Poll: Who Is a Greater Threat to Western Civilization? Russia, or the News Media?
Dennis Prager tweets:
The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does.
— Dennis Prager (@DennisPrager) July 14, 2017
I had a couple of questions for him.
If you say there's a threat to Western civilization I would assume you want to eliminate it. Is that your proposal? https://t.co/syN1OeHNYU
— Patterico (@Patterico) July 15, 2017
Because Russia is really good at eliminating journalists. Do you admire that? https://t.co/zuYJZ4gYEe
— Patterico (@Patterico) July 15, 2017
Anyway, I thought I would run a poll based on Prager’s question, just because I wanted to be really depressed today. So here you go:
Which is a greater threat to Western civilization?
I predict upwards of 80% of people here will agree with Prager.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]
That said, if you went to a hard lefty site and asked who poses a greater danger to the American people, Trump or ISIS, upwards of 80% would say Trump.
If you gave them GOP vs. Iran, you’d get 80%+ for GOP.
This is where we are.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:49 amI did put my thumb on the scale by including my tweets in the post.
That will skew the results exactly to the extent that my complaints about Russia’s illiberal society have a foothold here.
Which is to say: not much.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:50 amI also put my thumb on the scale by voting for Russia.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:51 amLots of people feel the Media started their meltdown in early 70s when Boards decided to reneg on the social contract assumed on the Public ownership of airwaves. Previously NEWS Divisions were treated like PEA (public service announcements) meaning they weren’t he’s to profitability standards. When ratings mean survival you give the Viewer what they want:Entertainment. We got the Gubmint/Media we crafted.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:53 amHELD to profitability..
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:54 amI also put a thumb on the scale by making a prediction.
People like to prove my predictions wrong.
I really want my prediction to be wrong.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:55 amThe morning voters are different than the evening voters.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:04 amHa. We’ll see.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:04 amRussia is a western civilization. They only became a threat went they turned left to communism and it has been a long and difficult road returning to the right. The recent threat is due to their intervention in America/France/Germany’s elective wars in Syria and globally (Africa, Asia, Europe), followed by an expansion with a coup d’etat in Kiev that forced a civil war, presumably to punish Ukrainians who sides with Russia and Russia for interfering with the removal of the Assad regime and exposing the refugee and non-refugee collateral damage of “clean” wars.
n.n (818812) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:15 amTo vote that the news media are more dangerous to society than Russia is not to say that Russia is hunky-dory! Who teaches us that to disagree on man-made climate change is to be heinous? Who tells us that whoever doesn’t want any old sexual belief to be upheld and complied with is full of hate? Who affirms that anyone who cares about women should be okay with the sacrifice of the unborn for the vague promises of future gain, unfettered by those pesky children we conceive? Who clues us in that we must keep certain beliefs to ourselves if we don’t want to be labeled as rustic, evil baboons? Not Russia.
D. Bruggers (c44a3f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:16 amI’m really heartened by these results so far though.
32 to 12 at last count. 73% think Russia is a greater threat.
I would not have thought that people would say that. No matter how much I put my thumb on the scale.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:16 amTo vote that Russia is more dangerous to society than the news media is not to say that the news media is hunky-dory.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:18 amNot bothering to vote. Think the word threat has a different connotation when it involves an external, rival nation versus an internal 5th column.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:18 amPrager’s either/or is shallow but to deny he has a point is to be void of thinking.
News media and academia have created millions of nitwits without a clue about western cultural values and what made America strong, prosperous, and the greatest country in history. To think this does not pose a danger to rule of law and civil order is the opposite of reason.
And for your consideration on where we could be heading without constant vigilance, look at Portland, Berkeley, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Evergreen State College, The Univ. Of Missouri, etc.
Just one example: the following is not from Russia, this is from the news media that considers itself mainstream:
“Our capitalist property regime and economic system have succeeded at producing remarkable surplus. But the benefits of this system too often flow to a small fraction of the population, while land, water, air and people pay the long-term price.
Prior generations responded to similar crises by turning to communism. But today, Marx, Lenin and Mao no longer offer a scythe sharp enough to fell the stalks of capitalism.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/27/western-idea-private-property-flawed-indigenous-peoples-have-it-right
The tools for justice used by Marx, Lenin and Mao were not sharp enough….think about that.
harkin (536957) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:20 amCounting early returns is risky Patterico. The Media hate is strong. Mebbe they prefer the Dicktator just becuz he shoots his own messengers.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:20 amI believe that you are doing a disservice to commenters with your predictions. While there are certainly those who blindly support Trump, no matter what he does, they are few. But there are also many who see him for who he is, yet continue to support his administration because the bar has been so lowered that the objective is no longer about core conservative principles and ideals. These are not dumb individuals, nor anti-America. They are simply Americans trapped in the middle of an ugly Leviathan that is our government, and trying to find their way through. IOW, something, no matter how little it resembles true conservatism, is better than the alternative. Same reason Trump got elected. I believe that at their core, these individuals are not so clueless or without an ability to objectively and independently understand history, know the person that Putin is, and see Russia as it truly is. I am not willing to short-sell readers to that degree. And I say that as a guest contributor who has been mocked and attacked by Trump supporters.
While most of us are distrustful of Big Media, we don’t see it as an overt threat in the way that Russia is: Democracy, competition, freedom of the individual, freedom to buy and sell independently in open markets, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of sexual identity/preferences, protection of human rights, freedom to criticize government, etc., are not the hallmarks of Russia. I think commenters here still understand this.
Dana (023079) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:23 amI would love to hear from voters who voted news media as the bigger threat. What is your reasoning, and what do you even see Russia as a threat of any kind at all?
Dana (023079) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:25 am“The government you elect is the government you deserve ”
Thomas Jefferson
“You get the Media you wished for”
Ben burn
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:26 amDana,
this is the same news media that was allied with the Soviets against Reagan. This is the news media that the Soviets planted their propaganda within, same as our University system, and allowed their corrupt seed to flourish and grow.
What we are seeing is an outgrowth of the Soviet claim that they would corrupt us from within. Separating the two is well neigh impossible.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:30 amThat may be. In my head, I pictured all the comments I have read over the past week or so, telling me that Putin and Russia are not really our enemy and anyone who says so is one of those untrustworthy NeverTrumpers . . . while the news media is the biggest problem facing America today. I see those sorts of opinions here on a daily basis. I’m actually very surprised that the early returns are showing up the way they are.
I don’t see commenters here as clueless. But increasingly I have seen many of them as blinded by partisanship. I’d like to think that view of my own commenters is wrong, of course, and maybe these poll results are a sign that it is.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:32 amIt might end up being interesting to compare the overall tenor of the comments on this post to the poll results.
I’ve always been skeptical of the notion that there is a silent majority that agrees with me even when the commenters are running 85% against me.
Is it possible there’s something to that? That the more partisan are also the more vocal?
Maybe…
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:34 amAnyway the gap is starting to close.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:35 amI’d like to know the ratio of loyal Trump supporters (who chose him over all the other eligible candidates) voting news media as biggest threat vs. Trump voters who felt they had no choice in the matter (the either/or scenario). I think that would be telling.
But yes, disappointingly, the gap is closing.
Dana (023079) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:41 amYes the Russians still have 20,000 nuclear weapons, that’s like the mao or Hillary false choice, but the press is carrying volodya’s water, with this silly grishenko plat.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:46 amI didn’t start this. Prager did.
And more people said they would vote for Mao than for Hillary, false choice or no.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:47 amDoes it bother no one that crowdstrike had had to retract at least one report, their ties to Mueller and mexico.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:47 amSo a reporter that really dogs like may Solomon, is dimed out. Erdbrink and other nobnothings on the sepah get promoted
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:50 amSeriously? Mao?
Pol Pot!
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:52 amThe question is why one believes what he does. What challenges those beliefs? Do they stand up to scrutiny? Are those beliefs come to through honest introspection using factual information, or are they emotional, using hyperbolic texts to buoy their reasoning?
NJRob (7f4bec) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:52 amharkin’s right — Prager isn’t stupid. And it doesn’t paint you in the best sort of light to pretend that he is.
An analogy: The measles I have is a “greater threat” to my health than the cancer I don’t, even if cancer is objectively speaking a greater threat in the abstract than measles.
I listen to a lot of Dennis Prager, and I would be willing to bet that his point is not that the media is objectively more dangerous to Western Civ than Russia is in the abstract. CNN ain’t got no nukes, after all, and I don’t think anyone would argue that Russia could just end Western Civilization with the touch of a button.
I think his point is that the media is *in a position* to realistically do more harm in a practical sense. Like my measles, we’ve got a serious case of the News Media, and Prager thinks that the media is expressly serving the ends of the left. Prager thinks that the left can kill Western Civilization in the long run — by spreading an ideological infection that causes it to doubt itself, to collapse from within and become something else entirely — something lesser.
The odds of us coming down with a case of Russia are longer — we don’t have a case of Russia right now. So like the cancer, it’s awful but it’s not a threat. And what’s more, terminology is important. Prager is saying that the News Media is a threat to WESTERN CIVILIZATION, not the United States. Russia occupies an interesting position in the world — for it is in some very real sense a part of the West, even as in other senses it is not.
Prager might still be wrong, but I don’t think your snark about eliminating the media is really the most constructive sort of reply.
Michael E. Lopez (3c8208) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:53 amPatterico,
do you believe more than 50% of the people that respond to these polls give their response more than one second of thought? The poll has no effect on their lives, doesn’t engage them to use their thought processes or to engage others in doing so.
All it can do is bolster your faith in your readers or demoralize you. At least that’s how you’ve made it appear based upon your comments in the thread.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:55 amPrager’s statement is hyperbolic, no doubt. But the threats posed are not comparable; they’re of different categories. Prager would probably reply to Patterico’s question by saying that he wants to reform the press and return it to a reputable profession instead of the extremely disreputable one it has now become.
The encouragement of this kind of shouting past each other based on mistaken premises is one of the things I hate most about Twitter.
Our host has been a long-time and vocal — and in my view, relatively effective — critic of the press, not limited to the LA Times aka Dog Trainer, for many years on this blog. I doubt that there is a great substantive disagreement between Prager’s views and Patterico’s, but that’s just a guess. A Twitter debate certainly isn’t likely to lead to any sort of useful clarification of their agreements and differences, if any.
Beldar (fa637a) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:56 amAccountability may be the biggest chink in sTrumpet corrugated armor. No blame for any of this nonsense rests with their ilk. You are what you eat.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:58 amBeldar,
agreed.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:00 amBut he didn’t reply did he Beldar? The emoticon Con Job is devoid of reason and logic when the glazed-eyes say “SO?”
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:00 amAs for my view that partisanship could skew the way a poll is answered:
Very astute, Michael Lopez! The greatest dangers to us are in our hearts and heads. People in prison can be free spirits. Obviously being overthrown by Russia (or Iran, or anywhere else where terrible idealogies prevail) is a terrible situation, but I fear that the leftist media is preparing us to give ourselves up!!
D. Bruggers (c44a3f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:05 amIn fall of heaven, the malpractice that enabled the Shah to be deposed, victory forsaken shows halberstsm was dead wrong, fontova re the Castro bros, friedmannre Hezbollah, fallowd re the Japanese property bubble, whoever misread the Arab spring, strobe talbott on the soviets,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:06 amUnfortunately, it doesn’t appear as if Prager has written any piece to explain his tweet more fully. I think NJ Rob is onto something: Think the word threat has a different connotation when it involves an external, rival nation versus an internal 5th column. Prager should have defined his terms and provided clarification in a prior or subsequent tweet.
Surely he had to know that people would be upset about the tweet as it stands in its vagueness, so why not be clear? Why be intentionally provocative? This irritates me.
Dana (023079) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:07 amPretty much, yes, depending on the results, which continue to tighten.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:07 amIt’s “I hope he fails” style provocation. Gets more attention.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:08 amThe press enabled all out threats, crowding out real expertise furthering preferred marratives,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:09 amSadly Obama was all too successful to rush’s regret, and it continues to today.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:11 amFolks like Prager and my pal Michael Walsh are big into talking about what a threat “the left” is.
But what do they mean by “the left”? Are there particular policy positions of “the left” that make “the left” so bad? And if so, would Trump become a threat if he adopted those same positions?
We don’t usually get to that level of detail, though. It’s all just WE MUST OPPOSE THE LEFT without talking about what specifically upsets them.
Free speech thuggery? Usually ends up being bad when they do it, fine when we do.
Socialistic policies? We heard a lot about that under Obama. These days Trump’s support for big government policies mostly gets a shrug.
WHY are we opposing the left? Because they’re the left? Or because of specific issues?
I know my answers to these questions. I think many don’t.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:12 am16 Dana.
I really like that first paragraph, well said.
I did not vote for Trump and I don’t trust him at all but he has proven me wrong in the biggest, most important thing I ever thought about him, that he could never win.
I’m hoping against all hope that he continues to prove me wrong. I also am growing very tired of some of the posts here that seem to serve no purpose other than snarky ridicule on hypotheticals and either/or questions. I don’t remember this site having that sort of tone until the election of a man the host really seems to dislike.
harkin (536957) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:12 amThat is correct, Dana and Russia doesn’t claim those atributes to be unless with a snicker. But the American *News Media* have claimed to be impartial, the stalwart purveyor of truth and honesty without prejudice, having no dog in the fight nor desire for outcome. They lie! They are a blot on the Republic and decency. They have been shown to be liars and their dishonest response was to double down on the lies. They operated under cover for the Left to deliberately dismantle America but now they are in the light. Almost all the media is the propaganda arm of the Democrat party and the left in general. They have an agenda and they push their agenda in every article and news report they put out. How many media personalities are Republican again? About 7%. How many of the White House press corps are Republicans again? A big fat ZERO!. It’s all been a lie and that’s why people like me turned to the net.
Pardon me if having my fill of anti Trump memes is considered blinded by partisanship. If I want 24/7 anti Trump bluster I can turn to CNN and the others, or read Vox and HuffPo. I come here to see the events and such they don’t report or discuss because they’re blinded by anti Trump partisanship. I come here to read the ideas and opinions of folks far better educated than I about policies and positions dear to the heart of America-loving conservatives. Don’t get me wrong, I am partisan and at least I admit it. But it needn’t come to the surface if almost every thread does not presuppose Trump is the anti Christ. Believe me, he’s not. We dodged that bullet by not much.
Just because I defend Trump does not make me a blind, partisan supporter. I makes me someone who is tired of the unrelenting cluster**** that has been going on since his election by the crazed left and many supposed conservatives and Republicans. Guys, if you’re looking for perfection die and go to heaven. Trump’s what we got to work with so instead of helping the enemy perhaps we should be helping him go the right direction. We are being forced out of the discussion by the Fake News, Fake Hollywood and loud mouthed A-holes like George Clooney and by our own willingness to dwell on Trumps flaws.
Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:13 amPrager is trolling for sure.
They have nothing else to do but distract and deflect. Otherwise we’d be talking about stealth rumpublican healthcare. They know exactly what they’re doing.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:14 amWell certainly most of the officials in his cabinet lean center right, we can quibble with devos. Now what the Congress is doing is an exercise
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:14 amThere hasn’t been a mostly havekiam regime since possibly Pinochet, and that was only till the 82 recession, perhaps some regimes in eastern europe.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:19 amHeh. Leftists could currently be described as concerned about healthcare.
Galtright? Not so much..
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:19 amWhich way did you vote, Hoagie? For the news media, right?
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:20 amRussia for the reason stated, but the media allows it to get away with murder in cuba, and that isn’t a metaphor, or Venezuela, or syria
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:22 amThis is a post about what poses a threat to Western civilization. What do you think Western civilization is all about? What are the principles upon which Western civilization is founded? What sorts of things constitute a threat to those principles?
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:23 amWe have spent seven month chasing akhmetchins flying circus,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:23 amIn the same way that voting Trump was an in-your-face to the Democrats after 8 years of Obama, so too, I’m guessing, is believing that media here is a bigger threat than Russia. It’s all rooted in revenge and anger. Extracting payback, at any cost. But at some point, this has to stop, or woe to us all. We are being provoked to reflexively react to both Trump and the media before taking the time to even examine what has been put before us. It is Pavlovian, and it is only digging deeper holes. One can’t effectively govern on a platform of payback gratification just as much as one can’t report honestly with an already determined preference of news outcomes.
Dana (023079) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:24 am44 – “Free speech thuggery? Usually ends up being bad when they do it, fine when we do.”
Say what?
This sentence reminds me of the completely fatuous statements about free speech at Berkeley where the contention is made that the problem is equally shared by protesters on both the right and left. I can give you a couple hundred examples of “free speech thuggery” from the left over just the past couple years. I don’t remember too many from conservatives.
It’s like people who say the Tea Party, where people peacefully assembled, protested, obeyed the law, disrupted no one and cleaned up after themselves, is “as bad” or “worse” than the Occupy Movement, where trespassing, disruption of the general public, violence, vandalism, looting, thousands of arrests and/or mountains of filth left for someone else to clean up was common.
harkin (536957) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:24 amWhen Ben Rhodes is held accountable for his actions but he has his brother and the entire rizzotto tray press running interferemce.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:27 am” the same way that voting Trump was an in-your-face to the Democrats after 8 years of Obama, ”
Yes, there is some revenge for 8 years of Birfer carp and HD obstructionism, so the biblical karma seems appropriate.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:28 amWithout voting, I would make the following point:
Russia is a threat from the outside, which we have a variety of ways to address, and have successfully addressed for more than 70 years. Besides it nuclear arsenal, its not a threat globally, and the only real actual source of friction are a few regional hotspots where our interests conflict, and its attempts to cower Europe with the same old economic and energy coercion.
