Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[pilowsky]

The title of this thread is "Has U. S. Democracy Been Trumped?" It was begun on 17 August, 2015, and now has 3,664, 503 views and 17,947 replies. The subtitle is "Bernie Sanders wants to know who owns America." That is a very interesting question. Trump is now gone. So a more interesting question in my mind is now "Who is actually the POTUS?" To anyone with one eye and half a brain it obviously is not Joe Biden. Ostensibly he won the Presidential election. But the puppet masters have kept him hidden away because, for all outward appearances (what few there have been), he really doesn't know where he $hit last. So will the real President of the United States please stand up? Who is it? Pelosi? Obama? Zuckerberg? Bezos? Dorsey? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

That's hilarious. What "inquiring minds"?

[Zelandakh]

That's hilarious. What "inquiring minds"?

Oh come now, it is quite obvious to everyone that Biden is an evil Reptilian whereas Trump and Mitch are merely Martians. Moreover, those inquiring minds have known for some time that there is a massive pod conversion depot in South America, hence the necessity for a wall. The GOP are in fact heroically defending the Solar System against illegal aliens. If you cannot see this, you are surely being affected by the global mind wave. Break free of your alien masters and rise up to overthrow the Reptilians!

[y66]

Trolls have half a brain? Is that supposed to be reassuring?

[kenberg]

You might be onto something with with your "anyone with one eye and half a brain" observation. I have two eyes and a whole brain, so that's not my assessment at all.

 

I saw Biden in person during the primaries, watched the debates and his inaugural speech, and he seemed up to the job to me. Clearly he's suffered the ravages of age, but so have I, and so has Trump. And Biden has appointed people who know what they are doing, so he doesn't have to do it all himself. Trump was a one man show and an embarrassment to the country almost every day. That's why most voters made it a point to replace Trump with Biden.

 

I've been a conservative businessman all my life and would be happy to be able to vote for a republican again. Unless the party gets out of the grip of the Trump thugs, though, I don't see that being possible.

 

Is there anything specific you can point to that suggests that Biden has the amount of dementia you claim? I don't remember hearing Biden suggest that we ingest bleach or make any of the other inane comments that we heard from the previous POTUS. Biden did express opposition to Neanderthal thinking recently, but I oppose Neanderthal thinking too.

 

I pressed a "like" for your post but that seemed inadequate.

Among the things I agree with, strongly agree with, is the hope that we can have Republican candidates that I can vote for.

 

An example of my current thinking:

It now looks as if I will not be getting any cash from the next stimulus. That's fine, I said it would be fine and it is. Now I hope they don't say "Hey, now that we are not giving Ken and all that money let's give 50K to everyone who took out a student loan."

I'm fine with helping people, not so fine with tossing out cash without thought.

 

Anyway, I like what you said.

[y66]

Senate Democrats Pass $1.9 Trillion Covid-19 Relief Plan

 

Legislation providing jobless benefits and direct payments now returns to the House for approval before it’s sent to President Biden

This is going to help a lot of people.

[pilowsky]

Oh come now, it is quite obvious to everyone that Biden is an evil Reptilian whereas Trump and Mitch are merely Martians. Moreover, those inquiring minds have known for some time that there is a massive pod conversion depot in South America, hence the necessity for a wall. The GOP are in fact heroically defending the Solar System against illegal aliens. If you cannot see this, you are surely being affected by the global mind wave. Break free of your alien masters and rise up to overthrow the Reptilians!

 

That's true, I forgot about the pods. I have heard from somebody that the people in the pods also operate lasers in space, but I'm not sure. I really think someone ought to investigate.

Also, is it true that these pod people communicate using special nets called podcasts? I don't know, I'm just asking. One thing that I am pretty sure about is that Elon Musk might be sending people carriers to Mars so that he can bring some of these people back to California - so my friend on the news said anyway, could it be true?

 

 

[Winstonm]

Senate Democrats Pass $1.9 Trillion Covid-19 Relief Plan

 

 

This is going to help a lot of people.

 

Which automatically means the Republicans Trumplicans oppose it.

[johnu]

Which automatically means the Republicans Trumplicans oppose it.

