I was going to start a separate thread, but this can probably just be part of this one:
Is this the first time we have evidence of Russia trying to influence a US election? I would assume that they are always trying to do that, and we are always trying to do the same to them. Isn’t that the way things work?
And since there is no evidence, as far I can tell, that actual vote tampering occurred, isn’t it a bit much to claim, as some are doing, that the Russians are the cause of Trump’s win?
Yes, it’s disturbing to know this, but is anyone really surprised? And do we think it’s only the Russians doing this? I was born at night, but not last night…
The sad thing is that the Republicans could take the high road AND keep the presidency. But it really is starting to look as though there is simply no integrity. Our guy’s in, we’ll get what we want, and who gives a shit beyond that?
Also interesting is that the Republicans don’t seem to understand the demographic shift. As I understand it, the currently ascendant immigrant groups (Latin Americans and Africans) tend to be very socially conservative. You know, maybe embrace that.
I sincerely hope that what we see on the surface- circling the wagons- isn’t the whole story and that behind the scenes there is some planning for the various what-ifs.
It seems to me that even in the event of an impeachment or Electoral College revolt, the Republicans are safe enough in 2018 that if they take care of it early enough they will have 4 years for the people to move on and forget what a mess this whole thing was. RNC, if you’re listening- this might be inevitable and so better sooner than later.
And I know I’m a broken record, but I want to be clear: I accept that the Republicans are in power, and I can deal with the fact that they will drive their agenda. But Trump is dangerous and not suited for the position. It’s about the man, not the party or even the platform.
IMHO, the most believable theory is that the Russians thought Clinton was going to win, so took the opportunity to start weakening her while simultaneously undermining confidence in our elections and democracy. Trump, also expecting defeat, was coincidentally doing the same thing because he’s a vile, conceited asshole. No collusion necessary.
That’s the thing about the Best people… and just plain old-school definition Good people. They work hard, they give their lives to their craft. They sacrifice… they miss family events. They are on occasion ghosts at birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, reunions, get togethers. They are damn lucky if they sometimes get to see their kids plays.
They are professionals who work Hard to get it right and they live and die by their ethics… not because of some law or regulation… but because it’s Right
They aren’t super human; they can’t fly without a boarding pass. They can’t regenerate body parts lost to IEDs, sniper fire, or idiots with pressure cookers. They BLEED, ladies an gentlemen. They bleed. And they do feel pain. And how in the name of a God I’ll Never know or understand (or forgive) they get up every day… every single damn day… and do it again, I’ll Never know.
But they do.
Yes, Virginia… they do. No, they don’t always win the Big Prizes. But they try to… and I am thankful and grateful… every day because where I or We can’t be… and cant make a difference… They Are.
This, seems to me, is the most rational position to take at this time.
Nations competing for geo-political advantage on a global stage have a vested interested in who wins an election of another nation, whether friend or foe. As such, I don’t know why everyone is surprised, shocked and saddened by learning Russia had something to gain in helping Trump win and thus acted to influence the outcome in some manner.
Until and unless evidence is found showing a systematic hacking of voting machines to influence the election counts, everybody needs to take a deep breath and realize that the US electorate has no-one to blame but themselves for this particular outcome.
I’m not sure what your stream of consciousness has to do with New York Times reporter being caught in failing to report one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in the history of the world, in fact, denying it had ever occurred, and getting a Pulitzer prize for his efforts.
Glad to see that you agree. Trump had meltdowns and a large portion of the public apparently goes for that sort of thing.
So, you tell me; how do we educate the American public that meltdowns are not a good thing and that you probably shouldn’t vote for someone who has them on a regular basis?
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t ask for the opinion of someone who is incapable of telling the difference between emotional tirades and physical illness.
Sorry, but your simplistic attempts at sophistry won’t fly here.
Well, we educate American public about the dangers inherent in reading and actually believing the crap that magazines like Time spew out.
Then we point out to people that reality completely contradicts Time reporting, and let the people draw their own conclusions.
We can do the same type of exersize with other fake news outlets, like Washington Post, which you seem to be a reader of.
For example, when you’re reading Columbia Journalism Review conclusion that Washington Post’s article about fake news is fake, and then Washington Post refuses to stand behind its own reporting, what goes through your mind?
Do you continue to read and trust the filthy rag in question or do you do the same thing that normal people do, after reading Time’s articles about Trump’s campaign meltdown and then witnessing Trump crushing his opposition with ease?