The media, on the other hand, is like cancer within the Western “body-politic” protected from cure by the First Amendment. It had become a tool for promoting a variety of anti-Western ideals which pretty much all begin with the undermining of the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which the country was founded and thrived, and elevating various competing ideologies through moral relativism.
The media — with the intellectual support of academia — promotes the degradation of western values, especially as found in western religions, in pursuit of “respect” for those with different views around the world. That is as much of an assault as anything Russia did in the last election.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:31 amNow your thumb is on the scale. The question is not whether Western civilization is endangered by what Russia did in the last election. The question is whether Western civilization is endangered by Russia.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:34 amDoes one work to improve our media the way we try to improve cancer?
Or is eradication the goal? Enquiring minds are too lazy to know.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:36 amKasparov responds to Prager:
Dana (023079) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:37 amYes but it often is.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:41 amHere are some concepts that I believe underpin Western civilization:
Political freedoms, including freedom of speech, a free press, the right to assemble, and free exercise of religion, among others.
Economic freedom.
The rule of law.
Self-governance.
The news media, being largely left-leaning, fights my vision of many of these values. I do not consider the news media to be a force for good when it comes to these values. They are a force primarily for the status quo, and secondarily for an expansion of government and infringement on the values I just listed.
Vladimir Putin and Russia stand foursquare against every principle in that list. Russia itself, with a population nearly half of ours, has been embroiled in a struggle between Western values and illiberal values for most of its history. Putin and the modern Russian state are a huge force pulling that large population away from following Western values. To say nothing of the harm caused by their foreign policy and the threats they pose.
I don’t think it’s close. Which is not to say the media is hunky dory. I have criticized the media for years right here on this site.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:43 amBut what do they mean by “the left”?
First off, there’s an even deeper question, which is why I am not voting at all.
What exactly do you mean by Western Civilization?
Russia is part of Western Civilization.
The Left is part of Western Civilization.
So are the narcotraffickers of Mexico and the jihadis of Brussels.
I assume Prager uses the phrase as code to signify a set or values that were first articulated about 200-300 years and gradually adopted throughout a certain group of cultures located in Europe and the Americas, often more in theory than in practice. But Western Civilization has a much longer history and much larger geographical spread, and to pretend it doesn’t merely confuses. And it should be no surprise if large groups of people who believe they never benefited from the application of those values–or worse yet, believe they were invoked merely to justify keeping them at the bottom of the economic and social scale.
kishnevi (ab2b70) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:44 amAnd when has the media shown it believes in any of those things?
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:46 amThe “threat” isn’t “the media”. It is how the media is functioning.
So he doesn’t want to “eliminate” the media. That was just a pathetic debate trick. We want to eliminate the way the media is corrupting the idea of “news” and “facts” and “bias”.
We can fix the media.
Do you want to “eliminate” Russia? We could do it with nuclear weapons. But nobody actually wants to ELIMINATE them. We want to stop them from doing the things they are doing, to behave better, to change leadership.
So really, this whole “you eliminate the harm” is a falacious argument.
Charles (50537e) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:47 amDana:
Thank you for that.
It’s “provocative” and pithy to claim that “the news media” is the threat, rather than the leftist illiberal strain of thought that pervades our news media.
But it sticks in the craw of people like Kasparov, who have fought regimes that actually see the concept of a news media as a threat.
The way you eliminate the media is to convince the public that it is necessary to do so. Both rhetoric like Prager’s and the media’s own dishonesty pose a potential threat to its existence.
The problem with people in the U.S. is that they are so used to the absence of totalitarianism, and so used to criticizing as totalitarian that which is merely overreaching, that they actually don’t think our country could become totalitarian.
But totalitarianism has been very, very common in human history. You have to be on your guard.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:48 amPrager said the news media was the threat.
He makes his living using words. If he didn’t mean that, he should not have said it.
Do not blame me for responding to what he actually said. It is not a “pathetic debate trick” to point out someone’s actual words.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:50 amLooks like we were typing our comments at the same time.
You have your answer.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:52 amThe jihadist live in the west, but they are not of it.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:53 amThe news media is about to pull ahead in the poll.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:56 amThe US is failing from within, not from foreign influence.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:57 amWestern civilization extends beyond the U.S., AZ Bob.
It is a set of principles applied by many, many countries.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:59 amDana,
If you were a newcomer to this site, and were to read the comments to this post, without having consulted the results of the poll, what do you think you would predict the results of the poll to be?
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:00 amThe CIA controlled mockingbird US media is absolutely the greatest direct threat to the American system of elected representative government, hands down, no question about it.
Our noisy self-annointed public overseers are hell bent on overturning the popular election of Donald Trump.
They don’t care what the American people want, they don’t care what the US Constitution requires, they only care they’ve lost the ability to determine election results and they’re desperate to recover that heady power by delivering up Trump’s head to their hand-picked snarling pack of bloodthirsty Democrat running dogs.
ropelight (a7d89c) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:01 amThe vast majority of the media doesn’t differ from Russia at all in that they don’t believe in those values or in your right to have them.
They want to take your children from you, indoctrinate your children in their beliefs, and have them hate you for your bigoted beliefs.
They are no different than Soviet indoctrination of their young, Mao’s Red Guard, or Hitler’s youth.
It is a corruption of Western Civilization and it’s eventual destruction for imaginedslights against the world. All created with disinformation created from external propaganda.
That you think the left merely disagrees with you and fights you is interesting though…
NJRob (b2d799) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:04 amFewer and fewer countries every year as they are replaced by those who don’t share the positive vision of the West that you do.
NJRob (b2d799) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:06 amHere is where I break ranks with the Host:
“Vladmir Putin and Russia”.
Putin and his kleptocracy currently control the Russian government.
So you adjust policies to account for that fact.
But Putin won’t always run the Russian government, and its important to keep that “long view” in focus when dealing with “Russia” as a country that will survive long after Putin is gone.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:06 amWestern civilization extends beyond the U.S., AZ Bob.
It is a set of principles applied by many, many countries.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:59 am
So you approved of Trump’s recent pro-West speech?
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:08 amTo have any respect for Kasparov’s POV, I would have to be convinced that he listens to Prager, and he understands what Prager is talking about. This is not a throw-off line that Prager has put out there. This is a topic of great elucidation by Prager on a regular basis on his show.
He’s not advocating doing away with the media in the way Putin has dealt with journalists who have been critical of him, and to equate Prager’s criticism with Putin’s actions is disingenuous and dishonest.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:10 am69 — then I would ask the host, do you ever listen to Prager?
He’s on the radio 3 hours a day.
Or do you just want to select 16 words in a tweet as a basis to pretend you understand his point?
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:12 amThe options you proposed if you said Media is not the only option and quite honestly is illogical. What moron would say ‘eliminate the media’. Fix the problem so that the media isn’t the problem for western civilization it is today. A fair free press is important. we don’t have a fair press today. Todays press is an agenda filled group of socialist.
Rich (a5d991) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:13 amI don’t know. I don’t watch Trump’s speeches, delivered in that sing-song voice that shows he didn’t write the speech and barely understands it. But I saw articles about it, criticizing its content, and thought that the articles seemed stupid and that the things reported to have come out of Trump’s mouth made sense.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:14 amDennis Prager should know. He is a member of that part of the “news media”, the bullsh!t artists, which threatens Western civilization.
nk (dbc370) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:14 am74:
Yes, it does.
How’s “Western Civilization” doing these days in Brussels, Paris, and London?
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:15 amAnd Russia’s veneer of Western civilization is measured in microns. “Scratch a Russian and you get a Tartar.”
nk (dbc370) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:19 amI have listened to him in the past and read his writings.
He said what he said. He was being deliberately provocative. I think it’s fair to interpret “the news media” as “the leftist strain of thought in news media” just like it’s fair to interpret “Russia” as “the government of Russia and not all its people.” But even with that emendation, I think it’s also fair to remind him that the government of Russia actually kills members of its news media. Which is more illiberal and contrary to Western values than anything our leftist news media does.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:20 amA Tartar is something like a Hun, a Mongol, or a Turk.
nk (dbc370) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:20 amNot well.
But far better than in Russia.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:21 amNews media has overtaken Russia in the poll.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:22 am#84:
I’ll take that as a “yes.” 😉
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:22 amYou can take it as a cautious “I guess so, based on media reports.”
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:23 amThe idea of Trump being a champion of Western values is something I find laughable, given (as one example among many) his praise for the Chinese government’s totalitarian mass murder of protesters in Tiananmen Square.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:28 amAnd Prager regularly praises Trump for being a champion of Western values, so I find that particular opinion of Prager’s to be laughable. And I have lost respect for him for stating that opinion.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:29 am“How’s “Western Civilization” doing these days in Brussels, Paris, and London?
How about Portland, where Republicans have to hire private security to march in a parade because the city won’t guarantee their safety?
How about Seattle, where a radical councilperson was given a standing ovation for declaring she had no Republican friends and people should follow her example?
How about Evergreen State College, where they’ve gone so far left that a professor considered very liberal who refused to leave campus for a “day without whites” needed security to go to the restroom, where bat-wielding tranny patrols search for a Trump supporters and the college was closed for days due to loss of civil order?
How about Clairemont College, where graffiti warnings alert white females they are in danger if they “appropriate” hoop earrrings?
How about Yale, where a professor and her husband were forced to resign for the former suggesting that people shouldn’t get so easily offended over certain Halloween costumes?
If certain people cannot see the “danger” in these and hundreds of similar sorts of actions happening every day, they are high.
harkin (140d0a) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:32 amHow about Russia, where things are worse than any place you guys just mentioned?
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:33 amBtw – anyone who thinks Prager is suggesting we need to eliminate news media is worse than high and has never listened to him.
Might as well judge Trump’s speeches by the reactions.
harkin (140d0a) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:34 amThe news media helps keep our government honest. Without it, we would be just another dictator Banana Republic.
Trump and his family/staff just lie and deny, until the media make them tell the truth.
So of course I think the media is absolutely necessary. But the media is not really free. It is governed by money: capitalism (which is not a horrible thing, mind you). People know that many of the entertainment tabloids regularly lie, but they sell copies anyway. In the end, it’s up to us as consumers to reign in the media, because it’s a business. If we don’t literally buy it, the market forces the media to change. But I worry that too many people only want an echo chamber instead of the truth.
Tillman (a95660) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:34 amI know that two wrongs don’t make a right but where was the media when Hillary sold US uranium to the Russians for $140 million contribution to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 speaking fee to Bill.
That’s why the media is a danger.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:36 am97 – If what I said somehow struck you as saying Portland is worse than Russia I give up.
Andy Dufresne had a word for it.
harkin (140d0a) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:37 amDid the media keep Obama honest?
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:37 am88 — thanks for the video. LOL
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:39 amHow did you learn about that? Genuine question.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:42 amAZ Bob, I think you need to do some fact checking on this recurring accusation that “Hillary sold US uranium to the Russians.” First off, I haven’t heard conservative congress members raising the roof about it. If there was truth to it, I think that they’d be using to that to their advantage, loud and often, right? I think that these far right accusations are taken for truth, then that outrage supports an “anything goes” attitude. But a functioning democracy can’t afford to have that attitude.
Tillman (a95660) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:46 amIt was reported way after the fact probably by FOX. The mainstream media did not make a big deal about the Hillary/Russia connection to the extent of the current Russia phobia.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:49 am*…using that to their advantage…
Tillman (a95660) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:49 amShe signed off on the sale as sec. of state. But it is clear that big money went her way.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:50 am99 — I think Tillman has hit on much of the problem here.
While the Host has been against Trump out of principle from the beginning, when Trump was laying waste to the establishment candidates of the GOP in 2015 and 2016, he was the toast of most media outlets who depend on ratings for revenue.
Their coverage of him was vis-a-vis the GOP, and everything he said or did was catnip.
It was only after it was clear that he was going to secure the nomination did the press begin making efforts to knock him down, all in aid of the cherished narrative that Hillary would be the first woman elected as President.
I go back to an interview done by Hugh Hewitt with an esteemed and long-ensconced member of the Washington press corps– I just can’t remember who it was — in the middle of the general campaign.
He asked “Of the total number of reporters covering the Clinton campaign on a daily basis, how many do you think have book deals already in place to write a post-election “tick-tock” on how the campaign unfolded.” The answer was “I can’t count them on both hands”.
The explanation was that almost every reporter covering Clinton on a day-to-day basis had not been around in 2008 when Obama had been elected as the first African-American President, and the reporters covering Clinton weren’t going to miss out on the first woman President.
So there was always a clear confirmation-bias in their reporting, which led to all the wrong assumptions about the state of the race.
Now, it simply could not be clearer that being “anti-Trump” drives viewership/readership for left-leaning media just as was the case for the second term of the Bush Presidency, so being “anti-Trump” is a financial judgment in the same way being “Pro-Trump” was financial judgment when he was working over the GOP’s favored candidates.
That’s why I don’t trust the media’s spin on the events of the day.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:55 amI grew up in Congressman John Schmitz’ district in Orange County. Schmitz was a John Birch Society member and a notorious red baiter. He viewed Nixon and Kissinger as traitors and détente as treason.
We now have President Trump being regularly coached on foreign policy by Henry Kissinger and, what do you know, red baiting is back.
Red baiting is no less reprehensible today than it was 45 years ago and, as President Nixon so ably demonstrated, it is a terrible foreign policy prescription.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:55 amI believe I first reported that development here in this post, AZ Bob. I’ll quote my post in its entirety here, since it shows that the shenanigans were reported by that great threat to Western Civilization: the New York Times.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:55 amSo the answer to the question: “where was the media when Hillary sold US uranium to the Russians for $140 million contribution to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 speaking fee to Bill” appears to be: reporting it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:57 amThe uranium deal is a problem, but its not really the problem the way conservative media has tried to lay it at Clinton’s feet.
Several US Agencies had to approve of the deal involving Uranium One, a UK investor, and the sale of control of his business to a Russian company — likely state controlled.
But all the US agencies signed off on the deal, and there was a division within the State Department that had to sign off on the deal, which they did. Clinton’s approval as SOS was simply endorsing the decision made elsewhere in the State Dept., as was required by law.
The deal should have been blocked, but I don’t think the facts support the proposition that Clinton caused this to all happen in exchange for contributions to the Clinton Foundation and Billy’s speaking fee.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:59 am57 comments to that 2015 post and not one commenter lectured me for basing a post on the reporting of the New York Times.
Not one.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:05 pmThey had no business accepting contributions and/or speaking fees when she was in a position to make decisions like that. It’s a recipe for corruption.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:08 pmTillman @105…don’t assume written words indicate thinking is going on. I fink they do more emotive type things.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:09 pmAnd I’m glad I learned about that shady stuff about Hillary Clinton from the New York Times.
And I’m glad I’m learning about shady stuff involving Trump from the New York Times.
The New York Times is quite often infuriating and full of hackery. But that does not mean its reporting is automatically untrue. Or that it constitutes a greater threat to Western civilization than a dictator who murders journalists.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:10 pmTraitor! Liar!
“But, but Obama!”
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:11 pmDamn conservative #FAKENEWS!!
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:16 pmWhere is my buddy GUS? We need his invaluable insights.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:25 pmRefreshed by the NTY article the Host has posted, most of the contributions to the Clinton foundation came from the guy SELLING controlling interest in Uranium One to the Russian company, not the Russians — with the exception of the money for Billy’s speech.
But the original NYT story is a very good one — very in-depth, and very detailed.
My question today would be, “How would the story be played today if you substituted the name “Trump” for the name “Clinton” everywhere in the story?
Why is it that this story, from April 2015, wasn’t a MAJOR subject of coverage by the news media during the 2016 campaign?
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:30 pm“Why is it that this story, from April 2015, wasn’t a MAJOR subject of coverage by the news media during the 2016 campaign?”
One answer might be “why ask why? Another might be..
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:37 pmMoar BENGHAAAAAAZZZZZZZEEEEEE hysteria wasn’t getting traction.
“So the answer to the question: “where was the media when Hillary sold US uranium to the Russians for $140 million contribution to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 speaking fee to Bill” appears to be: asleep at the wheel until six years after the first transaction when Peter Schweitzer exposed the deal in his book ‘Clinton Cash’ and the Clintons used the Times to minimize interest in the book.”
Fyp
Yeah, bravo Times, start passing out the Pulitzers bro.
harkin (536957) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:38 pm115 — yes, the Clintons should not have accepted the contributions or the speaking fees from any person or entity connected to the deal while Hillary was SOS. There was a written agreement entered into with the Obama Admin where they agreed to not do so — the Clintons simply ignored the agreement. Billy needed the private jet travel provided by his friends.
That’s a Clinton problem, not necessarily a problem with the policy or the deal produced by the policy.
As the story makes clear, several Cabinet Secretaries had to approve as members of the “Council on Foreign Investment”.
The policy was generally the product of the Obama Administration’s early efforts to fashion a better relationship with Putin and Russia during his first term. Part of the reason for doing so was to gain Russian assistance in logistical problems supplying troops in Afghanistan, and for Russian assistance in dealing with Iranian nuclear ambitions.
You could say that the Trump administration is repeating many of the same mistakes by trying to fashion closer ties with Putin and the Russians, but I would suggest looking at actions more than words is important in differentiating the two approaches.
But while the NYT was all over this story in April 2015, its critical reporting of the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s corruption pretty much disappeared when it came time to choose between Clinton and Trump.
Looking at the sheer venality of the episode with respect to the Clintons — combined with their decades-long history of embracing big donors and shaping policy to fit them — who do you think posed a bigger threat as an occupant of the Oval Office with regard to the potential for corruption, Trump Inc. or Clinton Inc.?
