The Next President is...

[HeloDude]

8.5% inflation reported (I’m sure the real number is much higher)…and Biden and the Dem’s focus is on higher taxes, more government spending, and more regulations on energy.  Oh, and making sure kindergartners are being taught about gender identity.  

 

 

[FLEA]

4 hours ago, HeloDude said:

8.5% inflation reported (I’m sure the real number is much higher)…and Biden and the Dem’s focus is on higher taxes, more government spending, and more regulations on energy.  Oh, and making sure kindergartners are being taught about gender identity.  

 

 

I can't see how they're expecting anything short of slaughter on the mid terms.... 

[HeloDude]

4 hours ago, FLEA said:

I can't see how they're expecting anything short of slaughter on the mid terms.... 

I’m not exactly sure of their strategy?  Maybe Nsplayr can give us an honest opinion? 
 

I truly think it’s just that the far left wing of their party (AOC types) are controlling the agenda and message.  AOC has literally said the key their success is the party going further left.

[Sim]

https://miamistandard.news/2022/04/09/white-house-sex-changes-for-kids-are-life-saving-states-banning-operations-will-be-held-accountable/

 

Quote

She also claimed that all major medical associations agree that these treatments are the “best practice” and are “potentially life saving” to children identifying as transgender and therefore should not fear that their parents or medical professional could be imprisoned for “helping them and loving them.”

Pure fucking evil. 

 

[BashiChuni]

[brickhistory]

Jeezuz wept:

https://nypost.com/2022/04/18/easter-bunny-stops-biden-from-answering-reporters-question/

 

And this was a WH strategy to keep the dementia patient from stepping on himself. 

Quote

White House journalists widely regard Hays, the administration’s director of message planning, as responsible for limiting press access to Biden at public events over the past year.

 

You work hard in school, you pay your dues in various political jobs to land at the White House...and you're the bunny lady.

Nice.

[brickhistory]

Last Friday, Special Counsel Durham dropped court filings that state that five Clinton campaign staff have invoked 5th amendment regarding the Russia collusion matter while Durham is charging one lawyer already.

In addition, court documents contain findings from the CIA, from early 2017, that the machine language supposedly between Trump, et al, and a Russian bank, was "user created," i.e., phony and manufactured by somebody.

The indicted lawyer, Sussman, says he didn't lie to the FBI when he said he wasn't working for any client.

Fusion GPS, hired by Clinton campaign, and the Clinton campaign itself, are trying to have the documents thrown out due to "attorney client privilege."

So which is it?  No client or attorney-client privilege?

I still hope for some perp walks before I'm dead.

[ClearedHot]

I hope Elon puts a knee to the Twitter leadership's neck and exposes the "algorithms" they have been using.  Here is a little hint of how the big tech oligarch's think and how "fair" they are when it comes to free speech.

 

[Prozac]

10 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

I hope Elon puts a knee to the Twitter leadership's neck and exposes the "algorithms" they have been using.  Here is a little hint of how the big tech oligarch's think and how "fair" they are when it comes to free speech.

 

The title says employee donations. Most employers/large corporations donate vigorously to both parties. While the tech companies you listed do tend to favor Democrats in their contributions, I would suggest a site like opensecrets could paint a clearer picture. Personally, I don’t think it’s healthy for large corporations to donate to political parties & that Citizens United was one of the worst rulings in the history of the Supreme Court. But I am curious as to why you think Twitter should be required to be “fair” and/or why they should be constrained by the concept of free speech? The Nike store will probably kick you out if you enter the property wearing a sign protesting child labor. Why would/should an online venue act any differently regarding speech they consider damaging to their business? 

[ClearedHot]

19 minutes ago, Prozac said:

But I am curious as to why you think Twitter should be required to be “fair” and/or why they should be constrained by the concept of free speech? The Nike store will probably kick you out if you enter the property wearing a sign protesting child labor. Why would/should an online venue act any differently regarding speech they consider damaging to their business? 

If you don't see it I don't think I can help you understand the danger.  Justice Thomas said it fair better than I could:

Today's digital platforms, Thomas argued, "provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech," but he said it also concentrates control "of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties."