If they had stood behind the flawed article then for sure I would drop them, that they did was to add a counter to their own article and that showed to me that they do indeed what you propose. I do defer to them because looking at the [del]Pravda[/del] Braitbart from Trump and henchmen they fear corrections like that like the Wicked Witch of the East fears water.
Since by your own words they did the correct thing, no I do not think that are a filthy rag, that is deserved by outfits like Breitbart that will never bother to correct their complete swill.
So yeah, we had more than 3 days of that report, and Breitbart and many other right wing sources have not corrected anything.
Not holding my breath when they will do so, so we do know what is the dirty rag.
Yeah man. Don’t believe anything. It’s all made up. There is no man behind the curtain…just ignore him. He just won the election? None of your concern. I’ll say what’s a curtain and what’s not, if and when it’s time!!! Benghonzaiiiii!!!
Dan Rather, the man who spent 30 years with a damn near impeccable record, got suckered into one bad story, and lost his entire career as a result? That Dan Rather?
You’re completely diluting the concept of “fake news”, by the way. Fake news is not news that later turns out to be wrong. It’s intentionally deceptive crap put together to appear as though it was legitimate news. When Rather published his report on the Killian documents, there was no reason to believe he knew the documents were fraudulent. That wasn’t fake news. It was just a hoax. It was bad reporting, but is there any reason to believe that Rather was not operating in good faith when he made the report? I don’t think there is. And it came from a news source which is generally trustworthy. It’s not “fake news”. You’re conflating very different issues here; please stop.
Did you see what those covers were referring to? Trump’s campaign did melt down on both occasions. He got into a week-long bitching competition with a gold star family, then again he went on an angry tirade against a former miss universe. The fact that he won has no influence on the facts at the time.
That people make mistakes.
Where do you get your news? In fact, WillFarnaby, and anyone else touting this line of argumentation, what are your go-to news sources? What sites do you visit for your news? And are those sites completely and utterly flawless in their accuracy and analysis?
Because what you’re doing is holding mainstream news outlets to an impossible standard. You’re saying that whenever a source gets anything wrong, they become untrustworthy. Dan Rather fell for a hoax, ergo nothing he says is reliable. The Washington Post published a crummy article on “fake news” and didn’t dig as deep as they could have, ergo they cannot be trusted on anything. The New York Times had a reporter publish a horrible story misrepresenting the state of things in Russia and that reporter won a pulitzer 85 fucking years ago, ergo both the New York Times and the Pulitzer are forever tainted.
So where do you get your news? What shining paragon of media never, ever gets anything wrong, in decades or centuries of investigative reporting?
I’ll tell you who: fucking nobody. There is not an outlet in the world who is older than a year and has never gotten anything wrong. Because in a business where the facts are not always immediately clear, but there is a clear motivation to publish first and have compelling news stories, sometimes someone’s going to get something wrong. It happens. The trick is to figure out when that happens, and try to find the places it happens the least. And the Washington Post and New York Times are among the very best in the business at doing exactly that. So was Dan Rather, until his parent network decided that this one flubbed story was too much for their trustworthiness to bear.
Trump lost the popular vote by a margin of 2.5 million. He barely squeezed out a win by a few hundred thousand votes in a handful of swing states. The entire election, he polled well beneath his competition. So when you say something like “Trump crushed his opposition with ease”, it makes me wonder - where do you get your news from? Because clearly they’ve been misleading you.
What I find particularly galling is complete lack of basic journalistic standards in mainstream media, like New York Times, Washington Post, CNNs…
Sure, as we all know, they can report that the humanitarian catastrophe the size of Holocaust never happened, sure, their reporting on fake news turns out to be fake, but it’s even the basic things they either cannot, or will not, get right.
Here’s the simplest example: Anderson Cooper of CNN reports that a certain person never changed her “story”.
Donald Trump immediately produces the evidence that it’s a lie and the “story” has definetely changed. Anderson Cooper is forced to admit his fake reporting.
It would literally take 5 seconds for Anderson Cooper (or, more likely, one of the myriads of "reporters" that CNN employs) to get its fact straight.
Yet, they refuse to do so.
That’s not fake news. It’s just a blatantly dishonest misrepresentation of what President Obama said.
If you think Washington Post uncritically repeating the claims of an online propaganda buster is bad, how about your source uncritically repeating the claims of Chuck Norris on an insane conspiracy theory?
This is just fucking stupid beyond belief.
But sure, Time Magazine’s cover is worse.
So clearly, what we have here is a bit of a double standard, no?