense right? But this has resulted in the politics we see now. The red gets more red, the blue more blue, people don't really have much exposure to the other side, not as much as they used to. Which makes compromise hard. Hard to compromise with the DFL (Minnesota people know what that means) when all your constituents think that they're the devil and out to ruin the country. Not shocking that people prefer to live around like minded neighbors and will move to achieve that. Given how mobile the country is, it seems intuitive that this has happened. After being in the capitol for a bit, I'm struck by something. All the conjecturing and theorizing you guys do here, politicians don't, they're playing a different game, much different, more subtle and less intellectual