 

They are NOT acting differently because as you suggest it damages their business, they are doing to to sway an election and seize power.  Did you forget they purposely suppressed the Hunter Biden Laptop story which as it turns out is TRUE.  It is beyond me how anyone who swore an oath to the Constitution can think that was right.  I am NOT saying Trump won the election or that it was stolen.  But these companies did manipulate and suppress information that might have impacted the outcome.  At the very least the report should have been investigated but they immediately suffocated the story and they suspended a new organization for posting an article about the laptop, come on man...seriously, come on man!

 

To this day Vladimir Putin can post his tripe, the leader of the Taliban can preach hate and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can tweet calling for genocide but a former President is banned. 

[Prozac]

As far as I’m aware, Hunter Biden has not been convicted of anything regarding the laptop story yet, nor was his name on any ballot in 2020. Not sure what you mean when you say it turns out to be “true”. If you mean there is in fact an ongoing investigation, sure, ok. If you mean that he did something wrong, well that remains to be seen. If he did, I hope he is convicted and appropriately punished.
 

As far as the apparent outsized influence social media companies like Twitter have on elections, couldn’t the same be said about newspapers or television networks in the past? In fact, I think you could make a very good argument that we live in a much richer media environment today, with many more viewpoints represented than at any time in the past (yes, I’m old enough to remember when there were three major networks). Why should the rules be different for Twitter than say The Wall Street Journal, NYT, or Fox News? Should the first amendment also be constrained or suppressed for those outlets in the name of fairness? Should outlets like MSNBC or Newsmax be shuttered or censured because they are so one sided? I do share some of your concern that corporate interests may have some undue influence in elections. But we should be very careful in how we choose to deal with that. The First Amendment is first for a reason. You brought up the Oath of Office in your last post. An argument that the government should actively suppresses the constitution or its amendments is certainly not in line with that oath (not saying that’s the argument you’re making….just that we should be weary about taking steps in that direction). 

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

To this day Vladimir Putin can post his tripe, the leader of the Taliban can preach hate and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can tweet calling for genocide but a former President is banned.

BTW, absolutely agree this is absurd. 

[FLEA]

1 minute ago, Prozac said:

As far as I’m aware, Hunter Biden has not been convicted of anything regarding the laptop story yet, nor was his name on any ballot in 2020. Not sure what you mean when you say it turns out to be “true”. If you mean there is in fact an ongoing investigation, sure, ok. If you mean that he did something wrong, well that remains to be seen. If he did, I hope he is convicted and appropriately punished.
 

As far as the apparent outsized influence social media companies like Twitter have on elections, couldn’t the same be said about newspapers or television networks in the past? In fact, I think you could make a very good argument that we live in a much richer media environment today, with many more viewpoints represented than at any time in the past (yes, I’m old enough to remember when there were three major networks). Why should the rules be different for Twitter than say The Wall Street Journal, NYT, or Fox News? Should the first amendment also be constrained or suppressed for those outlets in the name of fairness? Should outlets like MSNBC or Newsmax be shuttered or censured because they are so one sided? I do share some of your concern that corporate interests may have some undue influence in elections. But we should be very careful in how we choose to deal with that. The First Amendment is first for a reason. You brought up the Oath of Office in your last post. An argument that the government should actively suppresses the constitution or its amendments is certainly not in line with that oath (not saying that’s the argument you’re making….just that we should be weary about taking steps in that direction). 

What are you defending here man? What's your position? That tech shouldn't be regulated? Is it only convenient to decree regulation when it's an industry you find inconvenient or do you also believe we should remove all regulation on energy, automotive or lending? 

What a bizarre year this is. COVID-19 and tech meltdowns and suddenly progressives are pro business for big pharma and social media.

[ClearedHot]

17 minutes ago, Prozac said:

As far as I’m aware, Hunter Biden has not been convicted of anything regarding the laptop story yet, nor was his name on any ballot in 2020. Not sure what you mean when you say it turns out to be “true”. If you mean there is in fact an ongoing investigation, sure, ok. If you mean that he did something wrong, well that remains to be seen. If he did, I hope he is convicted and appropriately punished.