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:41 pm“And I’m glad I learned about that shady stuff about Hillary Clinton from the New York Times.”
So are the Clintons, you’ve been played.
harkin (536957) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:41 pm54% news media. Can we get over 80%?
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:45 pmSchweizer deserves primary credit. However, Sean Davis, no NeverTrumper, referred to a “blockbuster report in the NYT.” They followed up on that story. I’m not going to defend them as a whole but someone claimed the media was absent for this story and that is what I was responding to.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:47 pmAn olive branch extended by shipwreck is noteworthy.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:47 pmBoth.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:47 pmI think it should have been, even though you don’t seem to think it’s as big a problem as I do. And the answer is that Big Media is a pack of leftists. Duh.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 12:49 pmI think some of the aspects of the sale that make it less of a problem that meets the eye are expressed in the story.
To me — based on what is in there, and my recollection on other reading — is that there were 3 components of the holdings of Uranium One that ended up under Russian control via the deal: 1) uranium in Kazakstan, 2) uranium in South Africa, and 3) uranium in the US.
The story suggests that the real goal for the Russians was to secure control over the deposits in Kazakstan.
As for deposits in the US, the story quotes someone from the Atomic Energy Commission as pointing out that just because uranium deposits in Wyoming are owned by a Russian company, that company cannot get uranium out of the US without going through numerous levels of bureaucratic clearances, which would likely be denied. If the Russian company wanted to sell uranium ore, there are many customers for such a product in the US they could sell to.
As for the Kazak deposits, those are on Russia’s southern border, and US access to those deposits is probably no greater than Russian access to Wyoming deposits no matter who owned them.
So, I think its more likely that the deal was approved by Clinton as SOS, or the other Cabinet Officers in their official positions, as a product of Obama Administration policy of engagement with Russia, and not so much as an example of kleptocracy on the part of Hillary Clinton.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:02 pmI don’t trust volodya however like zygar I don’t think he has a grand plan, I dont thimk there will be a dynasty like the romanovs, arising from him.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:04 pm@86. How’s “Western Civilization” doing these days in Brussels, Paris, and London?
With Brussels and Paris still with us after 1,500 years and London pushing 2,000… just fine. Howzit goin’ in Detroit or Miami… or LA? When-and-if anything “USA” breaks 1,000, get back to us.
__________
Poll: Who Is a Greater Threat to Western Civilization? Russia, or the News Media?
[ ] the news media in the West
[ ] Russia
[X] ideologues
__________
Today’s Beldar The Bitter ‘Watergate, Watergate, Watergate’ Words of Wonder:
“They’re both good healthy right-wing exuberants.” – Special Counsel to the President & Watergate felon Charles Colson assuring President Nixon Watergate criminals Hunt and Liddy would not reveal cover-up due to their zealous loyalty, secret White House tapes, January 8, 1973
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:05 pmYes the entire foreign invrstment advisory board had to approvr, but she was a motivated advocate.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:06 pm“Schweizer deserves primary credit. However, Sean Davis, no NeverTrumper, referred to a “blockbuster report in the NYT.” They followed up on that story. I’m not going to defend them as a whole but someone claimed the media was absent for this story and that is what I was responding to.
You do realize that the Times even admits that their story was “built upon” information contained in an advance copy of his book right?
And you also realize this ‘blockbuster’ was published less than two weeks before the book was released right?
The Clintons saw their very shady dealing was about to be exposed and had the Times’ do what Davis may have called a ‘blockbuster’ but anyone who looks at the deals and then looks at how the Times describes them must realize this is a shill public relations move:
Here’s how hard this blockbuster hits the Clintons:
“Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation..”
Then you try: “Someone claimed the media was absent from this story”
They were……until someone wrote a book about it!
Make up all the excuses you want, you are totally wrong casting this as some sort of journalistic excellence. It was purely political and even after having it explained to you, you go into contortions refusing to own it.
harkin (536957) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:06 pmCompare that with the previous assuange realted rollouts, manning and then snowden, the panama papers were similar but the wrong people got caught in the
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:10 pmnet.
Some books are ignored. This one was not. I was told the media ignored the story. It did not.
I am not saying the story was covered to the extent that coverage was deserved. I believe it deserved more.
But for someone to say the media was absent is just false.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:20 pmUp to 55%. Surely we can break 80%, guys.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:21 pmDCSCA,
A pragmatic approach to politics that is divorced from ideology, principles and values has no purpose beyond the whims of whoever is in power. It is government by leaders like Trump, who could care less what history and tradition teach, and changes course with each new day.
Pragmatism is a ship with a sail but no rudder.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:23 pmWould I like for the NYT not to have waited for Schweizer? Of course!
Do I think their failure to break the story is evidence that they are leftists and incompetent? Yeah, I do.
Do I think they are a greater danger to Western Civilization than Russia? No, I don’t.
Sorry not sorry.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:25 pmDennis Prager is right i decided
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:42 pmThis poll is of no particular import to me. His frustration is too “trumpkin-like” for you to not respond by twisting it with your own bias. Nothing “wrong” with that; we all have bias. But the dishonesty you employ next, bothers me. It is an all-too-common trick.
Prager says “pose a far greater danger to” which you forge into “there’s a threat to.” Thus begins the Pledge.
Then you further your false witness by accusing him of a dangerous “proposal” that calls for an “elimination” which you, yourself, fashioned from whole cloth. Your dark trick is to turn his words, “news media” (the corrupted institution) into an “it” (the misdirection) and then (“hocus-pocus!”) into your words, “journalists” (people! eleventy!). What a Turn! You have successfully made his position disappear!
Finally, for the Prestige, you pair “eliminating” and “journalists” with “do you admire that?” Bringing back from nowhere, for him, a new and defenseless position. Such dishonesty. But, hey, it’s just a trick, because “this is where
felipe (023cc9) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:46 pmI amwe are.”Although claimants deem they don’t wish for the demise of media, there, like Obama care, are many objections without strategic solutions to the NATIONAL WELFARE guarantee by the Founders. The Party of ‘NO!’ and the devolutionary Whigs and Know Nothings of this century are poised on doubling down the idiocy.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:48 pmI voted for “media” because the rot starts from within.
felipe (023cc9) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:49 pmThe greatest threat to Western Civilization is Western Civilization. As it always has been. Both Russia and the Press are part of that civilization.
The West does not conquer — it assimilates. Even the people who hate us use our culture to further their hate. ISIS has a web site.
But in our openness and our willingness to wait out the threat (e.g. the Soviet Union) we are vulnerable. There is always the danger that our enemies will find a way to subvert us to their cause before their grandchildren are part of our side.
Kevin M (752a26) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:49 pmThe Western media is a greater threat to our civilization than post-Soviet Russia, however neither is an imminent threat, and the Media can be delt with by giving them the ridicule and contempt they are courting, and allowing them to go down in flames. In my (off the cuff) opinion, they have reached a point where they are doing more damage to themselves than they are to the processes of Representative Democracy.
C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:50 pmOf course healthcare is off topic with myopic leadership extant, but all roads lead to Rome just as they do Iraq.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:51 pmI require only one word to refute this: Beatles.
felipe (023cc9) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:53 pmHaving said that, it is NOT the “press” that is the danger, it is a Fifth Column of like-minded radicals that has seized control of the legacy press. But just as the solution to bad speech is better speech, the power of the legacy press is diminished by better press in other forms.
The internet was designed, in part, to route around failures (such as censorship) and the freedom the Press enjoys makes the alt-press impossible to control.
Kevin M (752a26) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:53 pmI require only one word to refute this: Beatles.
I must be dense today because I am going to require more words.
Kevin M (752a26) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:55 pm140 – “Would I like for the NYT not to have waited for Schweizer? Of course!”
Waited??? Dood – the entire reason for the timing of story was to GET AHEAD OF the book and control the narrative. What little time spent by the media discussing this story could then completely ignore the book and refer to the Times fluff piece. They would have “waited” another ten years if the Clintons weren’t about to be exposed. Please one last time try to understand. The Times was basically acting as a propaganda arm of Clinton Incorporated – that’s not journalism P.
“Do I think their failure to break the story is evidence that they are leftists and incompetent? Yeah, I do.”
This I don’t understand at all so I’ll pass.
“Do I think they are a greater danger to Western Civilization than Russia? No, I don’t.”
The only thing I’m arguing here is your premise that the NYTimes was fulfilling some sort of balanced journalistic calling in relation to the Clinton uranium story ( you framed it as they report on Trump, they also report blockbusters on Clinton) that’s it. Please keep straw man arguments out of your replies to me. I never argued this and for someone who continually complains about being misrepresented, it’s worse than silly.
“Sorry not sorry.”
No reason to be sorry until you realize you’re wrong.
harkin (536957) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:56 pm“The West does not conquer — it assimilates”
Well stated and directly correlates with this topic. Many, including myself were skeptical of the packaging of the Trump specimen, but applauded the hope for archetypal change. Unfortunately we were duped by yet another example of unworthy comment.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:57 pmI think that the Russian threat is far easier to mitigate. When we confront, subvert, co-op etc Russia, no one claims we are violating and tearing at the basic fabric of the constitution.
Russia does not get a free pass, but the media does.
One could argue that the media is what is making Russia stronger right now. Russia’s little bit of meddling has paid off way better than Russia ever expected due to the way the media is whipping the Russian agenda into a frenzy. Also, you could say that Russia is much less of a threat than the media is currently making it out to be.
I’d say Islamists are the most obvious and vocal threat to the western way of life, the North Koreans 2nd, the Chinese are 3rd, the Iranians 4th and then the 5th place US media and then the Russians in 6th
The US has attacked Russian stooge Assad and even sent troops into Syria and warned Russia, Syria, and Iran not to interfere. Russia is not a power the US government seems to fear, and Russia does not have enough clout to tell us to mind our own business and get out of Syria.
steveg (e8c34d) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:58 pmThe American government is subservient to the press though
DRJ, I don’t think you can conclude from what DCSCA was saying that he is advocating no principles or ignoring history or tradition. Failing to bow down to the dogma of either party doesn’t make one “rudderless.” Surely we have other sources for our morals.
Tillman (a95660) — 7/15/2017 @ 1:58 pmThis is the whole topic of the post, harkin. It’s not a strawman. It’s my repeating the thesis of my post and the consistent view of the topic of the post.
You’d do well to try to understand the thing you said you didn’t understand. It’s written in clear English and I’m agreeing with you. I’ll say it again in almost the same words: the fact that the NYT did not break this story earlier is evidence that they are leftists and incompetent. If they really cared to break such stories they could have and should have done so earlier and not waited until they knew Schweitzer was about to.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:05 pmThey had no business accepting contributions and/or speaking fees when she was in a position to make decisions like that. It’s a recipe for corruption.
That is a problem, I have to admit. But I’ve been an advocate for trying to get money out of politics for most of my life. This highlights one more reason to prevent it.
These days, I think people just laugh at any mention of “Campaign Finance Reform.” How depressing, because in my view, money’s influence makes our country the joke in the end.
“We have the best Congress that money can buy!”
Tillman (a95660) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:08 pmI framed it as someone said the news media was absent from the story and it was broken on FOX and I was correcting them. Go back and re-read the thread.
Nor have I claimed they are balanced. For a guy who claims to be against strawmen and misrepresentation, you’re ignoring (or not interested in understanding) an AWFUL lot of criticism I have leveled at the NYT in this comment section. I think it’s because you have me pegged, incorrectly, as a media lover — and so when I say things inconsistent with that you just breeze past them or say you don’t understand them.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:08 pmSome comments by me about the media and the NYT in this thread:
“I do not consider the news media to be a force for good when it comes to these values.”
“Which is not to say the media is hunky dory. I have criticized the media for years right here on this site.”
“The New York Times is quite often infuriating and full of hackery.”
“I’m not going to defend them as a whole but someone claimed the media was absent for this story and that is what I was responding to.”
“Do I think their failure to break the story is evidence that they are leftists and incompetent? Yeah, I do.”
Interpretation of these comments by harkin:
“your premise that the NYTimes was fulfilling some sort of balanced journalistic calling”
Why bother writing things. They just get ignored. You have your narrative and that is more important than what I actually say.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:13 pmYou are not at all dense, maybe a little obtuse at times (like myself), but not dense, sir.
Just a quick, if curious example
felipe (023cc9) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:14 pmI voted with Prager. Let me give you an analogy: Which is a great threat to black empowerment, soft racism or hard racism? Personally, I think that soft racism is a far great threat because it is comes from people who pass themselves off as “allies”. For the same reason, I think the mainstream media is a far greater threat. One of Dennis Prager’s most trenchant observations is that indoctrination is not exclusive to totalitarian societies. This is why you should never underestimate the destructive power of a media driven more by narrative than by truth.
Tony (ff2fe4) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:16 pmThis choice is like betting on whether the termites eating your house will cause it to collapse or if the ancient, dying oak tree that hangs over it will fall down and crush it first.
windbag (bd5244) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:18 pmIt is unfair for someone to say the media was absent from a story, and then when I say no it was first reported in the NYT, and so even though I don’t like the NYT that claim is wrong, and to use my response to suggest that I think the NYT is all balanced and wonderful.
If someone said Hitler killed 150 million people and I said I hate Hitler but the number was lower, that would not mean I love Hitler.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:21 pmI think the Indians of North and South America would tell you they were conquered, not assimilated.
Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:21 pmYou know, my routine of staying out of my comment section worked better. See you at the Jury. I’ll respond here to people who don’t misrepresent me, if I respond to anyone.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:22 pm@139. =yawn=
@154. Precisely. Zealous ideologues are on the defensive these days as they’re blind devotion to a raison d’etre hit the berg and sank their dreams. Pragmatism is in; ideologues are out.
“But… She can’t sink. She’s unsinkable!” – Captain E.J. Smith [Laurence Naismith] ‘A Night To Remember’ 1958
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:22 pm59% news media and counting.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:23 pmWhat was the follow up, the campaign for an independent investigation.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:25 pmI didn’t say anything about bowing down to party dogma, Tillman. My point is that pragmatism needs values to work.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:25 pmBeaster…
“A new filing with the Federal Election Commission shows that President Trump’s reelection campaign paid $50,000 to the law offices of Alan Futerfas on June 26. That was around the time, Yahoo News reports, that the president’s legal team learned of a June 2016 email exchange in which Trump Jr., through an associate, solicited damaging information about 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton.
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When the New York Times revealed the email, and the meeting it set up, last week, Trump Jr. hired Futerfas, who is best known for representing four of New York’s major Italian mob families. The announcement of the hire came not from the Trump campaign but from the president’s company, where Trump Jr. remains a trustee.
Trump Jr. does not yet face any official allegations of legal wrongdoing, but he and the White House have scrambled to contain the political fallout from the controversy.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:26 pmThe first son has offered numerous explanations—most of them contradicted by subsequent developments—for the meeting with the Russian lawyers, whom Trump’s friend told him were representatives of the Russian government and providing information to the campaign as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to support Trump’s candidacy.
It was not immediately clear whether the campaign expenditure was renumeration for Futerfas’s representation of Trump’s son, on Russia-related or other matters. But the payment sticks out on a presidential campaign’s expenditure list: Futerfas’s expertise is in white collar criminal defense, not political and election law.
The Trump campaign’s FEC filing shows significant expenditures on legal representation as it wades through scrutiny involving alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. As part of that investigation, the FBI is examining whether the Trump campaign guided Russian disinformation efforts aimed at key voting precincts.”
Tony (ff2fe4) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:16 pm
That is a good example.
Well, I am off to worship God, see you guys later. Colonel, if you are lurking, “HI and good health to you, sir!”
felipe (023cc9) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:27 pmhttp://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jeffrey-
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:35 pmLord/2017/07/15/fevered-insanity-medias-lselective-outrag
what is it precisely we suppose to worry the russians are gonna do on us
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:47 pmthey already got all our uraniums (thanks a lot stinkypig)
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:48 pmThe greater threat belongs to an opponent willing to unleash their arsenal upon me. I believe Russia, and Putin, to be sane. I do not believe they would launch on us without first being directly attacked by us.
The Progressives, led first by the Academics, and now by the media writ large, have rotted our very foundations and continue to have at it. They are veritable termites. It matters not, in the end, how my house falls. It falls either way. As I see it, my (our) house will fall, and relatively soon, without Russia firing a single shot in anger directly at us.
In terms of the lethality of the weaponry? Of course Russia is a greater threat. But, again, it’s about willingness to fire. We are at war NOW with the media and their Progressive leaders. Russia and USA are not.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:58 pmHappy feet and narciso represent the Evangelical Wing.
How old is Earth?
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 2:59 pm64 bit decryption won’t crack that code..lol.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:01 pmApologies. I should have said the greatest threat of all is the one you do not even see. Given the decades of intentional dumbing down in our government schools and the refusal of so many parents to insist that their children be made to think critically, the termites and the damage already wrought are not seen/understood by a massive portion (I believe a majority, now).
I cannot more highly recommend Sharyl Attkisson’s new book, Smear, if you care to learn just how thorough/complete the ongoing damage is.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:06 pmI say neither because they can both be brought to heel by responsive monetary decision-making by indiduals in the press’ case and by the common weal in Russia’s.
At everyday street level, I worry less about ISIS than Isaiah or Isidro. This is a different equation across the pond.
urbanleftbehind (104c51) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:14 pmPat @53 – A good place to start as such an indicator is just how badly we have failed to “keep our republic” as Franklin challenged.