 

US Congressional Republicans automatically oppose it. Some polls show that around half of Republican voters supported the 1.9 trillion relief bill. 0% of House Republicans and 0% of Senate Republicans supported it. About as strong a bipartisan vote from Congressional Republicans as I expected.

[Chas_P]

 

Is there anything specific you can point to that suggests that Biden has the amount of dementia you claim?

Did you see him the other day say, "I'm happy to answer questions if that's what I'm supposed to do"? Then his handlers cut off the feed. If he's truly carrying out "his" agenda that's fine with me. He's the duly-elected POTUS;I have no qualms with that and truly want him to be successful. But when he says, "if that's what I'm supposed to do" it makes me wonder whose agenda it truly is. It just makes me a little nervous to think that the leader of the free world has to wait for instructions

[y66]

US Congressional Republicans automatically oppose it. Some polls show that around half of Republican voters supported the 1.9 trillion relief bill. 0% of House Republicans and 0% of Senate Republicans supported it. About as strong a bipartisan vote from Congressional Republicans as I expected.

Can Dems exploit the gap between what Republican voters want and what Republican politicians support doing by focusing on bread and butter issues for the middle class? We'll see.

[PassedOut]

Did you see him the other day say, "I'm happy to answer questions if that's what I'm supposed to do"? Then his handlers cut off the feed. If he's truly carrying out "his" agenda that's fine with me. He's the duly-elected POTUS;I have no qualms with that and truly want him to be successful. But when he says, "if that's what I'm supposed to do" it makes me wonder whose agenda it truly is. It just makes me a little nervous to think that the leader of the free world has to wait for instructions

I had not heard about that, so I used our friend Google: Biden did answer questions from House Democrats at virtual event

 

CLAIM: The White House cut President Joe Biden’s feed at a virtual event with top House Democrats because they did not have confidence in him answering questions.

 

THE FACTS: Posts online are falsely suggesting that a video clip of Biden’s introductory remarks at the House Democratic Caucus Virtual Issues Conference shows that the White House is limiting the president’s talking time.

 

The 15-second clip was taken from comments Biden made praising Democratic leaders for their support and addressed the need to tackle issues related to racial injustice, confidence in the American government and the climate.

 

During the conference, Biden praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Conservative accounts shared the clip of Biden with captions meant to further propel a narrative pushed during the election that he is unfit for office.

 

“The White House doesn’t even have enough confidence in Joe Biden to answer questions? Wow,” Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative student group, tweeted.

 

“BIDEN APPEARS TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN A PUPPET PRESIDENT,” another post said.

 

In the clip, viewed more than 1.6 million times on Twitter, Biden says he would be happy to take questions. “And I’m happy to take questions if that’s what you — I’m supposed to do, Nance,” he says before the feed ends. “Whatever you want me to do.”

 

The video feed of Biden then ends. But comments circulating with the clip misrepresent what was behind the cut.

 

On Wednesday, pool reporters were allowed to attend the introductory remarks made by Biden, but the session was then closed to the press for the president to take questions from House Democrats.

 

The AP confirmed that Biden did take questions from House Democrats including one on systemic racism and another on the child tax credit.

His answers there seem to have been to democrats only, so I looked for a transcript of Biden's actual answers to some real questions, and found this from January 25, 2021:

Remarks by President Biden at Signing of Executive Order on Strengthening American Manufacturing

 

I’ll stop here and sign the executive order, and then come back and take some of your questions.

 

This executive order is entitled “Ensuring the Future Is Made in America, by Americans — All of American Workers.”

 

(The executive order is signed).

 

There you go. Now I’d now be happy to take your questions.

 

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Jonathan Lemire with the Associated Press. Two topics, if I may. The first: You have made reopening schools a central part of your first 100 Days agenda, and you’ve long portrayed yourself as an ally to the teachers and the unions. Right now, the Chicago Teachers Union has refused. They defied an order to return to in-person classing — for in-person classrooms because of a lack of vaccinations. Do you believe, sir, that teachers should return to schools now?

 

THE PRESIDENT: I believe we should make school classrooms safe and secure for the students, for the teachers, and for the help that’s in those schools maintaining the facilities. We need new ventilation systems in those schools. We need testing for people coming in and out of the classes. We need testing for teachers, as well as students. And we need the capacity — the capacity to know that, in fact, the cic- [sic] — or the circumstance in the school is safe and secure for everyone.

