Is this who you are?

[rogue06]

I'm assuming that by "the majority of the press" you mean to say, the press that you don't care for. The free press is no different now than it was 200 years ago. It isn't so much the reporters opinions that you don't like, it's the facts that you don't want to hear. Trump lies to you everytime he opens his mouth, but that obviously doesn't bother you too much!

Actually the "free press" for most of its history has served as the propaganda wing for this or that political party or special interest. That's why in large cities there were five or six newspapers (and often more). Claiming to present the facts in an objective and unbiased manner is a fairly new phenomena (early mid 20th century or so) and is being abandoned once again.

[oxmixmudd]

Actually I make it a point to watch/read a wide spectrum of views, which explains why I post so much about what was on CNN and MSNBC. I use my DVR to record multiple news/opinion broadcasts.

Years ago, when I worked for an extremely conservative employer^[1] he was horrified to see me reading the New York Times asking me how could I read that, um, scat. I told him that I like to see what all sides are saying rather than rely on what someone tells me they are saying. That still holds true.













1. Occasionally he would get into a rant about how liberals weren't merely wrong but were evil. After he vented I would remind him that he often said his wife and daughter were liberal and ask if he thought they were also evil. When he'd say no they were just misinformed I'd ask him why that couldn't be the case for other liberals as well. That would make him pause and think until a couple months later something upset him and we'd go through the same cycle again.

If that is true, then I simply can't understand your comments unless you read with some sort of automatic rejection filter that just makes it impossible for you to perceive the information that would balance your position.

What trump is doing, and one can pretty much just pick a day, is amplifying the sort of mistrust you have and using that as a means of cutting you off from the information that would help you to see him for what he is.

The fake news rhetoric is accelerating a polarization that already has gone too far. Consider that he is beginning to embrace and pull into his quiver of disinformation the qanon crowd, which isn't far from mufon on the legitimacy scale.

When my intelligent, knowledgeable friend, we'll schooled in the sciences, bought into the idiot conspiracy theory that tried to claim the park service had swapped out photos from another event to play down the size of the inauguration crowd, I knew we were in trouble. When people like him and you and Sparko can be led by the nose into his fantasy world, we are in major, major trouble.

Jim

[Tassman]

Actually, it's not a very useful passage for that, because it has to be totally ripped out of context.

Did Jeff Sessions use it in context to justify ripping children away from their mothers?

Trump was not elected as "Pastor in Chief".

Oh really! During the Clinton years, Evangelicals regularly argued that Bill Clinton was morally unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief. And yet Evangelicals today endorse the draft-dodging, foul-mouthed, honesty-challenged womaniser named Donald Trump. Double standards much?

[NorrinRadd]

Did Jeff Sessions use it in context to justify ripping children away from their mothers?

IMO, yes, but it was still inappropriate as a defense of a policy by a necessarily secular government.

Also, that passage has never been taken as absolute, since there were times when the apostles themselves defied the authorities in preaching the Gospel.

During the Clinton years, Evangelicals regularly argued that Bill Clinton was morally unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief. ...

Yes. I'm reevaluating such things. ATM, I am not aware of any passages of Scripture that tell Christians to take that kind of approach. Since Bent Willy was (is?) a professing Baptist, it was probably appropriate to criticize his philandering as being unworthy of a Christian. But to say it disqualified him from the Presidency was a lot more tenuous.

[rogue06]

If that is true

Thank you for the borderline accusation that I'm lying

then I simply can't understand your comments unless you read with some sort of automatic rejection filter that just makes it impossible for you to perceive the information that would balance your position.

I'm afraid this is how I perceive what you are doing and projecting it onto others.

You uncritically repeat any and every salacious rumor as fact^[1] and won't let go no matter what. The whole collusion thing has collapsed like a deck of cards in a hurricane^[2] and Mueller and his team have begun pursuing other possibilities like obstruction but like a dog with a bone you won't let go.

As I have repeatedly noted this constant crying of wolf tends to bury the real issues and problems with Trump under mountains of B.S. so things go unnoticed and if something really big does comes along people will tend to tune it out because they have become immune to the continuous feverish over-the-top rhetoric that is dished out daily. It will be regarded as just another wild claim.









1. In many ways I don't blame you since that is exactly what the MSM has been doing. Things that during previous Administrations would be ignored by the media and only be circulated by obscure websites and crank callers to local talk shows are now breathlessly repeated as headline stories by supposedly reputable journalists and even high ranked elected officials.