We, and the West generally, have demonstrated more and more over time that we value easier and softer “solutions” to issues and eschew the difficult decisions requiring personal responsibilities informed by a fierce insistence on liberty. Stability with less rancor and thinking (it’s so hard!) is now valued by at least half of voters above restricting the government from grabbing our Bill of Rights from us.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:14 pmEd from SFV,
Good points one and all.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:18 pmIt’s becoming a self-fufilling prophecy. All anyone from the left needs to do sis go on one of their sites, post that you have a poll up and they’ll flock here to demoralize you.
The comments are much more representative of the feelings of your visitors and there are many good expressions on here as to why people feel as they do.
NJRob (b2d799) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:19 pmBen burn,
Your obnoxious leftiat trolling is already tiresome.
But I’m sure you knew that.
NJRob (b2d799) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:23 pmHappy feet and narciso represent the Evangelical Wing.
You obviously have never seen happyfeet’s complaints regarding the lifeydoodles and their obsession with fetuses.
kishnevi (125429) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:26 pm“Tiresome ”
Funnily, I find the challenge of punching through the Galtright crust very exhilarating. Looking forward to more from you nutjob.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:30 pmThe comments suggest to me that upwards of 80% of commenters would vote “news media.”
That does not make me happy.
The fact that partisans can come up with rationales for such an absurd conclusion does not make me happy either.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:31 pm64 bit encryption fail…sorry kish.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:31 pmthe earth is very big
it is divided into two sections, north earth and south earth
the most permanently-inhabited place in north earth is called alert, canada, but it is not a town per se
if you wanna go to the northest town in north earth you have to go to a town on Norway named Longyearbyen (fun fact the word “Norway” comes from an old word in english what means “way leading to the north” which as you can see is very true in many respects)
Longyearbyen is a town with very few or any trees as you can see.
One of the entertainments enjoyed by the residents of Longyearbyen is going to the movies. Transformers: Something Blah Blah opens there tomorrow, and the people in the village are reportedly very excited.
Here is a picture of the building in which the villagers will gather to see the tale unfold about robots that sometimes look like other things (cars, trucks, sports cars, and other surprising car-like things).
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:38 pmI suppose part of the disconnect is that we are using differing analyses of what an enemy is. GWB, near the start of his presidency, described China as a strategic competitor. This was an obvious repudiation of Clinton’s vies of China as a strategic partner.
But, Bush did not call China an enemy. I think his phrase was apt at the time and remains apt today. It is also a good description of Russia.
Wha are our enemies? I would put ISIS, North Korea and Iran in that category. That is, I tink all of the are willing and able to attack us with force. I think China and Russia both have reasons to avoid doing that.
As to the news media. They are trying to overturn the election and bring down our president by colluding with elements of our own government bureaucracy and certain political entities, using falsified intelligence. They really are a threat to our way of life.
Anon Y. Mous (6cc438) — 7/15/2017 @ 3:57 pmht ben, try not plagiarize corey robin too often,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:30 pmwhy I call it te basilisk
https://twitter.com/ryanmauro/status/886039751039619072
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:32 pmPredictable troll is predictable.
News at 11.
NJRob (b2d799) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:32 pmThe comments here explain why they do so. If you don’t agree with them that’s one thing. But for you to dismiss that rationale and call it absurd is disappointing.
NJRob (b2d799) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:34 pmI may not like Trump’s style or lack thereof. I don’t like seeing his family involved in the Oval Office either.
Did he understand the principles in his pro-West speech? I don’t know but at least he was on the right side. Obama’s first foreign tour was to trash the US. It was called the Apology Tour.
I will judge Trump on his deeds. So far he has made good appointments and is trying to turn back Obama’s left-wing over-reach of government regulation. He will have plenty of opportunity to screw up policy so it is too soon to grade him on it.
I see it was pointed out that the NY Times did report the Hillary uranium deal. This does not show the NYT to be bias free. Abu Ghraib was on the front page of the NY Times some 30 plus days in a row as a means of going after Bush. The same thing is happening with the Russia collusion trope. I understand CNN has devoted 94 percent of its air time to Russia collusion.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:43 pmwhat have we here:
https://twitter.com/alimhaider/status/886228025574121473
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:44 pmNeither Russia nor the media are a threat to western civ.
The current stupid and vile media are a symptom of our malaise, not a cause of it. If our moronic citizens didn’t follow the moronic media, the media would not be what the are.
Russia is not now and never really was a threat to much. Mostly bluff and the worlds greatest disinformation machine.
Fred Z (56a150) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:48 pm“Abu Ghraib was on the front page of the NY Times some 30 plus days in a row as a means of going after Bush.”
And then he was re-elected. I find it difficult to attach “greater danger” to Rosneft’s political arm or to the hapless buffoons who came up with the “strategy” of tirelessly promoting a clown in the sure and certain belief he was sure to be beaten by their completely hapless basilisk.
I’m torn between choosing the EU or China as the greater danger, Russia and the propaganda organs just don’t make it close to the final pairing.
Rick Ballard (264a24) — 7/15/2017 @ 4:57 pm@177. I should have said the greatest threat of all is the one you do not even see. Given the decades of intentional dumbing down in our government schools and the refusal of so many parents to insist that their children be made to think critically, the termites and the damage already wrought are not seen/understood by a massive portion (I believe a majority, now).
So given resources and opportunity, where would you rather raise and/or school your kids: Paris, Texas– or Paris, France; will louvre-it to you to decide.
“Brother, if you can’t paint in Paris, you better give up and marry the boss’s daughter.” – Jerry Mulligan [Gene Kelly] ‘An American In Paris’ 1951
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:01 pmyes, rick but snake venom is still toxic, it encouraged the koachi bros, among many, although le sante or Fleury’s is likely as proximate a cause for recent events
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:02 pmthe earth is very big
it is divided into two sections, north earth and south earth
the most permanently-inhabited place in north earth is called alert, canada, but it is not a town per se
if you wanna go to the northest town in north earth you have to go to a town on Norway named Longyearbyen (fun fact the word “Norway” comes from an old word in english what means “way leading to the north” which as you can see is very true in many respects)
Longyearbyen is a town with very few or any trees as you can see.
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:02 pmOne of the entertainments enjoyed by the residents of Longyearbyen is going to the movies. Transformers: Something Blah Blah opens there tomorrow, and the people in the village are reportedly very excited.
Here is a picture of the building in which the villagers will gather to see the tale unfold about robots that sometimes look like other things (cars, trucks, sports cars, and other surprising car-like things).
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:03 pmParis, Texas and it’s not close.
NJRob (b2d799) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:04 pmDo you want to “eliminate Russia”?
PaoloP (84502a) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:06 pmYou should realize that your question is badly conceived.
Alas, we were offered only the pairing of news media ans Russia. I agree that those two would not make my final pair either. Off the cuff I would consider, as a pair to consider, Islamic jihad and Gay marriage. It will be a movement, not a Country that destroys our nation.
felipe (023cc9) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:06 pmhere is a video, quite well done, that shows you a bit more of what life is like in the northiest town in north earth, Longyearbyen
i’m told nobody there locks their doors, and the reason is because everyone needs to know that a door they approach will be open to them, for in case they’re being chased by a hungry polar bear!
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:14 pmRussia can hurt us badly, but only at the expence of overwhelming damage in return. Russia’s leaders know that, and since they love their families and their country they will likely continue to poke and prod around the margins as opportunity permits, but they won’t risk mutually assured destruction. It just isn’t in their national interest.
However the established US media has no such similar restraints. Members of today’s MSM may love their families, but they sure don’t love America, or at least the America governed by elected leaders.
Given the opportunity to subvert the election of Donald Trump, that is, reject the will of American voters, is there anyone reading these words who would bet their house MSM (or Congressional Democrats) could step up to the legitimate demands of citizenship to uphold the most bedrock principle of elective government?
MMS has the potential to destroy America, Russia – not so much.
ropelight (a7d89c) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:21 pmThe comparison is Prager’s. Go complain to him.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:26 pm@198. the earth is very big
Except it’s not. And if this doesn’t put the world in perspective for you nothing ever will.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21445
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:28 pmI think the Indians of North and South America would tell you they were conquered, not assimilated.
They were BEING assimilated, but other factors came into play. I stated a general principle, not an absolute. The issues of ISIS and al qaeda are that Muslim culture is being subsumed by the West, and they want it to stop. They will fail.
Kevin M (752a26) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:48 pm@200. Paris, Texas and it’s not close.
Actually it’s roughly 5,000 miles but in your case it might as well be city-of-light-years.
“Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.” – Judge Smails [Ted Knight] ‘Caddyshack’ 1980
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:52 pmI like interesting writing, which carlos slims and Bezos seems incapable of, the journal can still provide, but in largely decreasing proportions,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 5:56 pmthis is a ray shielded link to a rolling stone piece, the bullet points are in the main piece:
http://www.latintimes.com/who-el-mencho-20-things-know-about-jalisco-new-generation-cartel-drug-kingpin-420332
so like abbaoud, the bataclan manager, he is in the west but not of it,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 6:01 pmWriting, to be interesting must be understandable. Effective communication must be clear and unambiguous, otherwise why bother?
ropelight (a7d89c) — 7/15/2017 @ 6:02 pmnow this is not an unfamiliar trope,
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/07/the-sins-of-fathers-and-grandfathers.php
but would w be held accountable for certain german investments his grandfather was involved in,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 6:15 pmstranger things have happened,
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/14/exclusive-doubt-surfaces-about-suicide-claim-of-clinton-investigator/?utm_source=site-share
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 6:16 pmDennis Prager: an ideologue whine; bitter dregs.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/15/2017 @ 6:54 pmyou were saying:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2017/07/if-you-spend-lot-of-time-in-harsh.html
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 7:23 pmthe author was referenced in a journal piece this weekend,
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2017/07/russians-say-us-press-is-making-putin.html
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 7:29 pm“ I think it’s because you have me pegged, incorrectly, as a media lover — and so when I say things inconsistent with that you just breeze past them or say you don’t understand them.”
No, I have you pegged as someone who takes Prager’s comment that the news media is dangerous as meaning Prager wants to eliminate the news media…….I mean who could think that?
And how could I ever think you were implying some sort of balance on the part of the Times when you say this:
“And I’m glad I learned about that shady stuff about Hillary Clinton from the New York Times.
And I’m glad I’m learning about shady stuff involving Trump from the New York Times.”
I pointed out numerous times that the very Times piece you were praising as a blockbuster and some sort of proof they were performing journalism (you wrote “whoops!” like it was a huge gotcha that the Times was hot on the Clinton’s trail) was in reality a hack propaganda piece six years after the fact to deflect attention from a new book exposing the Clintons. You still refuse to own it.
harkin (140d0a) — 7/15/2017 @ 7:40 pmLastly, this entire thread is built around a poll based on this (your words):
“Anyway, I thought I would run a poll based on Prager’s question”
I’ve looked at the original post again and again and I can find no question from Prager nor a link to any question from Prager.
This is just one more thing I do not understand.
harkin (140d0a) — 7/15/2017 @ 7:50 pmYes, the Russians have a lot of scary bombs and, on occasion, they execute a journalist. In the 70 years they have possessed those bombs they have never been used because of MAD. What does that track record tell us? If anything, Russia today is less of a threat than it has ever been. As Russian spending on the military collapses right along with its fuel export-driven economy, Putin has taken up the slack by ratcheting up his scariness. Fear of Putin’s bravado is at an all-time high.
Here’s a summary of the economic realities Mr. Putin has to deal with on a daily basis:
“Russia’s economy registered the steepest contraction since 2009 last year as a combination of external factors—such as a plunge in oil prices and international sanctions—coupled with structural weaknesses took a heavy toll on growth. The economy contracted 3.7% in the full year 2015, which contrasted the meagre growth registered in the previous year. However, the contraction in the Russian economy in the second quarter of 20167 was the slowest since the recession began in late 2014. Comprehensive data showed that GDP contracted 0.6% annually in Q2, which came in above the 1.2% decrease recorded in Q1. Although industrial production shrank in September, falling at the fastest pace seen in 8 months, it is expected to expand slightly in 2016 after suffering the worst contraction in six years in 2015.
In August of 2015, Russian exports amounted to USD 25.0 billion, which marked a 39.7% contraction in annual terms. This marked the 10th consecutive contraction at a double-digit rate. Imports totaled USD 16.5 billion, which marked a 34.7% year-on-year contraction.
Low oil prices and sanctions shocks to the Russian economy resulted in the ruble losing 46% of its value against the U.S. dollar in 2014, prompting policies from the Bank Rossii aimed at stabilizing the financial system. Bank Rossii raised its key interest rate in December 2014 by 650 basis points to a lofty 17% to curb runaway inflation caused by the weakened ruble (core inflation reached 11.2% in December 2014, year-on-year). Bank Rossii spent USD 27.2 billion in October 2014 and USD 11.9 billion in December of the same year on interventions to support the ruble.
Low oil prices and a collapse in domestic demand and imports as the economy fell into recession decimated fiscal revenues in 2015. In fact, the impact of low oil prices on Russia’s fiscal revenues raised questions about the country’s long-term economic prospects as well as fiscal sustainability. With the decline of energy prices and the Russian government’s dependence on energy revenues to fund its budget—revenues from oil and natural gas represented around 52% of the Russian budget—forced the Russian government to rethink its fiscal policy. The Finance Ministry announced in early September 2015 that it had decided to suspend the fiscal rule—a law designed to limit government spending.”
For a little further reading on the great and growing problems confronting Putin at home, I’d recommend this.
Not so scary, huh?
But, of course, that’s how Red Baiting has always worked.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/15/2017 @ 7:54 pmnevertrump and their democrat friends have to build Putin up so they can tear the president down
guess it’s a binary choice after all
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:01 pmTo think, I used to be a binary choice denier.
ThOR (30a1a2) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:32 pmRomney issued this warning about Russia:
The link quotes 6 liberals — Obama, Hillary, Biden, Kerry and MSNBC anchors Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow — who mocked Romney for his views on Russia. Now Trump supporters sound just like the liberals they fear the most.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 8:52 pmromney lol
only a debased obamacare-inventing harvardtrash pervert like mitt romney would fail to recognize that failmerica’s number one geopolitical foe is her own parlous finances
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:05 pmRomney was just building Putin up so he could tear the president down, DRJ!
That’s what Democrats said about Romney supporters then, and Trump supporters say something similar about me now. That my concerns about Putin are not sincere. They’re just a way to tear poor Mr. Trump down.
This is where my commentariat is. They do not give me credit for sincere opinions any more.
I am out.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:05 pm222. DRJ, I think that two things are being conflated on the Russian front there. I think that Republicans do worry about Russia’s military might more than Democrats. But what Democrats are worried about now has nothing to do with their military per se, except the espionage part of it. So it’s not inconsistent to worry about one and not the other. Democrats don’t want Russia running the show over here. A few years ago, the possibility of Russia interfering with out elections and our politics in general would have been unthinkable. This is all new territory and completely different from what we normally think of as a military threat.
Tillman (a95660) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:06 pmObama slashed the military, made,nice with the Castro bros did the best to curtail fracking, gave nashir a free pass.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:07 pmI’ll leave you with this.
I will check in at the Jury.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:08 pmoh my goodness i don’t think you should personalize this so much Mr. P
President Trump has been very disruptive we’re all trying to find our footing in this strange and wonderful new America that beyond all reasoning or explanation slipped the surly bonds of stinkypig to touch the face of something AMAZING
a truly American president
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:11 pmYes, not a nice guy, European press is more concerned over one bogus assault claim as opposed to the thousand assaults in koln the generation of attacks in rotherdan
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:11 pmI think Patterico is saying goodbye. I don’t know if it’s for the weekend or for longer, but I think longer. It’s what the Trump supporters want but I wouldn’t blame him for giving up on them.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:12 pmNo ,just from this comment thread.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:13 pmThey do not give me credit for sincere opinions any more.
I think you’re taking their resistance too personally Patterico. It’s not personal, it’s just partisan. You happen to be standing in their way, so your integrity is not even a factor.
Tillman (a95660) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:16 pmBut something does have to change.
I will have to think about that.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:16 pmEven Michael Mann found the vApors a little strong:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/07/antarctic-ice-shelf-break-plunges-media-into-another-climate-alarm-cycle/
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:20 pmwell then it’s not really fair to do comments if you can’t comment back
but when i draw a circle what says here are journalisms what Putin killed
and i draw a circle what says here is Mr. Trump gamely striding forth in his fledgling presidency and negotiating what success he can in the face of such unprecedented animosity and deceit from so many spiteful people and corrupt institutions, most of whom have one eye on naught but their own rice bowls
these are not overlapping circles
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:29 pmThis Hugh Hewitt interview has information from a member of Congress that would make almost everyone here happy.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:32 pmI would say go home your drunk, Andrea, but I don’t think it would make a difference:
https://mobile.twitter.com/mitchellreports/status/886397296442839040
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:33 pmHere is an excerpt from that Hugh Hewitt interview:
So Trump has Obama people on his NSA staff? They may be the leakers and if so, they should be punished … but they shouldn’t even be there. If this is true, then this is Trump’s fault.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:39 pmNumber one geopolitical foe. Very different from the question being asked.
I for one think China holds that position, but reasonable minds can differ.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:39 pmFor those who missed it, the collapse in oil prices came after Romney’s comment.
