News Us politics - read first post before comment

[mumstheword]

@mumstheword - I think if I was American, I'd have a hard time disagreeing with you. And even though I do, you're coming at it from a strong policy, scale-appropriate perspective.

Personally I don't think the world will ever successfully return to fundamentally independent nation-states since the League of Nations was created. And while we haven't got a foothold in any kind of peacefully coexisting global system yet, that's not necessarily a reason to abandon the concept entirely.

I think that probably we can all agree that any attempt to generate western style democracies throughout the Mid East is doomed to failure - the ethnic/tribal based divisions run far deeper than the past best intentions ever really had an appreciation for.

The only problem is that while it may suit the US (arguable either way I'd say) people to abandon actively expanding their global presence, that doesn't by any means leave the rest of the world a more stable place.

While Trump's administration is, as you've pointed out, returning its focus to within its national borders (to a degree), there are other countries around the world itching to take the place of global superpower.

If we set aside the Mid East for a moment for arguments sake, China is making no attempt to hide its active expansion throughout the Pacific and take America's place as global superpower. And as superpowers go, they're not shy about sweeping up citizens en masse and torturing them into compliance. The world has somewhat given up on 'freeing Tibet', which makes sense given that China now has military, fiscal and political control throughout the Pacific.

So yeah, if I was an American? I'd potentially leave the rest of the world to it, and approach the question based on which party has the best policies to take the nation forward, rather than which are the best global policies.

Only, I'm an Australian, so inherently biased in favour of global influence remaining predominantly democratic!

I suspect that nationalism v's internationalism approaches are probably both doomed to the same fate - humanity seems to like being at war with itself, and will find continue to find reasons to do so into perpetuity as we have since the beginning of time.

The ideal of 'democracy for all' was nice while it lasted, even if it was misplaced, ineffective and in many parts of the world a dismal failure!!

And in actual fact? Chinese military ships DID turn.up unannounced and uninvited, in Sydney Harbour, earlier this year, April I think it was? Postering and makung threatening noises. And guess who turned up to escort them out? Yep, U.S. naval ships. I m not actually sure if it was one or two.
And Trump?-likes to fight his wars via the economy; busnessman style, so it's not.like he's a conciliatory yes man to China. That would be the previous administration with the Obama/Biden/China sneaky close door deals. And the Clintons with their foundation.
They were happy to sell to the highest bidder.
Trump? Doesn't even take a salary for running the country. You don't hear "The media" publicizing THAT fact.

Anyway, I'm happy to disagree over Trump.

I'm also not against a natural, organic globalization, just not this orchestrated elite and media run coup, nor the mutinationals running rampant over the rest of us

I'm gonna give my kid a foot massage now :-)
We can stii love each other eh? @Sideways? It's funny we are Aussies and talking US politics :-) It does have a baring on.the rest of us though, what happens there.

 

[Friday]

Wow! Hit a nerve there.

<chuckling>... Not really?

It’s kind of like attempting to explain why a pedophile shouldn’t run a school.

I come into election cycles pretty damn virgin, because I don’t follow politics, as a rule, unless I need to. On the surface; former First Lady would have been enough for me to have voted for her, because that’s invaluable OJT. Add in Senator & Secretary of State? Game over. That’s a resume to kill for, for Commander in Chief. Except? Oh. That. No, that’s completely unacceptable. Game forfeit. Pedophiles are not allowed to run schools, nor national security risks, countries.

 

[Mee]

@Sideways, I vote like you but the record of the person DOES have some bearing for me in addition to policy. If they have a history of saying they will support a policy then not ( only possible to see with candidates with a history of voting on issues of course). Then it casts doubt on their promises. Similarly some other things for me make a candidate either unsuitable or unlikely to standby the platform they ran on .

FWIW there are great online tools to use before elections to help with this . Both broad spectrum ( I have pointed these out to people who have always voted for one party and found their politics is not best supported by it, And more finely tuned to each policy. You probably want to check where the tool is made though and I run through a few after doing by own read through.

 

[Mee]

If media aren’t mentioning things that some think think they should be- how have they learned these things?

 

[Neverthesame]

Weird fact about people:
People on the left tend to only read news from left leaning media sources.

Right leaning people tend to read news from both right and left leaning media.

