US Politics VI

[BVS]

Well, you can call it hypocrisy. Some would call it strategic thinking. Who were evangelicals going to vote for, HRC, who would be crafting policies and appointing judges that run contrary to what these evangelicals say they believe? Give me a break. They had two choices and they chose the guy who would best push the policies and people they cared for forward.

As I've said before, I understand the ones who made the same bargain with Trump that feminists made with Clinton. Who I don't understand are those who really believe he's one of them.

:facepalm:

 

[anitram]

Well, you can call it hypocrisy. Some would call it strategic thinking. Who were evangelicals going to vote for, HRC, who would be crafting policies and appointing judges that run contrary to what these evangelicals say they believe? Give me a break. They had two choices and they chose the guy who would best push the policies and people they cared for forward.

I've abstained from voting when the occasion warranted it.

I'll be doing so again in the upcoming provincial election as I cannot in good faith vote for any of the appalling options.

 

[Nick66]

Can't argue with that!

 

[DaveC]

I'll be doing so again in the upcoming provincial election as I cannot in good faith vote for any of the appalling options.

i understand this sentiment completely, but please don't do that. that's how we're going to end up with premier doug ford in a majority government. some of us have to live in this province.

 

[anitram]

i understand this sentiment completely, but please don't do that. that's how we're going to end up with premier doug ford in a majority government. some of us have to live in this province.

I am in Toronto now so I have to live here too.

Look, I'm typically a Liberal voter but I can't support Kathleen Wynne and her fiscal irresponsibility. Our province is in really dire financial straits.

Needless to say I'm not voting for the buffoon Ford for obvious reasons.

 

[Nick66]

I saw something today about how Canada has fallen out of love with Trudeau? Only saw the headline, and I admit I haven't followed Canadian politics as closely as I used to, it's hard enough keeping up with what's going on in the US, UK & EU!

 

[Nick66]

It would have to be a different case. Not Mueller. That's my point...Mueller won't be asking that kind of question that doesn't relate to the case at hand like Starr, even though this one is a lot closer to relevance than Starr's question.

Unless the money came from Russian operatives. Then, bingo

I tend to agree. Let's also remember that Starr was an Independent Counsel, and had more freedom to expand his probe than Mueller (theoretically) does as a Special Counsel. I think to expand his probe in such a different direction Rosenstein would have to approve it.

Though as you said, if there's a Russian connection, all bets are off.

 

[Wide Awake n AZ]

Well, you can call it hypocrisy. Some would call it strategic thinking. Who were evangelicals going to vote for, HRC, who would be crafting policies and appointing judges that run contrary to what these evangelicals say they believe? Give me a break. They had two choices and they chose the guy who would best push the policies and people they cared for forward.

BTW, I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong. I'm sure that many of them are hypocrites. No doubt about that. Most of us are in one way or the other, especially when it comes to politics where tribalism is at play. And I think many of them are probably hypocrites because they cheat on their spouse, or are closet gay, or for any number of personal "failings" that they condemn publicly.

But I think this is a political choice, and as I've said before, I understand the ones who made the same bargain with Trump that feminists made with Clinton. Who I don't understand are those who really believe he's one of them.

Those same evangelicals came out weak for Romney, a Mormon.

So, yeah...you can say they "learned their lesson" politically. But if you inject religion into your politics for political gain, to the detriment of your belief system, have you really won?

Earthly spoils for damaging the integrity of the evangelical position? When, again, are they going to be able to push the planks of the Republican party? No Republican will fear them if they go all in for any Godless, mass-sinning Republican simply because they aren't Democrat. Without fear of a weak turnout (Romney), what drives the Republican candidate to cater to their specialized needs?

Not only did they damage their own integrity, they damaged their power to dictate general election decision making. They need a "Bernie" or "Nader" moment on their side, related to religion (not business like Perot) to push their party to consider them, to restore the power they ceded in voting heavily for an abomination in their God's eyes like Trump

 

[DaveC]

I am in Toronto now so I have to live here too.

Look, I'm typically a Liberal voter but I can't support Kathleen Wynne and her fiscal irresponsibility. Our province is in really dire financial straits.