ThOR (30a1a2) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:39 pmWhy McMaster doesn’t seem to mind, in fact pushing out yet another program staffer seems to be his bag, through the abuse of security clearance getting.
http://romesentinel.com/editorials/the-impending-social-studies-fiasco/QBqohk!SjMTMTVdyhAClYNuXJT6bQ/
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:41 pmCrude oil prices peaked in 2012 because of supply and demand. It had nothing to do with Romney.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:44 pmIn point of fact you can’t get them to tell the truth? Except possibly with hot coals
https://m.mic.com/articles/181938/former-nsc-senior-director-on-trump-jr-emails-its-worse-than-it-looks#.t3mzEsCAg
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:45 pmYou miss my point. Romney’s comments came at the peak of the market, when Russia was at its relative economic strongest. That is ancient history today.
ThOR (30a1a2) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:52 pmMoving bannon out of the principals committee was clearly a,mistake.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:54 pmAndrea Mitchell tweeted the wrong war but it was also 100 years ago in April, not July. Easy mistake to make, though, since she covers Trump. He tweeted the same thing 3 days ago.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:56 pmWell, my family is doing its part to maintain Western civilization. Just got back from the wedding of one of my nieces. Big Fat Greek Wedding? Try 4XL Big Fat Greek Wedding. 16 bridesmaids with 16 attendant groomsmen. Over 400 guests. The hors d’ouvres included grilled lamb chops (I presume for vegetarians). Entree was filet mignon, with really big shrimp, asparagus and a strange kind of mashed potato. Music, of course. Lots and lots of music and dancing.
nk (dbc370) — 7/15/2017 @ 9:57 pmLow oil prices make Russia weaker but, paradoxically, more aggressive and thus more dangerous — like a wounded bear. Putin needs to appear strong in foreign affairs to take the focus away from the pain at home.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:05 pmGreek weddings may be the best in the world. True joy.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:06 pmMashed parsnips, perhaps? They are the trendy vegetable in some places.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 10:12 pmI have read this site for many years. I rarely comment. But the tone here the last year has made me read less and less. And this whole article is a perfect example.
I get it you don’t like Trump. But frankly it seems that you have decided to come out guns blazing on any one who ever defends him, or against any information that could possibly aid him. Trump is a somewhat corrupt idiot who occasionally does things I like (ex. Gorsuch). Which for better or worse is more than I would expect under a Clinton presidency.
I cant speak for Dennis Prager. I rarely read anything written by him. But to me it seems you are going out of your way to either misrepresent his point. Or are being willfully ignorant as to his meaning.
Russia is without question a military, geopolitical, and economic threat. #1 or two overall depending on how you view China’s strengths. I don’t think most now would disagree with that point. (although the media did its best do ridicule that when Romney pointed it out).
But to think that the media isnt a massive threat to the stability of the country is just absurd. In a democratic republic such as ours. Information is a one of most important commodities . The media has been going out of its way to distort public perceptions on a ridiculous scale since the election of GWB. It has only become worse as events have trended away from the progressive viewpoint. It has run amok with biased coverage. Regularly covering up or massively downplaying events for some (Obama) and overplaying their stories for others (Bush,Trump).
In my opinion the media has become so distorted it warps the average persons ability to perceive relevant information and distorts history. And minus those traits it becomes harder and harder to hold the republic together. You cant properly evaluate or fight an enemy when you do not even have basic information presented in a way in which you can fairly understand the threat. In this case with both Russia and Islam we are our own worst enemy. It doesn’t really matter if you or I can perceive when we are being deceived. But the average news consumer who isnt spending hours on the internet looking into things most likely is deceived. And it affects who gets to make those choices and who what direction they will take once elected.
So flame me all you wish but I believe the media is the greater existential threat. Because it so grossly distorts what is and is not a threat.
On a similar note your tweet of “Because Russia is really good at eliminating journalists. Do you admire that?”. Frankly is absurd on its face. It is a perfect example of the change of tone I noted above and why I read your site less and less. It was an extremely cheap shot. On a level I never would have believed you would go to just 2 years ago. Prager’s tweet did not deserve that level of disdain and you seem to be attacking him simply because of your dislike for Trump. Dislike of all things Bush pushed the author of another blog you may remember (Little Green Footballs) to the point of self parody. I really hope you take a step back begin to realize that just maybe you may have taken a few steps over the line.
Mythx (d25e30) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:14 pmPrager said:
Those were Prager’s words, not Patterico’s. And Trump wasn’t even mentioned by either of them, so maybe you are the one who is obsessed with Trump.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:29 pmIt’s fair to believe the media is a greater danger. That’s opinion and we all get our own opinions. You do, Prager does, and Patterico does. We also get to test and question why and how people reach their decisions.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/15/2017 @ 11:32 pmDRJ,
First of all I never quoted Prager’s tweet. I believe its a greater danger. Prager said its a “far” greater danger. If that is the point you wish to hang your hat on so be it.
As for my alleged obsession. I very rarely comment here or anywhere. I feel no need to defend the man. Or go out of my way to attack him. I was simply pointing out as a long time reader my general impression of how Patterico’s posts have trended since Trump became a player on the scene. I believe that its a fair point that we can disagree on the issue. And not need grossly distort Prager’s argument. Nothing I have ever seen on the man would lead me to believe that he advocated for the murder of journalists. And that Patterico devalues any good argument he may have had with that kind of tweet.
Saying that he is testing the question is a cop out. I would be like me asking “Since you disagree with Trump you advocate for his assassination?” Its simply something I would never have expected from the man. I believe we can discuss the point without going full scorched earth.
Mythx (d25e30) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:04 am#64 – Patterico. Re Self-governance. It that true anymore?
In California, today we have 80 Assembly members (fixed in 1854, state population then 207,556, persons per districts 2,594) and 40 State Senators (fixed 1862, state population then 416,045, person per districts 10,401). With the population in California today now approaching 40,000,000, the 80 Assembly districts are 490,699 persons and the 40 Senate districts are 981,397.
In 1862, California had a total of about 60 judges in the state. Today the are about 2,200judges (including court commissioners). Today 120 legislators (80 Assembly = 40 Senators) compared to 2,200 judges = 1 legislator to 18+ judges. If you just single out Assembly members, its 1 Assembly member to 27+ judges.
In 1911 the House of Representatives was fixed at 435, with a population of less than 105,710,620, and an average of House district size of less than 243,013 people. Today the population of the over 322,762,018 and an average House district size of 741,982 people.
Today there are 874 Article III federal judges. 874 fed judges to 435 reps = 2 to 1.
In pertinent part, Federalist No. 49 states: “…The members of the executive and judiciary departments are few in number, and can be personally known to a small part only of the people. The latter, by the mode of their appointment, as well as by the nature and permanency of it, are too far removed from the people to share much in their prepossessions. … The members of the legislative department, on the other hand, are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. The nature of their public trust implies a personal influence among the people, and that they are more immediately the confidential guardians of the rights and liberties of the people. …”
Have you heard that from the media? The Dem party? The Repub party? Academia? So much for self- governance. See http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ . GLZ.
Gary L. Zerman (ab669e) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:53 amI guess the Pen is mightier than the sword.
mg (31009b) — 7/16/2017 @ 3:19 amShe worked in part in the Soviet union in the bad old days, prosecuting nazis
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/07/the_russian_collusion_story_the_acme_of_fake_news.html
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:46 amGary, that would expose the game, show how rotten some boroughs are….on the other hand if you increased the # of reps BUT froze the total for salaries, it would go a long way toward encouraging only private-enterprise self sufficient people to apply.
If any of you saw HF in scrubs this week:
urbanleftbehind (77ae08) — 7/16/2017 @ 6:27 amhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/16/mcconnell-delays-action-on-health-care-after-mccain-surgery.html
So we’re dealing with an issue of scale, under Stalin it was a whe archipelago thR swallowed up tens,of millions, this is more true of the current popular philosophical foxation
narciso (dc54f6) — 7/16/2017 @ 6:48 amAt that large scale midwifed by Stalin, there ended up being fissures that threatened the more Western part of the USSR to this day. It’s almost more of a parallel world to the respective transatlantic and the eastern Pacific worlds rather than a threat per re to a Western world. Britain and Soviets tried to bridge, but wound up infecting themselves far worse the the U.S. in its far too charitable application of Monroe Doctrine.
urbanleftbehind (77ae08) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:04 amShould have said western Pacific namely that which is anchored by. Japan and China.
urbanleftbehind (77ae08) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:06 amAtlantic..
“The impressive thing about the GOP plan is not that voters dislike it. (Though a 17 percent approval rating does merit a certain awe.) Nor that Democrats refuse to engage with it. (This is the definition of a political given.) It’s that, despite having drafted the plan along partisan lines, and with the comfort of a president who has made clear he’ll sign whatever mishmash hits his desk, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is struggling to find 50 of his own members to back the plan. The most recent version, introduced Thursday, lacked the support necessary to even begin debate. On Saturday night, McConnell announced he would postpone any consideration of the bill until after Senator John McCain returns from his surgery.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:30 amJohn Podhoretz..viva la difference!
Let’s face it: With the exception of the Supreme Court appointment and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, Trump has astoundingly little in the accomplishments column — especially for a president whose party controls both houses of Congress.
We’re nearing the end of July without a health-care reform bill. There’s no tax cut. Trump has his Cabinet in place but hundreds of sub-cabinet positions have yet to be filled. His flashy effort to restrict immigration from Muslim countries ran afoul of the courts and is only now being implemented in part.
Yes, Trump struck Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons in April — but President Hillary might well have done the same.
So Trump has gotten very little done. The same would have been true if Hillary had won.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:34 amBut he has made Emoluments Great Again..
MEGA!!!!!
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:37 amNow question of the press is so against trump , why do I need to read Ben Judah to find about navalny his leading rival, he’s in jail now that’s why we know he’s the lead rival, Judah doesn’t like him either. He’s too politically incorrect.
narciso (d445f7) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:38 amTesting what someone says is the point of debate. Otherwise you are just talking past each other. Thus:
1. How is this post a “perfect example” of why you read and comment here “less and less” if not because you feel it is about Trump and you don’t like it? In fact, your very next statement is “I get it you don’t like Trump.”
2. You continue:
That is the binary choice argument, again. This post is about what Prager said about Russia, not about Trump, but since you keep bringing it up: When will it be appropriate for bloggers to treat Trump as if be is no longer running against Hillary, and instead evaluate what he is doing as President?
3. You say:
Prager’s actual words speak for him and Patrick quoted his words. You agree with Prager that “the news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western Civilization than Russia does,” and Patterico doesn’t agree. Why make it more than that? (And, especially, why bring up LGF?)
4. Your next statement (after acknowledging that Russia is a threat) is the most perplexing to me. You said:
Where did Patterico say the media isn’t a threat of danger? Is it good faith to argue he thinks that when he never said that?
5. Finally, you said:
How is it absurd to say that someone who believes the media is a danger to Western Civilization might want to eliminate the media or might admire a country/leader that kills journalists?
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:41 amNo. 1 The left can make life in the US not worth living without a single nuke and only a few buildings burned–per month–. A life without liberty, without the rule of law, in poverty. See Venezuela.
No. 2 Russia can nuke us–not a good move for them, admittedly–and make life not worth living for the survivors.
But the left doesn’t see it has anything to lose in its success. Russia probably thinks it can’t get away with nuking us without substantial damage, so they’re going to be more careful.
OTOH, Russian subversion, using the left and/or other means can ruin us without any substantial conventional war. But their primary tool would be the western left.
The media supports the left so, see No. 1.
To put it another way, without the media, the left wouldn’t stand a chance, whether or not the Russians were using the left for one issue or another.
Richard Aubrey (0d7df4) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:57 amRegarding your next comment at 254:
He posts more about Trump because Trump is President. What Trump says and does matters even more now. If that is tiresome to you, why not celebrate that this post is not about Trump?
The way to test an argument is to take it to the ultimate end point (and it is certainly not a “cop out” as you assert in your next paragraph). The fact is that Patterico’s questions help reveal that Prager’s tweet was hyperbole.
Specifically, if you and Prager believe that the media in the West is a “far greater danger” to Western Civilization than Russia, why wouldn’t you do what it takes to neutralize the danger? I assume you would be willing to fight against Russia to protect America and Western Civilization. If the media is a far greater danger, why wouldn’t you go that far to stop it?
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:00 amSekulow: “Trump didn’t know, and even if he did, it’s not illegal”
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:12 amAll that you say is true, DRJ, but the post also seems to be about the despair Patterico feels about his commenters for predictably answering incorrectly. I don’t read often enough, especially in this mad era, to know the particulars of the anger and betrayal, but I wish him the best. We are truly living in interesting times, which of course is a curse.
Patricia (5fc097) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:14 amIgnorance of precedent won’t end well with Mueller firing..
“After the Butterfield bombshell went public, Nixon basically became dead meat, although he fought every step of the way and it took a year for him to leave office. Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox subpoenaed the secret recordings and Nixon refused to turn them over, claiming executive privilege. A federal court ordered him to comply, and Nixon tried to get around that order by working out a deal to deliver only partial details in transcripts. Cox said no dice. Nixon did all he could to stop the tapes from being released, even ordering Cox’s firing in October 1973—the infamous Saturday Night Massacre, which led to the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who refused to follow Nixon’s orders”
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:18 amSeems as though Patterico was accurate as some had nothing to lose by feathering their vote just to Trumpily prove him wrong.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:21 ami for sure want to eliminate the cnn jake tapper fake news propaganda slut media
this is why i do not do subscribes to cable
this is why i rarely give clicks to washington post new york times fake news
this is why i rarely link them even when i cite them
they are no good
they are evil and slimy
Dennis is right they’re a threat to America way worse than silly stupid overblown Putin
and if you *are* a-skeered of Putin, I’d submit the best way to counter his influence is by pursuing policies what help put pitiful amoral failmerica on a path to fiscal sustainability and sustained prosperity
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:22 amRule by White Sox fandom, as it were, Ben Disco.
urbanleftbehind (77ae08) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:29 amPayricia,
Like you, I’ve read Patterico’s blog for several years. I would bet money that what makes him despair isn’t that people disagree with him. Talking with people who disagree with him is one of the main reasons he blogs, much more than talking with people who agree. It’s far more interesting to talk to people who sincerely disagree and want to consider other opinions, than to sit every day in an echo chamber.
What’s frustrating is the number of people who think disagreeing is wrong if it might hurt Trump … so shut up. That is very disappointing, especially after so many years of invigorating debate here.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:31 amYou mean Blacksox don’t you urban?
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:31 am“What’s frustrating is the number of people who think disagreeing is wrong if it might hurt Trump … so shut up”
I disagree. They’re quiet because they have no response.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:33 amLay off the brown acid ben:
https://mobile.twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/886552059025268736
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:41 amYour Ork buddies grok you narco..
you can guess what the orcs are doing:
A fiscal year 2018 spending bill that will be marked up by the House Appropriations Committee July 13 includes record funding levels for NASA’s planetary science program, but severely cuts a NOAA weather satellite program.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:52 amour powerline friends are doing very good work on the Russia story
there’s so much at the link but I’ll pick one lil jelly belly out of the jar
They remind us today that the appointment of slimy fbi turdboy Robert Mueller is not grounded in law.
i wonder if the corrupt comey fbi led Mr. Rosenstein to believe that the admittedly useless grandmotherly poofter Jeff Sessions was compromised in some way
But if AG Sessions is so corrupt and slimy that he can’t investigate Russian influence in the elections, why would Mr. Rosenstein not advocate for his dismissal rather than break the law by appointing an illegal Special Counsel – and not just an illegal Special Counsel – a corrupt fbi turdboy riddled with conflicts of interest?
The media is pointedly NOT asking these questions because they would like slimy corrupt FBI turdboi Robert Mueller to orchestrate a soft coup against the duly elected president of America.
Oh yes indeedledy-doopers, the sleazy failmerican propaganda slut media is a far greater danger to Western civilization than Putin.
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:53 amComprendo, DRJ.
Patricia (5fc097) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:54 amA manned mission to Mars is schtoopid. TENTH power cost increase to send human versus robots. But the 1% figures when Earth is an empty plastic bag, they csn afford SPACEX 1st class accommodations and s brand new planet to use up.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:00 amJust like divining and alchemy
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:00 amHow else will we mine the turbinium
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:11 amNow is putin a,Napoleonic figure, in that case be will leave little behind or will another one of the soloviki like lavrov success him
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:16 amThey can substitute Unobtanium from Nibiru on the return from Rama.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:16 amYes he is a miniature cowboy with TRex arms for hugging thanks to little man complex. He looks down on Trump.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:19 amTyranny of the 37%..
MSNBC
“You talk a lot about autocracies. Isn’t this the essence of it, that the leader can get away with literally anything?
SARAH KENDZIOR: Yeah. and they’re very brazen about it. They’re blatant about it on purpose and that’s to instill a sense of helplessness in the population. They’re basically saying we know that you know what we did and there’s nothing you can do. And they’ve continued to do this in this way.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:24 amCorrection: today it’s 36%.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:27 amYes he’Ll never beat hillary
https://mobile.twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/886379263238254592
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:32 amNo, I meant White Sox and Patterico has a big blue hat with a red C in their eyes and thus can do no right in their eyes.
urbanleftbehind (77ae08) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:34 amAnd a,month later, the alexandria shooter dropped down the memory hole.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:37 amWith friends like this:
http://babalublog.com/2017/07/16/un-human-rights-expert-in-cuba-refuses-to-discuss-human-rights-denies-existence-of-dissidents/
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:39 am“I meant White Sox and Patterico has a big blue hat with a red C in their eyes and thus can do no right in their eyes.”