There is a HUGE difference and you know it.  It is one thing for Foxnews to cover only items with a conservative slant or for MSNBC to hold a daily cry fest about Trump.  It is another to absolutely suppress information and punish or ban news agencies that try to cover the story.  It doesn't bother you that they shut down the NY Post account just for reporting the story, you see no issues there?  Seriously?

The issue is there is a story there, their are allegations about "10% for the big guy."  If that same phrase was in any text, email, message found to be related to one of Trumps kids there would be a full on investigation by every news agency out there.  Twitter and Facebook, IMMEDIATELY suppressed any mention and FALSELY as it turns out, labeled it misinformation.  Hunter is a douchebag and was not on the ballot, but the implications AND testimony from people close was purposely prevented form getting to the public by Big Tech.  it is the duty of the press to be the 4th estate, it is one thing for news agencies to have a slant for their audience, it is another for them to complicit in a cover up that sways an election.

[Pooter]

The biggest difference between a Twitter/Facebook and a Fox News is section 230. Fox is a publisher of content without section 230 protections and therefore liable and sue-able for things they say that are false, slanderous, or libelous. Any editorial style news organization falls under this category whether it be newspapers or cable news outlets.
 

Social media companies are not treated as publishers by section 230. They are given immunity from liability for third party posts on their platform. Meaning.. your aunt Karen can go off on qanon nonsense and Hillary eating babies without FB getting sued. 

So my biggest problem is not really Twitter/FB being biased one way or the other. My problem is they're acting like an editorial organization when they've been given specific protections from the government to not be an editorial organization.  
 

If Twitter wants to pick and choose which stories they ban/promote, then section 230 protections should be immediately revoked, and then Joe Rogan can sue the fuck out of them every time someone retweets a CNN horse dewormer story. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Pooter

[Prozac]

11 minutes ago, Pooter said:

The biggest difference between a Twitter/Facebook and a Fox News is section 230. Fox is a publisher of content without section 230 protections and therefore liable and sue-able for things they say that are false, slanderous, or libelous. Any editorial style news organization falls under this category whether it be newspapers or cable news outlets.
 

Social media companies are not treated as publishers by section 230. They are given immunity from liability for third party posts on their platform. Meaning.. your aunt Karen can go off on qanon nonsense and Hillary eating babies without FB getting sued. 

So my biggest problem is not really Twitter/FB being biased one way or the other. My problem is they're acting like an editorial organization when they've been given specific protections from the government to not be an editorial organization.  
 

If Twitter wants to pick and choose which stories they ban/promote, then section 230 protections should be immediately revoked, and then Joe Rogan can sue the fuck out of them every time someone retweets a CNN horse dewormer story. 

Cogent, solid argument. So how do you address editorial content without hauling Aunt Karen off to jail? 

[Pooter]

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

Cogent, solid argument. So how do you address editorial content without hauling Aunt Karen off to jail? 

This is where you get into constitutional law and the exact difference between slander/libel and free speech. In this example Aunt Karen is a private person not acting in a professional or public capacity, so when she says "I hate Hillary and I think she eats babies," that would be constitutionally considered an opinion and protected by free speech. 
 

Alternate scenario: Aunt Karen is a Fox News correspondent and she posts on FB "it is my professional journalistic opinion that Hillary eats babies."  This would probably rise to defamation and Karen would be sueable for libel. 
 

Either way, section 230 protects FB from liability so they should leave the posts alone and let the chips fall where they may. 

[brickhistory]

"10 percent for the big guy..."

"I've paid his bills for years..."

"I don't know what Hunter does in his business dealings and don't know his associates."

- 2 x letters of recommendation for sons of PRC business partners of Hunter's.

- Photos of ol' Joe with Hunter and his business partners at a DC restaurant

- 19 WH meetings with Hunter's business partners while VP

- Hunter accompanied the VP on AF2 to trips to Ukraine and PRC.  Shortely thereafter, major business deals for Hunter in those two countries

Now some $5.2 million in unexplained income earning for Joe "Cornpop" Biden in the period from leaving the VP to becoming POTUS, including paying Hunter's business legal fees.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/04/26/joe-bidens-unexplained-income-starts-to-connect-the-dots-to-his-degenerate-son-n556356

The linked site is conservative.  The facts presented are not of a political bent.  They are simply dollar amounts that haven't been explained.