Needless to say I'm not voting for the buffoon Ford for obvious reasons.

i don't want another liberal government like this one either but history shows that a ford with 4 years in power is a fiscal disaster of another kind.

whoever wins, i'm just hoping it's a slim minority that requires cooperation between the parties. wynne will be forced to resign either way if it's a minority and hopefully someone halfway decent comes out of the leadership contest.

 

[DaveC]

I saw something today about how Canada has fallen out of love with Trudeau? Only saw the headline, and I admit I haven't followed Canadian political as closely as I used to, it's hard enough keeping up with what's going on in the US, UK & EU!

he's been disappointing in terms of keeping his campaign promises and there's a growing feeling that he has been focusing on identity politics and progressivism a bit too much lately at the expense of actually running the country. there's been a few scandals in his cabinet and with some of his own expenses as well. i think people still want him to succeed in general but it seems his focus and judgment have been a bit lacking lately and i can see how it'd be turning some people off who had been supporters.

 

[dazzledbylight]

Hey, I expect better of you, I was rushing through a post, and obviously that was a faux pas!

What I think I was trying to say was since Putin came up through the KGB he was a Communist. But is he still so only in the loosest of terms? Is he now more like being "just" a corrupt, authoritarian politician hanging out with the oligarchs, and not caring as much about granular CP points. Or is he more like the kind of CP leader who practices/d "Communism for thee, but not for me" as in fine for the working class, but I'm going to live high on the hog.

(Yes, I have been partly following his "reelection" re public radio reporting- so yeah, I've heard about problems, suppression, ballot stuffing etc.)

It 's perhaps also like if Mao (little red book) Tse-tung returned today how much if the Chinese CP doings would he recognize , or have a fit over major diversions from his rule?

Anyway, glad I gave u a laff, Dave C.

 

[Wide Awake n AZ]

In today's day of social media/increased transparency afforded by instant message delivery, I wonder if there will ever been a non-dictator that doesn't have scandals/lack of strong consensus.

If we knew the private lives and internal machinations of so many of our legendary leaders during their time in office?


Not arguing for a return to that type of coverage. Though I do think the personal flaws sometimes get in the way of the bigger picture...Trump has transactional sex with a porn star, becomes focus over his complete damage of belief among many in our intelligence agencies (already shaken by 9/11, Iraq) and justice agencies (again, was not a perfect relationship to begin with). His loutishness and weird familial relationships are no match for his actual policies, which slashed corporate taxes while approving a budget without a reasonably equal cut in expenditures (pissing off both sides, if they were the type to pay attention), may have triggered a trade war, and cut us out of refereeing the Korean thaw, which may see South Korea taking their eye off the prize in favor of the emotion of delivering a result to the older generation. His shuffled staff deck seems to be humorous at this point, but is a continued push for total subservience. And so on...


I don't know that I have any more than an opinion on any of this, but it certainly seems like there is so much, we might be getting blinded by sheer content. I am not one to claim I see what others do not, and honestly do not know where intent may begin and this being the result of incompetence may end. But when the POTUS can just flat out lie and we know and no one is even shocked, and fact check organizations are dismissed as partisan?

 

[anitram]

I saw something today about how Canada has fallen out of love with Trudeau? Only saw the headline, and I admit I haven't followed Canadian politics as closely as I used to, it's hard enough keeping up with what's going on in the US, UK & EU!

He was never THAT popular here and I think his popularity abroad due to the fact he is young, attractive, has an attractive and photogenic family etc is misleading people into thinking that this is the perception at home too. I see Americans posting things about him on FB which are so glowingly OTT, but I suppose next to Trump it’s no wonder.

I personally see him as a bit of an empty suit, not much experience and it shows in his poor judgment of which there are several examples. But he’s sort of inoffensive politically otherwise so it’s kind of hard to work yourself up in a tizzy over him.

 

[dazzledbylight]

One thing for sure, I like how you spit out the liberal kool aid of controlling women's bodies.....maybe, just maybe it's about the unborn baby's body, that's about to get ripped to pieces.

But oh yeah, we must preach gun control to "save children's lives,"

Spare me.

Well, I won't spare you.

A women who has been living her life with family, friends, a partner with her own hopes and dreams besides the (should she wish to) hope of being a good mother IS more important than the fetus.

She is a person first!