Ok. Not as familiar with his politics but I think he’s still conservative like Reagan and many former Reaganauts oppose Trump. But the Trump Bund appreciates mindless loyalty, or rather, demands it. Look at the fickle whordes as they scalp former allies.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:40 amBut wasn’t that the leftist medias design from the beginning, naeciso? Anything bad about the Democrats or conversely anything good about Republicans or Trump was to be eliminated from all MSM news stories in favor of Russia, Russia, Russia. And it’s been working according to plan. Hell, even blogs that are independent and usually conservative are dwelling on everything but what we need to do to win in a scant 15 months. To the left not talking about something is now winning.
Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:46 amMoar failed promises…LIES!!!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/07/16/white-house-unveils-made-in-america-week-though-many-trump-products-are-made-overseas/?utm_term=.c1e7e4533481
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:47 amWhat ever happened to ‘speak no evil of other republicans’?
(TEA PARTY)
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:50 amThis has been the political state of affairs for two Presidents — Obama and Trump — but it was even more true of 8 years of the Obama Presidency as oposed to less than 1 year of Trump. Obama and the Democrats acted like they were untouchable when it came to health care, the IRS, Fast & Furious, Benghazi and virtually everything they did.
That Trump and his supporters want to do the same is disappointing but understadable. Fortunately not all of today’s Republican officials and GOP supporters are as drunk with power as the Democrats were with Obama.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:50 amDisagree..
Broad strokes citing Obama’s autocratic style doesn’t pass smell test. He was Jackie Robinson to Trumps Ty Cobb who liked to slide least up. McConnel came out if the gate with his masterful gamesmanship obstructing everything. Rumps did their best to pervert Obama care (like refusing to negotiate drug prices) to the detriment of those they took oaths to serve.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:57 amSlide CLEATS UP!
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:58 amone thing america’s fbi cowardthugs or the CNN Jake Tapper faker news propaganda slut media or filthy harvardtrash like ben sasse or even slimy geriatric torture-turd John McCain (something of an expert in colluding to spread Russian propaganda)… one they could do is
i dunno
find proof that President Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin for to influence the election!
just one lil shred pickleheads gogo gadget i know you got in in ya
but they would rather encourage false impressions and smear fake colluder news all up in it because they are liars and butthurt cause the game didn’t go their way 🙁
they have no integrity
and they have no class
cause they’re just butthurt elitist trash
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:01 amOf course you feel that way, because you were an Obama true believer. Now take that experience and realize there are Trump true believers, too.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:01 ami know you got *it* in ya i mean
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:02 amThere are two legs to any collusion claim. First, there needs to be credible evidence of collusion or, at least for low info voters, sufficient repetition of false claims that perceptions are shaped. We’re getting plenty of the latter and none of the former. But that will have to do, huh?
Second, Russia needs to be a credible threat and, especially, a greater threat than the newsers who are perpetuating the hoax. Hence, the above post, which serves the dual purpose of propping up the media hoaxers and inflaming attitudes toward the no-longer-very-evil empire.
Nice try. No cigar.
With all the pushback from your commenters, the good news is that you can proudly wear the badge of victimhood. You’re in good company; the cult of victimhood is not a small one.
You know, we’re all hoping you’ll climb back in from that limb.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:02 amhttp://www.270towin.com/2008_Election
Obama killed both EC and popular vote in 2008.
TRUMP tail wags the US dog.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:06 amBen burn,
I think that’should another example of someone who wants Patterico to shut up.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:09 amto maunder on endlessly on about collusion without a shred of proof
is desperate
cowardly
classless
and frankly, it’s intellectually goddamn lazy
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:09 amFeelings have nothing to do with my assessment. If anything I was an Obama critic. What’s his name from Ballon Juice permanently banned me for it. But I understand feelings of Trump supporters because emotion is all that drives him. There is no logic to him.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:10 amSo you think Obama had a mandate to act like a dictator? Every President thinks that a little, don’t they? Obama felt that way for 8 years.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:10 amit’s even worse than behghazi, which, though it was a hopelessly tedious and silly exercise similar to the matter at hand, was at least built upon the foundation of hillary’s brazen lies (lies proven so by voluminous irrefutable evidence)
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:12 amObama’s IRS was weaponized to hurt his opponents, he lied about healthcare, his DOJ covered up Fast & Furious, and everyone lied about Benghazi. Thas not all but it’s enough. He was not accountable to anyone, and Democrats loved it.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:14 amIt’s not surprising that Republicans want their own dictator.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:15 amObama’s IRS was weaponized to hurt his opponents with the collusion of nepotistic pig Mitch McConnell and a slew of elitist harvardtrash who would later align with nevertrump
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:15 amJust think where this country would be if Mitt had won in 2012 and was well into his second term.
Kevin M (752a26) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:16 amThere are true believers of all faiths.
A good measure of which side in the Trump debate is driven by true belief, rather than more substantive concerns, comes from a recent Gallup poll. They find that 65% of Trump critics base their criticisms on style concerns, rather than concerns of substance. Here in these very comments, this truth has been repeatedly acknowledged and defended.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:16 amHe had a greater critical mass of support but Trump seems to think 39 percent is a mandate.
But even Obama doesn’t deserve the STASI support group Trump has marshalled out of the whole cloth of ‘POPULUSM’.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:19 amI oppose Trump because he is not trustworthy, and I opposed Obama for the same reason. They could not be trusted to do the things they campaigned on. (If you recall, Obama campaigned as a moderate uniter.) Those are not style points. That is substance.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:20 amYes Thor. If they read books Eric Hoffers TRUE BELIEVER could be instructive.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:21 amStop with the Hitler stuff, Ben burn.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:21 amlol picturing mitty bow to the minority
mg (31009b) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:22 amObama did a lot of shit didn’t like Luke be a teddy bear, or a Surveillist Remote murderer.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:23 amI hope Trump does conservative things. I agree Gorsuch seems good. Trump nominated him but McConnell made it happen.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:24 amSTASI were E.German secret police, but I understand the connection you made.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:24 amWhat gets me about Trump critics is that they don’t fault the President for not being part of the elite (everybody knows he is part of the elite), but for not speaking like the elite. How much more superficial can you get?
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:25 amWhat gets me is they say ‘oh, he’s not a politician. He doesn’t say things right because he’s a DC outsider
LOL!!
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:28 amPresident Trump has gone to great lengths to live up to his campaign promises. It is almost pathological – or, perhaps, a reflection of his novice status, not having learned that campaign promises are supposed to be broken. The only reason we haven’t seen more policies implemented is obstructionism from the GOPe, the bureaucracy, and the courts.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:30 amLowest 6 month approval numbers in 60 years? Seems longer.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:32 amBen burn @ 318
I loved that book. It is an easy read. It should be more widely read.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:33 amI have Trump credit for saying what people wanted to hear during the campaign.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:33 amI gave him credit, not have.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:37 amBut he is a DC outsider.
And he’s not a politician.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:38 amDRJ,
What really floors me is that when it became apparent that Trump’s campaign was connecting with the voters, why didn’t the other contenders move in Trump’s direction and close the gap. They did just the opposite, distancing themselves from Trumps words and promises. Only Cruz chose not to take sides against Trump and – What do you know? – he came in second.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:42 amDRJ, you give Trump credit for making campaign promises voters wanted to hear, but don’t find him trustworthy even though he’s fulfilling those very promises???
ropelight (a7d89c) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:43 am“I have Trump credit for saying what people wanted to hear during the campaign.”
Politics defined. Failed campaign promise is the bulwark of American politucs.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:45 amTed Cruz thought he could ride the bathroom tranny hater vote to the white house while carly pupperoni humpered a fetus
He went to harvard.
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:46 amI was hoping someone from Congress as Trump struggled with teleprompter would stand up and say…
“YOU LIE!!!”
But integrity and courage languish in disrepair.
But ARROGANCE!!! is still a bull market.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:49 amOnce upon a time, America truly was great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmHABUfjYPI
“What a moment…” – Walter Cronkite, CBS News, July 16, 1969
______
Today’s Beldar The Bitter ‘Watergate, Watergate, Watergate’ Words of Wonder:
“You need a million in cash, don’t you? If you want to put that through, would you put that through, uh–this is thinking out loud here for a moment–would you put that through the Cuban Committee?” – President Nixon discussing ways to pay out Watergate cover-up hush money with John Dean, secret White House Oval Office tapes, March 23, 1973
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:50 amAnd, you’re selling naked puts.
ropelight (a7d89c) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:52 amEven if Gorsuch is his single positive, he’s screwed US majority for decades.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:52 amhttp://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267273/nevertrump-outrage-disappointed-elite-bruce-thornton
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:28 amIs there a way to block people on this site? Getting tired of the spam comments disrupting a discussion by certain leftist trolls.
NJRob (ce11fb) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:40 amRopelight, don’t waste your time on anti Trump partisans. I mean another person with a connection to bringing Hillary to justice just *committed suicide* ( I think we’re around 35 and counting ) but let’s talk the leftist narrative till mid terms and see how that works out for us.
Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:40 amHoagie,
Actually there were 2 suicides in the past week. I’ll try and find the 2nd one.
NJRob (ce11fb) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:44 amYeah, by all means protect the ignorance obsessions from untoward information. You are perfect subjects for your Kingdom.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:46 amNutjobs can cover their virgin ears with killfile. Narciso can help you with your natural curiosity.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:47 amFound it. Klaus Eberwein who was going after the Clintons due to their stealing all the Haitian relief money.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article160983614.html
Since Putin murders people who disagree with or threaten him, where do you put the Clintons with their trail of bodies?
NJRob (ce11fb) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:49 amNote to Ben
kishnevi (1f8073) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:49 amHappyfeet@334 should help you decode my comment yesterday regarding what he calls lifeydoodles.
Sounds to me like Eberwien was a partner in the corruption.
It does bemuse me that a certain number of anti Clintonites can not comprehend the fact that everyone dies at some point in time.
kishnevi (1f8073) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:56 amDoes sappy tweet have legible explanations, kishnevi?
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 11:56 amKishnevi,
Everyone dies. Not everyone by a gunshot to the back of the head… unless you are a thorn in the Clinton’s or DNC’s side.
NJRob (ce11fb) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:00 pmThor,
Your assessment of Russian impotence at 219 is very good. Do the Russians match or exceed the impotence and idiocy of the propagandists who promoted the BLM thug hug-a-thon for three years in the pathetic hope it would sustain black turnout at Obama levels? It is difficult to choose between that error and the error of promoting Trump as the easiest to defeat foe of the Democrat basilisk as the most egregious made by the propagandists. After all, the Russians did achieve their goal in the 2016 election. They sought to reduce the contest to a choice of selecting the lesser evil and clearly achieved the desired result.
Rick Ballard (264a24) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:07 pmThor: if reading is your thing check out CONQUISTADOR by Buddy Levy.
Riveting narrative based on Journals of the Religiously inspired destruction of an advanced meso-american culture. Deja Vu all over again. Not talking Jihadis.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:07 pmDRJ — a poor characterization on your part to suggest that those who support Trump — which I think differs from your phrase “Trump supporters” — “want their own dictator.”
Straw man, and insulting to those of us who see the issues of political support in the current environment as a binary choice, with each side getting its turn on the balance scale — on balance, is the country likely to be better off with Trump as President, having to resist and fight the media and bureaucratic state every day; or with Hillary as President, using allies in the media and bureaucratic state to advance the liberal causes of the far left in the same manner Obama did over his 8 years in office, and her husband did for his 8 years in office.
I don’t want a “dictator” — and I don’t think we have one.
I didn’t want Hillary.
Untrustworthiness is a character flaw. But its one that many many Presidents before Trump have possessed.
What makes his Presidency seem more unseemley than those in the past is that he’s a 40 year veteran of the media cycle of New York, where the PR fight in the tabloids was a daily battle. He took that same combative ethos to the campaign, and now to the WH.
Yes, its unseemly. But its what millions of Americans were drawn to, and in many respects support him because of his willingness to take on the media when his GOP predecessors did not.
To put it in perspective, think back to the reaction of the mainstream media when Bush 41 reacted angrily to the way Dan Rather attempted to grill him during the Evening News over whether Don Regan had told him about Iran-Contra. Go watch the YouTube video, and you can see what “Republicans fighting back” against a false media narrative used to look like. That was only 30 years ago.
Bush 41 had 4 years, Bush 43 had 8 years — with his second term largely neutered by media criticism of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and now we are in the first 6 months of the Trump Admin.
But we had 16 years in that same period of almost universal fawning over Clinton and Obama by the same press, while they relentlessly pursued the implementation of 1960s era liberalism across the spectrum of American life.
Trump’s “message” — which you attribute to him just saying what people wanted to hear — was “ENOUGH.”
And millions cheered — and still do.
I’m convinced that 99% of the media fixation on the Russia investigation is simply because its an avenue to hound Trump. If it wasn’t Russia, it would be something else. That’s always been their MO.
The US meddles in elections all around the world, and has done so ever since WWII when the CIA was created. We do it because we believe we are advancing our interests.
The Russians do it too, and have done it for decades just like us. The only real difference this time is the ability to project disinformation across the internet using social media, rather than handing out pamphlets with specious news and allegations through various front groups. How many Soviet front groups do you think operated on US college campuses in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, passing out “literature” to “young skulls full of mush”, to borrow a phrase from the guy who really kicked off the entire “fight fire with fire” mindset about 30 years ago.
Who do you think Bill Ayers was more committed to when forming the Weather Underground — the US government he pledged to overthrow, or the Soviet government attempting to advance Marxist Communism around the world? The Weather Underground was, after all, a self-described communist revolutionary organization. Look at the published manifesto of the WU, submitted by Ayers and several other well-known 60’s radicals:
“The goal is the destruction of US Imperialism, and the achievement of a classless world: world communism. Winning state power in the US will occur as the result of the military forces of the US overextending themselves around the world and being defeated piecemeal.
So the current fixation of the media on “Russia Russia Russia”, and our host on “Putin Putin Putin”, simply ignores history as these issues have existed for decades, and exploitation by both sides of weaknesses by the other has been ongoing.
The reality is that the only substantive difference now is “Trump Trump Trump.”
Everything else is just the scenery and props in the media-fed drama.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:09 pmGlad to assist re-build of bridges as the political outsider. We leftists build..
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:09 pmShipwrecked:
Congrats. Every single talking point from memory muscle. Good on ya.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:30 pm340. Yeah, Bun Burn does not add value and his inanities every second comment can be annoying. If you read them, which I’ve stopped doing. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:34 pmThe opponents of Trump’s tough immigration stance should read the article linked today over at Real ClearPolitics about the crime wave attributed largely to Afghan refugees in Austria.
The author, Cheryl Bernard, has worked for decades in various causes aiding the plight of refugees from all over the world, with most of her work taking place in Austria. While she has a perspective on similar problems reported in Germany and other European countries, she focuses on events in Austria because that is where she is, and where she has a first-hand view.
She starts by noting that the crime wave was hidden from view for a while due to the media’s policy in Austria of not identifying the nationality or refugee status of suspected perpetrators. She now sees the press’s complicity in allowing the behavior to foster and take root in the Country. She describes in the first few paragraphs several random episodes of rape and sexual assault by Afghans against mostly European women, where the circumstances warrant a description of “brazen” with respect to the willingness of the perpetrators to act in the manner they did. Daylight assaults in public parks in full view of other park visitors, assaults on a train in full view of other passengers, etc.
She then turns to exploring why it is these Afghan men seem to think they will escape punishment for their actions – why they would put at risk their refugee status in countries that have welcomed them with open arms, and provided for their physical and spiritual needs since they arrived from their home countries after fleeing war or other turmoil.
After dismissing a couple of other explanations, she offers the following insights, based on her conversations with well-adjusted Afgan refugees with whom she has longstanding ties:
This is learned behavior. This comes from the customs and practices of the community in which you were born and raised. This comes from the “ethos” of not having any respect for laws and rules, the only consideration of importance is what you can get away with.
I’ve saw this a lot of in the criminal justice system when dealing with foreign nationals accused of breaking US laws — not laws concerning violence, but laws concerning property rights and entitlements. They just don’t care — its not part of their value system to care. Laws and limits are only hurdles to be overcome in grabbing for as much as they can take. There is no consideration of “right” or “wrong” in the thought process leading up to the crime.
We are importing this ethos into the US in huge numbers, and in many cities around the country we are allowing the ethos to survive, prosper, and propagate by allowing “semi-sovereign” enclaves to develop with homogeneous populations of immigrants.
European cities are far ahead of us in allowing these developments to take place — and may have already gone past the point of no return in some instances.
If we do not learn from their mistakes, we will end up repeating them.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:35 pmIts beyond Ben’s ability to respond because he’s have to actually think through the issues, and address them substantively — something requiring more than the 25-30 words that seems to be his limit.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:36 pmAdmit your disease nk. Discouraging words are anathema to mebbetrumpets.
They never read the counterpoint.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:36 pmThat’s why you don’t reply eh sloppy?
You guys have no substantive response even if your imagination were active.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:38 pmSloppy s/be shippy but captcha knows all.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:39 pmropelight 332:
I have given him credit, repeatedly, for Gorsuch. What else has he done? He talks a lot but he hasn’t done any of the other things he promised. It was enough for many that he wasn’t Hillary. That is nice but that’s not enough for me.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 12:45 pmThis is what I said a year before the general election so I would appreciate it if you would turn off the snark:
Trump singlehandedly changed the debate from comprehensive immigration reform to protecting Americans and building a Wall, and good for him. But during the campaign, Trump also convinced me that he was all talk and not trustworthy. Gorsuch is all he’s done and while that is great, no one knows if Gorsuch the Justice will be a Thomas, a Roberts, a Kennedy or a Souter. Further, Trump wasn’t going to get Gorsuch confirmed. He left the heavy lifting to McConnell and, thankfully, McConnell came through.
