In The News Today...

Quote: beachbumbabs

Just more evidence you (and AZD following) are hopelessly closed to any rational discussion.

That's rich, given your comments and positions on Trump and anything conservative!

Quote: Evenbob

The word has
no meaning anymore, obviously.

Not to anyone rational it does not. It is just a word liberals use when they have nothing intelligent to add.

We are still waiting for the liberals upset about the Haiti/Africa comment to tell us just why Haiti is as good a place to live as Norway. I suspect we will die waiting!

U.S. Jobless Claims Plunge to Lowest Weekly Tally Since 1973

Thank you Obama, you've done it again..

Quote: petroglyph

I'm suffering from racism burnout

So stop voting for them!

Quote: ams288

So stop voting for them!

Everybody is hard wired to be tribal.

It has always been "us" against "them". Always and everywhere.

Quote: petroglyph

Everybody is hard wired to be tribal.

It has always been "us" against "them". Always and everywhere.

ur

Always has been, always will be.

I have even noticed dogs get on better with their own breed.

Natural.

Quote: AZDuffman

That's rich, given your comments and positions on Trump and anything conservative!

How about me, then?

Can you point out a flaw, an error, a disagreement, that you personally have with Sen Flake's post? I'll tell ya, reading it gave me a spark that I have never felt in my life where politics is concerned. Reading it gave me hope, faith, that maybe-just-maybe not everyone in .gov is a soulless, self centered c#$% out for their own interests. He nailed some key tenets of my own philosophy, namely integrity and truthfulness. And nowhere in there did I see the typical sensational word games played by so many. I suppose what made it feel "good" more than anything is the dropping of all the true-but-don't-matter Trump weaknesses like his low moral character, and focused on the true-but-really-f#$%ing-important things like words matter, and what you're saying isn't just horses#$%, it's harmful.

Where was he wrong?

I gotta tell ya, man, I feel a pretty deep disconnect with you. When the game was on, I took all the trumpeting of alpha-male this and real leader that as a bit of goose-gander trolling. Now, I'm not so scared that you actually believe that, but rather sort of boggled that you have come to embrace a good number of things that I always thought you were pretty much against. I heard "cult of personality" out of your mouth more times than when Living Colour was winning Grammy's, yet I can't see how you're not eyebrows deep in one. And all over a f#$%ing NY Democrat, ferchrissakes!

I read and I read and all I can come up with is either hypocrisy on parade, a willingness to sacrifice self for "the win", or a rather peerless long-con troll, not a single one of which fits in any way, shape, or form the guy I've been arguing with for near a decade now. Can you shed some light on wtf I'm missing? Or am I speaking completely out of turn on this?

An aside, thanks a ton Babs for the post. That really meant something for me. Here's hoping it wasn't all just more smoke and mirrors.

Quote: Face

How about me, then?

Can you point out a flaw, an error, a disagreement, that you personally have with Sen Flake's post?

How about this, right off the bat:

"daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press was launched by that same White House"

Why does Trump do that? What has the press
been doing to him that makes them deserve
this treatment. Shall we go into how Obama
treated some members of the press who didn't
like him, or has the memory of all that faded.

Trump does what Trump does, it's what he did
in the campaign, it's who he is. It's why he got
elected. He'll never stop and he shouldn't stop.

Quote: Face

Can you point out a flaw, an error, a disagreement, that you personally have with Sen Flake's post?

Trump by and large doesn't have supporters, he has cult followers.

What they see wrong with Flake, and with the press, is that they don't toady up to their Dear Leader like they should. See his cabinet meetings. He takes outrageous flattery as his effing due. He's a wannabe, tin-pot dictator who thought, if he thought at all, that he could order Congress and the courts around like lackeys.

Quote: Evenbob

How about this, right off the bat:

"daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press was launched by that same White House"

Why does Trump do that? What has the press
been doing to him that makes them deserve
this treatment. Shall we go into how Obama
treated some members of the press who didn't
like him, or has the memory of all that faded.

Trump does what Trump does, it's what he did
in the campaign, it's who he is. It's why he got
elected. He'll never stop and he shouldn't stop.

Trump does that because he's been playing a double-edged game for decades with the press. He has craved coverage since the 1980s, no matter whether it was critical or fawning, cultivating media he can manipulate, trashing media that refuses to report his "truth" as fact, going so far as to present himself as "John Miller", a non-existent PR rep for him.

The media would be willing to report facts, and identify as opinion any disagreements with ideas or policy proposals. But Trump doesn't use facts - he goes even further and denies objective truth as "fake news" if it doesn't suit his narrative or spin. This is a large part of many people's anger and disagreement with him.

Face, I was very moved by what Sen. Flake said, and a bit dismayed it got almost no discussion here. But if it reached you and only you like it reached me, it did its job.

There is hope. This, too, can pass. If there is any good to Trump, it is that he forces so many of us who thought we shared a national set of values to realize we do, indeed, share them, regardless of our position on the political spectrum. Perhaps we needed him to come to prominence for a while to appreciate what really matters. Hopefully it won't be too late by the time enough people realize they must fight this to fix it.