Donald Trump

[BigOscar]

Can you get out of jail time for bone spurs? Asking for a friend

 

[bluethrunthru]

Can you get out of jail time for bone spurs? Asking for a friend

Depends on the charge - if its minor enough blisters get you community service instead of 30 years..................ha ha

 

[buckshot]

Just to digress a little (& I didn't know if I should put it in the "General Politics" thread!), I wonder if our Stateside brethren have an opinion on this...

It looks like the Unions are going to discuss whether to form a/ revive their Labo(u)r Party! It seems they believe workers have been taken advantage of for over 20 years. So, it seems they neither trust GOP or Dems as they are "under corporate domination"! They're just wondering how to approach it after having enough of "the lesser of two evils" choices.

I was saying earlier in the thread how Sanders is looking to run as an Independent and may link with the Green Party just to get away from the Dems after their purge of Progressives. But he may hold off that move if this Labor Party can be formed in the early 2018 and I think they have a shot in overturning the status quo! I only just caught this on Jimmy Dore, who's not too far from progressive opinion.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/afl-cio-calls-for-a-break-with-lesser-of-two-evils-politics/

This has been mooted for a short while, about a third party, but it didn't seem like it was a serious option. But, I think there's real groundswell for change in society here and abroad.

I'm not sure why people can't feel the Wind of Change that's in the air!

I can't see it ever happening. There are literally millions of blue-collar Americans who vote against their own interests in every election due to right-wing media lying to them. They don't trust anything that doesn't come from Dumb Donald or his propaganda machine. (This is an interesting article about it https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis)

It would also be a hard sell to get lower-middle or middle class whites from the southern states to put in with minorities even though they're in the same boat economically. I know a guy w/ diabetes who couldn't get insurance before the ACA was passed and after it did he still refused to get coverage because it was signed into law by a black guy. He was willing to risk blindness, loss of limbs and even death rather than benefit from something that President Obama supported.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Why's my interpretation thin-skinned & laughable?
I got that youtube vid linked to me via an American Discord server the other night and nearly everyone on the server was taking the piss out of it.

Just going off the Vid title 'How gamers are facilitating the rise of the Alt-Right' can you not see why? considering the whole way the vid is put together from the spooky music, the klan imagery and even the gaming clips used. It's purely pandering to the left's paranoia about some supposed 'bogeyman' within gaming and why Hilary lost.
A lot of gamers already have a lack of trust of mainstream media because of what previously happened with gamergate. 99% of gamers involved with it was due to a genuine concern regarding ethics within game journalism, but funnily the gaming media (and the mainstream media) only portrayed one side and that was purely about the abuse some feminists got within the gaming industry by a few absolute dickheads.

With the rise of bloggers, streamers & youtubers etc mainstream media is losing control of any narrative and hasn't got a clue what to do about it, so are lashing out in all directions. That youtube vid is seen as just a continued attack against a sub-culture they don't understand (or control), and it's pissing people off within gaming and making it so that they won't likely trust anything shown on NBC in the future.
What's worse is that people who normally couldn't give a shit about politics, and would normally sit on the fench and not get involved, are quite happy to side with Trump just to be able to shove 2 fingers at the likes of CNN & NBC.

18k downvotes against 200 upvotes on a youtube vid watched 58k times really takes some doing.

So until Hilary's side (supporters & media) try to understand & accept what's going on, they're making things worse and not doing themselves any favours. They would be better just ignoring it, or get better at memes :)

And your view that that a fringe group 'emerged' from discord; did these type of people not exist before discord ? do they not use other social media?

First, I know nothing about the gaming community as I have a steady job and a family to support. I know that sounds condescending -- it's supposed to.

Second, I completely agree that the mainstream media has lost control of the narrative with the rise of technology. Your mistake is that you speak about this as if it's a GOOD thing. I have written about this numerous times. Donald Trump himself IS an internet troll, elected BY internet trolls. It's easy to be a troll, because you can say whatever you like without consequences. But the democratization of the bully pulpit -- same as the voting booth -- has an unbelievable downside, which is that the weight of opinion is spread out across many, but the weight of wisdom is not.