With the way modern journalism works, if something newsworthy happens that doesn't fit the narrative, it's probably not going to be mentioned.
If the reader doesn't look at the news coming from the other camp, then yeah, they're probably going to miss things.

 

[Mee]

clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right , here I am , stuck in the middle .....

 

[mumstheword]

How DARE he "drain the swamp"!!!!! That's what this "impeachment" is actually about. The "swamp"- corrupt deep state/Bushes/Clintons/Obamas/Soros
/Rothchild and their cronies/New World Order/Trilateral Commission/Council of foreign Affairs/Bilderburger/ (most of the)Mainstream press/ (clearly)many Democrats (but, traditionally, Republicans, as well/EmpireBuilding/CIA/
warmongering Arseholes who recycle money by preying on the poverty and misery and upheaval of poorer countries and their own heroic military forces, like the snake who eats itself, devouring their own, with "endless wars and interference in "regime changing" CAN YOU NOT SEE THE FRUITS?

They should be allowed to continue trashing the USA with their drug trades, their people trafficking, their "open borders" , and to interfere throughout the world, starting wars and funding terrorism for their own profit...(sarcasm, I'm angry)


How insulting!!!! He is "not (even) my president" but I can see, as many in the USA and around the world can see, this ruse, this sham, this "Smear campaign" (the only time I EVER saw Nancy Pelosi being honest was when.she explained that"What you do is"...."wrap around smear campaign" which is EXACTY what they are doing to POTUS.

And they have the gall to pretend that they are "sad" that "they didn't want it to go this way" when they told EVERYONE that they wanted to impeach him from DAY DOT!!!!
Yep the Dems are trying to sell, that somehow, this impeachment is legit, they are selling it, but I, and many other cluey people, who pay attention, ain't buying it.

Sorry, if this is rule breaking, you can delete it, if you see fit, but my conscience made me do it.

 

[user27357]

American here. Republican registered male over fifty. I couldn't vote for trump in 2016 and there's no way I will next year. The impeachment has little bearing on my opinion. I don't ever pick one political stance to determine my vote so it won't be gun rights or abortion rights or even foreign policy or immigration that will help me determine who I want to vote for.
I love my grandmothers and my aunts and my mother and my sister and my wife and my daughters and my granddaughter. Those people and the female members of my family yet unborn are my ten thousand reasons for wanting to see trump pack up and go home.

He is an embarrassment to me as an American, a male, a father.

When I vote, it will be along the lines of the same rules we should all follow, all the time: Would you tell this story to your mother? Would you want your daughter to know that you are doing this? Could you convince grandma that this was something to be proud of?

Would you want all of the female members of your family to know that you voted for this guy?

I sure wouldn't, but I don't have to worry about it because I never will. When my granddaughters ask me what I did when Trump was president I can tell them I did everything I could to send him packing. I voted for anyone and everyone that tried to stand in his way.

 

[mumstheword]

American here. Republican registered male over fifty. I couldn't vote for trump in 2016 and there's no way I will next year. The impeachment has little bearing on my opinion. I don't ever pick one political stance to determine my vote so it won't be gun rights or abortion rights or even foreign policy or immigration that will help me determine who I want to vote for.
I love my grandmothers and my aunts and my mother and my sister and my wife and my daughters and my granddaughter. Those people and the female members of my family yet unborn are my ten thousand reasons for wanting to see trump pack up and go home.

He is an embarrassment to me as an American, a male, a father.

When I vote, it will be along the lines of the same rules we should all follow, all the time: Would you tell this story to your mother? Would you want your daughter to know that you are doing this? Could you convince grandma that this was something to be proud of?

Would you want all of the female members of your family to know that you voted for this guy?

I sure wouldn't, but I don't have to worry about it because I never will. When my granddaughters ask me what I did when Trump was president I can tell them I did everything I could to send him packing. I voted for anyone and everyone that tried to stand in his way.

Fact; Bill Clinton travelled on Epstein's "Lolita Express" at least 26 times.
Fact; Donald Trump banned Jeffrey Epstein from his club after Epstein assaulted a minor female (many years ago).
Fact; Hilary Clinton victim shamed her Husband's sexual victims.
Fact; Donald Trump tweeted: fast trial, Swift execution" (for pedophiles) many years ago
Fact; More women employed than in the entire history of USA, under Trump.
Fact: US economy better than ever, especially for women, black people etc under Trump
Fact; No wars started under Trump
Fact; Many high powered and amazing women working alongside Trump, who have HUGE respect for him. I can prove this, but you have to be willing to look at the evidence.
Fact; the mainstream media lies, they lied about "Russian Collusion" they covered up Hillary's crimes. What reason do you have to trust what they say?