 

For example, there is no reason why the clear guidance will be that every school should be thoroughly sanitized, from the lavatories to the hallways. And so this is about making — and none of the school districts that I’m aware of — there may be some, of public school districts — have insisted that all of those pieces be in place.

 

And, I might add, it’s the same kind of thing I hope we can do with small businesses and businesses, making sure they have the capacity to test their workers when they come in; to make sure they have plastic dividers between their booths in their — in their restaurants, et cetera; to make sure they can sanitize.

 

So it’s not so much about the idea that teachers aren’t going to work. The teachers I know, they want to work. They just want to work in a safe environment and as safe as we can rationally make it. And we can do that, and we should be able to open up every — every school, kindergarten through eighth grade, if, in fact, we administer these tests.

 

And it’ll have the added advantage, I might add, of putting millions of people back to work – all those mothers and fathers that are home taking care of their children, rather than go to work. Even when they can work, they’re not able to do it unless they have the luxury of working distance-wise, like many of us do. They’re not able to do it. And so this is about generating economic growth overall as well.

 

...

 

Q Thank you, Mr. President, Annie Linskey with the Washington Post.

 

THE PRESIDENT: Hi, Annie.

 

Q I wanted to ask you a little bit about one of the, sort of, major themes of your campaign, and how you sort of intend to measure and enact it — and that is the idea of unity. If you could talk a little bit about what you see unity as being? There are some people who are defining it as being bipartisan. Others are saying it is what most of the people in the country, defined by some poll, might believe, or any sort of number of other — or perhaps it’s 50 plus 1, or 50 plus 2, or 75 percent.

 

So, given that it is such a key part of your message and your promise, can you talk and reflect a little bit more about what is unity when you see it and as you define it?

 

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Annie, I think it makes up several of the issues — the points you made. One is: Unity requires you to take away — eliminate the vitriol, make anything that you disagree with about the other person’s personality or their lack of integrity or they’re not decent legislators and the like — so we have to get rid of that. And I think that’s already beginning to change, but God knows where things go, number one.

 

Unity also is: trying to reflect what the majority of the American people — Democrat, Republican, and independent — think is within the fulcrum of what needs to be done to make their lives and the lives of Americans better. For example, if you look at the data — and I’m not claiming the polling data to be exact, but if you look at the data, you have — I think it’s — I hope I’m saying this correct –- you may correct me if I get the number wrong, I think it’s 57, 58 percent of the American people — including Republicans, Democrats, and independents — think that we have to do something about the COVID vaccine; we have to do something about making sure that people who are hurting badly, can’t eat, don’t have food, are in a position where they’re about to be thrown out of their apartments, et cetera, being able to have an opportunity to get a job — that they all think we should be acting, we should be doing more.

 

Unity also is trying to get, at a minimum — if you pass a piece of legislation that breaks down on party lines but it gets passed, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t unity; it just means it wasn’t bipartisan. I’d prefer these things to be bipartisan, because I’m trying to generate some consensus and take sort of the — how can I say it? — the vitriol out of all of this. Because I’m confident — I’m confident, from my discussions, there are a number of Republicans who know we have to do something about the food insecurity for people in this pandemic. I’m confident they know we have to do something about figuring out how to get children back in school.

 

...

In a related event, I walked into the pantry the other day and wondered for a few seconds why I had gone in there. Then I remembered it was for a new pack of coffee filters for the pot I'd started to make.

 

When I told my handler about that, she laughed and said, "Don't forget to push the start button!"

[Winstonm]

Propaganda is most effective when used in conjunction with biased targets

[pilowsky]

Being economical with the truth (lying) is a long-standing tradition in American politics.

The Cherry tree story is known to be rubbish. Maybe that's where the term "cherry-picking" comes from. If it doesn't, it should.

 

As Mark Twain did not say:

 

"SIN MO SCÉAL DÍOBH, AGUS MÁ TÁ BRÉAG ANN, FÁ É,

MAR NÍ MISE A CHUM NÁ A CHEAP."

 

Lying is embedded in political discourse in all countries.

 

It should not be tolerated. There are no alternative facts. The tooth fairy does not exist and the former occupant of the White House wasn't funny.