I still want real change, not talk about how hard it is to change.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:01 pmThat was for swc.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:01 pmMuch of what Trump advocated depends on Congressional action.
Where he has the authority to act unilaterally, he has done a few noteworthy things:
Withdrew from Paris Accords which will have almost zero effect on climate, but will have huge negative impacts on the US economy — which was the whole point for most of the pact signatories.
** If its such a great deal, why didn’t Obama submit it to the Senate as a treaty, which it is?
Gave greater decision-making authority to military commanders on the ground in various hotspots around the world.
Responded to Russian attempts to extort European nations over energy supplies by committing to bilateral agreements to supply LNG from US facilities in various states of completion, to European facilities in various states of completion — thereby giving the hostage states an alternative to Putin’s state-run energy companies.
Put ICE back in the business of deportations.
Gutted EPA and the VA — or is at least on the path to doing so.
Began the process of revisiting Trade Agreements that have not quite turned out to have the beneficial economic impacts in the manner in which they were sold.
I’m sure others can add to the list.
Authorized US infrastructure that will bring down the cost of production of oil via fracking and other forms of advanced drilling, which puts more domestic oil into the world market, thereby reducing the price, along with control and leverage of Middle East countries, and reducing the flow of hard currency to Iran and Russia.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:08 pmHe promised to change things but all he fights for is his family and his brand. The rest is someone else’s fault.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:11 pmHe can’t even get people named and appointed to various agencies, and it’s not because they are being delayed. He hasn’t named them. Most agencies, etc, are still overseen by Obama people, including much of the NSA. That is absurd.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:13 pmPoint out the snark in anything I wrote.
You can’t have it both ways — you can’t reflexively back up every anti-Trump post and comment Patrick puts up, but then go back to something you wrote 18 months ago to suggest “I sort of support him but I just wish he wasn’t so untrustworthy.”
Maybe I missed the context of 312. But it pretty plainly says that folks supporting Trump wanted their own dictator.
That’s the strawman, and its insulting.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:14 pm365 — what an oversimplification and not nearly worthy of your level of participation here.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:16 pmI don’t support Trump now because I know he isn’t trustworthy. I will support any conservative things he does. Furthermore, I did not say that all Republicans want their own dictator but I think some do after 8 years of Obama. My comment 312 was a continuation of a discussion about Obama and Trump, culminating in comment 312.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:21 pmI see I’ve been dismissed by professor swc. So be it.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:22 pmUgh. Don’t tell people what they “can” or “can’t” do, dude. You can look at Trump’s do-nothing administration through rose-colored glasses if you want, but it doesn’t mean anyone else has to.
Leviticus (bdc030) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:22 pm@370 was for shipwreckedcrew as well.
Leviticus (bdc030) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:22 pm*371
Leviticus (bdc030) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:23 pmswc, I’m not sure you’re the right person to complain about straw men. Your characterizations of my positions have been tendentious and uncharitable at a minimum for quite some time now.
Patterico (117533) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:33 pmFor the record, it is snark not to read the conversation I was having and then to take my concluding sentence and label it a straw man argument. I was actually defending Trump against criticism by liberals here who think Obama had a mandate to govern, but Trump doesn’t. Obama was dictatorial for 8 years and, after that, it would be understandable if Republcans want their own dictator. Thus, When Trump does things that are similar to Obama, it makes sense his supporters would want to defend him.
You would know this had you bothered to read the conversation. I would have explained it if you had asked why I might say that. But you started off with a broadside. I don’t need that.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:33 pmYou often make interesting points but the number of times I have to say “that’s not what I wrote” has made conversation with you often more frustrating than it’s worth.
Patterico (117533) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:34 pmHere’s an idea. Pretend I am Trump. Then extend to me the same level of charity you would extend to his words.
Patterico (117533) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:36 pmIf commenters here showed me 1/10 of the charity they show Trump, I’d never ever get frustrated with my comments section.
Patterico (117533) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:37 pmAnd I don’t reflexively back up Patterico. I only back him up when I agree with him. Granted, that happens a lot but we do disagree about some things, including Trump.
However, I appreciate the chance to say what I think. Your comments opened the door for me to that. It’s refreshing, and now we know where we stand and we don’t have to talk again. Ditto Hoagie, who still labels me NeverTrump and a partisan.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:39 pmRussia and teh media are diff kinds of dangers, both not critical yet.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:42 pm“Obama was dictatorial for 8 years and, after that, it would be understandable if Republcans want their own dictator”
I’m confused. How was Obama anti-democratic? Examples would help.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:56 pmlol
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:58 pm“Authorized US infrastructure that will bring down the cost of production of oil via fracking and other forms of advanced drilling, which puts more domestic oil into the world market, thereby reducing the price, along with control and leverage of Middle East countries, and reducing the flow of hard currency to Iran and Russia.”
Word salad means whut?
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 1:58 pmThat sentence was not hard to understand, Ben burn.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:02 pm366:
Why are you biting on media talking points???
Clinton/Bush/Obama all had unified party apparatuses behind them when they took office. Trump had a hundred or more senior GOP leaders sign a “NeverTrump” letter, and many others who didn’t sign refused to join the administration early on when asked.
There are 150 nominations pending in the Senate, awaiting a hearing. The Dems have demanded cloture votes on almost every nominee, regardless of the post or non-controversial nature of the person. There hasn’t been a SINGLE VOICE vote in the Senate — which requires unanimous consent. A Dem has objected each time its been requested. That requires 30 hours of debate before cloture can be voted on, and 30 hours of debate after cloture has been voted on.
Even after demanding such time wasting debate, the Dems revealed what a farce it is by voting 100-0 in favor of one judge, and 97-2 in favor of another.
As an Admin official made the point in an article yesterday on the subject — would it be different if 250 nominees were waiting action in the Senate rather than 150??
The point of the effort — which is tactical by Schumer — is two-fold: 1) it ties up Senate time which makes it harder to push the legislative agenda on the floor, and 2) it hamstrings the new Admin. by keeping it from populating the agencies, leaving many Obama-era officials in positions of decision-making authority.
But, I would also point out that one aspect of this “political appointee” math is often overlooked. There are only about 500 appointments to KEY positions in government that require a Presidential nomination and Senate approval. There are about 1200 positions overall that require such action. Lets look at some of the non-key positions IMO:
1. Approx. 200 are for US Attorney and US Marshall in each federal judicial district. While it MIGHT seem to that these are “key” positions, they really aren’t. Trump fired all the US Attorneys, which placed into the position of “Acting US Attorney” the Executive Assistant in each of those districts — the No. 2 person. In almost every circumstance I’m aware of, the Exec. Assistant is a long-standing member of the office, who in normal circumstances runs the day-to-day operations of the office, while the US Attorney spends most of their time on matters of policy and interacting with other federal agency heads and local law enforcement in their district. The Acting US Attorney in my district has 35 years in the Dept of Justice, has been the Exec. Assistant for the last 4 appointed US Attorneys, and has previously served as “Acting US Attorney” 3 other times. The US Marshall is pretty much a figurehead, with the operations of the Marshall’s Service run almost exclusively by the permanent professional law enforcement staff.
2. 120+ Appointees to NON-REGULATORY agencies within the Exec. Department, like NASA, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, etc. Little or no impact on the lives of citizens on a daily basis.
3. 150+ US Ambassadors. Only a handful of these are really meaningful in that the Ambassador plays a significant role in helping to shape and execute US policy towards a foreign country. Most ambassadorships are political prizes given to wealthy administration supporters so they can go live in a foreign country and dine everyday in the Embassy dining room.
4. 120+ Appointees to part-time positions, such as the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
5. The most critical positions are in the Cabinet level departments, and in the regulatory agencies such as EPA where rules and policies get made. That’s fewer than 500 total.
Of course Trump was going to be slower to fill those spots — he’s an outsider to both parties, he wrecked both parties in the electoral process, and a week before the election he was still going to lose by 10+ points if you listened to the media and their pollsters.
Now his path is blocked by the Dems in the Senate using unprecedented methods of obstruction to hamper votes, and the constant drumbeat of the media on its scandal de jour.
But just ignore the facts, and fall for the narrative you’re being fed.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:02 pmIt was hard to swallow the Petrodollar pushback, Patterico. I understand the danger. EVERY dollar value is dependent or we are toast.
BRICS rules..
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:10 pmPeople put up words without genuine understanding.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:11 pmLook how much better comment 385 would be without the first and last sentences.
But this is the Internet, where the “and thus you are an idiot” rhetorical flourish is de rigueur even when addressing people who deserve respect.
And so the rhetorical flourish must be included. Apparently.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:12 pmBen burn @351
Thanks for the recommendation. I am quite interested in the conquest and Mexican history and have done some reading on the topic. I’ll give your suggestion a look.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:14 pm383 — why do you think the Saudis increased oil production in 2013?
Do you understand that when oil drops below $50 a barrel, costs of production for oil produced by fracking makes it unprofitable? When it drops to $30 a barrel, production stops?
Do you understand why boom-towns in the Dakotas during the period 2008-2014, suddenly went bust in 2014 and 2015?
But as oil prices begin to increase, and technology advances in ways that lower the costs of production, the building of pipelines and refineries in the US give new life to the US oil industry at lower world-wide prices.
None of that happens if the EPA stands in the way with various regulatory hurdles and burdens meant to keep the oil and gas in the ground, and the pipelines and refineries from being built.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:15 pm388 — Pot, meet Kettle.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:19 pmSaudi cost is under $15 per barrel for pulling crude. They were trying to bankrupt producers whose cost.much higher. Russia squeaks and the West tweaks. Desperate former Soviets react…
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:21 pmthe Saudi royal pervert who decided to jack up production and flood the market was an idiot pedophile named Mohammad bin Salman
he’s extremely stupid, even for a saudi royal pervert
he’s a dumb-ass what thinks sandsylvania’s on the way to a rip-roaring diversified (all male) economy
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:25 pmI noticed over the years that commenters here were rude to people to came here and disagreed with the general ethic. When I thought (rarely) that the person with a different point of view was sincere, I always encouraged the commentariat to treat the person with respect.
It didn’t always work, though. Partisanship still caused many commenters to be rude, even to people who held sincere views and expressed them more or less respectfully.
It is interesting, though not enjoyable, to be on the wrong end of this sort of situation.
swc, as for your “Pot, meet Kettle” comment, I’m not going to waste time debating your whatabout response. I’ll simply tell you that whatever you hoped to accomplish in terms of persuasion in your long comment to DRJ was obliterated by the completely unnecessary comments with which you opened and closed the comment.
Sure, you’ll be able to find plenty of people who will tell you it was a great comment. But the people who will tell you that were already on your side. You have persuaded no-one. And you might have, had you not insisted on bookending your proffered facts with snide cheap shots.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:26 pmIn any event, I interpret DRJ’s comment to mean that DRJ has chosen to spend her time discussing matters only with people who show her basic respect. I think that may be a guiding principle for me going forward as well.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:28 pmWhat that means is, if you’re asking me questions or addressing me in the future — I address all commenters here — if I seem to be responding to other people and not you, ask yourself whether you have shown me basic respect and whether you have treated my views with charity.
If you can’t answer that question yes, you probably have your answer as to why I am not talking to you any more.
I have come to see my time as more valuable than I used to. Talking to people who do not show me basic respect, or who twist my words, strikes me as a waste of time.
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:31 pmMany, including my own Trumpsons, find my comments a pyrrhic victory at best. I don’t persuade the Bund, my goal is info for the silent.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:32 pmA reasonable social contract patterico.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:33 pmi think it’s fun to jump into the comments and mix it up with you guys
you’re all really good spellers and i like to read all the different views
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:35 pmThor: cheers. You won’t put it down.
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:36 pmYou are right — Saudi cost is much lower because its all state-owned and state-run. Costs of production are pretty much limited to labor and equipment.
And I know quite a bit about both, as my brother-in-law is an oil-field engineer employed by a US company that is contracted by the Saudis to run drilling rigs. He goes to a Saudi site for 30 days, works 24/7, and then comes back to the US for 30 days off. He has a partner he swaps out with each cycle.
Their crew? Indonesian, Filipino, Malaysian and/or Pakistani. Pretty much wherever the Saudis can find the absolute cheapest and most disposable work force.
Their equipment? Pretty much top-of-the-line US built equipment supplied to them by their US partners who do the drilling by contract. Oftentimes supplied at a loss simply to keep the contract.
No environmental compliance costs, no drilling rights fees, no permitting expenses, no worker’s comp, etc.
But oil revenue feeds the expensive tastes of several thousand Saudi Princes and their families around the globe. The gov’t can’t produce at cost for very long without making them very unhappy. So that’s why the Saudi’s prefer to keep the world price above $70 when they can — they need the profit margin to keep everyone happy. But as you point out, they have to choke off other suppliers at times in order to maintain market control, and they do that by increasing production to drive down the price.
But with the cost of production going down in the US, when the US is already the third largest producer at current cost levels, Saudi leverage — and Russian exposure — becomes more in question every day.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:43 pmTwisting words is a matter of perception.
We each get to make an individualized judgment.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 2:45 pmDisrespect is a two-way street.
DRJ’s “dictator” comment is a straw man that impugns the character and motives of those who have not joined the anti-Trump crowd. SWC spoke up against DRJ’s defaming mis-characterization. Of course he will be praised.
I thought about responding to the comment myself, but there is a limit to which I am willing to dispute such deliberately disrespectful hyperbole – I don’t think DRJ, herself, actually believes it.
And remember this, to many of us, the road to dictatorship appears to lead in the opposite direction. Trump critics, after all, are the ones working to nullify the will of the electorate and are using extra-legal means (the flood of leaks) to do it.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 3:05 pmI remember, still, our host’s kindnesses to me when I first began commenting here. So I can corroborate all that that he has done for new commenters. Thank you, Mr. Frey. In your honor I try to do likewise, in refraining from my own rudeness to new commenters. However, it is not enough to hold my tongue. I should express kindness to new commenters.
felipe (023cc9) — 7/16/2017 @ 3:11 pmThor: without lighting the dictator candle might I inquire…?
“to many of us, the road to dictatorship appears to lead in the opposite direction. .”
Can you imagine a scenario where that turn might signal one direction while turning another?
Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 7/16/2017 @ 3:25 pmMy issues in this thread with DRJ are borne out of frustration — which is only heightened by the very long and almost universal agreement I have found with her positions over more than a decade on this site.
I argue with her as I would a family member — with the hoped-for and unspoken belief that she would not take it personal. If I had true disdain for her POV, that would be made clear in much more stark terms.
Same for Patrick.
This site is “intellectual calisthenics” for me, and about the only place I go to find a debate on the topics of the day. You won’t find comments by me anywhere else on the web. Not at Restate, Hotair, or any of the other usual suspects. I started here, and its the only place I have found real honest debate on a substantive level — with the occasional happyfeet tossed in.
Argument is how I make my living, and has been for 35 years. I’m a courtroom lawyer, not a business transactions guy. Bombastic at times, but I try to avoid hyperbole. Caustic on occasion but not meant to be mean. If I wanted to be mean, that too would be plain.
I think my comments ALWAYS invite a response — that’s the debate. I don’t ever purposely write in style that attempts to shut down the exchange.
But the Host needs to reflect on whether or not he should find the same faults in his posts and comments that he credits to others. I certainly do when I read them.
For example, yesterday it was suggested that the Post that is the subject of this thread mischaracterized the comment made by Prager. Where as Prager tweet, which was posted, made the comparison of whether “A” posed a “far greater danger” than “B,” — meaning that Prager recognized both as being a danger — the comments which followed above suggested a POV onto Prager that he didn’t see Puntin/Russia, and a campaign of killing journalists, as much a threat at all.
But there I go again, putting words in your mouth when you never typed THOSE EXACT WORDS. Shame on me.
Just a couple examples of “pot calling” so you know from where the comment arose:
20: “I don’t see commenters here as clueless. But increasingly I have seen many of them as blinded by partisanship.”
So I’m a blind partisan, but I’m not supposed to be insulted being called such?
44: “WHY are we opposing the left? Because they’re the left? Or because of specific issues?
I know my answers to these questions. I think many don’t.”
Host wise, commenters who disagree clueless.
119:
Damn conservative #FAKENEWS!!”
Not sure how to interpret — but I thought my comment was substantive and deserved something more than obvious Trump-bashing sarcasm, especially since Trump wasn’t part of the right-wing media trying to hang the Uranium One decision on Clinton, Inc., as you seem to buy into.
130:
I think it should have been, even though you don’t seem to think it’s as big a problem as I do. And the answer is that Big Media is a pack of leftists. Duh.
See how much better that comment would have been without that last word? Suggesting I’m too dense to see the obvious? Or maybe I’m just blinded by partisanship.
185: The fact that partisans can come up with rationales for such an absurd conclusion does not make me happy either.
I guess its just not enough to recognize people have different views and disagree — views other than your’s must be labeled as “absurd.”
I could go on.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to insult — maybe you did.
But, as I noted in another comment, we all get to make our own judgments about the words of others.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 3:26 pmfelipe,
You once made a dismissive comment about something I had written that really put me in my place. I spent considerable time re-thinking my position. Beldar has done this more than once. Early on, Beldar responded to one of my comments that I was a troll who deserved to be banned. Looking back on the comment Beldar was addressing, I could see his point. And there are others, very much including our host, who have been more than willing to confront (Am I really a “clown”?). I have to admit, I enjoy the argy-bargy. I find it helpful and read no disrespect into it.
I am still struggling with Pat’s suggestion that I respond to him (someone I like and admire) the same way I respond to President Trump (someone I don’t particularly like or admire). Pat has the better end of the argument, but I struggle to let go.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 3:29 pmAs a reproachment to DRJ, let me say this:
In looking at her comment in 312 — while I don’t think my reaction was baseless, I think her phrasing was better interpreted colloquially rather than literally.