[ClearedHot]

The Hunter story gains momentum and more and more details of the Fusion GPS story leak.  The Dossier Hillary paid to have built and disseminated in order to sway an election then attempt to overturn an election through impeachment.

Now emails are coming to light (below), showing how Fusion GPS, knowing the story was fake, worked with an all too willing press (NY Times, The Washington Post, ABC, Reuters), to name a few in the documents below), who lapped it up and with ZERO due diligence.  A complete failure of journalism because they were so jaded with hate.  When you think of division in this country remember it was Hillary and the DNC that drug us all through the mud with lies when we could have been focused on helping this country.

See for yourself what reporters knew and how they participated in the Russia Hoax, John Durham just revealed hundreds of emails between Fusion GPS and The PRESS.

[BFM this]

22 hours ago, Prozac said:

As far as I’m aware, Hunter Biden has not been convicted of anything regarding the laptop story yet, nor was his name on any ballot in 2020. Not sure what you mean when you say it turns out to be “true”. If you mean there is in fact an ongoing investigation, sure, ok. If you mean that he did something wrong, well that remains to be seen. If he did, I hope he is convicted and appropriately punished.

No journalist (aside from extreme fringes, and certainly nowhere in the NYP story) stated that HB was "guilty" of crimes, though they were easy to infer from the existence of the evidence.  That the evidence existed, having far exceeded the threshold of journalistic verification, was the thing that was suppressed uniformly by big tech and outright lied about by the intel community.

No big deal, right?  The question becomes "what is influence", and at what level does that influence become direct interference and outright tampering with outcomes?

Start with one of the most seemingly benign forms of "influence" that is so commonplace that it is at this point completely invisible though it is in plain sight: search bar autocomplete.  Do you think that this feature has any influence on you or your thinking?  Of course not, that's silly, besides, I use _____ (DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.).

I'm not nearly smart enough to answer, so I'll leave you with someone who is:  Dr. Robert Epstein.

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by BFM this

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, BFM this said:

No journalist (aside from extreme fringes, and certainly nowhere in the NYP story) stated that HB was "guilty" of crimes, though they were easy to infer from the existence of the evidence.  That the evidence existed, having far exceeded the threshold of journalistic verification, was the thing that was suppressed uniformly by big tech and outright lied about by the intel community.

No big deal, right?  The question becomes "what is influence", and at what level does that influence become direct interference and outright tampering with outcomes?

Start with one of the most seemingly benign forms of "influence" that is so commonplace that it is at this point completely invisible though it is in plain sight: search bar autocomplete.  Do you think that this feature has any influence on you or your thinking?  Of course not, that's silly, besides, I use _____ (DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.).

I'm not nearly smart enough to answer, so I'll leave you with someone who is:  Dr. Robert Epstein.

 

That’s a fair argument. But I will again posit that we have a far richer media environment than we ever have in the past. By richer, I mean more (LOTS more), not better. We have always been influenced, whether it be television networks, newspapers (Remember the Maine(?)), family, neighbors, political campaigns, etc. Conservatives really like to complain about the media environment lately and how it’s stacked against them. I just don’t buy it. There have never been more conservative media options than there are now. Fox News is as unabashedly biased in its editorial/infotainment coverage (think Tucker, Hannity, Ingraham) as anything from MSNBC or CNN and the Fox shows have the highest ratings by a large margin.  If Democrats were just steamrolling Republicans in every election you might have a point, but it seems like Republicans are holding their own just fine. If they would spend some time vetting reasonable candidates who were actually capable of governance (vs just stoking outrage over Hillary’s emails, Hunter’s laptop, Pat’s preferred pronouns, etc) they might find a few more votes (including mine) because the Dems are a mess too & their only real advantage is that they haven’t stormed the Capitol yet & they’re not pushing insane conspiracy theories. In short, stop focusing so much on the supposed outrages of the other side & tell me what you’re actually for. 