You yourself are demonstrating the very problem. You are criticizing the tone and style of the report but not the facts contained within it, which are what is important. Just as hundreds of thousands glom onto the "irreverent", "tell it like it is" style of, say, Sean Hannity or Laura Loomer, without bothering to consider whether or not they have any business or experience addressing or understanding any issue of substance.

The best of the press -- the institutions with staying power -- has held itself forever to a high standard of ethics, truth in journalism, rigorous research, following the rules of the road, best practices, source protection, lack of bias (that's what the Editorial page is for) and a duty to provide facts to the public for a couple of hundred years in my country. Now technology has pissed on their carefully-constructed ant hill because idiots/racists/agenda-pushers/criminals have the same reach. And somehow the PRESS should be criticized, or blamed? No wonder they're in a tizzy. The problem is you somehow think this the MSM's fault.

The democratization of the pulpit gives idiots an equal voice with those who are wise and measured, but understanding wisdom and balance takes concentration, an open mind and is boring. It's WORK. It's a lot easier to grab the mike and the narrative when you say and do outlandish things to get attention and don't care about the consequences of your words as long as you get said attention, or get paid.

It's not new. It's been going on for 6,000 years. It doesn't take Twitter. It takes people who are willing to be whores. Because they do exactly what whores do. They sell their own virtue for money.

PS. Admittedly, I get infuriated by things like this because I'm a stock analyst who has spent 20 years working in, studying, researching and understanding the industry I cover. I know more about it than most people. And yet because some choade with access to a stock market chatroom has a pulpit, he can wax poetic about a stock I cover without having the slightest fucking clue what the fuck he is talking about, and move the share price.

 

[Bigga]

I can't see it ever happening. There are literally millions of blue-collar Americans who vote against their own interests in every election due to right-wing media lying to them. They don't trust anything that doesn't come from Dumb Donald or his propaganda machine. (This is an interesting article about it https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis)

It would also be a hard sell to get lower-middle or middle class whites from the southern states to put in with minorities even though they're in the same boat economically. I know a guy w/ diabetes who couldn't get insurance before the ACA was passed and after it did he still refused to get coverage because it was signed into law by a black guy. He was willing to risk blindness, loss of limbs and even death rather than benefit from something that President Obama supported.

That's extremely interesting!! I was just watching a discussion about the very topic of finding a way of breaking the indoctrination that has a hold of people voting against their own self interest! I hope Bernie joins Greens/ Labor and it merges to give them a better voice.

If it takes a White man to make those idiots see they're being fleeced of money, health and life, so be it!!

It doesn't help that the media in the States doesn't do anything to report a truth of how in a country that is the wealthiest in the world well over half of its population are on minimum wage and the very same media is bought and paid for by big corps whose agenda is to keep that system in tact!

Apparently, this is why Progressive view points are really hard to be heard on TV?! I think Lawrence O'Donnell is the only voice in media over there with 'access' to a mainstream audience, but banged on really late night! I may be wrong, but that's the impression I get!

It's no wonder people turn to the internet to get the 'real news', but that's also where the crazies (see 'Alex Jones') are!

It's nuts!

 

[buckshot]

That's extremely interesting!! I was just watching a discussion about the very topic of finding a way of breaking the indoctrination that has a hold of people voting against their own self interest! I hope Bernie joins Greens/ Labor and it merges to give them a better voice.

If it takes a White man to make those idiots see they're being fleeced of money, health and life, so be it!!

It doesn't help that the media in the States doesn't do anything to report a truth of how in a country that is the wealthiest in the world well over half of its population are on minimum wage and the very same media is bought and paid for by big corps whose agenda is to keep that system in tact!

Apparently, this is why Progressive view points are really hard to be heard on TV?! I think Lawrence O'Donnell is the only voice in media over there with 'access' to a mainstream audience, but banged on really late night! I may be wrong, but that's the impression I get!

It's no wonder people turn to the internet to get the 'real news', but that's also where the crazies (see 'Alex Jones') are!

It's nuts!

O'Donnell is on MSNBC, they will never listen to anything anybody on MSNBC says. Bernie is also tainted because he's a "socialist". Basically any reasonable person gets some sort of insulting label put on them and they're forever tainted. HRC was "Crooked Hillary", Bernie is "Socialist", President Obama is "Secret Muslim", Elizabeth Warren is "Fake Indian" or "Pocahontas" and it will keep going on. Their media coordinates with the republicans and they all follow the same script. Facts don't matter.