2. It's the left wing's birtherism on steroids which is sort of "karmatic" considering Trump's role in the former.

[oxmixmudd]

Thank you for the borderline accusation that I'm lying

A perfect example of the polarization and divisiveness of Trump's rhetoric. That phrase is an idiom that outside this discussion you would simply have recognized as meaning

Given that is the case ...

Or

Since that is the case.

Jim

[Cow Poke]

Oh really!

Yup.

During the Clinton years, Evangelicals regularly argued that Bill Clinton was morally unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

That's true.

And yet Evangelicals today endorse the draft-dodging, foul-mouthed, honesty-challenged womaniser named Donald Trump.

Some do. I do not.

Double standards much?

Nope. Neither man was (is) morally fit to serve as CIC. Nor would Hillary.

[Sparko]

If that is true, then I simply can't understand your comments unless you read with some sort of automatic rejection filter that just makes it impossible for you to perceive the information that would balance your position.

What trump is doing, and one can pretty much just pick a day, is amplifying the sort of mistrust you have and using that as a means of cutting you off from the information that would help you to see him for what he is.

The fake news rhetoric is accelerating a polarization that already has gone too far. Consider that he is beginning to embrace and pull into his quiver of disinformation the qanon crowd, which isn't far from mufon on the legitimacy scale.

When my intelligent, knowledgeable friend, we'll schooled in the sciences, bought into the idiot conspiracy theory that tried to claim the park service had swapped out photos from another event to play down the size of the inauguration crowd, I knew we were in trouble. When people like him and you and Sparko can be led by the nose into his fantasy world, we are in major, major trouble.

Jim

Jim, you are the one who seems to be led by the nose here. You buy everything bad said about Trump and seem to think he is the devil incarnate. I have never seen you act this biased about a topic before. You have actually insinuated that those of us who voted for Trump may not be "real" Christians! I would never insinuate anything like that about you.

I think you need to step back a bit and take a breath. You seem really worked up over this.

Here is my opinion of Trump:

He is an egotistical narcissist. I don't like him as a person. I do like Pence, BTW.
He tweets too much and acts like a juvenile, calling people names and such.
He did not collude with the Russians.

He is actually trying to keep his campaign promises, to make the economy grow (succeeding), stop illegal immigration (controversial), reform healthcare (blocked by congress).
He is electing more conservative Judges to the SCOTUS which will hopefully turn around some decisions like Roe v Wade and help with things like the Gay Wedding Cake fiasco.

So as a person, Trump is a failure in my eyes. As a President, he seems to be doing what he promised and I like that and I like what he promised. He also seems to be able to get the rest of the world to fall in line (NATO, North Korea)

Provide me with a better alternative in the next election and I will vote for them instead of Trump, no matter what the party. Hillary just wasn't a better alternative this time around.

[One Bad Pig]

Wrong. I have mentioned several times that in certain situation it can be in the childs best interest.

Thanks for the correction. I don't read everything here, and I hadn't seen you mention that before.

My point is that it is never ever good policy to do so as a general policy resulting in more than 2000 children separeted from their parents and then with no plan for reuniting them.

You're assuming here. Congress (which made the law) can be rather myopic when it comes to unintended consequences, but I don't think they're quite that inept. You're free to disagree, but please try not to direct your ire at Trump for something which was not his responsibility.

[One Bad Pig]

I think he told me once a while back he is pro-life. Or maybe that was carp.

I think that was carp.

[rogue06]

A perfect example of the polarization and divisiveness of Trump's rhetoric. That phrase is an idiom that outside this discussion you would simply have recognized as meaning

Given that is the case ...

Or

Since that is the case.

Jim

I think when someone says "If that is true" there is a pretty standard meaning (one expressing doubt) that has absolutely nothing to do with Trump. And the fact that you try to blame him for that...

[rogue06]

Nope. Neither man was (is) morally fit to serve as CIC. Nor would Hillary.

That ^^^

At what point did it become okay to nominate moral reprobates to lead your party and possibly the country?

[Sparko]

At what point did it become okay to nominate moral reprobates to lead your party and possibly the country?

ahem!

Rogue-Sparko-POTUS.jpg

[rogue06]

ahem!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]29618[/ATTACH]

We ain't moral reprobates. We be amoral reprobates.

[KingsGambit]

That ^^^

At what point did it become okay to nominate moral reprobates to lead your party and possibly the country?

2016, apparently.

graham.jpg