[tac airlifter]

13 minutes ago, Prozac said:

That’s a fair argument. But I will again posit that we have a far richer media environment than we ever have in the past. By richer, I mean more (LOTS more), not better. We have always been influenced, whether it be television networks, newspapers (Remember the Maine(?)), family, neighbors, political campaigns, etc. Conservatives really like to complain about the media environment lately and how it’s stacked against them. I just don’t buy it. There have never been more conservative media options than there are now. Fox News is as unabashedly biased in its editorial/infotainment coverage (think Tucker, Hannity, Ingraham) as anything from MSNBC or CNN and the Fox shows have the highest ratings by a large margin.  If Democrats were just steamrolling Republicans in every election you might have a point, but it seems like Republicans are holding their own just fine. If they would spend some time vetting reasonable candidates who were actually capable of governance (vs just stoking outrage over Hillary’s emails, Hunter’s laptop, Pat’s preferred pronouns, etc) they might find a few more votes (including mine) because the Dems are a mess too & their only real advantage is that they haven’t stormed the Capitol yet & they’re not pushing insane conspiracy theories. In short, stop focusing so much on the supposed outrages of the other side & tell me what you’re actually for. 

You are completely blinded by bias.  

[Prozac]

16 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

You are completely blinded by bias.  

Really? Do tell. And remember to keep your own bias out of your reply. 

[tac airlifter]

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

Really? Do tell. And remember to keep your own bias out of your reply. 

Just a few of your many biased points:

-You assert republicans aren’t putting forth “reasonable” candidates, yet fail to define reasonable.  You and I likely disagree on that definition; it is arrogant to presume you arbitrate what is and isn’t reasonable.  

- you say democrats aren’t pushing “insane conspiracy theories” but they are.  Calling Glen Youngkin a white supremacist racist is in fact an insane conspiracy theory (Curious if you consider him another unreasonable republican candidate) because there is no proof.  For that matter all the talk of white supremacy is a fringe conspiracy with no factual basis.  Unlike the many factual things censored by democrats, which precipitated this conversation. 

I could go on.  You are blinded by bias while being certain you aren’t.

[ClearedHot]

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

That’s a fair argument. But I will again posit that we have a far richer media environment than we ever have in the past. By richer, I mean more (LOTS more), not better. We have always been influenced, whether it be television networks, newspapers (Remember the Maine(?)), family, neighbors, political campaigns, etc. Conservatives really like to complain about the media environment lately and how it’s stacked against them. I just don’t buy it. There have never been more conservative media options than there are now.

First, more does not mean better and I hope you can see the difference.  Notice in the chart below the vast majority of what would be considered the mainstream media organizations are well left.  Among the worst is NPR which we as taxpayers subsidize, which is simply not right.

Second, even if you gave equal credential weight to all of the sites lists, the number of left leaning sites is double what leans towards the right.

 

 

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

If Democrats were just steamrolling Republicans in every election you might have a point, but it seems like Republicans are holding their own just fine.

I would disagree mainly because the problem became FAR worse under Trump.  Under his term the Liberal media lost it's mind and went from bias to outright cheer leading and actively working for the DNC to win.  They were (and still are), active and willing participants in suppressing news stories in order to shape the election.

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

...because the Dems are a mess too & their only real advantage is that they haven’t stormed the Capitol yet & they’re not pushing insane conspiracy theories. In short, stop focusing so much on the supposed outrages of the other side & tell me what you’re actually for. 

A bit of denial and hubris here brother.  The Dems made great theater of their supposed outrage for most of Trump's term pushing a Russia Collusion lie based on a fake dossier that THEY built...all the way to impeachment in the house.  Have you forgotten the live telecast of them slowly and painfully walking the articles of impeachment over to the Senate?

They were also active participants in suppressing the Hunter Laptop story which most certainly would have impacted the election.  Again, not saying Hunter is guilty, but as has been discussed the amount of evidence CLEARLY cleared the hurdle of an honest an unbiased press investigating what happened.  Sadly the 4th estate is dead.