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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

pblades Since: Oct, 2009
#174901: Feb 18th 2017 at 3:37:06 AM

Highlights:

"On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? (Select as many that apply.)"

"Hillary Clinton still gets a free pass from the media as she continues to lie about sending classified information on her secret server."

"The mainstream media takes Donald Trump’s statements out of context, but bends over backwards to defend Hillary’s statements."

"The media has not done its due diligence to expose Obama Care’s many failures."

"In order to preserve whatever journalistic integrity they have left, the mainstream media must come forward and admit Hillary LIED about her secret server."

"If Donald Trump said or did half of the things Hillary Clinton has, the media would effectively end his candidacy."

Welp. With things like these, who needs The Onion?

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#174902: Feb 18th 2017 at 3:38:12 AM

Here's the more recent one. Less "but her emails" and still awful, but with more comment boxes for trolling.

edited 18th Feb '17 3:38:29 AM by Eschaton

IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#174903: Feb 18th 2017 at 3:49:16 AM

[up]That's an older one, actually. They made the one Medinoc linked afterwards because people were trolling the one you linked too much.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#174904: Feb 18th 2017 at 3:57:12 AM

...Are you sure? Because wow, okay. I guess we know where all that hate for Clinton has been funneled to now.

edited 18th Feb '17 3:57:28 AM by Eschaton

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#174905: Feb 18th 2017 at 3:57:56 AM

On the first point "On how evil they are" is that an OK answer.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#174906: Feb 18th 2017 at 4:23:14 AM

All I can think of at the moment is that somewhere in Hell, Goebbels is being shown that travesty as part of his punishment.

Because that's amateur hour which completely cocks up the master's techniques, even with a step-by-step construction guide to follow. tongue

Seriously, it's only useful as a cut-price phishing lure. If that.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#174907: Feb 18th 2017 at 4:31:32 AM

Officials feel Oroville will avoid crisis, but residents fret as mega-storm moves in: ‘It’s a bad dream’: They better be right, because last time they deemed the dam "safe" not a day later evacuations had to commence.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
NoName999 Since: May, 2011
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#174909: Feb 18th 2017 at 5:08:55 AM

Wow. That letter. I love how he says,

There was no offense intended toward Women, whatsoever. And yet some took it that way. To those who were offended, I profusely apologize. I sincerely did not mean to do that.

when in the original he said

And as even more women thus enter the workforce that creates more competition for jobs (even men's jobs) and puts further downward pressure on the pay for all jobs... meaning more and more Mothers will be forced into the workforce. And that is bad for families and thus for all of society.

It's a vicious cycle that only gets worse the more equality of pay is forced upon us. It's a situation of well-meaning intentions, but negative unintended consequences.

"I mean no offense to women, I just want y'all to think about the fact that if we PAY WOMEN FAIRLY, that might mean WOMEN GET JOBS. I don't think anyone's ever considered that tragic side effect of paying women to work. Why isn't anyone talking about how we've inadvertantly created a chain reaction in which WOMEN seek EMPLOYMENT?!"

The sheer level of not getting the point here is off the charts. I love that he thinks efforts towards getting fair pay for women fairly are a cause of women entering the workforce and not an effect thereof. It ain't a side effect when it's the goddamn point. [lol]

And then in the middle of his apology, he even goes so far as to double down on the offensive statement he's apologizing for in the first place!

While I worked my fingers to the bone (with numerous extra side jobs) so my Wife could stay in the home and raise our two Sons, who are now both Physician/Surgeons (plus one also has a Law Degree), I realize not everyone is so fortunate.

Yep. That's why women want to work. Because they weren't lucky enough to land a man like him. This man is a bullshit artist.

edited 18th Feb '17 5:09:31 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#174910: Feb 18th 2017 at 5:12:39 AM

I think he means what he says. It's a different paradigm.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Aaklid Since: Jan, 2011 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
#174911: Feb 18th 2017 at 5:14:27 AM

Guys, I think we might have a problem. Anyone remember a comment from about 4 days ago, linking to an article titled "The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine"? Well, I decided to read through the article. To summarize, it's a combination of fake-content networks, automated message testing, and personality profiling.

The system gets a read off of a person's personality by the ads they click and the things they post/tweet. It then takes that data, and uses it to tailor it's approach. It adapts and evolves, learning better what angles to address voters by to get their attention. It also tracks what issues you care about, and by combining that with what it knows about your personality, to determine the best way to approach you. It can generate fake news, then study your reaction to it to evolve even further. It combines this with an army of bots that amplify their side's message and counter their opposition's. According to the article, it's a devastatingly effective combination.

Finally, the cherry on top? The company using this system is called Cambridge Analytica. Wanna know who sits on their board? Steve Bannon.