We women are not just your damn "broodmares", popping out one after another of your ittle theocratic babies.
(I reject all the fundamentalist groups of religions)

When you force a woman to have a child you " rip apart" her life. But I guess that's not so important to you.

A woman who can not control when, or IF she is going to have a child/children is not truely a free, first class American citizen.

 

[DaveC]

Hey, I expect better of you, I was rushing through a post, and obviously that was a faux pas!

What I think I was trying to say was since Putin came up through the KGB he was a Communist. But is he still so only in the loosest of terms? Is he now more like being "just" a corrupt, authoritarian politician hanging out with the oligarchs, and not caring as much about granular CP points. Or is he more like the kind of CP leader who practices/d "Communism for thee, but not for me" as in fine for the working class, but I'm going to live high on the hog.

(Yes, I have been partly following his "reelection" re public radio reporting- so yeah, I've heard about problems, suppression, ballot stuffing etc.)

It 's perhaps also like if Mao (little red book) Tse-tung returned today how much if the Chinese CP doings would he recognize , or have a fit over major diversions from his rule?

Anyway, glad I gave u a laff, Dave C.

i don't think putin ever really was a communist in the ideological sense. in a totalitarian one-party state you pretty much have to join the party if you are an ambitious individual who wants to go far in their career, like putin clearly is. i don't know much about internal russian politics but from afar he seems pretty right wing to me, which means he's definitely not a communist anymore.

mao didn't want deng xiaoping to take over because he warned that deng would reform china's market and make it more open and that it would destroy chinese communism. which is pretty much exactly what deng ended up doing, so i figure mao would be pretty pissed off.

 

[Mac_Fly]

I've abstained from voting when the occasion warranted it.

I'll be doing so again in the upcoming provincial election as I cannot in good faith vote for any of the appalling options.

Understandable.

The Republicans and Democrats are basically a corporate uni-party.

Yet I, as a registered Independent, find myself voting the lesser of two evils every election.

So tiring to vote against a Party than to be voting for a party

 

[Irvine511]

Understandable.



The Republicans and Democrats are basically a corporate uni-party.

Right. Because if there’s anything we’ve learned from Trump, and W before him, it’s that Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same.

 

[BEAL]

How can anyone say this now?

 

[BEAL]

Also, for the conspiracy lovers and Rosanne

https://medium.com/@willsommer/ros...izzagate-style-conspiracy-theory-234526f52e54

 

[Mac_Fly]

Right. Because if there’s anything we’ve learned from Trump, and W before him, it’s that Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same.

That has nothing to do with the comment I was responding to of course.

But I'm sure you realized that and just wanted to get in a zinger.

Trump is out of the box in the worst possible way of course.

And the Republicans Party certainly bias themselves toward racists and religious right in their quest to mine votes.

But on the whole, there really isn't much difference.

I vote Democrat, but without much enthusiasm as it is really a vote against Republican Party.

 

[Nick66]

Seeing the MSM and social media melt down over this Roseanne thing and hilariously wrestle with the morality of watching a 30 minute sit com has been the best thing on the internet this week.

 

[BEAL]

My annoyance is with the dangers of peddling such stupid shit to the masses.

Someone believed Pizzagate enough to arm themselves and enter the restaurant with the intention of freeing these child sex slaves.

While social media has some great attributes, the conspiracy theorists are by far the worst.

 

[anitram]

Seeing the MSM and social media melt down over this Roseanne thing and hilariously wrestle with the morality of watching a 30 minute sit com has been the best thing on the internet this week.

I honestly have to ask where you spend much of your time because it seems that you are always reporting on some sort of hysterical behaviour, typically from the left/Resistance that nobody else is seeing?

Admittedly I have a newborn at home and I don't spend much time on Twitter but I'm on Facebook daily, and I think I follow about 500 people and there has maybe been one post about Roseanne and not in any way actually hysterical or commenting on the politics of it. I also have my TV on most of the day on various news channels and I've seen exactly one segment on CNN about it, which was in fact quite positive and had a nostalgic slant to it if anything.

 

[BVS]

Also, for the conspiracy lovers and Rosanne

https://medium.com/@willsommer/ros...izzagate-style-conspiracy-theory-234526f52e54

My Twitter alter has been following this Qanon thing for awhile, and it’s pretty freakin scary.