Elizabeth Warren is a perfect example with her "Fake Indian" label. The story is that she lied about having Native American ancestry to get a job at Harvard Law School. Most morons don't even know it, they just know she's awful. I had a conversation with one of them that told me she hated her because she lied and took a spot at Harvard from a more deserving student. I told her that she wasn't a student and that it was a job she was applying for. The head of the committee that hired her has publicly stated that her being a Native American had no bearing on whether or not she got the job, it was completely based on merit. So it's completely false yet this is what the so-called leader of the free world has to say:

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

It doesn't help that the media in the States doesn't do anything to report a truth of how in a country that is the wealthiest in the world well over half of its population are on minimum wage and the very same media is bought and paid for by big corps whose agenda is to keep that system in tact!

Here's an excellent example of the kind of stuff that irritates me, this time coming from the other side of spectrum than the gamer alt-right contingent.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm

It's 2.7% of the population earning the Federally-mandated minimum wage (or below), not "well over half".

What's annoying is that "well over half" violates the common sense rule if you take a mere five seconds of brainpower to just think about it, or only ten seconds to Google the actual official government report where the data is.

Yet then the "fact" is followed by the usual tired castigation of "media" and "big corps", blah blah blah.

Not to pick on you @Bigga, and I get the point about uneven distribution of wealth, but please don't make yourself yet another victim of the facts-created-out-of-thin-air brigade. We have enough of them on both sides.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

This is not going to end well for Trump and the gang. I wonder if Trump might develop a mystery illness and retire through ill health, carefully avoiding prosecution?

Or he could slice his tee shot into a lake at one of his golf courses in Florida, go to retrieve his ball, and get consumed by several alligators that rise up out of the rushes along the shore. That'd work too.

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

First, I know nothing about the gaming community as I have a steady job and a family to support. I know that sounds condescending -- it's supposed to.

Second, I completely agree that the mainstream media has lost control of the narrative with the rise of technology. Your mistake is that you speak about this as if it's a GOOD thing. I have written about this numerous times. Donald Trump himself IS an internet troll, elected BY internet trolls. It's easy to be a troll, because you can say whatever you like without consequences. But the democratization of the bully pulpit -- same as the voting booth -- has an unbelievable downside, which is that the weight of opinion is spread out across many, but the weight of wisdom is not.

You yourself are demonstrating the very problem. You are criticizing the tone and style of the report but not the facts contained within it, which are what is important. Just as hundreds of thousands glom onto the "irreverent", "tell it like it is" style of, say, Sean Hannity or Laura Loomer, without bothering to consider whether or not they have any business or experience addressing or understanding any issue of substance.

The best of the press -- the institutions with staying power -- has held itself forever to a high standard of ethics, truth in journalism, rigorous research, following the rules of the road, best practices, source protection, lack of bias (that's what the Editorial page is for) and a duty to provide facts to the public for a couple of hundred years in my country. Now technology has pissed on their carefully-constructed ant hill because idiots/racists/agenda-pushers/criminals have the same reach. And somehow the PRESS should be criticized, or blamed? No wonder they're in a tizzy. The problem is you somehow think this the MSM's fault.

The democratization of the pulpit gives idiots an equal voice with those who are wise and measured, but understanding wisdom and balance takes concentration, an open mind and is boring. It's WORK. It's a lot easier to grab the mike and the narrative when you say and do outlandish things to get attention and don't care about the consequences of your words as long as you get said attention, or get paid.

It's not new. It's been going on for 6,000 years. It doesn't take Twitter. It takes people who are willing to be whores. Because they do exactly what whores do. They sell their own virtue for money.

PS. Admittedly, I get infuriated by things like this because I'm a stock analyst who has spent 20 years working in, studying, researching and understanding the industry I cover. I know more about it than most people. And yet because some choade with access to a stock market chatroom has a pulpit, he can wax poetic about a stock I cover without having the slightest fucking clue what the fuck he is talking about, and move the share price.

Outstanding post sir

 

[bluethrunthru]

Or he could slice his tee shot into a lake at one of his golf courses in Florida, go to retrieve his ball, and get consumed by several alligators that rise up out of the rushes along the shore. That'd work too.

Fake Gators !!