I think her point was simply that Republicans want Trump to be a strong leader who pushes the policy prescriptions of his supporters without regard for the views of the minority or dissenting views, in the same way Obama pushed radical changes in social policy on behalf of the farthest left members of his party (Remember his “I won” when dismissing offers by GOP to participate in Health Care overhaul?).
That’s a more benign view of “Republicans want their own dictator” than a more literal interpretation of the remark, although I think that view is also a mischaracterization of the support that most are giving to Trump.
312 comes against a backdrop of posts and comments that put Trump in the company of totalitarians and dictators, and suggest approval of such regimes by people who simply chose Trump over Hillary, and continue to hope for Trump to have success along with a GOP Congress.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 4:07 pmSo I don’t think its too far removed from fair reaction to look at “Republicans want their own dictator” and have a visceral reaction to the suggestion.
DRJ actually already explained her comment. I doubt she needs you to explain it for her.
Leviticus (bdc030) — 7/16/2017 @ 4:27 pmIn the context of the original OP, a very interesting article popped up on HotAir.
John Sexton revisits the “Journolist” scandal regarding the intersection of the media and the Obama campaign in 2008.
Consider it a pre-DNC hack example of — pretty much the same Media/Dem Campaign collusion:
Recall that Journolist was an invitation only listserv created by Ezra Klein — not sure if he was at WaPo at that point. It was populated only by members of the left-wing media establishment, and was just a group email list of like-minded journalists — except that they plotted how to use their journalistic platforms — both opinion and straight news — to both defend Obama in the general, and to attack conservative politicians or media outlets.
Its funny that some of the names that were much more obscure then have risen to pretty significant positions of prominence in the media, such as Chris Hayes who now has his own daily show on MSNBC. In 2008 he wrote with regard to the Rev. Wright episode:
Its just worth remembering that the “danger” from a partisan media didn’t arise simply with the rise of Trump. There is a policy POV, there is a partisan preference, and they will use the tools given to them to bring those about while draping themselves in the First Amendment to ward off attacks.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 4:30 pm409 — another clown from the clown car.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 4:31 pmAn example of a policy POV and partisan preference:
ZeroHedge has an article linking a new report out analyzing the scientific data behind the determination that Global Average Surface Temperatures (GAST) have been rising. The data being examined came from NASA and NOAA, and has been the basis for much policy making by government agencies chasing the Global warming theory.
The report has been peer reviewed by scientists from EPA, MIT, and several other US universities, and states:
What I read that to mean is that each time an agency set out to establish historical temperature patterns, it made “adjustments” to the known data. In the subsequent efforts, the adjustments were replaced by new adjustments which led to an even steeper trend line. This happened in all three sets of data produced.
Since the adjustments wipe out the actual recorded temperatures are inconsistent with the adjusted data temperatures where both are known.
What it makes clear is that the “trend line” showing increased temperatures — which are the deduced to come from man made causes such as the introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels — are actually the product of data adjustment that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Place your thumb on the scale, and the package gets heavier. Adjust the historical temperature data and a warming trend appears.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 4:50 pmwe’ve both been in the back seat of this particular “clown car” for over ten years. That may not be a significant portion of your life, but it’s certainly a significant portion of mine. At least I had the good sense to learn manners from my betters.
Leviticus (e53afc) — 7/16/2017 @ 4:53 pmsaul goodman, takes things at face value,
http://reason.com/blog/2017/07/16/mccain-and-the-trump-russia-dossier
but hasn’t the experience of this blog, to ignore the preferred narrative until the truth wills out,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 4:59 pmjohn mccain is a very bad man and an execrable person he has the stink of evil on him
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:04 pmGeneralized statements not explicitly or even implicitly directed at a particular person are not equivalent to shots taken directly at a respected person. And saying “duh” when you are agreeing with someone has a very different connotation than saying it when you disagree. But whatever.
Patterico (117533) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:10 pmIt always makes me happy to see in the Recent Comments that there is a comment from Leviticus.
Patterico (8f0cf2) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:17 pmswc, thanks for reminding me about that article. I posted the link in a forum where everyone else implicitly believes only kooks don’t accept AGW.
No need to depend on 0Hedge:
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/ef-gast-data-research-report-062717.pdf
kishnevi (1e395f) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:21 pmIt’s more frustrating these days, Patterico, but if you will keep up the effort then so will I.
Leviticus (e53afc) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:25 pmalso Saudi crude is sweet, whereas Venezuelan takes a great deal of refining,
it depends on the source link, too much of current journalism is advocacy, often based on anonymous source, with very little original investigation, eg; if someone had actually examined the sourcecode in the dnc server, there would be no grishenko link,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:28 pmhttp://projectcensored.org/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/
mg (31009b) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:32 pmseems unjust
so we discovered in WikiLeaks, that much of what we suspected about iran, about the kingdom, what we didn’t know about Dagestan, was true,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:40 pmif you serve your guests a burger and there is nothing in it, do not be taken aback to hear them say one to another
this burger is not tasty; it is not flavorful
this is not a lovely burger
but if you give unto them a burger laden with choice meat, and red tomato, and fresh ingredients, a delightfully pungent slice of onion, and a zippy sauce
they will say directly unto you
verily this burger is tasty, it is flavorful
this is a lovely burger
so ends the reading
happyfeet (28a91b) — 7/16/2017 @ 5:55 pmit’s the old authoritarian personality narrative, patented by althizer, and adopted by hofstadler, because the left’s head is on a swivel, the last eight years have proven the point,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 6:16 pm416 — always a rationalization.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 7/16/2017 @ 7:49 pmThe question of the relative greatness of the news media and Putinland pales in the face of the greatest threat to Western civilization which is permissive Western civilization parents who don’t bring their kids up right by spanking them when they’re naughty and don’t eat all their vegetables and send them to public schools instead of home schooling them and let them have cell phones and watch TV and read trashy books and magazines instead of making them read the Good Book and listen only to Dennis Prager’s radio show and did you know that Reagan turned down the role of Rick in “Casablana” a big star so be careful what you say about President Trump because he was never that dumb to turn down a great movie role like that.
nk (dbc370) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:08 pmYou say that tongue in chobani, but there is some truth there. Prager is one of the most even keeled folk there, medved cannot be heard operating heavy machinery, Steyn has the right sardonic take.
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:19 pmhttp://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2017/07/16/on-don-jr-the-media-cant-help-itself/
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:41 pmThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 3:29 pm
I appreciate your candor, Thor. I myself am struggling with a fault in my comments that you have identified accurately, the dismissive tone I effect, which is not only unhelpful, but unnecessary. Old as I am, I still have further maturing to undergo.
felipe (023cc9) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:47 pmThOR, I apologize for the dismissiveness of my, long ago, comment. I should have affirmed what was worthy in your comment before putting in my oar. Indeed, I shall endeavor to do that from hereon.
felipe (023cc9) — 7/16/2017 @ 8:55 pmThe fundamental concept of Western civilization is that human beings have value merely by reason of their humanity and not by reason of their class, tribal membership or utility to the group. From that you get the sub-corollaries of liberty, equality, brotherhood and all the other things that flow from there including universal literacy, freedom of information, freedom of thought, tolerance…. Like it or not, Western civilization values are touchy-feely, bleeding heart liberal values.
Granted, no ideal survives contact with humanity©. We sometimes abandon those values. Or overdue them to a harmful degree. But somebody needs to tell Prager that it was not the news media who shot down a plane full of people heading to an AIDS conference. Because that is a very good example of barbarians “harming” Western civilization
© I coined that. You may quote it freely, with or without attribution, provide you do not claim it as your own.
nk (dbc370) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:01 pmA fair point, there was a mild twitch of conscience in the West, somewhat what st heesh tried to detail after KAL 007, which degenerated into a terrible HBO film
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:09 pmWho covered up Stalin’s atrocities for 20 years again, how about maos, year zero, whitewashed the Salvadoran guerillas ( bonner Gutman dickey)
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:15 pmThat still does not make the camp followers a greater threat than the army they accompany. Or “fellow travelers” and “useful idiots” for a closer description.
nk (dbc370) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:29 pmThey don’t the ap basically follows Mary McCarthys dictum about Lillian hellmam
narciso (d1f714) — 7/16/2017 @ 9:35 pmWhat if I have been serving the same steak for years, but someone came along and told my clientele that the right way to eat steak is well done with ketchup?
I would serve it to them well done with ketchup. If my living depended on serving steak.
But what if I served steaks as a hobby? And it did not satisfy me to change the way I serve steak, just because there is a new (and wrong) way of eating steak that is in vogue?
Then verily I would say unto my clientele: the few of you that still prefer steak done properly can get it here. The rest of you, rather than sitting here complaining about my steak, should hightail it over to Matt’s Steak House. He makes his living serving steak the way you want it, and he will surely serve it up t he way his customers demand.
So if you keep coming into my steakhouse whining about the fact that I prepare my steak medium rare with no ketchup, even though that’s what the sign says on the outside, I will quickly tire of your complaints.
I won’t order you to leave. That’s not how I roll. I’ll just continue to serve you fine steak and wonder why you bitch about it when there are a hundred shlockhouses within walking distance.
Thus endeth MY reading!
Patterico (115b1f) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:08 pmThank you, felipe. I enjoy your comments.
I, too, am trying to step up my game.
ThOR (c9324e) — 7/16/2017 @ 10:48 pmPatterico,
I think the hardest thing for most folks now a days to get unwrapped from in the larger debate about media biases, is that the great American Myth (and one that has been carefully cultivated by the media for at least a century if not longer) is the American Media isn’t biased. That only in the last 40 years lets say, at least since the fall of Nixon to the WaPo’s investigation team. However, as I have been learning going back to school for another degree recently, the fact that the American Media isn’t biased is a total myth that no one; not even the media is will to destroy. Yet, until we started to see the collapse of the media in the mid 60s and thru to the early 80s; where it all stabilized for a while until the late 90s and turn of the 20th century it has started again (compare and contrast how many papers or even independent radio/TV stations there are to say the the election of Bush in 88 or even the 92 election. Let alone weekly or daily magazines that presented topical news coverage).
It literally used to be in every town that had at least two papers, they were evenly divided between the right and the left. The same was true for when radio and later TV cropped up. The biases that ran in some of these papers were thick. Heck, if you look at the media wars that Hearst had with Pulitzer (yes there was a real man behind the award) and with others that dared to challenge Hearst rule of media empire, there were times that Hearst would push candidates or even positions or pay for dirt on those that were opposed to his media empire. It didn’t get better when Hearst or Pulitzer left control of their empires to others and in some of the larger cities like NYC, LA, San Fransisco, or Chicago; there were at times some more tabloid like and went either full Bircher style RW or Sacco-Vanzetti like LW. That said, through out the media life time they worked hard to cultivate that mythology they were independent and wanted to save or protect the little guy from the political machine. Without fully acknowledging the media was at times party to or even an arm of the machine. If on the secret and hush-hush variety.
With all that said, I think that the media is dangerous if only for being useful travelers that are abused by the real dangers to Western Civilization in the form of the “-isms” that seem to sound good on paper, but aren’t practiced well because well humanity louses most things up. I think that Prager was stupid here and he was feeding what he saw to be the required red meat to his followers and anyone that thinks of Prager as a heavy weight thinker. However, the Putin’s are more dangerous, the Hugo Socialists down south are more dangerous, the PRC is more dangerous and the identified Axis of evil from the NORKS to Iran and now Syria is dangerous to the maintenance of Western Civilization. Simply because these countries present the idea of Western Democracy and Western Civilization being dangerous and the cause of so much misery in the world. Or they are trying to cause troubles that will suck the US into which we shouldn’t be involved in. Or the greatest danger of all, they are actively sending agents over to sow the required confusion or cause the bemoaning of how cruel our ideals are to the less fortunate in the world.
I can agree that the media is dangerous, but that the Putins are more dangerous. Sort of like I can agree that sharks are dangerous, but that copperhead snakes are twice as dangerous to me and my family simply because I can do things to avoid sharks, but copperheads are all over causing problems and could strike at any moment without warning.
Charles (24e862) — 7/17/2017 @ 12:10 amPatterico 438: in the Great Burger Metaphor between you and Mr. Feet, you left out an important factor.
Your complaining clientele are not paying for the burgers.
You are.
So a person who returns, time and time again, for free burgers and complains about them repeatedly has a very different agenda from someone looking for lunch.
Simon Jester (a07db7) — 7/17/2017 @ 1:15 amOh, it was a metaphor! Because a juicy half-pound pub-burger on an Mary Ann bun is fine seasoned with just a little salt and pepper, and if you want you can make a salad on the side with tomato, cucumber and onion, sprinkled with a little oregano and plain olive oil for dressing and a nice chunk of feta cheese if you have it, and maybe a couple of nice Kalamata olives, and then you’re better off having it open-faced, like a cutlet with a knife and fork, so you can use pieces of the bread to soak up the olive oil and tomato juice and feta crumbs, but I didn’t want to say anything before because, you know, de gustibus non est disputandum which sounds like a Puerto Rican talking crudely about some lady but it’s really Latin for “Have it your way”.
nk (dbc370) — 7/17/2017 @ 4:56 amSo a fmr Russian intelligence operative whose nephew works for hank johnson, was hired by a reporter friend to contract a Russian spy to pedal trash to maverick
narciso (d1f714) — 7/17/2017 @ 6:06 amI wonder if Dennis Prager will reply to Patterico’s questions?
In reviewing the comments here, I never saw anyone refer to this 7/11/17 column from Pager’s website.
The Atlantic Published All You Need to know About the Left – http://www.dennisprager.com/the-atlantic-publishes-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-left/
Gary L. Zerman (ab669e) — 7/17/2017 @ 7:11 amI consider the question a false choice. Yes, Putin kills dissidents/journalists, as do many other regimes around the world that somehow escape our condemnation. Is the difference in our outrage meters due to the meddling in our elections? What about the meddling for which the U.S. is responsible?
Although you can say the U.S. is the world’s beacon of democracy, how many people have suffered at the hands of the policies promulgated by the DC establishment? As just one example, it has been argued elsewhere on this blog that the health outcomes for those without health “insurance” are better than those on Medicaid….does the neglect and premature deaths of those unfortunate enough to be covered by Medicaid count any less than a person who is put in prison, tortured, and allowed to die from untreated wounds?
This is not to excuse Putin and his cronies. But should we be less outraged as to what happened in the aftermath of the Haiti hurricane and the actions of the Clinton foundation? Can one argue that the press has given the foundation a pass? Doesn’t that make the press – in a democracy – as evil as Putin?
Then of course there are the mysterious deaths that coincidentally have followed Clinton, Inc. throughout their tenure:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-16/haiti-official-who-exposed-clinton-foundation-found-dead
Lenny (5ea732) — 7/17/2017 @ 7:12 amNothing to see here;
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/how-an-editor-allegedly-used-vice-canada-to-recruit-drug-mules-for-a-global-smuggling-ring/wcm/9f2457ae-c00e-45bf-81c0-4dc01127be42/amp
narciso (25ad2b) — 7/17/2017 @ 7:26 am#45
steveg (c6e6c8) — 7/17/2017 @ 4:25 pmPatrick.
I have lived many decades in California and am very aware of the destruction progressives cause.
Currently they hold the assembly, the senate, the governorseat, and the 9th Circuit.
They raise taxes and waste the money, they want to silence opposing positions, they want cars to go away, they waste money on symbolism.. the daft idea that on climate change “California leads the way” Every living thing in California could die today and by the time every corpse is done off gassing, any reduction of pollution would be within the margin of error
445. Lenny (5ea732) — 7/17/2017 @ 7:12 am
I think this was true in the past, before Obamacare. I think the reason is that not everyone who could have qualified (accurately or not) for Medicaid went on Medicaid, but people went on Medicaid after they got sick and the hospitals which treated them wanted wanted to get paid.
Now a lot more people get steered into Medicaid. You could also argue that maybe doctors doing unnecessary treatment makes people sick, but it’s probably mostly adverse selection.
Sammy Finkelman (e51d81) — 7/17/2017 @ 7:46 pmSteveg @447
In California?
No they want cars running on gasoline to go away, and be replaced by cars running on electricity generated by windmills and maybe solar power.
Sammy Finkelman (e51d81) — 7/17/2017 @ 7:50 pmDennis Prager is on the radio and the first thing he mentioned was the blow back of his tweet. No mention of Patterico, yet.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/18/2017 @ 9:09 amPager had a sub host yesterday because he said he went on Fox and Friends to discuss the tweet.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/18/2017 @ 9:10 amDennis Prager put up his response to the criticism today in Townhall.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 7/18/2017 @ 9:43 amRussia is dangerous, but it is a visible, concrete, one-time threat of limited magnitude. The mental deformity of Western news media (and of Western culture makers generally) is a deep, broad fundamental problem that attacks vital components of western civilization.
Put it another way: which is the greater danger to a child’s life and future – a semi-hostile gangbanger living next door, or methamphetamine addiction?
Rich Rostrom (d2c6fd) — 7/18/2017 @ 5:34 pm#449
No. They want cars of all types to go away.
steveg (e8c34d) — 7/18/2017 @ 8:16 pmWhy else congest the thoughrofares and push all vehicles aside?
Lane diets got officials in NJ prison time, but in CA they apply to Prius’ and Yukons alike
I think we are all supposed to ride 40 miles a day to work and back on bikes
387. The facts.
DRJ (15874d) — 7/22/2017 @ 5:04 am