They believe there’s a tape of Hillary and Podesta having sex with a little girl, they’re quite obsessed with pedophilia. They believe the spending bill has verbiage about gitmo and military tribunals because Trump is about to take down Carter, Clintons, Obama, and deep state.

It’s really scary and funny at the same time.

 

[Nick66]

I honestly have to ask where you spend much of your time because it seems that you are always reporting on some sort of hysterical behaviour, typically from the left/Resistance that nobody else is seeing?

Admittedly I have a newborn at home and I don't spend much time on Twitter but I'm on Facebook daily, and I think I follow about 500 people and there has maybe been one post about Roseanne and not in any way actually hysterical or commenting on the politics of it. I also have my TV on most of the day on various news channels and I've seen exactly one segment on CNN about it, which was in fact quite positive and had a nostalgic slant to it if anything.

I don't think you need to spend much time looking at lefty or winger blogs or the fringe on Twitter to get a good idea of what's going on there...mercifully I don't.

I generally get in the office early and spend an hour or so each day in the morning scanning the news w/my coffee. Usually this means checking out MSM sites...typically stuff like NYT, Wapo, London Times, and The Economist. Then, if there's a story I want to know how partisans on each side are spinning, I'll check out a few mainstream right and left leaning websites. Then occasionally I check out some far right and far left (U2 Interference Politics Thread) to see what the real fringe is going off on about it. I just like to be exposed to a lot different sources of information and get perspectives across the spectrum. That said, I don't watch lot of cable news.

So yeah, I started noticing "Is it ethical to watch Roseanne" thing pretty much as soon as I learned about the revival. For example, this Resistance member wonders about the ethics of watching the show, and a writer at the NYT (who admits the show itself is "excellent") hand wrings about whether to watch here, concluding that Roseanne is too "dangerous" to watch her show. WaPo wonders if her character is the new "Archie Bunker", even though she says absolutely nothing bigoted in the episodes I saw (in fact the show is very inclusive) and wonders if anyone will find it funny (this article was posted before the premiere got 18 million viewers, the highest for a network comedy in 16 years). And that's just a sample. A simple Google search will show you how upset some people are with all this, and of course there's the inevitable boycott, which apparently has been going on for a while, but has gained steam after Roseanne retweeted something about David Hogg's supposed "Nazi" salute". Then there's the fun sidenote that when Sarah Silverman had the audacity to say how much she enjoyed the show, some of her contemporaries took to Twitter to explain how dangerous it all was. Which is no surprise since the rest of political Twitter is going crazy over it.

So it has been a thing, with the left getting into contortions about whether it's OK to watch (it is) and the right embracing it as some kind of validation of Trump (it's not). It won't last...we'll all move on to the next outrage soon enough.

 

[Irvine511]

I am both a stalwart “Resistance” member and the single most bigoted person on this forum, not to mention a maddening centrist who wants to bring the Democrats to the right so they are indistinguishable from Republicans. I’m incapable of admitting that Hillary had any flaws and yet I don’t extend to women and Me Too the same level of support I do to racial minorities and BLM.

This is why I just can’t quit you, FYM.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

I am both a stalwart “Resistance” member and the single most bigoted person on this forum, not to mention a maddening centrist who wants to bring the Democrats to the right so they are indistinguishable from Republicans. I’m incapable of admitting that Hillary had any flaws and yet I don’t extend to women and Me Too the same level of support I do to racial minorities and BLM.

This is why I just can’t quit you, FYM.

You ain't any one of them. You're Donny.

 

[BVS]

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I am both a stalwart “Resistance” member and the single most bigoted person on this forum, not to mention a maddening centrist who wants to bring the Democrats to the right so they are indistinguishable from Republicans. I’m incapable of admitting that Hillary had any flaws and yet I don’t extend to women and Me Too the same level of support I do to racial minorities and BLM.

This is why I just can’t quit you, FYM.

You forgot to mention how your flamboyant lifestyle is destroying our children.

 

[dabiggestu2fan]

Congrats on the new home first time buyer!

And look at it this way...if Trump starts WWIII, think of the money you'll save on mortgage payments!

Thanks Nick! It’s a scary and exciting thought to FINALY be a homeowner! I guess that is a good silver lining, if wwiii starts I’ll indeed save a LOT of money on my mortgage payments ha