[y66]

Please don't feed the trolls.

[Chas_P]

Please don't feed the trolls.

Heavens no! Only copy and paste stuff from the punditocracy with which you agree! And we'll all live happily ever after.

[y66]

[y66]

Do conservatives ever wonder why they didn’t just cave to Pelosi on relief last fall and win the election?

[johnu]

I had not heard about that, so I used our friend Google: Biden did answer questions from House Democrats at virtual event

 

CLAIM: The White House cut President Joe Biden’s feed at a virtual event with top House Democrats because they did not have confidence in him answering questions.

 

The obvious problem is that Fox Propaganda Channel and other ultra right fringe political mouthpieces are not interested in any facts. They are interested in throwing sh*t against the wall and hoping something sticks so they can rile up their base and get some legitimate news coverage from legitimate news organizations that are too busy or not interested in researching all the facts.

 

Otherwise, they will have to cover for the n'th time the Black Lives Matter demonstrations this summer, the removal of Confederate statues movement, Antifa, everybody else attacking them for being racists and white supremacists, kneeling during the Star-Spangled Banner before sporting events, illegal voting and miscounting ballots by non-white, non-Republican voters. They need to dial up FAKE OUTRAGE to keep those donations and advertising dollars coming in.

[Cyberyeti]

Heavens no! Only copy and paste stuff from the punditocracy with which you agree! And we'll all live happily ever after.

 

This applies to both sides and is one of the biggest issues atm

[awm]

As far as protests go, it seems important to ask a few questions:

 

1. Is there a real problem that's being protested, or just a bunch of made up conspiracies? In the case of Black Lives Matter it seems quite clear there is a real problem -- lots of Black people are being killed by police in situations where they committed at most minor crimes and were unarmed and not a threat. We have this on video in cases like George Floyd -- he's lying on the ground saying "I can't breathe" as the officer chokes him to death. In the case of the insurrection on January 6, they have all kinds of claims about how the election was stolen but there is no real evidence for this at all, and the quite crazy QAnon conspiracy theory was front and center among the protestors.

 

2. When criminal activity occurs during the protests, was this the purpose of the protest or the action of a small minority? Black Lives Matter isn't about rioting or looting, and a lot of the protests were completely peaceful. There was a small minority that took advantage of the confusion to commit some crimes, but a lot of the violence was actually initiated by police forces! For the insurrection, an awful lot of people decided to storm a federal building (whether violently or not, this is illegal) and a lot of the rhetoric around the protest ("take our country back") seemed encouraging of this behaviour.

 

3. How does the political establishment react to the criminal elements of the protest? Biden and many other democrats have condemned the violence in Black Lives Matter protests, while still supporting the main theme that Black people should not be killed by police in situations where they pose no threat to the officers involved. The reaction to the insurrection among republicans has been less clear-cut -- Mitch McConnell condemned it pretty directly, but others like Josh Hawley seem generally supportive. Certainly a lot of republicans in congress were not deterred from continuing baseless challenges to the election results after the insurrection. As for Trump, he fired up the crowd and told them they were "wonderful people" and while he told them to "be peaceful" (after also telling them to "fight") he never said that storming the capitol was a crime or ordered them to leave.

 

Much as the republicans would like to "both sides" this, I think there are pretty significant differences.

[PassedOut]

Please don't feed the trolls.

Right. Forgot where I was for a bit.

[hrothgar]

Heavens no! Only copy and paste stuff from the punditocracy with which you agree! And we'll all live happily ever after.

 

Chas, no one is suggesting that it is wrong to paste divergent viewpoints

 

Rather, people are noting that

 

1. You personally are not a trustworthy source of information. You persistently post false claims.

 

2. You are either too stupid or too lazy to self correct. Or, alternatively, you are deliberately introducing false claims

 

3. Regardless of why this is happening, you don't deserve respect and your postings should be mocked

[pilowsky]

We're up to page 600 - 3NT= vulnerable - Is this some kind of record?

[awm]

We're up to page 600 - 3NT= vulnerable - Is this some kind of record?

 

It's page 899 for me, I think the page numbers depend somehow on your screen size.

[pilowsky]

It's page 899 for me, I think the page numbers depend somehow on your screen size.

 

FAKE NEWS!!!