Link for those interested: https://medium.com/join-scout/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine-86dac61668b#.scl0bviye

edited 18th Feb '17 5:19:20 AM by Aaklid

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#174912: Feb 18th 2017 at 5:18:43 AM

I hadn't gotten to that part.

Well, cons don't have the monopoly on money or science. The Democrats need to get something similar started like right now.

No need for fake news. Reality is outrageous enough.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#174913: Feb 18th 2017 at 6:30:22 AM

I argue there is no upside to that. By not having to make the token effort of even paying lip service to decency, and ending up in power anyways, they're not only going to indulge in that behavior, they have more room to sink even deeper.

This has been my greatest fear ever since Novemember. The Regressive Right just spent 8 years blatantly obstructing a popular president who came into office with an enormous mandate and bent over backwards to try to get their cooperation. Instead of being punished for it, they were massively rewarded and got control of every branch of Federal government, most of the state governments, and the true worst of the worst, the theocrats and Nazis who had hung out in the shadows have been embraced and emboldened.

At this point, we have to be prepared for the worst case scenario and assume that no Republican will ever work in good faith with a Democrat at the federal level again. That Republicans will use every and any dirty trick to prevent Democrats from passing even the most watered down milquetoast part of the Dem agenda, while simultaneously changing the rules to allow them to pass the obscene parts of their own. And that things will only get worse on the state level, (look at North Carolina, or recent statements from Connecticut Republicans that they want to introduce their own version of an ultrasound requirement and parental notification for abortion) not to mention the local level.

Until Dems have a supermajority, the best that the US is going to manage is to alternate between "two steps forward, one step back", and "one step forward, 6 steps back". That will go until the geopolitical rivals of the US leave it in the dust and the US undergoes a massive loss of stature and wealth, or until there's Civil War 2.0 or Constitution 2.0. (And bad news, neither of those are exactly tilted in favor of liberals, progressives, or centrists right now.)

Republicans kept up 8 years of obstruction, maybe the prospect of 16 would have cracked them, but now? Any Dem elected president will need to face that, and because the average voter isn't invested enough to pick an ideology or to get properly informed, there's no guarantee that even the worst behavior of regressives will get dealt with.

The damage done by the elections of 2010 and 2016 will require the work of at least a generation and possible generations to undo.

edited 18th Feb '17 6:30:42 AM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#174914: Feb 18th 2017 at 6:51:26 AM

[up]Except that maybe this mandate might make people shun the Republicans long enough to disavow them in some way or another.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#174915: Feb 18th 2017 at 7:13:17 AM

New from Twitter:

https://www.twitter.com/PresVillain

Donald Trump's words, the Red Skull's mouth.

There's also a meme called #TinyTrumps, which are photos of Trump were he's Photoshopped to be really tiny to everyone else.

edited 18th Feb '17 7:36:42 AM by sgamer82

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#174916: Feb 18th 2017 at 7:18:34 AM

[up][up]Republican voters are servile and Democrats demand too much from their party. Don't count on it.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#174917: Feb 18th 2017 at 7:44:13 AM

[up]So, what future do you expect in the political system?

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#174918: Feb 18th 2017 at 7:44:19 AM

@Aaklid: That's Orwellian as fuck.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
StarOutlaw Since: Nov, 2010
#174919: Feb 18th 2017 at 8:26:58 AM

About Trump looking weak to supporters; I think that, side from being subservient to someone else, another way for Trump to look weak to his supporters is for opponents to not get angry at him and not take him seriously.

Here's the thing; the alt-right, as has been said, is made up of a bunch of trolls. Trolls like Trump because because they believe he's trolling others and that trolling equals strength. They like seeing hippies/liberals/SJ Ws getting angry and flustered. "Trump did what?! That monster!" That's what they like to see. They like to see that Trump can hurt our feelings, like a bully.

Trolls and bullies toy with people; they put themselves into a position where they can have that kind of power over others, to get them angry. If Trump is to look weak, we have to treat him as though he is weak, and stupid. When he says something stupid, mock him for it. When he tries to use some half assed insult, laugh at him and say "Spend all night coming up with that one?"

This is why SNL pisses off Trump and his cronies so much; they do not take him seriously. They are not outraged, nor intimidated. Bullies and trolls love to control people, and being able to show that they're tricks and shows of force have no effect on you, that you are able to still joke and smile at their bullshit, is what they hate, because then they're powerless. For the alt-right, it's as much about seeing others hurt and losing. Laughter can be a powerful thing.

Just imagine a foreign leader patronizing Trump like the spoiled child he is, in the most condescendingly sarcastic manner.

edited 18th Feb '17 8:30:29 AM by StarOutlaw

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#174920: Feb 18th 2017 at 8:29:24 AM

It's the tao of Mel Brooks. Mock Trump until be cannot be taken seriously.

CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#174921: Feb 18th 2017 at 8:31:16 AM

Well, how else are you gonna know that MAGA's on track w/o using the telescreens telling you what the dishonest media's trying to hide?
Popular Domestic Programs Face Ax Under First Trump Budget

The White House budget office has drafted a hit list of programs that President Trump could eliminate to trim domestic spending, including longstanding conservative targets like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, Ameri Corps and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities.

Work on the first Trump administration budget has been delayed as the budget office awaited Senate confirmation of former Representative Mick Mulvaney, a spending hard-liner, as budget director. Now that he is in place, his office is ready to move ahead with a list of nine programs to eliminate, an opening salvo in the Trump administration’s effort to reorder the government and increase spending on defense and infrastructure.
Most of the programs cost under $500 million annually, a pittance for a government that is projected to spend about $4 trillion this year. And a few are surprising, even though most if not all have been perennial targets for conservatives.
Mr. Trump has spoken volubly about the nation’s drug problems, yet the list includes the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, which dispenses grants to reduce drug use and drug trafficking. And despite Mr. Trump’s vocal promotion of American exports, the list includes the Export-Import Bank, which has guaranteed loans to foreign customers of American companies since the 1930s.
While the total amount of annual savings of roughly $2.5 billion would be comparatively small, administration officials want to highlight the agencies in their coming budget proposal as examples of misuse of taxpayer dollars. An internal memo circulated within the Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday, and obtained by The New York Times, notes that the list could change. Proposals for more extensive cuts in cabinet-level agencies are expected to follow.

During his campaign, Mr. Trump promised large but unspecified cuts to rein in the deficit, even as he promised to protect programs for his working-class voters and to drastically expand spending on the military, roads, bridges and airports...
One surprise for some close watchers of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign is the inclusion of the Export-Import Bank on the O.M.B.’s list. Other Republican candidates had promised to eliminate the bank, a favorite target of House conservatives like Mr. Mulvaney. Conservatives, led by the billionaire Koch brothers, have run a multimillion-dollar campaign to kill the bank, which guarantees loans for overseas customers of American corporations, by denouncing it as “crony capitalism.”
But Mr. Trump was more circumspect during the campaign, saying he favored programs to promote American exports. The biggest recipient of the bank’s assistance — and its biggest booster — is the aerospace giant Boeing, which President Trump visited on Friday and lavishly praised.

the president has stacked his White House with budget hawks. Stephen Miller, one of Mr. Trump’s most senior advisers, was a top aide to Jeff Sessions, who is now the attorney general ...and spent much of his Senate career trying to rein in government spending.
For director of budget policy and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, Mr. Trump chose Paul Winfree, an economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation. In its own proposed budget blueprint, the Heritage Foundation recommended eliminating virtually the same programs listed in the Office of Management and Budget memo, along with a long list of others.

Many of those programs have been attacked by conservatives since the Republican “revolution” of 1994. Led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, the House of Representatives at the time repeatedly went after funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, whose supporters dragged Big Bird and Kermit the Frog to Capitol Hill to make their case.

The Appalachian Regional Commission, a Depression-era independent agency aimed at developing some of the poorest parts of the country, has also been a target.
Stephen Moore, another Heritage Foundation economist who advised Mr. Trump during his campaign, acknowledged that powerful constituencies were behind many of the programs that are on the chopping block. But he said now that Republicans are finally in control of the government, they must make a valiant effort to fulfill the promises they have been making to voters for years.
“I think it’s an important endeavor to try to get rid of things that are unnecessary,” Mr. Moore said. “The American public has a lot of contempt for how government is run in Washington, in no small part because there is so much waste.”

edited 18th Feb '17 8:32:59 AM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#174922: Feb 18th 2017 at 9:25:57 AM

The risk with mocking Trump and making him a laughing stock is that while it anger a his supporters they still vote while angry. Likewise there's the risk of Dem's not voting because there's no need to vote against a joke.

He had to be taken seriously, even if that makes the trolls feel good. It's more important to get him out of office than hurt his feelings.

To actually demoralise his supporters Trump can't be a joke to us, he has to become an embarrassment to them.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#174923: Feb 18th 2017 at 9:30:34 AM

With regard to CPB (PBS and NPR), I don't expect them to go down without a fight, but in a world of Patreon, crowdfunding and in general a return to patronage, maybe it's time to rethink their funding model (which already comes a lot "from Viewers Like You")? Get the CPB into independent "protective custody", if you will, out of the hands of opportunists, and get rid the Sword of Damoclees the spending hawks keep waving over its head?

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#174925: Feb 18th 2017 at 10:49:24 AM

Pathetic posturing, until he actually takes action he's just another minion.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

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