 

[Sideways]

Redirecting my head somewhere neutral for myself - some of those above facts have me confused.

Does it reflect well on a person if you are considered less of a womaniser than a President from 20 years ago? Clinton's legacy is, arguably, that as US Presidents go, he was the notorious womaniser. So, one would hope that Trump stacks up better in that regard. Doesn't making him a shining star of equal respect.

More relevantly, Bill Clinton isn't running for President against Trump, so the relevance of that particular comparison eludes me.

The comparable link to Epstein isn't one that I think Trump would personally want to emphasise as one of his career highlights either. In 2002, he gave a somewhat telling interview to New York Magazine where he called Epstein a 'terrific' guy (by this point, they'd been friends and had business dealings since at least 1997), and elaborated that Epstein liked "beautiful woman as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side".

So, Trump banning Epstein from one of his clubs over an assault? Sure. Great. But that interview took place in 2002, and the charges against Epstein related to incidents between 2002 and 2004, in Manhattan and Florida.

Possibly a great big coincidence and Trump somehow had no idea that this terrific man who liked beautiful underage woman and was great to party with...wasn't doing anything untoward...possible!

So, Trump's relationship with Epstein probably isn't something he'd put on his election ads. Certainly banning him from a club over an assault is hardly the point of interest in the relationship between the 2 men.

The reference to 'No wars under Trump' is one you've mentioned before. Obama inherited several ongoing conflicts, but I'm not aware of any 'wars' that were started during his terms as President? Maybe I have that wrong.

Certainly the nature of the conflict with ISIS changed dramatically during Obama's tenure, but that's perhaps more a reflection of what was going on between ISIS, which had been in conflict with anyone in its path since it first became a identifiable thing in around 2004 in Iraq. It shifted to Syria much later, but it was hardly a new conflict.

And anyhoo, Trump claimed that the US should 'declare war' on ISIS back in 2016 as part of his campaign, so it seems a bit of a moot point.

If the reference to 'he hasn't started any wars' is a more general reference to, say, 'he hasn't initiated any airstrikes', well, that's simply not true either. Or he hasn't sent any troops anywhere? Nope, not true either.

So, he hasn't 'started any wars'. Neither did his predecessor to my knowledge (and who delivered fairly well on bringing troops home - something in the order of 100,000 during his term in office? but someone else can correct that figure, because I think the media references are a bit all over the shop on that one).

The reference to mainstream media simply providing 'lies' about Trump is something I find deeply disturbing. It comes up a lot, now from both sides. But Trump in particular has been vocal about allegations of lies in the media being used against him.

I don't get a lot of my news from US sources, so I genuinely have no idea how true the 'fake news' thing is. Certainly it's persuasive as propaganda (Putin thinks so too, and uses the same approach in Russia occasionally). Anything that supports Trump is true, anything that doesn't must obviously be 'fake'. Sounds iffy.

If there is truth to the allegation, though - that US mainstream media has descended into fake news and lies? That's incredibly concerning. Because modern democracy relies on, and arguably can't function without, an independent and reliable media.

Checking multiple sources, with competing interests, seems like a reasonably reliable way to get something reasonably accurate, but that's asking a lot of people and the use of their time. It's incredibly important people be able to rely on an independent media for accurate news. Democracy isn't democracy without that.

 

[scout86]

@enough thank you for that! I keep telling people that there are Republicans like you out there. You give me hope.

 

[user27357]

@scout86
I think there are more of us than anyone knows. The vote is made in private, so a lot of guys like me might just vote their conscious instead of their bumper sticker after he has had another year to ramble at rallies and ask for foreign interference in our election right on the debate stage in front of the nation.
The best tool ever invented for exposing anyone for the true people they are is the microphone and the recorder. Lets let the man talk, he will convincingly prove that he cannot be trusted or respected and shouldn't be our president. I am eagerly awaiting the next state of the union address. The best thing the democrats in the room could do would be to applaud everything he says, get him going on another rant and hope America is listening. I will be.